Locals have told what it was like to grow up alongside one of Britain’s most feared gangsters, providing disturbing new insights into his capacity for savage violence.
Paul ‘Woody’ Woodford, a member of the hated Huyton Firm, has convictions for violent offences in Liverpool and mainland Europe stretching back three decades.
These include acts of almost unimaginable sadism, such as walking into a woman’s house and scalping her – seemingly for no reason.
While Woodford is now in prison serving a 24-year sentence for drug and firearms offences, residents of the Netherton Park Estate near Aintree remain too scared to even speak his name.
Woodford began his reign of terror there during the 1980s, when Merseyside was being ravaged by economic and social problems linked to the decline of its port.
Locals who spoke to MailOnline recalled Woodford as a knife-wielding, cocaine-snorting maniac who inspired terror among those forced to live alongside him.
One woman who was a year below Woodford at Netherton Park primary school said: ‘He just seemed a bit slow, but now we all know he was anything but.
Paul Woodford, a member of the hated Huyton Firm, has convictions for violent offences in Liverpool and mainland Europe stretching back three decades. He’s pictured in the 1990s
While Woodford is now in prison serving a 24-year sentence for drug and firearms offences, residents of the Netherton Park Estate near Aintree remain too scared to even speak his name
In 2010, police revealed that Woodford led a team of criminals to Amsterdam for an assassination attempt. Pictured: A machine gun seized by police
‘I can’t tell you how much fear surrounded that person – and continues to do so. He was capable of anything and totally unpredictable.
‘I have seen a lot of criminals come and go on this estate, and most of them want to be like somebody else.
‘But Paul was just a one off. He also has a lot of friends and people have gone to prison to cover for him.’
The woman vividly recalls the time in 1995 when Woodford burst into a woman’s home before slashing at her head while shouting ‘Apache, Apache’.
She said: ‘I remember he went to prison but seemed to be back out a few years later. I was not a bit surprised about the incident. It was just him.’
At the time of the vicious attack, Woodford was on bail in relation to the torture and beating of a man in a house near Liverpool’s Anfield stadium.
A hot kitchen iron was pressed against the man’s back while a gang demanded he give up a name.
Woodford denied being involved and a jury failed to reach a verdict.
Police at the scene of an incident in Netherton, which is north of Liverpool city centre
Woodford used to drink at the Park, a large pub near Aintree racecourse
An article in the Liverpool Echo about Woodford scalping a woman in 1995
Famous footballers have previously been known to socialise with senior members of the Huyton Firm.
The woman remains sickened by these scenes, saying: ‘These people were so violent and so feared. How could anybody laugh and drink with them?
‘Anyway it’s alright for the footballers because they go back to their big houses in nice areas. But we have to live around here and are surrounded by the gangs.’
Woodford used to drink at the Park, a large pub near Aintree racecourse.
A woman who worked behind the bar said she remembered seeing the gangster having a drink and shared a story about one of his alleged attacks.
‘I heard how a group of bikers came in and one of them glassed him,’ she said.
‘So Paul went home, and then came back at last orders with a machete before slashing the man across the face.’
A father who used to know Woodford remembered being threatened by him during a night out.
The Huyton Firm began in the Cantril Farm area, which is around 30 minutes drive from Liverpool city centre
A mugshot of Woodford released last year after he was sentenced to 24 years in prison
He said: ‘I was in the Elite pub in Walton Vale with my bird. The next thing this man had his arm around my neck with a big knife pointing at my head.
‘His partner was screaming at him to put the knife away. Paul then apologised. I bumped into him in the toilets.
‘He had a huge block of cocaine under his jacket, and the knife was to cut it. He asked me to hold the coke while he had a pee.
‘He asked me if I wanted a line of coke and I said no. I used to see him around the bars but I would just drink up and get off.’
The same man remembered seeing Woodford attack a man in the same pub.
He said: ‘Paul was playing pool and just blew up at some lad. He hit him over the head with the cue, and then kept bottling him over the head. It was pretty bad.’
Other locals attested to Woodford’s reputation for brutal and sudden violence.
‘He would shoot you just like that,’ said one pensioner who lived around the corner from the Woodford family. Paul had dead eyes, like a shark.’
Masked robbers raid a stash house belonging to the Huyton Firm in the Liverpool suburb of West Derby. Gang members were later caught by police plotting their revenge
Although Woodford had a reputation for violence in the 1990s, he was yet to make the transition to international organised crime.
That came later after he spent time working for the Huyton Firm in Spain during the early 2000s.
Last year, BBC’s Panorama reported that Woodford was a suspect in the torture and murder of Liverpool man Christopher Brady, whose remains washed up on a beach in August 2002.
Woodford is thought to have returned to Merseyside shortly afterwards.
Sources on Merseyside have also linked the Huyton Firm to the murder of pensioner Eddie Byrne and to that of pub landlord Eugene Furlong.
Mr Byrne was shot in the head in his local pub while Mr Furlong was stabbed to death.
MailOnline has also been told that Woodford was said to have been linked to the attempted murder of Kinahan (Another feared gang) associate Marvin Herbert, who was shot several times at point blank range in Spain.
Herbert lost an eye but somehow survived.
Woodford reported to Huyton Firm boss Vincent Coggins, who also employed Thomas Cashman – murderer of Olivia Pratt-Korbel – as a hitman
Although in the borough of Knowsley, crime gangs from Huyton consider neighbouring Liverpool postcodes such as Dovecot, Knotty Ash and West Derby as part of their turf
In 2010, police revealed that Woodford led a team of criminals from Merseyside to Amsterdam, where they were sent to assassinate a rival criminal from Liverpool.
The crew, armed with military grade weapons, was arrested after officers received a tip off.
At the time, the authorities said the incident was linked to a feud between rival criminal factions from Merseyside.
Woodford, who referred to his overseas missions as ‘red jobs’, served a prison sentence for firearms offences and was extradited back to the UK where he was jailed for passport fraud.
He later fled to Holland after the murder of currency trader Jason Osu, who died after two gunmen opened fire as he pulled into the driveway of his home in leafy south Liverpool.
Prosecutors believe that Woodford organised the murder of Mr Osu and the attempted murder of gangland thug Darren Alcock.
Woodford slashed his own throat during the trial at Manchester Crown Court and was later cleared of all charges.
In more recent years the crime boss lived on Marl Road in suburban Aintree, and spent many nights dining alone at a nearby Chinese restaurant.
Olivia was hit by a stray bullet as a gunman chased another man in to her house in August 2022
A source said: ‘They had all kinds of issues in him but what could they do? It’s a family restaurant and let’s just say he did not fit in.’
Manchester Crown Court heard how Woodford had easy access to a cache of guns and offered them to other criminals.
Darren Gee, a convicted murderer who now campaigns against gangs, has claimed that Woodford contracted violence out to street gangs across Merseyside.
The Huyton Firm began in the Cantril Farm area and rose to prominence by taking advantage of a vacuum left by the arrest of Curtis Warren – previously Britain’s most powerful drug trafficker.
The mobsters, who worked with Thomas Cashman – murderer of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel – ruled Merseyside with an iron fist for around 20 years.
Their downfall began in May 2020 after a raid on a terraced house that was being used to store £1million of cocaine.
EncroChat messages showed the gangsters discussing their plans to attack one of the men they thought was behind the robbery, with Woodford telling Coggins in broken English: ‘I kill him with u m8’.
The servers were shut down on June 13, 2020, and Woodford, Coggins and two associates were arrested three days later.
