George Redmond

George Redmond was shot in a drive-by shooting outside the Waldorf bar in Glasgow city centre in October 2008.

He had been out with a friend and was just leaving the club on a Monday night when a black Porsche Cayenne sports utility vehicle (SUV) with a 05 number plate, or registration LJ05 FHR, drove past from which a gunman opened fire at about 10.25pm. The SUV had earlier been seen opposite the bar parked in a side street and afterwards was seen heading off towards the M8 eastbound and later in the Wishaw area. The SUV was later thought to have been found burnt out in a luxury housing estate in Gartcosh, Lanarkshire. It was said to have been stolen earlier and valeted in Glasgow's Spring burn area.

Earlier reports had stated that the gunman had been on a motorbike when he carried out the shooting.

The gunman had fired at least nine shots at a range of about 15ft. It was thought that the weapon had been an automatic pistol.

George Redmond and his friend, who were both known to the police were taken to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. George Redmond died soon after arriving. His friend was hit in the body and arms but survived.

George Redmond was said to have been a drug dealer and that his murder had been part of some gangland activity. It was thought that he had been set up by an associate who arranged for a meal for George Redmond, his friend and another man. They had the meal at Gizzi's bistro in Cambridge Street around 7pm and afterwards went to the Waldorf bar for a pint where they were attacked outside in Cambridge Street.

George Redmond was shot in the back outside as he was talking on his mobile phone.

The third man that he had been with at the time said 'George just kept saying 'I'm gone, I'm gone'. I cradled him in my arms and said, 'You're not going anywhere, you'll be all right, I love you'. But it didn't look good. His eyes were rolling in his head then he went unconscious. George knew he was going to die. It was terrible. The whole pub heard the bangs and I saw flashes. I couldn't believe what I was seeing'.

Police said that they thought that a knife attack by George Redmond on a drug dealer two years earlier in a pub in Duke Street played a part in the shooting. The drug dealer was interviewed by the police for the murder but was not charged. He was however, convicted in September following a major drugs operation and sentenced to over six years imprisonment.

Some of George Redmond's friends had said that the shooting had been ordered by a gangland figure in the security industry whilst others said that it had been arranged by a drug dealer that had worked on Cambridge Street.

The Waldorf bar later changed its name to The Cambridge and in June 2011 was the centre of a police operation which found that the owner allowed drug dealers to sell cocaine there. Police said they found an assembly line for selling cocaine and a drug dealer carrying a gun. The Cambridge was shut down  and the owners licence revoked and another company was said to going to be taking it over. The police had also raided the bar a year earlier in connection with alleged drugs offences and at the owners licensing board hearing it was heard that when the police had been called out to deal with some of the bar's customers fighting outside the owners had refused to help the police because they didn't want to be seen as grasses.

George Redmond was said to have had a reputation for extreme violence. He was also said to have worked for a major gangland organisation in the city. It was said that in 2004 at a funeral of a drug dealer a man had ruffled one of his friends hair and so he stabbed him and ordered a friend to get a shotgun from a car and shoot him, however, the man's wife threw herself on top of her husband and had begged for his life. Other people that had pleaded for the man’s life were a convicted bank robber and a convicted murderer.

It was said that in the weeks before he was murdered George Redmond had run over a drug dealing ex-policeman after the drug dealer had accused one of George Redmond's friends of stealing a Subaru car from his gang. It was said that the drug dealer was later forced to pay £6000 to repair the damage caused to the car when he had been run over with it.

In 1991 George Redmond had been charged with his brother for the murder of a man in a pub. George Redmond was not convicted but his brother was sentenced to life imprisonment for it.

Other gangland figures said that George Redmond had ripped off some major drug dealers for consignments of cocaine. He was also said to have been in a feud with other gangland figures after a man was slashed. George Redmond was said to have upset a lot of nasty people and that there was a list of people that could be suspects. Gangland figures also said that George Redmond had a number of friends that were keen to avenge his murder.