[heart beating]
[water flowing]
My name is Freddie Foreman.
I was London born and bred and proud of it.
I was kicked out of school at fourteen years of age.
And I was ignorant I could barely read or write.
What future was there for me?
So I turned to a bit of serious heavy crime.
All I did was build up a business and it was only business.
When I used to get up at five in the morning and go out,
my wife, well she never knew nothing of what I was doing or anything,
and the rest of the family never knew.
It was all a shock to them.
When it all was revealed in later years.
My wife says, being busy, "Fred, when you going to stop?"
I'd say, "It's only business, Maureen
"I'm going out to get a pound note."
So I don't regret any of my actions.
And press and TV, they look on me as an arch-villain I suppose,
and like I was a criminal...
Killer, executioner, undertaker...
By association with the Kray brothers,
that's the worst thing that they say about me.
But I'm not the evil person that they portray me as.
The worst crime a man can commit is bringing his family up in poverty.
But family's sort of split up, my family anyway.
It's been very sad really.
Because all that I was doing was getting money,
so that my wife and children could have a decent life.
So, I'd like to set the record straight on a lot of things, you know?
So where were you born Fred, and what year?
[Freddie] I was born in 1932
in a place called Sheepcote Lane.
Which is in Battersea. And it's a very poor neighbourhood.
One side was little cottage houses,
and the other side of the road was a railway embankment and stables.
With horses, chickens...
Plenty of rats as well, I can tell you.
It looks so much different now...
I can't remember it the way, it don't seem the same place.
[Freddie] My mother had already given birth to four boys.
and along comes little Fred.
I always felt there was a bit of resentment there, ah, to be honest.
I think she needed another boy like a hole in the head, you know.
Because a daughter would share in all the chores.
My father was a black cab driver.
He learnt the knowledge of London by walking everywhere.
He used to walk miles and miles and miles.
And my father's suit used to go in every weekend to the pawn shop.
To get a few shillings out, so that my mother could provide,
for a meal, a Sunday dinner.
That, that's how life was.
[interviewer] What were you afraid of? Was it getting a smack from your mum?
Or was, was it the law? What were you scared of as a child?
I don't think I was scared of anything really,
you know, until the war was, ah, declared.
[people cheering]
Fred were you aware at that young age that England was going to war?
Oh, yes. We, we knew, we knew what it meant.
My two brothers were already in the Territorial Army,
and, ah, soon as war was declared
they were scooped up straight into the armed forces.
I was sent away, evacuated, for safety.
And I had a little briefcase and I had a bar of Cadbury's chocolate
that we was given.
I remember all these evacuees sitting on the floor in the middle of this,
this big, ah, hall, while the couples...
They'd pick who they want to take home.
And, ah, foster parents, you know.
And my brother Bert got picked up and they said, he's got a brother here,
they said, no, no, we only want him we don't want the brother as well.
So that, ah, was, OK, that's the... So what.
But they went around picking everyone out.
I was the last one sitting there,
out of forty children there, I was the last one sitting on the floor.
I don't know what... Something wrong with me. I never forgot that.
The Blitz hadn't really started, it was a phony war,
wasn't it, nothing had gone off.
They brought me home then.
All of a sudden one day, it started.
[sirens wailing]
About sixty days of continuous bombing.
[fighter jets roaring]
Day and night when a thousand planes comes over.
It was, ah, horrific. It was all day all night, constantly.
We were the first people to move from Sheepcote Lane to council housing,
on Wandsworth Road. We used to go down the shelter.
And it held about fifty people. There was bunk beds there,
but there was just a wire mesh and no mattresses on them or nothing,
it was very uncomfortable.
There was just a bucket in a corner where everybody used the urinal,
and we didn't like it.
Opposite was turned into a munitions factory, that was their target.
What happened on this particular night, my father's up there on fire watch duty.
There was flying bombs overhead, of course, when they reached London,
you knew, you know, bop, bop, bop and stop and you'd say, "Oh that's them,
"and they're going to nose dive."
[engine roaring]
You hold your breath waiting for the explosion, you know.
[explodes]
So they moved us to Clapham Junction on Lavender Hill.
We was on the third floor level with the railway,
and then there was this archway on the right. My brother Bert came
on home leave, he's got his sailor outfit on, he's sitting there,
mother she's come up with eggs and bacon I said, "Where did they come from?
"I haven't seen no eggs and bacon."
Ah, she went to the door and there was this terrific explosion. Woof.
[explosion]
And all the soot came down the chimney. And we looked at each other,
and it was just like the Kentucky minstrels, you know, we was covered...
You'd see the whites of our eyes and our mouths opening and that.
And I looked out over the balcony,
and I looked under the archway and there's this young teenage girl.
And all her clothes had been blown off but cami knickers and, and stockings,
you know, and she keeps falling over, she's trying to get up and falling over.
And I was fascinated, it's erotic, it was an erotic scene really.
And the poor girl, she couldn't stand up she kept falling down
every time she tried to get up, you know.
Being a, a nosy kid, I go down there and there you have the rescue
people arrive and they're pulling out people.
And they was laying them along the pavement, all dead, you know,
bits of people, you know, and they had to try and match them up to
whoever it, they belonged to, you know what I mean?
Had you ever seen anything like that before?
I'd never witnessed anything like that in my life, no, not that.
The way that, that Fred and his contemporaries evolved
from that upbringing is that they became very determined, focused individuals,
almost workaholics,
in a way that possibly their fathers weren't.
It meant you'd want to go out and get a living and have the luxuries in life.
You know, by hook or by crook.
It was of enormous
impact upon everyone during the Second World War.
You needed food, you needed clothing, you needed all kinds of necessities.
All of which were controlled by the ration system.
This also meant you had a black market emerge
during the second World War.
It was the great driver of crime.
Law abiding people found themselves connected to the black market,
buying extra ration books to feed their families.
And as a result, two worlds evolved there was the police,
the government, possibly the businessmen of their era,
and then there were the rest. The rest lived within their own world,
and that's where this code came from.
[Hobbs] We all have laws, we all have rules, us straight-goers.
From the underworld's point of view,
those laws don't exist, so they created law.
