Arthur Thompson, who was associated with the Kray twins, would nail to the floor those who could not repay their debts

Arthur Thompson, who was associated with the Kray twins, would nail to the floor those who could not repay their debts. Yet the letter from his wife suggests that this was a life he wanted to leave behind.
In a poignant missive to the governor of Craiginches Prison, Aberdeen, in 1969 she wrote: “He is Arthur Thompson (No. 660/67) he was told he may be sent to Barlinnie to be liberated and he doesn’t want this as he fears he may get involved with the wrong type of people and he doesn’t want that to happen. So would you please try and have him kept in Craiginches sir and oblige.” The plea by Rita Thompson, who was writing from her own cell in Greenock Prison, went unfulfilled. The governor, Mr Williamson, warned her husband would “put the screw” on a number of locals in Aberdeen, and suggested he “seek protection” before being liberated from Barlinnie. The enlightening exchange is included in a file on Thompson at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh which has been opened to the public. Scottish ministers decided last June to ease restrictions on records under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. The National Archives is releasing them in phases, and yesterday about 4,000 files were opened. They centre on 1984-88 and include topics such as the Piper Alpha disaster and the fall-out from the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games. Also included in the Thompson dossier is a series of official letters detailing the escapades of the Glasgow “hard man” during his time in jail, including keeping an iron bar in his cell. He was considered a “consummate villain” by prison authorities, who never expected him to leave his criminal past behind. A parole file from 1969 reads: “Thompson is one of the leading criminal lights in Glasgow with connections in London. A man one cannot take at face value.”
It predicted: “Thompson will inevitably return to his lucrative club management and his position as a leader of the Glasgow criminal fraternity.” In 1970 the governor of Craiginches wrote: “It is well known that Thompson and ... are thugs of the worst kind and run warring factions inside and outside of prison, with the blind hatred of their kind.” The gangster’s removal to a secure unit in Inverness had a “marked effect on the morale of the other prisoners”. The files reveal that Thompson regarded parole as a “political gimmick”. He was turned down for release several times. Born in 1930, he learnt his trade on the streets of Glasgow and began his career as a money-lender in the 1950s and 1960s. He was said to “crucify” those who did not repay their debts, by nailing them to floors or doors. Protection rackets soon followed. By the 1980s his family had entered the drug trade, led by his son Arthur junior, known as Fatboy. Proceeds were invested in legitimate companies, and helped to make Thompson rich, though his fortune ran out. In 1966 he stole clothes from a shop in Glasgow and was sent to Craiginches for four years. A police file stated: “The overall picture of Thompson is that of a violent, vicious and active criminal who will stop at nothing to uphold his position in the underworld as a hard man and to gain his own ends.”
Thompson’s latter years were unhappy. His daughter, Margaret, died of a drug overdose in 1989 and in 1991, Fatboy was shot dead outside The Ponderosa, the family home. Two years later Thompson died of a heart attack, aged 61.