The Last Real Gangster Read online

  ‘So much for compassion, heart and soul – forget it. Ronnie Biggs gave himself up at the age of 71. After suffering three strokes, he could hardly speak … [he] had to use a chalk and slate to communicate to his son Michael. What did they do? Put him in a prison hospital? No, they locked him up in Belmarsh top-security prison. It’s bloody disgusting. People complain that the government are soft on crime, but not when it comes to people like myself, or Charlie Kray, or Ronnie Biggs. They’ll always find room for us old boys, while preachers of hate, sex offenders and drunk drivers get off with pathetic sentences.

  ‘In my life I’ve been sentenced to 23 years’ imprisonment, 16 years of which I’ve spent inside 15 different nicks in the UK and abroad, with much of that time in remand for crimes that ended in acquittal.

  ‘Just imagine that, if you will. Those missed birthdays, weddings, funerals, your children growing up, relationships beginning and ending. A whole decade came and went, and when I think about what I missed during that time it saddens me.’

  Freddie Foreman in The Godfather of British Crime (John Blake, 2007)

  Freddie Foreman in the mid-1960s, with his daughter Danielle. In 1969, around the time of her eighth birthday, he was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for disposing of the body of ‘Jack the Hat’. He would be released in the late 1970s, spending the end of that decade on the run and most of the 1980s at liberty before being captured in Spain, in 1989, on suspicion of committing the Security Express robbery. He was sentenced to a further nine years for handling the proceeds. As Freddie says in his closing statement above, ‘A whole decade came and went…’

  Good friends and good company. 5am – and what a night that was. From left: Christian Simpson, Freddie Foreman, Noelle Kurylo and Frank Kurylo at Freddie’s apartment in London. This picture was taken by Stacy, Christian’s wife.

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  This edition published in hardback in 2015

  ISBN: 978 1 78418 417 9

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  © Text copyright Frank Kurylo, Noelle Kurylo and Freddie Foreman 2015

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