You don't grass, you never leave anybody behind, you look after people
who have gone to prison, you look after their wives and their families,
you do all of those things.
[Clarkson] Kids like Fred, in their youth, soon adhered to the criminal code
that existed back then. It was twisted you helped a granny across the street,
but if someone crossed you over a deal in a pub, you'd beat them up.
[Hobbs] So any child that was born in the 1930s,
they're coming into contact with crime as a very, very normal activity,
that was required, just to get by.
This just made them open to the possibilities of crime as a way of life.
[people chattering indistinctly]
[photographer] Yeah, face turned this way and then eyes...
He has spoken about it on camera.
You know there's some quite gruesome things
that he was involved in.
These tough guys,
these tough villains
do you ever see that element of haunting and regret?
Because we're all human, aren't we?
We're all human. You, you see regret in some people,
but not others. Some people show some sort of remorse.
People go out, when they go out to work as that's what they choose to do.
The trauma comes from other things, i.e.
like, what happened to Fred in the early days.
I don't, I don't really know. Well no one's personally come to me
and said, well I'm really suffering from this, or I'm suffering from that.
Some people don't show any remorse some people show remorse
and keep it to themselves.
[indistinct chattering]
[all laughing]
I used to pick up Tommy McGovern at three in the morning, half past three
and take him to the Smithfield Meat Market,
and I got a job there at Spitalfields.
Bloody hard, hard graft.
[interviewer] What made you leave the market?
To be in the meat market, carrying sides of beef around in the cold store,
it wasn't my, ah, idea of a future, you know.
Doing that for the rest of my life I just wanted to improve my standard
of living and go for bigger and better things, you know,
and get money faster, quick.
[Clarkson] What's intriguing about Fred
is that, this determined streak to succeed.
If they'd had the qualifications and possibly mixed in the right world,
they would have become major politicians heads of corporations.
But instead, they lived within a criminal underbelly of society.
Because it was the way to survive you couldn't get anywhere
if you didn't steal.
[interviewer] In the fifties you, ah, had this enterprise,
which was basically stealing washing machines
-right out the front door of shops. -Oh, yeah!
[interviewer] Can you tell us, I mean that's...
That was early days that was. The Bosch was known
as the best key man
in, in, in London. He could make a set of keys to fit any lock.
On a Tuesday a Thursday, or a Wednesday all the shops was a half day closing,
so you could go anywhere in London and walk down the high street,
and every shop's shut, and then you could go to work with the keys.
And then you'd open it up, go inside, walk round, turn around,
open the doors, shut them, come back, lock it up,
and sit up the end of the road for ten minutes to see if it was belled up.
If it wasn't belled up, that meant it was OK to go to work.
See with washing machines, Hotpoint and televisions.
people wanted them but they couldn't afford them,
they was too expensive.
So, by selling them at a third of the price
the market was unbelievable, you know?
So in part, it felt like I was a right regular Robin Hood, you know,
getting this, feeding the poor.
And I got a buzz out of that.
[interviewer] What about what you were stealing?
You were stealing peoples wages?
Well the, the people's wages is replaced straight away,
isn't it? Their insurance companies.
[interviewer] So would you always have those principles
about who you stole from and what you stole?
Oh yeah, sure, sure. Yeah.
Yeah!
Um.
[Hobbs] It's quite interesting the way that Fred Foreman moves through
different modes of thieving. He would do wages snatches.
[Freddie] When they was collecting money, ah, from a factory or a bank,
they'd go out in a lorry and then invariably one of them
would tell someone like myself.
He would break safes.
We'd put a tent up round where the safe was and cut, cut it open.
He would get involved in armed robbery.
Ah, other robbers and they opened fire on them.
The two guards in the back were shooting.
He was a full time professional criminal.
[Freddie] Pulled their own van in, backed in and threw the gold on board.
And he would do whatever's necessary to get the prize.
We burst through the door after the fella,
so I jumped on him and give him a club.
[interviewer] So you weren't afraid to use violence on jobs like that?
You're, you're not intending on injuring or, ah, ah...
Or making matters worse, all you want to do is
escape from the scene, you know?
All I wanted to do was make money so we could live a decent life.
As I said, I didn't go and sign on the labour, I'd go out and get it.
[Clarkson] They were workaholics. Most of them married young.
Had children at a young age and felt obliged to feed those children,
however, or rather whatever way, they could.
[interviewer] Was that like a love at first sight?
[Freddie] I did, ah, I, I loved her, very much so, yeah.
Ah she became pregnant and it was, you would,
you would be the, the dirtiest dog ever
if you was to leave her to go in the lurch.
Well then I was married at nineteen and I've got the responsibilities of,
of bringing up a child.
I wasn't unduly violent, but if there was any trouble
I could deal with it, for instance at the 211 Club.
One particular night, as we went through the door, load of people are coming out,
fellas and girls, and I went hold up, hold up, what's this all about?
And a couple of them went to, went to shape up to me,
and I, and Mick said, "Leave, let them go Fred, let them go."
Cos he's thinking the place is getting smashed up inside. And so I let him go.
These two particular guys, as they went out the door, I walked in,
I said what's it all about, what's gone on here, you know?
And, and there's this poor little, about seventeen-year-old girl,
she's laying on the floor, sobbing, crying,
one of these, ah, ah, I won't, I can't say the word,
or how I felt about them, but they'd smashed her on the chin,
but like a man would hit another man and broke her jaw.
So I was really angry, as you can imagine.
[interviewer] Was there a moment when you thought,
"I'd rather call the police and tell them?"
[Freddie] No, em, the police have got a job to do,
and if you're giving them aggravation on their patch,
they're going to get the hump with you, and so you try and keep them all sweet.
So Mick and I went outside, and these two guys,
they was in the side street, and they said come on then, mate.
I said come over, come over. And they opened the boot door,
and they got out a short pickaxe handle
slapping the pickaxe handle in his hands like this, you know.
But I pulled out something, ah, which is more than an, an equaliser.
I said drop it. "I don't want none of that", he said.
I said, "Oh don't you, you know?" So I made him drop the stick,
and then I just put one in his shoulder and let him have it.
And he dropped like a sack of potatoes. And I looked round,
and the other guy's dancing around with Mick.
