Yellow Press

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18/06/2026

made contact with my old mate Barney (who I knew from my 3 Para days) Barney had been in touch just before the Iraq war began, saying it was happening and he was out there doing security for ABC News and that I should join him on the journey to Baghdad. I was never sent.

2 years later I contacted him again. He was now running a small garage ‘Kwik Fit for mercenaries’ out in Baghdad’s internal zone and I arranged to meet in his office in Bristol hoping to do a story on the private security companies making the news. He agreed. Then I flew to Kuwait, no one was there to meet me and I stayed at the Holiday Inn and got myself on the private security company manifesto as I had my all important letter of introduction from Barney’s company “Amoeba Group”

When I arrived in Baghdad, I realised that my letter of introduction was out of date. My British passport proved more use in the end and I was placed in a place called ‘Camp Striker’ which was like some holding place once you arrived in Baghdad. After a couple of days, I was picked up by Jason McAleese’s son Jason.

Jason had not talked to his father in years and was rather estranged from him, he was a decent enough chap and was the only person who let me photograph him, as all the private security were like some wannabe SAS types, who didn’t want there indents revealed. It was Jason who shown me the “BIAP Ambush” video, which was used in the private security world, or rathe , “the circuit” to show teams on what not to do / what to do-if the s**t hits the fan. The footage is taken from a car windscreen of when a team suddenly is in a serious contact.

The group involved is Edinburgh Risks International, another private security company operating in Iraq around that time. The ambush is on the road to Baghdad International Airport, which was called the “BIAP” and the route there was called “route Irish”. I managed to get a copy just before I left Baghdad, so I could try and sell it to a news channel, which I did on my return for 4K cash. Not many press outlets would touch the story, so at least I made some money on my return from my traumatic trip to Iraq in 2005.

When they started hurling stuff, I thought, these guys really know how to riot.” Dr. Stuart Griffiths Leading up to the ...
16/06/2026

When they started hurling stuff, I thought, these guys really know how to riot.” Dr. Stuart Griffiths

Leading up to the Twelfth parade, tensions were running higher than any period in recent memory: It was only a few months since a 25-year-old Catholic police officer was murdered by dissident republicans and just weeks after altercations between nationalists and unionists in east Belfast ended in riots and multiple shootings, including a cameraman.

I quizzed a handful of young parade attendees about the significance of the July 12 celebrations. A few offered platitudes about the brilliance of “King Billy” and the need to assert the primacy of unionist culture.. It was odd, though, to listen to drink-sodden teenagers employ squishy political rhetoric rather than just nakedly sectarian slogans. They stressed that the march is a celebration of “culture,” one that is hamstrung by bigoted politicians and a needlessly aggressive police force.

In 2010, when the Orange Order passed in front of Ardoyne on their way to an abutting estate, young people responded with a shower of Molotov cocktails, rocks, and bricks.

As the march approached, heavily armored police divisions penned in protesters, preventing a countermarch from confronting the Orange Order. Behind the police lines an incongruous combination of the battle-ready balaclava set and middle-aged protesters invoking the American civil rights movement.

In a moment more reminiscent of the 70s anti-busing riots in Irish Catholic South Boston than civil disobedience on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, veteran protesters and republicans quickly ceded ground to the young and agitated-rocks and paving stones flew, Molotov cocktails exploded, and police fired plastic baton rounds and water cannons.

How did Stuart feel when we were in Ardoyne and the rioting kicked off?
“I’d been in riot situations before, but I wasn’t expecting that. I was thinking What if a brick or a rock falls on my head, because this time I haven’t got a helmet on? But when you’re out there trying to get good pictures, it’s the photography that takes over.
And I guess it showed me how far photography has taken me in my life”

10/06/2026

An eleven-year-old lifts his top to show the camera his bullet wounds. He talks about it the way other kids talk about a scar from falling off a bike. From the BBC Panorama investigation Young Gunmen (2008), produced and narrated by Graham Johnson, with stills by Stuart Griffiths. The film went inside the armed teenage gangs taking hold of Liverpool at the moment the rest of the country was still pretending it was a London problem. Primary school children caught in the crossfire, boys barely out of school carrying converted handguns, parents losing sons to turf wars they didn't know their kids were in. The access was rare. Most of it has never been matched since.

Nearly two decades on, both men are still writing this territory, and Yellow Press has just published three new books from them. Graham's novel Kontrolle is about MK-ULTRA, the CIA's behavioural conditioning programmes in 1950s America, ending in Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963 with the JFK assassination. Stuart's Pigs' Disco is his memoir of joining the Parachute Regiment at sixteen, serving in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, and falling into the acid house and ecstasy rave scene that followed. ParaTripper picks up after the army, as he tries to become a Fleet Street photographer while PTSD catches up. Three routes into the same question: how violence shapes the people who carry it, and the people who watch.

