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SCOTLAND is the most violent place in Britain, according to a top TV investigator.
And the raw brutality of Glasgow's knife culture has stunned seasoned presenter Donal MacIntyre.
MacIntyre has gone undercover with football hooligans, shared a drink with murderers and roughed it with ancient tribes.
But he says the most frightening city he has ever visited is Glasgow.
MacIntyre said last night: "Glasgow is one of the scariest places I have ever worked because the violence is so naked and raw.
"It's only when people come outside of Scotland and particularly Glasgow that they realise the knife culture there is really so predictable and using a knife is second nature to many of the kids."
On the country's blade obsession, he added: "They think nothing of taking a stab wound or inflicting it and they sew themselves up.
"They don't go to hospital. If you talk to anybody in Glasgow or Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, they see twice as many stabbing victims as are reported to the police. So the crime statistics, bad as they are, aren't very accurate."
In 2004, he investigated the now dead Tam "The Licensee" McGraw and his clan, Paul Ferris and Mark Clinton - said to be one of the most dangerous men in Scotland - and the legacy of Arthur "The Godfather" Thompson.
MacIntyre said: "I've spent a lot of time in Glasgow. I did a portrait with Paul Ferris, got some access to his world. His is probably the one film I've done where other gangsters say, 'There's a proper gangster'."
But Scotland's cities are not alone in becoming more violent.
Shootings are increasing across the UK and ASBOs seem in effective in dealing with youth crime.
"The streets are becoming more dangerous," said MacIntyre.
"There have always been gangs but now they are carrying more dangerous weapons and teenage gangs are growing up so quickly. What we would regard as teenage behaviour now starts at about eight.
"The information overload from porn to drugs to rap music and peer pressure is more acute than it ever has been, over a much shorter period at a much younger age.
"Kids are growing up so quickly without tools like common sense, so you have 12 and 13-year-old boys smoking crack cocaine, whereas 15 years ago they might have been smoking cigarettes."
MacIntyre, 41, began his career in newspapers before moving to the BBC in 1993. Since then, he's racked up awards and moved from World In Action to front his own BBC series, MacIntyre Undercover.
The award-winning investigative journalist has now turned his hand to directing and his debut documentary, A Very British Gangster.
The film follows a Manchester crime family over three years - with their co-operation.
His film provides a close-up view of a world embroiled in kidnapping, torture, drugs and murder. But behind the bravado, a poignant world is revealed, where a community struggle with poverty, violence and drugs.
MacIntyre said: "It's an intimate portrait of a Sopranos-style family, albeit with Manchester accents and a bit of a Salford swagger.
"We follow Dominic Noonan, who is a kind of pillar of the community. He runs security firms and is a very dangerous gangster." Dominic heads the Noonan crime dynasty, a second generation family of Irish stock, and legally changed his name to Lattlay Fottfoy, an acronym for the familymotto - Look after those that look after you, f*** off those that f*** off you.
MacIntyre went on: "Noonan is a sort of underworld social worker. He solves crimes and petty disputes between neighbours and there's also a lot of peacekeeping between various factions in the city.
"It's a one-man alternative justice system, similar to the justice system that people talk about with the paramilitaries in Northern Ireland, or in prison.
"There are unofficial trials and investigations and we capture part of this alternative system on camera and reveal Noonan's extraordinary world.
"He's a very dangerous but charismatic character. He's been implicated in many murders and convicted of numerous bank robberies, violence, intimidation, fraud and gun charges and is in prison presently."
Although his work has been driven by a social conscience, MacIntyre's changed circumstances have heightened this.
He married Ameera De La Rosa last year and adopted her daughter, Allegra, from a previous relationship. The couple also have a six-month old daughter, Tiger Willow.
Being a husband and dad has made him more cautious.
He said: "Yes, I have a protective arm around my family and it's no longer the case that it doesn't matter what happens tome because I have responsibilities.
"In many ways, this new film represents a suitable departure for me in terms of family life because I do this as a director, rather than a reporter.
"Going behind the camera gives me an alternative profession for when the heat of investigative journalism and the underworld get too hot."
With so many experiences behind him, you'd think he would have no fears but MacIntyre admits to being scared of something most of us grow out of.
He said: "I've always been scared of the dark. I've always had a light somewhere entering my room. I'm never happier than in ahotel room overlooked by a streetlamp."
A Very British Gangster is released in cinemas on Friday.
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