I caught him from the back, threw him through this hedge into a garden,
and got, as he's spun round, he's face down, and as he got up,
I put one behind his ear and blew his ear off.
So that was the end of that little scenario,
but I thought, well, you know, they won't do that again,
ah, knock any little girls out in the future.
And, ah, so I, I felt justified in, in doing what I did.
Did you feel rage?
Oh, my rage was more controlled just put it that way.
-Controlled rage? -Yeah.
[Clarkson] I suppose there was a time when Fred became
judge, jury and executioner
in a sense of the underworld.
While the rest of the world adheres to the laws created
by judges and politicians, there was the underworld.
And in the underworld, people like Fred were the judges,
the juries and the executioners.
They were the people that decided who should survive, who shouldn't.
[Freddie] But justified, I felt justified.
[interviewer] But in your sense of judgement, shooting him
equalled the crime that he committed on your premises?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Ah, yeah, that justified it.
[newsreader] Foreman chronicles his life of crime as a gang boss, hard man,
and robber.
Who had a working relationship with the Kray twins.
He also writes of acquittal on two gangland murder charges.
Only now he admits he did shoot dead the two mobsters.
Victim number one was Ginger Marks.
[Freddie] Well that was a revenge killing,
because the man had shot my, my brother,
at point-blank range with a shotgun.
[interviewer] So this is what you said in your book.
"My right hand closed on the revolver and I wound down the passenger window.
"I leant out, my gun at the ready.
"'Ginger!' He stopped in his tracks.
"He stepped towards us, I let fly a hail of bullets."
[Freddie] Oh, fucking hell!
[interviewer] And then at the end of the chapter it says,
"The question has been asked, do I have any regrets about killing Ginger Marks?
"The answer is yes I regret that I did not shoot
"both of them that night."
[Freddie] Yeah, oh fucking hell, I'm not happy about the, doing this.
Talking about this. I don't want to keep rubbing salt in the wound,
do I, you know? It's not a thing you, you want to go round
getting out of your mind saying I'm going to go round
to shoot someone today or, or this weekend.
I'll make a name for myself and do something.
It's just a chain of events that gets you to that situation,
ain't it, you know?
[interviewer] That's what people, ah, should understand?
[Freddie] Understand, that's why I want them to understand it.
Once more into the breech. Oh, fucking hell!
[man 1] We're at speed now.
-[man 2] Speed. -[man 3] Sound speed.
[man 4] Brilliant.
Frame.
[interviewer] OK, so Fred, can you talk me through, in 1964?
Two gentlemen by the names of Marks and Evans?
Can you talk me through that story?
Yeah, OK.
My brother George was, ah, was a handsome fella,
he was a sailor, and he could pull a girl. And he, he had,
he had, I suppose he played around too much.
He was already married, lovely girl and he had four daughters.
And they're all sitting having a meal.
And, ah, there was a knock at the door and, and he gets up,
and goes and answers the door,
and there's this fella there, standing there.
And then all of a sudden another guy stepped out the shadows.
Ah, with a sawn-off shotgun and blasted George at point black range,
straight in the groin area.
Well the impact of, of the shot sent him flying the length of the passage
and he hit the wall at the other end of the, of the passage.
The ambulance came and rushed him straight up to St Thomas' Hospital.
I was in the Punchbowl when daughter, one of his daughters come round,
Georgina come round, told me that, what had happened.
So I rushed up to the hospital and it was full of police everywhere
in the corridors and in the room.
And, ah, they, they, they let me speak to him.
I said, ah, you know, who did it?
And he whispered in my ear, Ginger Tom, Ginger Tom.
So I thought to myself, well, ah, I wonder if they know
over the east end of London,
so I'll go over to the twins. I said to Charlie Kray.
I said, "Do you know anybody by the name of Ginger Tom?"
He said, "Yeah, course I do", he said, "That's Tommy Marks."
He said, he's working with a little firm they're four handed,
and they're going out doing a lot of screwing of jewellers
couple of night's time on Saturday.
They said they're going to bring it straight round to me.
He's going to sell it, Charlie. Ah, I said, OK,
Saturday it is then, you know.
So on the Saturday I was, ah, ready for him.
And sorts it out, look it was payback time, you know.
And that's what happens, so I'm... That's
exactly what, ah, took place.
[interviewer] When you saw the state of your brother
his life was hanging in the balance, in the hospital.
[Freddie] Yeah, I can't explain the way I felt.
But my brother's nearly died, he'd been through the war.
He'd, I mean he'd risked his life for, for his king and country.
And, and he didn't deserve to be treated the way he was.
I lived through a generation of death and violence and death was,
was part of growing up and from, from a kid, you know!
That's all I knew. And I suppose anybody
ah, if there's a man in any of them, they'd all feel the same.
You want revenge don't you, I mean it's sweet, revenge is sweet.
[interviewer] So no hesitation?
No.
Well Fred was at a certain stage in his industry, if you like.
And he couldn't be seen to do nothing about it.
So he couldn't say, OK well he got shot, I'll just, ah...
I'll go about my day to day business, something had to be done.
And in those times it was, it was quite severe, you know.
And, ah, so he did what he did.
[Freddie] I just sort of stalked him, you know,
in the car, I just pulled alongside him and give it to him.
[gun fires]
[interviewer] Can you tell me about that night on Cheshire street,
in the car?
[Freddie] The people who, who was contracted to do this,
followed, ah, Tommy Marks in the car.
Charlie said there they are and they'd walk him round
to Bethnal Green Road to the jewellers. And em, Charlie, he was told to get out.
And when they got past the Carpenters Arms pub,
the car pulled up sharp and quick, called out the name of Marks,
and, ah, and someone let go, ah, revolver out the back of the car.
[gun firing]
And Evans, em, who was the culprit who did the shooting,
used him as a shield, stopped all the bullets,
and then legged it round the next street.
Ah, they picked up Tommy Marks off the pavement,
And took him away in, in the back of the car.
[interviewer] Were you in the car?
I, I, ah, I've got to look, that's what I've been told anyway.
[Clarkson] What you have to realise is that to Freddie Foreman
talking into this camera is the same as talking to a policeman
who's interrogating him about a crime.
