wrong. When we met outside the warehouse they were all arguing, saying: âHe said it wasnât alarmed but it fucking is and that.â Pure scene, knowmean? Amateurs. Bringing it ontop for all and sundry. The next thing a busie car drives past. I clock them in the mirror and was thinking it all looks a bit skewwiff this, know where Iâm going? So I turned to Ronnie and said: âIâm fucking going.â
A few days later Ronnie rings me up and offers another one. It was a Crown Paints warehouse. It was a simple hole in the wall job. But as soon as Ritchie puts his head through the hole thereâs alarms going off everywhere. Even though heâd assured me that it had been disabled. There were busies and guards all over the show. I managed to run down this road, then along a railway line and up an embankment and get back to the van. I realised that Ritchie was getting sloppy. No two ways. After that, I didnât want to know any more.
----
During his time with the Hole in the Wall gang Paul had decided to set down some roots. He got married to a local girl called Christine from a respectable family in 1971. A short while later on 1 July 1971 she gave birth to their first son, Jason.
----
PAUL: We were always getting nicked for this and that. But it always seemed to be minor things, which no one cared about. We just got on with doing the time. It was second nature. It was a nice break from all the madness.
When I was 21 I got sent to borstal for robbing a car. It was for something daft, which I couldnât even remember doing. I done it for a laugh with the lads. I was still only young. The only problem about being inside is that you couldnât earn. The Hole in the Wall were at their height and making a lot of dough. And here I was in a fucking borstal with a load of fucking vandals and bike robbers and that. Serves me right for being a tit, in all fairness.
On home leave I married Christine. I was half-doing it because I knew getting married might get me out of borstal quicker, go down well with the authorities and all that. It did. I got out. But I didnât bother going home much. It was straight out onto the street to start earning again.
----
CHRISTINE: When I first met Paul I didnât know he was a villain. He had two jobs. He seemed respectable. I noticed that people were frightened of him, but I thought nothing of it. I just thought he was well respected. He had a nickname â he was known as Oscar in the pubs and clubs. So when people would be going on about how bad this Oscar was and being terrified of him I didnât fully understand. It was as though they were talking about someone else.
He went to borstal for car theft. He just brushed it off as though that was normal. Even then I didnât know he was a gangster because it seemed such a small thing. I married him when he came back on home leave. My mum went crazy at the time. Mine was a respectable family. We all had normal jobs. It was only after we got married that I realised the price I had paid.
He was a villain. A big villain. He was robbing warehouses and factories all the time. Stealing wagons with Ritchie, his uncle. He was always committing crime. I couldnât believe it. It was non-stop. Paul would disappear for about ten days at a time and when he returned, if his dinner was not on the table, heâd be off again.
That was my life with Paul Grimes. I was a fool.
5
----
Den for Meets
Meanwhile, back at the Oslo, an orgy of gang violence had erupted. Paul was gradually consolidating his power base. His ambition was to make the club his personal headquarters, a 24-hour-a-day operational centre for organised crime. The plan was simple: to make the Oslo open season for gangsters, allowing him to oversee and control all of their various graft and thus entitling him to a slice of all the best action that went through there.
But paving the way to power was violent and bloody work. There was no structure
A few days later Ronnie rings me up and offers another one. It was a Crown Paints warehouse. It was a simple hole in the wall job. But as soon as Ritchie puts his head through the hole thereâs alarms going off everywhere. Even though heâd assured me that it had been disabled. There were busies and guards all over the show. I managed to run down this road, then along a railway line and up an embankment and get back to the van. I realised that Ritchie was getting sloppy. No two ways. After that, I didnât want to know any more.
----
During his time with the Hole in the Wall gang Paul had decided to set down some roots. He got married to a local girl called Christine from a respectable family in 1971. A short while later on 1 July 1971 she gave birth to their first son, Jason.
----
PAUL: We were always getting nicked for this and that. But it always seemed to be minor things, which no one cared about. We just got on with doing the time. It was second nature. It was a nice break from all the madness.
When I was 21 I got sent to borstal for robbing a car. It was for something daft, which I couldnât even remember doing. I done it for a laugh with the lads. I was still only young. The only problem about being inside is that you couldnât earn. The Hole in the Wall were at their height and making a lot of dough. And here I was in a fucking borstal with a load of fucking vandals and bike robbers and that. Serves me right for being a tit, in all fairness.
On home leave I married Christine. I was half-doing it because I knew getting married might get me out of borstal quicker, go down well with the authorities and all that. It did. I got out. But I didnât bother going home much. It was straight out onto the street to start earning again.
----
CHRISTINE: When I first met Paul I didnât know he was a villain. He had two jobs. He seemed respectable. I noticed that people were frightened of him, but I thought nothing of it. I just thought he was well respected. He had a nickname â he was known as Oscar in the pubs and clubs. So when people would be going on about how bad this Oscar was and being terrified of him I didnât fully understand. It was as though they were talking about someone else.
He went to borstal for car theft. He just brushed it off as though that was normal. Even then I didnât know he was a gangster because it seemed such a small thing. I married him when he came back on home leave. My mum went crazy at the time. Mine was a respectable family. We all had normal jobs. It was only after we got married that I realised the price I had paid.
He was a villain. A big villain. He was robbing warehouses and factories all the time. Stealing wagons with Ritchie, his uncle. He was always committing crime. I couldnât believe it. It was non-stop. Paul would disappear for about ten days at a time and when he returned, if his dinner was not on the table, heâd be off again.
That was my life with Paul Grimes. I was a fool.
5
----
Den for Meets
Meanwhile, back at the Oslo, an orgy of gang violence had erupted. Paul was gradually consolidating his power base. His ambition was to make the club his personal headquarters, a 24-hour-a-day operational centre for organised crime. The plan was simple: to make the Oslo open season for gangsters, allowing him to oversee and control all of their various graft and thus entitling him to a slice of all the best action that went through there.
But paving the way to power was violent and bloody work. There was no structure
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