The Rock Star asked me to collect a £200,000 drug debt, which one of his distributors called Dwight had run off with. Rock Star had been chasing him for two years. I knew Dwight was a slippery geezer, so I devised a trick to get him to meet me. He was involved as a witness in some case – the grassing bastard – and I pretended that I wanted to pay him lots of money to drop the charges. However, when he arrived, he was greeted by me and the Rock Star. I pounced on him and got a blade to his neck. To cut a long story short, the £200,000 turned up. I took £50,000, the Rock Star took £50,000 and we sent £100,000 on to Whacker’s wife to tide her over for Christmas while her husband was in jail.

But that wasn’t the end of it. Dwight initiated a guerrilla war against my legitimate security business. He started stealing white goods from sites we were protecting. I went to confront him, but he ran away. The next day, Dwight and 15 of his friends, armed to the teeth, arrived at one of my sites just as I was in a meeting with Chris, who was still blissfully unaware of this side of my life. Although I was seriously outnumbered, experience as a seasoned campaigner had taught me how to handle that kind of situation. I told them that even if they crippled me, I’d have my brothers push me in a wheelchair so that I could find them and blast them to death. Astonishingly, Chris and I walked away unscathed.

That same night, someone blew up Dwight’s car. It was fair retribution for trying to embarrass me in such a fashion. My pride and ego were still a little bit dented, so I plotted to cut off one of Dwight’s ears as well. Fortunately for the little scally, I ended up bumping into Marsellus, who had recently got out of prison, and he persuaded me to leave it.

My return to the underworld took a deadly serious turn. In the year 2000, the police informed me that there was a £30,000 contract on my life. ‘Here we go again!’ I thought. I said to the officer, ‘Fair enough. Now can you tell me who it is? King Kong or Mickey Mouse?’ In other words, were they seriously dangerous people or just kids messing about? The bizzy was not at liberty to say.

Within hours, I’d found out that the man who had issued the contract was a guy called Derek Sweeney, a member of a nightclub security crew from Everton – a staunch nigger-hating gang. The Herd and I were being blamed for firebombing his house, an incident in which his two daughters had been tragically injured.

I got hold of Sweeney’s right-hand man and said to him, ‘Look, I sympathise with what happened to Derek’s family, cos I’m a father too, but somebody’s just thrown my name into the hat. If you check my Mo, you would know that when I have a problem with someone I go and sort it out face to face.’

The guy said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Stephen. I know that’s not your style. I’ll sort it out.’

I took him at his word and said, ‘As you know, I would normally kill a man who put a contract out on me, but because I’m a father myself and I understand I’m going to let it go.’

However, the dispute escalated, and Herd houses were firebombed in revenge. My mate Neo had an asthmatic child who needed oxygen to help with breathing problems. Once the petrol bomb made contact with the oxygen, the house exploded. They all just about got out with their lives. Franny Bennett’s house was also firebombed. And a house which they thought was mine was attacked, too.

Then, one night, I heard a crash downstairs. I looked out the window and saw flames coming up from below. I spotted someone running away and thought it was probably a junkie. Dionne was babysitting all the young girls in our family but had luckily taken them to her mum’s for the night. As I walked down the stairs, I thought to myself, ‘This means war.’

I called a meeting with Sweeney via his right-hand man, who said, ‘He wants you to meet him at Littlewoods, as it’s all camera’d up.’ As Sweeney approached, I saw that he was only around five feet four inches and about five stone soaking wet. The first thing I did was turn my back on him as a mark of disrespect. If he’d wanted to, he could have stabbed or shot me, but I knew as soon as I saw him that he didn’t want to have it with me. I looked at him and said, ‘Derek, you’ve put £30,000 on my life and you’ve petrol bombed my house.’

‘I wasn’t responsible for your house,’ he replied. ‘I’m telling you that wasn’t me. It’s down to somebody trying to mix it between us.’ There was a possibility that this was true, but I didn’t believe him. He then said, ‘Anyway, I don’t care whether I live or die.’

I said, ‘What about your two kids that survived the fire? Do they care whether you live or die? Because I’ve got a daughter who cares whether I live or die. Now, I’ve heard that you’re a good little ’un and that you can go hammer and tongs. Well, I’m a good big ’un, and I can kick you up and down the length of this fucking street and beat you to a point where you’re just about alive. If you don’t believe I can do it, let’s go, lad. Let’s go.’

All the time I was talking to him, I was looking into his eyes and into his soul – the Devil persona and the dark looks were in full effect. Usually, when I was like that – breathing down someone’s neck with smoke coming out of my nostrils – my target melted like fucking butter in front of a fire. This is no brag, just fact. I said, ‘These are my words of iron. I didn’t burn your family. I don’t accost wives. I don’t accost any family member. I keep it just between me and my enemies. You can check my track record. If I’d a problem with you, I would’ve attacked you there and then on your doorstep. I wouldn’t have set your fucking house on fire.’

I could see he was beginning to realise that my words of iron held great truth. As one family man to another, I made him a deal. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘the job on my house has been superficial. There’s not really any great damage. So I’m prepared to draw a line here and now. You don’t step over that line again. If you do anything to me ever again, I will come for you with everything I’ve got, and I won’t stop until you’re in a box. It’s up to you. Do you want to make a deal with me?’ Derek agreed that he would withdraw the contract on my life and swore that nothing else would happen to me or my family. True to his word, nothing else did.

It was around the time of all the firebombings that the Herd slowly started to disintegrate. One incident in particular signalled the beginning of the end for our crew. Two carloads of us were ambushed by a rival door crew over a misunderstanding. Lads with balaclavas and pickaxe handles ran over and started attacking the cars. I was sitting in the back seat by the window when one of them smashed it in and started waving a bat at me. Our driver panicked and drove off, not giving us a chance to fight back. One of our crew by the name of Wanda was left behind, and they stamped all over him. Later, we found out that our attackers were from a security firm from Everton called Dynamite Security – all bad racists with something to prove. Of course, there had to be some retaliation for this attack.

Soon after, one of Dynamite’s mob called Shelley Birkenstein was shot in a nightclub. I knew nothing about it – it was someone else in the Herd who set up the contract. Ironically, Shelley was a mate of mine, even though he was part of the other firm. The other twist in the tail was that the shooter was a guy called Hassan. When he went back to his Herd paymasters for his fee, they murdered him. After that, it was evens. But the upshot was that there was too much heat on everyone, and the Herd scattered.

On top of all of this, the Rock Star and I fell out because of a dispute between our families. My nephew Grantley had been shot in the head by a kid who was best friends with the Rock Star’s brother. It caused a great division between me and the Rock Star, forcing us to take opposite sides. We spoke about it on long early morning walks to try and find a solution. But when more shootings took place, I knew it was time for everybody to head for the hills. At that time, I had around 18 grand in cash lying around the house. I called the Rock Star and said, ‘I know that things are a little bit tight with you at the moment, so I’m giving you nine grand so you can get off. Pay me back when you can.’ I moved over the water and the Rock Star to southern Europe, and we kind of lost touch.

To this day, he still hasn’t paid me back the nine grand. People have tried to poison my mind against him, but I believe in my heart of hearts that we will always be friends and brothers, and that we can one day pick up where we left off. The Rock Star’s my last connection with Andrew John. He was Andrew’s protégé and like a little brother to me. He is a tremendous person in his own right. I’ve got a lot of time and great respect for him.