He has an editing machine going on in his head,
which chooses what to say and what not to say.
[interviewer] Because in your book you...
Ah, well it may be in the book, yeah, well...
Um, OK, say I was in the car, all right.
[interviewer] Can you talk me through how you were feeling?
It was justifiable in, ah, to, for retaliation.
So, of course, the retaliation was, was carried out, ah, as soon as possible
[Jimmy Nicholson] What they didn't see happen is that the car drove up, it took
ah, Ginger Marks with them, there was no body.
They heard the shooting, the body wasn't left and we haven't seen Ginger Marks.
Ah, I've reports of him under railway bridges, under the sites,
ah, ah, of buildings, in the rivers. We've never found him.
[Hobbs] Jimmy Evans eventually grassed Fred Foreman,
and Fred Foreman ended up in, in, court for the shooting of Ginger Marks,
and was found not guilty.
But from that moment on, you do find that those old members of the underworld
absolutely dismissed, ah, Jimmy Evans as, as one of their own.
Because of what he'd done.
[interviewer] Were you feeling nervous as well with what you'd planned?
Not really, no. I felt very satisfied.
In the book, when you confess to it,
it does sound like this is the first time you killed someone.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
But you weren't nervous?
No, no I wasn't, no.
[Freddie] That, that's the law of the jungle really and self survival.
And, ah, but, ah, I, I don't know, I don't think...
I don't really, I mean you don't wake up in the mornings
and say this week I'm going to do this or I'm going to do this or do that.
I mean these things come about with no fault of your own.
It's a knee-jerk reaction to a situation, you know!
[interviewer] But still we experience emotions as we go through these events.
Hmm.
The day after you killed Marks, how did you feel?
I can't answer that question.
That would be a life changing event that would be a big turning point?
-No. -No?
[woman] Does he look after you?
No he don't, no I take care of myself, always have done.
If I'm in any trouble, any time, he's helped me, as you probably know,
over the years, and I cannot thank him enough, really good.
But that's life, you get these little ups and downs and...
Things happen. What can you do?
[interviewer] You had a line of betting shops, you had three flats...
Yeah.
Milton Road, Kennington, the Prince of Wales pub,
Yep.
[interviewer] You had a block of flats, I think in Clapham Common?
[Freddie] I had a property.
Yeah and it was rented out to nurses, yeah.
You had the Marshalsea recording studio
Yeah.
Cat Stevens came down, The Small Faces, Spencer Davis
and then there was the gymnasium, loads of top fighters there training.
[interviewer] Speeler at the top, you had the Peckham Minicab office.
Let's have a look.
-Yep. -Shush club.
Look, they do like yoga classes, look see here.
Yeah, look at that, get her on the cover, give her a bit of G, eh.
Look at that, that's good ain't it?
[interviewer] So that sounds like a pretty good
property and business empire.
Yeah, it was well organised at the time, yeah.
Ah, nice to see you. I mean this is something special, ain't it?
All right, nice to meet you.
Real gentleman and an animal in the ring.
Oh. Tell the camera get out the way, got it there? That's it.
[interviewer] Was there never any temptation to say
well actually I've made it now I don't actually need to go and commit crime?
Well I, I really was at that time, I was, ah, retired really.
That's more like it.
Until, ah, unfortunately, I got involved with them terrible twins.
[interviewer] Right.
[Freddie] All what was ugliness, you know? It was in the garden,
it was rosy and then the wind blew in the weeds
and seeds and all was ugliness.
Old Charlie's proverb.
The Krays were gangsters and gangsters,
basically, their money is made by extortion,
other people do the work, whether it's straight work or criminal work,
and they take a slice of it, and that's what the gangster does.
Also, sometimes, as in the case of the Krays, extorting villains as well.
They were the opposite of, of Fred,
ah, the, the Krays were, were thieves ponces,
they didn't take too many risks themselves.
They expected other people to take the risks
and then they would take a hefty percentage.
And they also got involved in violence for violence's sake
and there's nothing to suggest that Fred Foreman would ever do that.
Fred didn't extort local neighbourhoods.
And what that means is that he wasn't reliant on territory,
he knew people all over London, he could work all over London.
Fred Foreman's, ah, main contribution was as a thief,
and he was a very good thief. He had social skills,
he had, business skills and he had a brain on him,
which was quite exceptional.
[Freddie] The Kray family, Charlie used to be the buyer,
and Charlie used to come out and buy,
so I got a friendship with Charlie the brother.
And then when things come unstuck for me in south London, I was wanted,
I had to leave that area and go and live somewhere else,
so the only people, any port in a storm when you're in trouble, you know,
and that's how I finished up going to the East End,
where they provided a place for me to live.
This was his flat here,
when we had to redecorate it,
because there was all blood up the wall in the bedroom.
God knows what had been going on up there, yeah.
This one right there, on the left-hand side.
[Hobbs] The Krays, they had done him a favour.
They knew the potential of Fred, they knew,
knew what he could do, and they wanted Fred Foreman on site.
Fred Foreman stood out in a world which is chaotic,
and no matter what anybody says, most of the people who were involved in that,
that, that underworld then, they couldn't be relied on.
Fred Foreman could be relied on, and I think that's probably where
the disposal of Jack the Hat's body came in.
Where's Jack?
[interviewer] So what about the rumours that you were known
for getting rid of bodies?
Well it's only, well that, I mean...
[man] Why did, um, why did they have to die?
Why did you shoot them?
[Freddie] Well he was like a Rottweiler being let, let out on the public.
And he'd threatened to take six policemen with him,
rather than go back to, to prison. I mean the man was completely dangerous
and, ah, not safe to walk the streets.
Well you make it sound like a public service.
It was. I was even offered, ah, by certain prison officers
and governors of prisons that turned round and said if you,
if you actually did this Fred, ah, you need a medal the size of a dustbin lid.
[Hobbs] Although I can understand his desire to
get revenge for the attack on his brother,
that led to the killing of Ginger Marks,
the killing of Frank Mitchell is, is something else.
