Crazy lifetime of Bobby ‘the satan’ Dempster who hid gang behind rogue safety agency
The security industry in Scotland was once plagued by deadly organised crime groups who used their firms as a cover for drugs, guns, murder and money laundering. And the gangsters were doling out death threats every day during the height of the “security wars”.
One rogue boss accused by cops of being an underworld kingpin was so feared he was nicknamed The Devil. Bobby Dempster, now 77, made a name for himself as a major figure in the 1990s Glasgow’s underworld.
He became notorious for being one of the few men who ever stood up to Glasgow Godfather Arthur Thompson, who was one of the most feared gangland figures in the city for decades.
A construction site Dempster’s firm provided security for was torched(Image: Daily Record)
He later joined forces with mob boss Paul Ferris’ Frontline security company to protect a building site in Maryhill the city in 2007 before it was targeted in a firebomb attack.
Their firm Ruchill Security also provided security at a garage in Lambill in Glasgow where Micheal Lyons, 21, was shot dead and Steven Lyons, 46, was blasted in the leg in December of 2006 after it was torched.
Court documents published in 2012 showed Dempster had twice been warned by police that his life was under threat from gangsters.
A number of suspicious fires at building sites across Glasgow were thought to be linked to rival firms battling over contracts with developers(Image: Daily Record)
That same year, police accused him of being a crime boss linked to ‘murder, drugs, money laundering and guns’ and he was banned from holding directorship at Ruchill Security by a watchdog.
A Sheriff eventually overturned the ruling when Dempster won a high-profile case to have his security licence reinstated, but he stepped away from the industry and wound up his firm soon after.
Despite being out of the game for a number of years, he was recently mentioned in headlines when his wife was involved in spreading false rumours about illegal immigrants being given housing in a block of flats that were set on fire in Glasgow.
Linda Dempster spread rumours of asylum seekers being given the flats.(Image: Collect)
The building at Stonyhurst Street went up in flames in the Possilpark area of the city just days after the local housing association assured local people those on their waiting list would get the flats.
Glam tanning salon owner, Linda Dempster, 64, has run a business on the street for 15 years, the Daily Record reports.
After hearing the rumours, she organised protests through the streets and circulated falsehoods online over the last two months.
