Members of rival gangs were often taken aback when they met Paul Mas-sey. A softly spoken, plainly dressed man, he did not seem like a typical gangster. His nickname, "Mr Big", referred to his local influence rather than his stature (he was barely five feet tall). He even claimed a moral conscience: despite reputedly controlling much of Salford's drug market, he professed to despise heroin and would put up flyers warning, "Use smack and get smacked". In 2012, with his criminal past avowedly behind him, he ran for mayor of Salford and won only slightly fewer votes than the Liberal Democrat candidate.
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