[newsreader] One of the Kray gang, Frank 'The Mad Axeman' Mitchell,
the Krays had sprung him from Dartmoor Prison,
but Mitchell became too unpredictable and a liability.
[Hobbs] The Krays were embarrassed by Mitchell,
he turned out to be a liability and they went to Fred to get rid of him.
I don't fully understand why he would do that, Mitchell was no threat to him.
Did he really owe the Krays such an enormous favour to do this?
By this time Fred was earning lots and lots of money,
he had business interests all over London, he was a wealthy man.
Why did he do this? And, and it's a mystery to me, it makes no sense.
[interviewer] Could you explain on camera what happened
to Frank Mitchell that night?
Oh it, it's very difficult to, to, to talk about it.
Um, but the whole point of the, the issue was
he's out of control, we can't handle him and he's, now he's,
he's stolen a gun off of Billy Exley while he's asleep and he's,
he's tapped him on the chin and woke him up, look what I've got.
He, he was mentally deranged as a person, he had a child's brain,
he'd throw his toys out the pram if he didn't get his own way.
He was a big, strong, powerful man and now he's not only got a Tarzan knife,
he's got a, a shooter now, with six bullets in it and he's threatening,
rather than going back to prison, he's going to take six coppers with him.
So the, the, something had to be done about him.
But, ah, that's all I'm prepared to say about it,
so that, that, that is the, the truth of the story.
[reporter] And who pulled the trigger?
Alf Gerrard and myself.
Why do you think he killed those men?
Well he didn't, it was a contract kill.
It's the first contract killer we've seen come out in the open
and the Krays paid him to get rid of him he was an embarrassment to these.
He became a liability, he wanted to go out and become public
and that would have embarrassed them, because they'd have been involved
with getting him out of prison.
[interviewer] You said in your book that you, you vehemently deny
being a hitman because you would never kill for money.
Yeah.
There are also some allegations in the criminal world,
or rumours in the criminal world, that you were responsible for more deaths.
-Yes. Oh, they're complete rubbish. -How do you respond?
[Clarkson] The body count during the sixties,
when Fred was probably at his most active,
varied enormously. But actual, deliberate killings of rival criminals
occurred maybe a dozen times a year in the south-east of England.
A lot of these killings never resulted in a body,
so we don't actually know for certain that these people were killed,
because their bodies were fed to the fishes, ah, or put in a vat of acid.
As far as everyone else is concerned, including the family, they disappeared.
Ah, and without a body, it was hard to prosecute any criminals.
So in terms of the body count during the sixties,
it was probably a lot higher than we realise.
When we went to the east end and, ah, they were just as, ah,
the undertakers was over here, who are they looking for and things like that,
you know, silly comments like that.
[interviewer] Why did they call him the Undertaker?
Never heard that in my life.
[interviewer] It wasn't getting rid of bodies?
No, no, bullshit, bullshit.
[Freddie] Well I had a lot of names, the undertaker, high executioner.
People go missing every day, don't they, you know what I mean.
If they was anything to do with the criminal world,
they always think that there's something sinister behind it, you know.
[interviewer] Is that because there quite often is?
Well I suppose a few did over the years, yeah.
[interviewer] Do you think that people called you
the Undertaker because you got rid of Jack the Hat's body?
That, that, because, because that, ah, that was one of the reasons,
yeah, obviously.
[interviewer] Well first of all Ronnie Kray shot,
shot Cornell and then Reggie Kray shot Jack McVitie, right?
Well he stabbed him to death.
[interviewer] The body was, um, dumped on your doorstep, wasn't it?
[Freddie] Well it was a couple of streets away
from where I had the public house
and the twins, because he was working for them, he was on the firm with them,
they all knew that I'd had a row with him.
I'd thrown him out of the 211.
After this, the twins kicked him off the firm and he comes back and he,
he goes to the door of the, the Regency Club,
he's got a shotgun under his coat and he says, is any of the Kray firm in there,
I'm coming in to shoot them. No, you're not, coming in here with a gun.
There's a struggle and at the time to take the gun off of him,
the gun goes off, blows a hole in the door of the Regency Club.
So that was the real reason why they, they killed him.
Be a man, Jack.
You don't have to kill me!
Fucking bastard, bastard.
And they don't leave him on the street out at Stoke Newington,
they drive right through Stoke Newington,
through Dalston, through, Bethnal Green, through the Rotherhithe Tunnel,
right round to the back street, the back of my pub and dumped him
round the back of my pub, knowing that I'd had a row with him in the 211.
So that's putting it on my plate, you see what the, what the move was?
And, and what a liberty that was, really, to include me in that.
They was bad, they was bad news.
And what I, what could I do, you know?
I couldn't, I couldn't leave it like that, could I?
[interviewer] So you got rid of the body?
Ah, I took, I, I had to do something about it, yeah.
[interviewer] You were sentenced to ten years?
[Freddie] I was sentenced to ten years, yeah.
[interviewer] For getting rid of the body?
-[Freddie] Yep. -Can you tell us how?
No, I can't tell you.
[woman] We're hearing from Freddie Foreman in his book,
that he was dumped out at sea.
I believe that, it was a popular thing to do in those days.
We had a couple of others, ah, which Freddie hasn't admitted to,
and surely he wouldn't anyhow, but that are unsolved,
where they take them out to sea, put them, weight them and they go down.
We've had one recovered, actually,
a man called Buggy, but it wasn't Freddie's job.
[interviewer] Was he dumped out at sea?
Ah, nah, I can't, eh, well there was a facility
to go out to sea that was left over from the smuggling,
ah, days you know. Let's just leave it at that, shall we?
You mention that you, you sometimes have nightmares,
is that because of those kind of things?
No, no, I've, I've, I've had some bad thoughts,
I don't think about bad thoughts of them. I think of them bombing,
when all them people pulled out them bomb ruins and laid on the pavement,
that's the terrible things I've, that haunt me.
But I'm talking about getting rid of a dead body
to me I would find that quite gruesome.
No, I'm, it's not a, not a thing that what,
people would be pleased to do, would they, unless you're sick in the mind?
Did you find that traumatic?
I can't say I take any pleasure or satisfaction in anything at all.
Um, I'm a very loving, peaceful person.
