Feuding gangster dumps lover

May 11 2008 Exclusive by Rob Mckay

GANGSTER Ian "Blink" McDonald is embroiled in a love feud with a lieutenant of boxing boss Barry Hughes.

McDonald's live-in lover, air stewardess Kirsten McFarlane, sparked the row when she was spotted kissing James Skinner, an associate of big-spending fight promoter Hughes.

Raging McDonald threw Kirsten, 33, out of their flat after being told about the smooch in a Glasgow nightclub.

The stewardess - once married to security heavy Paddy Mullen - has moved back with her mum while McDonald, 47, and Skinner, 26, trade insults in a series of phone calls.

And friends of the love rivals fear the situation could escalate from a war of words to violence.

ROUND 1: Skinner branded McDonald a "has-been who's over the hill".

ROUND 2: McDonald called Skinner "ugly, fat and skelly-eyed".

ROUND 3: Skinner responded dubbing McDonald a "cardboard gangster who doesn't know what planet he's on".

ROUND 4: McDonald taunted Skinner by insisting he was millionaire Hughes' "lapdog" and "message boy".

A source said: "Everyone knew Blink would flip if he found out about Skinner.

"People also know that there's no love lost between Blink and Barry Hughes and the fact that Skinner is one of his best friends makes this worse."

McDonald went ballistic when he was told Kirsten kissed Skinner in Karbon nightclub in Glasgow city centre.

He demanded that Kirsten get out of their £150,000 flat near the city's Hogganfield Loch.

She left with two holdalls stuffed with clothes and an inflatable bed and moved back in with her mum in nearby Baillieston. Since the split she's been spotted with Skinner in Karbon in between flights to Asia.

Skinner has been a close friend of Braveheart Security boss Hughes for years and the pair are regularly spotted together at black-tie dinners and sporting events.

Amateur football coach Skinner was banned from the Tunnel nightclub three years ago after a mass brawl in which a man was stabbed. McDonald has had a long-running feud with Hughes and the pair came to blows in a coffee shop in Glasgow's west end last summer.

Frightened Beanscene staff called the police as the pair brawled in front of customers.

McDonald was jailed in 1992 for his part in a botched £6million bank robbery in which a teller was shot in the head.

He was sentenced to 16 years but released on parole in 2002.

He was ordered back to jail in 2003 after police produced a dossier which claimed he was still involved in criminal activity with protection racket thugs Nello Orsi and Tony Pignatiello. He was freed again the following year.

Our source added: "It's an embarrassment for Blink that he appears to have lost out to a younger man - and one of Hughes' mates. He thinks he's Peter Pan and this has left his blood boiling.

"Barry Hughes has told Skinner he was daft to go anywhere near Blink's girl. He sees it as a problem he could do without."