Get the stories that matter to you sent straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

SERIAL killer Fred West was chased out of Scotland by a razor-wielding lynch mob after abusing the 12-year-old sister of a notorious gang leader, according to a TV documentary.

The Channel 5 show will broadcast extraordinary claims that West was run out of Glasgow after abusing children while driving an ice cream van around the city.

A bestselling author says he personally witnessed West – who later became notorious as the Cromwell Street killer – fleeing a razor gang who were trying to kill him.

Colin MacFarlane, the writer of three acclaimed biographies of his life in the Gorbals, said West had upset the leader of the Cumbie gang – a man known as Malky Frazer, rhyming slang for razor.

Speaking to the Sunday Mail, MacFarlane, 58, said: “At first, when West arrived in the Gorbals, he was treated as a joke by kids like us. In fact, we thought he looked like one of Ken Dodd’s Diddy Men – a comical-looking character as he handed out cones to the

young girls.

“But we soon heard he had a sinister side and was abusing some of them. He often took them for wee rides in his ice cream van.

“When Malky heard his 12-year-old sister had been abused by West, he went berserk.

“He vowed to kill West, saying he would slash West’s throat ‘like a pig’, and got his 30-strong gang behind him.

“On the Monday, they waited at a Gorbals street corner for West from 4pm.

“They were all well tanked up on the red wine Eldorado and were ready for the kill but when West failed to appear after a few hours, they gave up.

“The gang turned up the next day at the same time but West failed to show again.

“On the Wednesday, it looked like the same scenario and the gang waited for a few hours before almost giving up. But then they heard the ice cream van jingle and they knew they had got their man.

”Mad Malky and the rest of his gang all ran towards the van with knives, razors, bricks and hatchets. West got hit on the head with a large stone but he still managed to get to his steering wheel and speed off.

“The gang ran after the van as fast as they could as it swerved from side to side up the street. It was like a scene from a cowboy movie when the bad guy gets run out of town.

“West was lucky that day. Malky had said he planned to cut his head off.”

West was never seen in the Gorbals again. Frazer was kicked to death in a gang fight

three years later.

MacFarlane has previously written about seeing West in his native Gorbals but has kept quiet about the attempt to assassinate him until now. He appears on the first episode of a series called Fred And Rose West: Victims’ Stories, due to be broadcast in the autumn to mark the 20th anniversary of the couple’s arrest over the murders of 11 women.

West, from Gloucester, arrived in Glasgow in the early 60s after marrying pregnant

prostitute Rena Costello – who he later murdered.

By 1965, he had become a familiar sight in the Gorbals and Castlemilk as he toured the streets in his ice cream van, having settled with Rena in Coatbridge.

In November 1965, he ran over and killed a four-year-old boy, Hugh Feeney, in Castlemilk with his van but was never charged. He was chased out of Glasgow soon after.

West hanged himself in Winston Green Prison, Birmingham, on January 1, 1995, just before facing a murder trial.

The majority of the murders – including that of Fred’s daughter Heather, who was buried under a patio – took place at the West family home at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester.

On November 22, 1995, Rose West was convicted of 10 murders and sentenced to life

in prison.

The new documentary is being made by the Bafta award-winning company Nine

Lives Media.

They were previously responsible for the BBC’s Pound Shop Wars series and a three-part Channel 5 drama documentary on Moors murderer Myra Hindley.