Anyone who knows me knows that, I'm not a monster who goes,
and does all these horrible things.
And they, they'd like to portray you as such.
[interviewer] Sorry to keep coming back to it but everytime I ask you,
you change the subject.
OK.
[interviewer] McVitie's body...
is that something that haunts you?
No, oh, no, I don't know, I'm, not, not, no, definitely not, no.
It seems that you would be uncomfortable describing what you did?
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not comfortable about any bloody thing,
and doing this interview even, I'm not comfortable with it.
Is it because that was gruesome, what you had to do?
No, no, no.
[interviewer] Without mentioning any names did you get rid of other bodies?
Yeah.
No, no, no.
Yeah, how you doing?
-All right. You all right? -You all right, sweetheart?
-Yep. -Lovely to see you.
And you.
So are we going to have a nice drink now, are we?
Yeah. What you having, vodka tonic?
Ah, vodka tonic. What are you going to have, boys?
What's the cameraman having.
We better not let him have anything and keep him sober.
Yeah.
All right then, yeah.
You know that, you know these publishers you know, Random House,
I never got no cheques from that Random House.
Money up front, yeah, but I never got no royalties out of it.
[interviewer] Did you get money for Legend?
No, no.
[interviewer] Not even a token?
I got no money for Legend.
[interviewer] McVitie, you did ten years in prison for that.
I done ten years in prison for it, yeah, definitely, yeah.
Was it hard on you missing that much of your children's upbringing?
Of course it were, I were missing family and your kids growing up,
and you see them on a visit, they're only short visits.
And then I'm seven years into the sentence,
I'm looking to come home and they,
they walk in and charge me with the murder of Ginger Marks.
The screw said your wife's downstairs,
we'll let you see her for a minute.
And when I told her that now I was being charged with the murder,
her face, oh, that, ah, ah, the shock of, of that.
And that was really, a, really a moment,
one of what terrible moments in my life.
[interviewer] All of your assets were sold while you were in prison?
[Freddie] Yeah, and I, I lost a lot of money over that, a lot of money.
When I come home, I had to start from scratch,
from, all over again, you know.
[interviewer] So were there ever points where you thought
that's it now, I want to go straight now.
Not really.
I had to go to work, to graft again,
but I didn't want to go out on the heavy pavement stuff.
But it was a new style of crime, wasn't it, a bit of cannabis.
Without any violence, smuggle a bit of that over and you,
you made yourself a few, few thousand quid, you know.
Got kids in private school, private education,
and my Jamie was in, in, in the Italia Conti School,
my Danielle was in Italia Conti School, they've all got,
these things have got to be paid for,
you know what I mean, you can't do it on fresh air.
[interviewer] Maureen, did she pressure you to go straight
or did she expect you to go back into crime?
[Freddie] Well no, she, she wanted me to go straight, didn't she?
But, you know, ah, she knows that needs must so, ah,
and I was going to do a bit of labouring
or scaffolding again, or meat porter again,
I'm too old for all that. It sounded easy and harmless,
no violence involved and you weren't risking your liberty too much,
importing a bit of cannabis.
And that's how it should have been. But it didn't turn out that way.
The cannabis, from India
and it was really good gear,
it was, ah, Afghanistan black.
We sold quite a bit of gear and, ah, made a nice few quid out of it.
So I invest in this little project.
Next thing I know, now it's coming over,
I've got a yard down in Tunbridge Wells,
the, ah, container, we put it in the yard,
all the gear is in the floor and the, the sides of the container.
The young kid that, the guy who owns the yard, I said to him,
just have a little spin out and have a look round
and make sure things are all right. And he's got a little,
ah, ah, ah, what's it, scooter, you know, one of them little.
And he goes out.
And we're all ready to go, the kid comes flying back he said,
oh, he says, "fuck me", he said, "there's road blocks everywhere."
He said, "There's, there's coppers, surrounded we are."
We said, well we've got to get away.
We had an escape route across this field.
I said get it back to London, go through the tunnel,
I said, and when you go through the Blackwell Tunnel,
Strew the fucking lot across the road and block the whole tunnel,
jump out, run up that last hundred yards and I'll be up there waiting for you.
I said, and you, we'll fuck off, we'll get out of it.
And he said, all right fair enough, I'll do it.
Me and Duke at the other end of the tunnel and we're waiting.
Where the fuck, he's right, should be right behind us,
you know what I mean. And Duke said, you know what he's done, don't you?
Cos when he came out this morning, he went through Rotherhithe Tunnel,
he's gone back to the same tunnel.
You're right, I said, you're fucking right you are.
I said, come on then we'll, we'll slip down there quick.
Anyway, you could see the squad cars and undercover cars, you know.
He said, get back to the car Freddie, he said, we can't help him.
We just drove home.
I said turn, turn the telly on for us, will you?
She switched on the news and I'm having a sandwich and it come on,
customs officer shot dead. I went, I nearly choked.
The driver has just shot a customs officer dead.
It, it turned out that the container was bugged,
they knew every fucking movement, everywhere it went,
they knew exactly what happened.
I never set foot in my house in Dulwich Village again.
Don't forget I'd only been home, ah, a short while.
And now I'm in this condition.
[interviewer] When you got there,
Yes.
As a Londoner you...
[Freddie] It's a different life.
Regardless of what you do, you can size up any situation.
[Freddie] Situation, yeah.
You're going to an entirely new country.
[Freddie] Yeah.
How did you fit in, how did you...
[Freddie] Well I, I had to fit in, didn't I?
When you've got the street smarts you've got you survive.
When Maureen came over and Jamie come as well,
and Danielle my daughter, I got them all over,
yeah, I wouldn't be without my family.
We settled down to a nice American lifestyle, you know.
And I liked it there, I loved it there,
really, I was quite happy.
But Maureen was always homesick, she couldn't settle.
[interviewer] Were you involved in crime out there?
No, no, no, I was strictly, ah, straight, above board, yeah.
Were you in touch with the Mafia?
Oh yeah, yeah, well they was running all the, all the vending businesses,
they run it all, yeah. Ah, and I went to Harrisburg and they gave me,
they said Fred, you'll make a lot of money with this machine.
