Trevor McDonald shocked by brutal honesty of mafia mobsters

Newsreader Trevor travelled to the US to make his latest documentary, a two-part look at mobsters where he met people who had been involved with the mafia in the past.

He said: “You thought you knew what stories about the mafia would be like, but confronted by the reality of what these people were telling you, it was much more extraordinary than you could’ve dreamed of. And the bluntness was amazing.

“Journalistically [you think], ‘Wow, thanks for telling me this’, but it’s absolutely shocking, the number of people they’ve killed.”

However, Trevor admitted there had been one hairy moment when interviewee Mikey Scars, who had turned his back on organised crime by testifying against others he worked with, spotted two mafia members in a roadside bar.

Trevor revealed: “It was the only moment where I thought I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was scared by the fact that he was scared. He’s a hard man, and if he’s worried, then I suspect you should be too.”

Saying his producers had done the groundwork in getting the interviewees to take part, he added: “If I may make one boast about myself, I spend an enormous amount of time thinking how to structure these interviews to get people to just talk.

“One of the keys is a non-judgmental approach. The people in prison and the mafia, they have done what they have done and probably been convicted and paid a certain price for it. It’s not for me to inflict my own judgments. You just want them to tell you about their lives, so you don’t have to shout at them. That might be counter-productive. Or they might punch you.

“We all have a touch of ego about life, and it’s terribly nice for people to ask you what you’ve been doing, although [in this instance], what you’ve been doing is killing people.”

He said of the final interview with Mikey Scars, at the grave of his brother who was killed by the mafia in 1981: “We walked out of the car, did it and walked back to the car. It’s untouched, there were no re-asks, or questions edited in and I wouldn’t change a comma.

“But I must tell you, it had as much to do with him as it had to do with me. He was magnificent.”

The Mafia With Trevor McDonald is a two-part documentary starting on ITV tonight (March 23).