The life and crimes of James ‘Jimmy Two Guns’ Mcintyre
HE is a man who straddled both sides of the law, first as a defence lawyer to some of Scotland’s most notorious gangsters, and then as a convicted prisoner serving three years in jail.
Author James Mcintyre bestrode Scotland’s murky underworld, a middle-man offering legal advice to drug dealers, gunmen and gangsters who claims his word once saved a witness in a murder trial from being assassinated.
His tell-all book, Jimmy Two Guns: The Life and Crimes of a Gangland Lawyer, released last year, was an expose of Scotland’s criminal underbelly from someone who knew it best.
Full of bent police officers and allegations of corruption, the true crime genre in Scotland got more truth than perhaps it can handle. And some members of the police and judiciary who read the autobiography may want to see Mcintyre back behind bars.
But he says it’s a “romp” – a “Rumpole of the Bailey” tale from Scotland’s seedier sides with far more humour than horror.
Now he’s hitting the crime circuit again, this time as a speaker rather than a doer, with an appearance at Crime Con today at the Glasgow Hilton.
The 67-year-old said: “It’s hopefully quite a humorous book. The publishers, Black and White, have been very good to me, but the book looks a lot darker than it is.
“A lot of the stuff I enjoyed doing were cases which were not necessarily very heavy.
“They [other criminals turned writers] all write these books that tend to be kind of grim stories, or else you get these ones that are ‘I used to do this, or I used to do that but now I’m a really good guy.’”
Mcintyre added: “My book is just relating what I did both before I was a lawyer and stops when I got out of prison. It’s an unapologetic book. It’s a romp and I hope people see the funny side.”
A defence solicitor, Mcintyre represented one of the notorious Mcgovern brothers, Tommy, then 28, who was accused of shooting dead a man outside the Ashfield Bar in Springburn and was acquitted. The lawyer also represented the youngest brother Paul Mcgovern, then 16, who was convicted in 1990 of murdering a school janitor in Springburn and sentenced to life. Eldest brother Joe Mcgovern died several years ago and Mcintyre admits they were close friends; Mcgovern was best man when he married his wife Evelyn and is godfather to his three children. He also represented former gangster Paul Ferris. During the trial of Tommy Mcgovern, Mcintyre was presented with an ethical dilemma.
He said: “In Tommy’s case there was a guy who was willing to say he had seen Tommy commit the murder as long as he got some charges against him dropped.
“Somebody suggested clipping (assassinating) the guy, and asked me what were my thoughts on the matter.
“Now, if I said ‘clip him’, he’s clipped but I have to think of myself, as a Catholic. I said ‘no, don’t clip him because there’s one person dead already that the cops are trying to pin on Tommy, and they are really going to sit up and take notice if their star witness suddenly gets nutted.
“I said ‘no, it would be a bad move, the case is going to fold.’ And I was right.”
Mcintyre’s legal career ended when he received a three-year prison sentence at the High Court in Glasgow after police found two guns and ammunition at his home.
‘It’s a romp and I hope people see the funny side’
James Mcintyre will appear in conversation today during Crime Con, at the Glasgow Hilton at 2:20pm