They were called Pac-Man. So I bought several of them.
Have you ever played the Pac-Man machine?
With the little, eating all the seeds,
and he said, make you plenty, and they did,
the old cash book used to be full up with them.
It was new on the market and I was the first one to have it in Allentown.
[interviewer] When you met him here, he'd just done ten years
for his part in the Jack the Hat killing.
Yeah.
Did you ever sense any sense of regret with, within Fred?
I don't know if I would put it down as regret,
I'd put it down as he, he didn't like what he'd done,
he didn't like a lot of stuff he had done.
[interviewer] You actively made the decision to go straight.
Yeah, I was straight, I was straight out there,
I was, all the time I was there I was straight.
Because you had an income?
I had an income, I had a business and I had an income.
But you had that same situation at the end of the 60s in London.
Yep, well it's a different thing, London, yeah.
-Why was it different? -Why, well...
Out there they just treated me like a, not a tourist but,
you know, a, a strange sort of a guy, I suppose, from London.
[interviewer] You said about yourself, Fred, that at the end of your ten stretch
you came out, you didn't feel that you were qualified
to do a legitimate job, you weren't educated well enough to go straight,
Yeah, yeah.
and have a legitimate lifestyle and career.
But there you are, in an entirely new country,
smart enough to set up your own business, a successful business,
an entirely new life. So it seems like
you probably could have gone anywhere and done...
Done the same thing, yeah.
-Well I'm, I'm trying... -Why was it so different?
I don't know what it was, what, ah...
[interviewer] Fred went straight in 1979 for two years
had a successful business in the States.
He could have called it quits then but he didn't.
Fred has these extraordinary, and still does to this day,
entrepreneurial skills.
But you know, ultimately, once a thief, always a thief.
Well I came back because they, they, they said we've got a terrific bit
of work for you Fred, and I was back,
ah, a couple of weeks and I, I had the meetings in Soho.
[Clarkson] Fred was lured back into the underworld,
because it was exciting, it gave him kudos,
it gave him status and it enabled him to be a big name again.
From the day we were married and you raise your family,
I mean that's all you do it for, I'm not doing it for any self gratification,
it was, it's putting food on the table and clothes on their back
and a roof over their heads.
[interviewer] Was there something addictive about stealing?
Well it, it, at that, yeah, well you, no, we always lived well.
That's what all I did it for, my wife said why don't you stop?
We've got enough already, we're satisfied.
And I, I'd just say, well it's only business,
it's the only way to get a living.
[interviewer] April 1983, Shoreditch, Curtain road
and the Security Express headquarters was known as Fort Knox.
Can you tell me what you know about that robbery?
No, I, well, well, not really no, I can't tell you anything about it,
because, it's, everyone knows what happened there.
April 1983, when a gang of armed robbers pulled off
the biggest cash robbery in British criminal history.
They snatched six million pounds in used, untraceable bank notes,
which weighed an extraordinary five tons.
[interviewer] For someone who's not read the books
and is seeing this film for the first time
can you tell us what you know about the Security Express robbery.
Well what can I say about it? It was a robbery that was taken part and, ah,
it started off with, with the, the night security guy
in the morning switching off all the security,
coming out of his door in the yard,
just to go across to the electric gates for his bottle of milk,
for his cup of tea. And that's how the,
the robbery was committed, that was the weak spot, OK.
Van drivers at supermarkets and all different vans coming,
picking up their cash.
All their drivers, one at a time they come in, they was all wrapped up,
laid down in the, ah, rest room
and the others gave the information about the combination numbers.
[man] They say he got a can of petrol and started to pour it over him
and somebody produced a box of matches, threatening to, em, set him alight.
Everything they said worked and, ah, made access to the,
to the money in the vaults.
The van was driven in and it was loaded up to the roof and,
with cash, turned out seven million quid.
It was a pretty successful robbery, you know.
[newsreader] Security Express was back in business this morning,
reeling from its seven million pound kick in the teeth.
[interviewer] In today's money - worth thirty million pounds.
Ah, well, yeah.
[newsreader] The yard entrance is controlled electronically
and the numerous high vantage points around the headquarters
make it a simple process to observe the transferring of money
to and from vehicles into the secure area.
He, he found it, and he was pointing it out to,
and where the office was, we wasn't there, but where we,
we could look out of the office because
it's, ah, and, and view into the yard itself.
If any member of public saw, anywhere in the London area
at any time on that date, that they come forward.
[interviewer] How long after the robbery did you fly to Spain?
Well I went, I went to, I went to Spain pretty soon after the robbery, yeah.
[Hobbs] Southern Spain, generally, was a place very attractive
to working class people, this was nirvana.
You had sunshine, you had cheap prices.
It had the added attraction with regard to villains of no extradition treaty,
so it made it a place where they felt relatively safe.
[Clarkson] Yeah, we're talking about Russians, Eastern Europeans, Colombians,
Mexicans and Spanish criminals as well, plus the Brits.
There are only maybe a dozen bars used by hundreds of criminals,
who all lived within ten miles of each other,
in this rather bland stretch of, of Spain.
They did deals together, they fell out quite frequently,
and no wonder there were bodies turning up on beaches.
And it's said that in the hills behind Marbella,
at least fifty criminals are buried in shallow graves.
This is the environment that Fred thrived in.
When Fred arrived, he already had an enormous reputation
and it preceded him, and not surprisingly,
he certainly watched his back throughout that period.
[interviewer] So did you have an income there or were you...
[Freddie] Yeah we were making, I was making money there, yeah.
We opened up, ah, The Eagles Country Club,
had a great big full Olympic swimming pool
and a clubhouse and a restaurant.
We was good as gold, it was good for the economy,
we were the people who's come over,
piles of money we spent out there was unbelievable.
[interviewer] What was the state of your marriage while you were in Spain?
[Freddie] Ah well, well that's a bit personal, really.
I mean, we, but we, like all marriages you have your ups and downs,
ups and downs. She wasn't one for, ah, beaches and sunbathing.
[interviewer] Had you gone straight?
[Freddie] Yeah I was straight, yeah, straight as a die, yeah.
[interviewer] So you didn't commit any crime then?
