13-07-2025
'Nobody threatens my family, I don't care... so I've done what I've done'
A member of one of Manchester's most well-known Traveller families has said he doesn't 'regret anything' after being released from prison following a vicious assault on a pensioner in a pub in the Northern Quarter area of the city two years ago.
Dougie Joyce was jailed in November 2023 after admitting repeatedly punching the 78-year-old victim in the back room of a Thomas Street pub in the city.
After he was sent down for 19 months for GBH, police described him as an 'aggressive and violent man who intended to intimidate and inflict pain on a vulnerable 78-year-old,' reports The Manchester Evening News.
CCTV showed the then 35-year-old, who was wearing a large gold ring, launch the sickening attack before encouraging his dad to join in. But in an interview with the Criminal Connection podcast released this week, the businessman and former bare-knuckle boxer said he had no regrets.
"I never regret anything I do in life," he told host Terry Stone. "I regret being in that situation. But I don't regret anything I do because everything I do is for a reason."
Describing the vicious assault as 'just one of them moments inside of a pub', he said the victim had insulted his father John Joyce, who was given a community order for his part in the attack, and 'threatened his family'.
Joyce added: "The bottom line of the story is my father knocked him spark out 35 years ago. That was it.
"But what it was, he was holding a grudge against my father. He's obviously not got over it. There was a little bit of commotion. And then he got very abusive coming out with his name calling and then he just took it one step too far.
"He threatened my family. Nobody threatens my family. I don't care who you are. Obviously I've got drink in my system and I'm an alpha male and the thing is I'll always protect my family.
"So, I've done what I've done and at the end of the day, I've paid the price, been to jail. It's the past. I put it behind me. It is what it is."
Joyce also told how he was arrested at Dublin Airport following the attack. And he boasted of being being asked for selfies and autographs while serving his sentence in Strangeways and Forest Bank.
"It was plain sailing," he said of his time in prison. "Just kept my head down, got on with it, done my gym, met a few nice fellas in there. I know a lot of people anyways from inside out and there was no issues whatsoever."
The infamous hardman, who appeared in the The Joyce Family Documentary on Amazon and reportedly turned down a role in Channel 4's My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding to become 'the next Tyson Fury', has several convictions for violence.
In May last year, he was jailed for 13 months after a feud between the Joyces and members of the Doherty family exploded in violence at a wake at The Vine pub in Collyhurst in inner city Manchester.
Last month, he was in the headlines again after posing with Liz Truss to promote his new line of whiskey. In a clip shared on his Instagram page, Joyce hands the former PM a bottle of the spirit saying, 'Just remember - Dougie Joyce loves ya', with Truss then adding 'Liz Truss loves you'.
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