FIREBALL GANGSTER
Tortured hood is stabbed and set on fire but escapes building after it explodes and drives himself to A&E in 6-mile life-or-death dash
BLAST VICTIM WAS SLAIN ENFORCER’S ENEMY A FEARED gangster who was tortured in a derelict house escaped when the building exploded.
Craig “Rob Roy” Gallagher was stabbed and set on fire but saved his own life by driving six miles to hospital. He was seriously ill last night.
Police cannot rule out a connection between the attack and the war between Glasgow’s Daniel and Lyons gangs.
GANGLAND hardman Craig “Rob Roy” Gallagher was stabbed and set on fire at a derelict house before fleeing when the building exploded in a fireball.
Despite life-threatening injuries, the feared hood managed to escape his torturers and drive six miles to hospital in a white van smeared with blood.
Gallagher was a close friend turned mortal enemy of Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll and was once suspected of murdering him. He has been left seriously ill by the attack.
It’s feared it was the latest bloody chapter in the savage feud between Glasgow’s Daniel and Lyons crime clans. Police have begun an attempted murder investigation.
A source said Gallagher, 38, was tortured at the disused house in New Stevenston, Lanarkshire, late on Tuesday night.
“It’s been used as a gangsters’ hangout for years,” the insider added.
“Gallagher was ambushed when he turned up. He was stabbed and set alight but the fire took hold and caused an explosion.
“Rob Roy managed to escape and drive himself to hospital in his van even though he was in a bad way.
‘He’s got a reputation as a fearless enforcer but he’s the one on the receiving end this time.”
Gallagher was seen going into the house with at least one other man.
The house exploded at about 11.40pm, waking terrified neighbours. It’s believed Gallagher escaped his captors in the moments after the blast.
He fled in his van as a lightcoloured car chased him from Hall Street into Stevenston Street.
A car was seen leaving the scene at speed. A witness said: “I saw a car driving away quickly with two or three people chasing it.
“They seemed to be holding pieces of wood.”
The car is thought to have driven off along Stevenson Street, towards Holytown.
About an hour later, Gallagher turned up at Monklands Hospital in Airdrie with serious injuries including burns and stab wounds. A Ford Transit van with blood on its side was found abandoned outside.
Gallagher was transferred to Glasgow Royal Infirmary, critically ill. His condition was later described as “serious”.
Detectives believe “some sort of criminal activity” was taking place at the house in Hall Road before the explosion.
It has been suggested that cannabis was being grown there but police had still not been able to get inside last night.
They said: “The building is unsafe.
“Inquiries are continuing to ascertain the full extent of what has happened.”
Police appealed for witnesses to the incident.
Gallagher was once close to Carroll, a sadistic Daniel clan enforcer who enjoyed kidnapping rival crooks, torturing them and robbing them of drugs, cash and guns.
He and his associates were known as the Alien Abduction Gang because all their victims claimed to have no memory of their attackers.
Gallagher’s friendship with Carroll turned sour after he allegedly started carrying out his own abductions.
Carroll, 29, was murdered in January 2010. Assassins riddled him with bullets in front of terrified shoppers as he sat in a car outside Asda in Robroyston, Glasgow.
Gallagher later became one of eight men named in court by defence counsel as possibly being involved in the hit.
It was claimed Gerbil put a £100,000 price on his head in the months
before his violent death.
Gallagher was never charged. Billy “Buff” Paterson was found guilty in 2015 and jailed for life with a 22-year minimum term.
Paterson visited a Lyons gang member in jail the day after the hit.
Gallagher appeared in court with three other men in 2012 accused of kidnapping a boy of 16 over an alleged drug debt. All the accused were cleared.
Daniel and Lyons thugs have been shooting and slashing each other in and around Glasgow for months, and police have been unable to rule out a link between the attack on Gallagher and the ongoing feud.
Suspected drug dealer Euan Johnston, a 26-year-old father of two, was shot dead in his black Audi RS4 last November as he sat at traffic lights in Shields Road, Glasgow.
Then, in January this year, an underworld figure was allegedly shot in the back by a hitman who had hidden his gun in a child’s buggy.
The victim, a father of two who cannot be named for legal reasons, was targeted as he dropped his daughter off at school. It’s believed the attack was linked to the murder of the Gerbil.
The violence continued in February when shots were fired at the home of Carroll’s close friend Francis “Fraggle” Green in Milton of Campsie, north of Glasgow.
Green arrived at the Robroyston Asda within minutes of Carroll’s murder and infamously ate the sim card from his phone.
His father, Jamie Daniel, led the Daniel clan until his death from cancer in July last year. The war with the Lyons, led by Eddie Lyons snr, has escalated since.
Robert Daniel, Jamie’s nephew, was shot in the arm in March outside his home in Stepps, near Glasgow.
Then another nephew, Steven “Bonzo” Daniel, 37, was slashed across the face with a machete in May after a high-speed car chase through Glasgow.
His injuries left him unable to speak. Police asked him in hospital if he knew his attacker and he passed them a note that said: “F*** off.”
Last month, hood James Gorman, 57, was slashed in the face as he walked a dog near his home in Possilpark, Glasgow.
Gorman is believed to have given refuge to Ross Sherlock, a notorious Daniel clan lieutenant who went on the run this year while due to give evidence against two rival thugs accused of trying to kill him.
Sherlock has survived no fewer than six attempts on his life since becoming involved in the Daniel-Lyons feud.
Gorman was also closely associated with crime lord Jamie “Iceman” Stevenson, who was jailed for 12 years and nine months in 2007 for laundering £1million of drug money.
Stevenson was freed early in 2013 from Castle Huntly open prison.
Last week, a close pal of Jamie Daniel’s sister, shoplifting queen Annette Daniel, was terrorised in her own home by masked thugs.
A gang of men shattered Tracey Bennett’s patio doors to get in, then smashed up the contents of her house in Robroyston.
Bennett, 47, was threatened, along with a woman aged 19 and a 26-yearold man, but managed to escape.
She has repeatedly appeared in court alongside Annette Daniel on shoplifting charges.
Gallagher was stabbed and set alight but the fire caused an explosion SOURCE