‘Mr Big’ Paul Massey smiled at funfair with grandkids – weeks later he was useless

A notorious gangster nicknamed ‘Mr Big’ was pictured smiling on a fairground ride with his grandkids and weeks later he was dead, gunned down by a masked assassin on his own doorstep.

Salford’s Paul Massey didn’t appear to have a care in the world in the idyllic photo with his three grandsons, smiling for the camera as they enjoyed the ride, Manchester Evening News reported.

Four weeks before his trip to the fair, police had visited Massey’s home to deliver a threat-to-life warning. There was no answer and cops were told to put it through the letterbox, Greater Manchester Police said following an investigation.

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For Massey’s family, it was an important document stating his life was in danger. They say it should have been handed to him personally so he could take steps to protect himself. The picture of him enjoying a day out with his grandchildren the following month, they say, is key evidence that shows he never received that warning.

Massey’s daughter Kelly, 41, said: “He took all his six grandkids to a public fair the next month, aged at the time between two and nine. I don’t believe he ever received that warning.

“He never told us and he took his grandkids to that fair a couple of weeks later. If he had received it, he would have told us and he would never have taken his grandkids anywhere. He would never have put our lives at risk. I just know they didn’t give it to him.”

His family has now taken a first step towards a new independent investigation into the intelligence police had about the threat to his life before his July 2015 murder.

Massey received at least five so-called ‘Osman’ warnings during his life, from 2009 right up until assassin Mark Fellows blasted him to death with an Uzi sub-machine on the doorstep of his home in Clifton in July 2015.

The shooting was the culmination of an uber-violent war between a Salford gang known as the A Team – whose members considered Massey a mentor and elder – and a rival faction, the Anti A Team. Fellows is serving a whole life term for the murder of Massey and his gangland enforcer friend John Kinsella.

Kelly has been campaigning for a full inquest into the death to explore what police knew about the threats to his life.

She told the Manchester Evening News: “There was a gang war in Salford at that time. People were being shot. Roofs were being chopped off cars. It was serious.

“My dad would have taken that seriously. He would have protected himself. I just don’t think he was aware of it.”

Kelly believes the threat-to-life notice from May 2015 – just weeks before his death – was not delivered properly. A 2017 internal investigation by GMP cleared two cops who delivered the warning, the M.E.N. understands. The officers, it is understood, said nobody answered the door and Massey’s partner, when informed they had a threat to life warning for Paul, shouted from a window for them to post it through the letterbox ‘with the rest of them’.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson said: “We understand the pain the death of Paul has caused his family and loved ones since 2015 and will continue to fully co-operate and assist in the upcoming inquest review.”

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