Two members of the Daniel crime family were targeted in separate machete attacks at their homes in Glasgow on Friday, both surviving the assaults. Robert Daniel, 51, and Ronnie Daniel, 41, were attacked by associates of the Lyons crime family in two unsuccessful incidents.
Background of the victims
Robert Daniel is a cousin of Steven "Bonzo" Daniel, a senior Daniel family member who was seriously disfigured in a machete attack in Glasgow nine years ago. He is also one of three members of the crime family, past and present, named Robert.
Robert Daniel was previously targeted in April last year as he slept at a property in Stepps, where the home was set on fire and a £70,000 BMW parked in the driveway was badly damaged. In May last year, two men, aged 41 and 45, who worked in an accident repair centre owned by Robert Daniel in East Kilbride were both seriously injured in a machete attack and required hospital treatment. Their intended target was Daniel.
History of violence
Robert Daniel was previously shot and seriously injured as he reversed his car outside his home in Stepps in March 2017. In 2005 he was jailed for eight years on heroin charges at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Ronnie Daniel is one of two members of the family called Ronnie. The other is the brother of the late Jamie Daniel. Less is known about him, but he is reported to have been threatened with a shotgun by a Lyons family associate in Possilpark, Glasgow, in 2021. He is also believed to have been a pallbearer at the funeral of Daniel family enforcer Kevin "Gerbil" Carroll after he was shot dead outside an ASDA supermarket in Robroyston, Glasgow, in 2010.
Ongoing feud
One underworld source told the Daily Record: "The Daniel family are originally from Possilpark in Glasgow and are a large extended and loyal family. A number of male members carry the same first name which can be confusing when trying to establish who is who.
"Robert Daniel is a senior member of the family and has been targeted by the Lyons a number of times over the years. Knowing the Daniel family as I do I am sure they won't be taking this lying down."
The Lyons and Daniel feud dates back more than 25 years and centres round claims that members of the Lyons family stole £20,000 worth of cocaine from a house in the Milton area of Glasgow, which belonged to the Daniels.
Jamie Daniel was once described as the head of Scotland's richest crime family and has been compared to Harold Shand, the fictional London crime boss in the 1970s gangster epic the Long Good Friday. In 2019 a Channel Five TV documentary said Daniel had been one of the country's most feared criminals. In the programme, former Detective Inspector David Moran said of the late crime boss: "He had the reputation of being one or two steps ahead of the police and pretty much untouchable."
