Notorious double murderer Billy Ferris, who served life for slaughter outside Maple Leaf pub, dies in custody

Billy Ferris lay in wait for Alan Thompson as he left the Maple Leaf in Canada Square, Corby, and ambushed him in an alleyway before stabbing him repeatedly with a pen-knife.

Ferris later claimed that the 1976 killing was carried out after he had discovered his wife was allegedly pregnant by another man.

He was sentenced to life, and after his release he went on to kill another person and was serving a second life sentence when he died.

Billy, full name William Chalmers Ferris, was the brother of infamous gangster Paul Ferris, who has since reformed and has made a living out of writing about his life of crime. His story was told in the film ‘The Wee Man’ starring Martin Compston.

Paul Ferris revealed the news of his brother’s death on X last month. He has always pleaded his brother’s innocence over the second killing.

In Billy Ferris’s biography ‘The Hate Factory: Thirty Years Inside with the UK's Most Notorious Villains’, by David Leslie, he says his brother Paul was a schoolboy when Billy first imprisoned for murder after the trial in 1977. The pair were close as children despite their, significant age-gap, with Billy often taking care of Paul while his parents were busy.

Billy Ferris learned how to hot-wire cars as an apprentice mechanic in Glasgow, and drew attention from older criminals.

He served his first prison sentence after crashing his Mini Cooper into two other cars.

Having moved to Manchester to sell beer he had stolen in Glasgow, Ferris again found himself in prison but escaped from the low-security Wetherby borstal, eventually being captured and serving the rest of sentence before returning to Glasgow.

After marrying Anne, and becoming a father to William, he was again imprisoned for a burglary.

In the mid 1970s he wanted a fresh start to moved south to Holyrood Walk in Corby, where he had relatives. But strapped for cash, he robbed a post office in Nottingham and found himself again behind bars, this time for three-and-a-half years.

During a day-release visit to see his wife, near the end of his sentence, Ferris’s uncle Tommy broke the news to him that his wife Anne had been having an affair.

Ferris had noticed on a prison visit that she had put weight on and had asked her about it, but she denied being pregnant.

In August 1976, Aquascutum worker Alan Thompson was celebrating his 22nd birthday in the Maple Leaf pub in Canada Square on Corby’s Kingswood estate. He had briefly chatted to Ferris and made some comments about his wife.

After the celebrations, he stepped outside the pub and was ambushed by Ferris in an alleyway. Ferris stabbed him multiple times in the chest and back with a pen knife.

While awaiting trial at Leicester Prison, Ferris was housed alongside IRA bomber Raymond McLaughlin.

On May 31, 1977, Ferris was imprisoned for life at Northampton Crown Court, to serve a minimum term of 12 years. He was sent straight to Wormwood Scrubs but later transferred to the so-called ‘Monster Mansion’ HMP Wakefield, where he was on a wing with serial killer Bob Maudsley, known as Hannibal the Cannbial.

He was a resident of numerous prisons during the next 16 years before, in 1993 he was allowed out of Perth prison to see his dying father. He told fellow cons that he would not be coming back.

He persuaded his prison escort to leave the living room while he had some time with his dad, who slipped him an envelope containing £1,000. He escaped out of the bathroom window, shimmied down a drainpipe and took a taxi to Blackpool.

He was eventually re-captured six weeks later while in a car with guns and held on suspicion of attempting to rob a building society. He was released from prison in 1999 and married again four months later.

But after his wife Carol-Ann was beaten in the street, Billy killed the perpetrator’s brother Jason Hutchison, a schoolboy.

He was arrested in 2003 and found guilty of murder after a trial. He was sentenced to life, with the recommendation he not be released before he turned 75.

The brothers grew closer when Paul regularly visited Billy while he was serving his life sentence. And during his entire prison term, Paul campaigned on behalf of his brother who he said was innocent of the second murder.

The Scottish Prison Service confirmed Ferris died after being rushed to hospital from HMP Low Moss, near Glasgow. He was 75. His cause of death has not been revealed.

A fatal incident inquiry is under way.