Ruthless gangland enforcer who lived and died by sword
HE died as he lived: violently. Gangland enforcer Kevin Carroll spent much of his short life hurting others – or threatening to hurt others – before he was finally gunned down in a Asda car park in Robroyston in 2010.
The Gerbil or ‘Gerbo’ – the 29-year-old reportedly got the handle from a character also called Kevin on ITV children’s show Roland Rat – also lived in constant readiness for retribution.
His career, like his namesake puppet, was short and ugly. Carroll, from Glasgow’s Milton scheme, first made national headlines in 2006 when he was hit in the stomach in a drive-by shooting. It was not the first time he had been shot.
But it was an event that came to sum up the drugs feud that may have cost him his life four years later.
Carroll and associate Ross Sherlock were hit at 10pm one evening as they stood talking to others at the roadside in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, next to their BMW X5.
Nobody has been charged with that crime, which left Carroll fighting for his life in Glasgow Royal Infirmary under the guard of armed police.
But it was widely seen as a key episode in a violent tit-for-tat feud between two north Glasgow drugs gangs, the Lyons and the Daniels.
Carroll was the partner of Kelly Green, daughter of Glasgow gangster and scrapyard owner Jamie Daniel.
His attackers in 2006 were said to be associated with the wider Lyons gang.
So too was William Paterson, the man convicted of Carroll’s murder yesterday.
Carroll had crossed swords with the Lyons, but not only them. In the months before his killing, the father-of-two had been in the news again.
Police suspected he was the leader of an “Alien Abduction” gang, one that kidnapped drugs business rivals and left them so traumatised they couldn’t say what happened to them.