The first international bare-knuckle title fight on British soil in over 150 years. UK versus US as caught by .griffiths...
08/06/2026

The first international bare-knuckle title fight on British soil in over 150 years. UK versus US as caught by .griffiths.photo for the Daily Mirror. Fought at Dave Courtney’s south east London home in front of a crowd that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Bare Knuckle embedded with the British BKB scene at the moment it crossed over: IT technicians, builders, plasterers, even a solicitor, throwing their unprotected fists into each other’s faces. A subculture that hadn’t staged a fight of this scale since it went underground in the 1800s. Courtney, the south London gangland figure who built a second career around his own legend, opened up his house for it. The film became one of the defining pieces of British underworld documentary on the internet.

ParaTripper tells the story of Stuart’s post-army life, as he tries to become a Fleet Street photographer while PTSD catches up with him. Griffiths travels deeper and further than his debut book. Not least to far flung places; dealing with inner demons, isolation and avoiding addressing the elephant in the room, that of military institutionalised indoctrination. As he comes down from all of the toxic realities of life, and frees himself from the shackles of state, his self-questioning of late 20th & early 21st Century British society helps navigate the reader through corporate sleaze, and capitalist ideals of conformity.

07/06/2026

The first international bare-knuckle title fight on British soil in over 150 years. UK versus US. Fought at Dave Courtney’s south east London home in front of a crowd that wasn’t supposed to be there. From the Vice documentary Bare Knuckle, which Graham Johnson worked on. Yellow Press has just published Graham’s new novel Kontrolle, alongside Stuart Griffiths’ Pigs’ Disco and ParaTripper. Out now.

Bare Knuckle embedded with the British BKB scene at the moment it crossed over: IT technicians, builders, plasterers, even a solicitor, throwing their unprotected fists into each other’s faces. A subculture that hadn’t staged a fight of this scale since it went underground in the 1800s. Courtney, the south London gangland figure who built a second career around his own legend, opened up his house for it. The film became one of the defining pieces of British underworld documentary on the internet.

Kontrolle is Graham’s historical crime novel about MK-ULTRA, the CIA’s behavioural conditioning programmes in 1950s America, ending in Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963 with the JFK assassination. Pigs’ Disco is Stuart’s memoir of joining the Parachute Regiment at sixteen, serving in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, and falling into the acid house and ecstasy rave scene that followed. ParaTripper picks up after the army, as he tries to become a Fleet Street photographer while PTSD catches up with him. Three different routes into the same question: how violence shapes the people who carry it, and the people who watch.

06/06/2026

A teenage gunman hands his pistol and shotgun to a film crew on camera. Graham Johnson produced and narrated the Panorama (Young Gunmen, 2008). Stuart Griffiths shot the stills that ran around the world. Nearly two decades on, both are back on the same territory in print, and Yellow Press has just published all three: Graham's novel Kontrolle, and Stuart's Pigs' Disco and ParaTripper. Out now.

Young Gunmen went inside the armed teenage street gangs taking hold of Liverpool. It found boys barely out of school carrying converted handguns, parents losing sons to turf wars, and whole estates living with the consequences. The access was rare. The footage spoke for itself.

04/06/2026

Shaun Smith finds out two of his own gym members are dealing steroids on his floor. What follows is not what you’d expect. A slap, a lot of shouting, then the sit-down where everyone leaves with an agreement, and Shaun three and a half grand lighter. From The Debt Collector, the Vice documentary produced by Graham Johnson and based on his books The Cartel and Young Blood. Yellow Press has just published Graham’s new novel Kontrolle, alongside Stuart Griffiths’ Pigs’ Disco and ParaTripper. Out now.

The Debt Collector followed Shaun Smith, the former Liverpool enforcer turned the UK’s scariest debt collector, as he worked the grey zone between the legal economy and the underworld out of his gym in Warrington. The film pulled in more than 32 million views online and remains one of the most watched pieces of British underworld journalism on the internet. Graham has been writing about this world, and the people in it, for thirty years.

Kontrolle is Graham’s historical crime novel about MK-ULTRA, the CIA’s behavioural conditioning programmes in 1950s America, ending in Dealey Plaza on 22 November 1963 with the JFK assassination. Pigs’ Disco is Stuart’s memoir of joining the Parachute Regiment at sixteen, serving in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, and falling into the acid house and ecstasy rave scene that followed. ParaTripper picks up after the army, as he tries to become a Fleet Street photographer while PTSD catches up with him. Three different routes into the same question: how violence shapes the people who carry it, and the people who watch

07/05/2026

.griffiths.photo speaking to for his recent episode. Check out the episode on all podcast platforms or YouTube!

Stuart Griffiths joined the Parachute Regiment in 1988, aged 16. While serving in Northern Ireland, armed with a disposable camera, he began to capture everyday moments in his fellow soldiers’ lives. His book Pigs’ Disco tells this story and is available from the link in our bio now!

Pigs’ Disco is named after the monthly party at the barracks, in which locals girls were bussed in behind the wire for drinks, dancing and s*x. The NAAFI party was arranged for security reasons because paras could not go to nightclubs in Belfast.

The story is a visceral journey into the heart of the British Army during the maelstrom of acid house, raves and violence that occupied the soldiers’ young lives against the backdrop of The Troubles.

Yellow Media Group work placements are now live. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you wish to register an interest...
05/05/2026

Yellow Media Group work placements are now live. Please don’t hesitate to contact us if you wish to register an interest!

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