'I am not a gangster,' I spat. 'I'm a businessman trying to make a hard-earned crust. Understood?' I didn't give him time to reply. I took the barrel out of his mouth and smashed him in the face with the butt. His lip split, but he wasn't a dead man. He seemed to appreciate that his life had been spared. He spluttered his thanks: 'Ok, you're not a gangster. You are not a gangster.' This is the gripping true story of how one man ruled his north London manor with an iron fist - and a sawn-off shotgun called Kennedy. It's a shocking insight into a society where the rules are made by gangland...

'The next stage meant that there was no going back. An Irish prisoner stepped forward and slipped a blade into my hand. I felt the ice cold metal and pressed it against the governor's cheek. I thought to myself: would they ever release me after this?'

Bobby Cummines was only 28 when he passed through the grim gates of Parkhurst, Britain's Alcatraz, as a category-A prisoner with a host of crimes to his name. Joining the most notorious gangsters and criminals of the day - from the Krays, the Yorkshire Ripper and Charles Bronson, to high ranking members of the IRA - nothing could have...