[Freddie] No, never, never did anything while there, and no need to
commit any crime. I loved it there, you know.
[reporter] Freddie Foreman was the third suspect
police wanted to question about the robbery,
after he also bought property in this block in Spain.
At the time of the Security Express job,
he and his wife Maureen's joint account
contained just £72.69,
they also couldn't afford the rent on their flat in Bermondsey.
And then all of a sudden, by June,
he was spending £76,000 buying a nice house
in Marbella and then by August,
he'd spent another £100,000,
buying three flats in the same luxury complex.
So the money had to come from somewhere.
[Freddie] Yeah, I was on the cards to go to
be shanghaied back and they'd get me back any way they could.
But they couldn't, because the law of the land said that you couldn't be
repatriated from Spain, so they couldn't do it, it was illegal.
I was walking out of the apartment,
I was going on a, to, on a meet and, ah, they swooped on me,
and straight up the nick. And I thought, well this is really heavy,
this is serious this now, you know. Then they told the British police,
we got him here.
And they come to try, and get me out the cell,
I was hanging on to everything and then,
ah, I wouldn't, they had to forcibly remove me.
[interviewer] Take you out of the precinct, put you in the car?
[Freddie] They got to, yeah, handcuff me,
handcuffed up you know and that.
It got a bit violent, actually. I tried to crash the car.
I got over the driver, got him round the neck,
with the cuffs on and that.
Anything to stop getting me to the airport, you know.
All that music, the Gypsy Kings music was going.
[Spanish music playing]
Could hear it on the radio...
[Freddie vocalising]
You know, and then all people sunbathing along the beaches
and I'm tearing along that Carretera.
And, ah, we was all over the place, you know.
When I got to the airport, I broke away from them.
I was running round the airport, they caught me and brought me back.
They want to get me on the plane,
so they forcibly get me to the steps of the plane.
Ah, it took about, I think it was seven Spanish police officers
to get him on the plane.
[interviewer] So it was a commercial flight?
It was a commercial flight, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, it was full of people.
[interviewer] What sort of reaction was there?
Oh, they was all looking and, oh, you can imagine it can't you,
that was a bit of entertainment for them really,
something to talk about when they go home.
A steward come over and, em, offered me a drink of water,
I could do with a drink, and it was a little beaker, a plastic cup,
and I looked at it, it looked all right, it was just water and then, thanks,
you're very kind, I said thanks very much,
and I, I, as soon as I swallowed it I could taste a bit,
bitterness you know, he dope, he'd doped me,
given me some knock out stuff.
They woke me up and all I saw was the,
ah, the old bill was walking towards me. They had all the camera out there,
there's footage of me coming off the plane in me shorts and me,
ah, flip-flops and that.
That's it, they filmed it all, and it was all on the news and everything.
Oh, and, and my wife never knew what had happened.
My grandsons, they was watching the television and they called out,
they said, oh look, Nana, they said, it's Papa Fred.
Come, come in, it's Papa Fred on television,
and that was me, coming off the plane in Heathrow.
The kids spotted me on the television.
They bribed them Spanish police to arrest me
and put me on a plane and bring me back to England.
The first we knew of it was when he landed at Heathrow Airport,
we had a warrant and he was arrested.
[Freddie] They sent me down with a nine stretch,
it was history repeating itself.
The relationship broke down after that.
[interviewer] Do you ever think about that alternate life
that you might have had if you'd stayed in America?
Ah, well it was an offer I couldn't refuse,
you know what I mean, really, and it was a chance on a,
you know, a one off chance of, ah, really hanging your coat up,
your, putting your gloves away or whatever.
So it was an opportunity, but not to say that I took part in anything like that,
cos I, I was, ah, I was one, I wasn't found guilty of anything,
but I was found guilty of, ah, handling money
from the Security Express, but not anything else.
[man] Welcome to the Ancient Foresters and of course,
we're all here to celebrate Freddie's birthday!
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday dear Fred ♪
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
[singer] Many happy returns, congratulations.
If you put all the candles on there,
you'd have to have the fire brigade outside, yeah.
[woman] Is today your actual birthday?
No, it was on Monday.
I'll stand up for you
Happy birthday, sir.
Thank you, thank you very much.
Have you retired now?
Of course I've retired, I've, I've been retired,
I can't run for a bus any more, let alone doing anything else.
What you, what you have is a man who, who in
his community and the people he, you know, that grew up with him,
recognise something special about him
and that he was always there for other people
and I think that today is a testament of that.
The people that are here today have been around him from day dot.
Now these are the people he grew up with, the friends made over the years.
And that kind of loyalty which is very misplaced in this day and age,
I think It's so evident here today.
[music playing]
[crowd cheering]
[Freddie] I'm a good boy. I've been a good boy. Ever since, yeah.
[interviewer] When you came out did you have any money?
[Freddie] Not a lot, no.
All the banks were empty and dry.
I never saw a penny of it at all.
[Freddie sighs]
Never saw anything.
He's a wealthy man though, isn't he? Doesn't need the money.
It's alleged that, he's wealthy, from the express robbery,
but I think you'll find he's not all that wealthy.
[interviewer] Well it's twenty years since your release
what have you done for an income since then?
Well that, I've been writing books.
As you know many people are writing their books.
And trying to get a few quid out of it.
Well, I'm just surviving like everyone else, surviving.
Surviving!
There's sixty quid there.
Here have that tenner for the sub. God bless you.
Thank you!
And I had to go on the Social!
You know, and get some support and help.
I gave him a tenner tip.
[interviewer] When you went into prison
your son Greg would have been like 37, right?
What did he think?
How are you darling, lovely to see you.
[interviewer] Your sixty year old dad is going to prison
Yeah! Yeah.
You like this food right? I like your food as well.
[Freddie laughs]
Well they always looked after themselves,
and they never had any jobs or work
they've had private education.
Italia Conti Drama School with my daughter and my son.
I put food on the table a roof over their heads,
clothes on their back and cars to drive.
And I think, I've done my share as a father.
The worst crime that a man can commit is to bring his family up in poverty
and that was the main achievement, you know.
[chattering indistinctly]
[Freddie laughs] Oh, yeah!
Oh, I didn't see you sitting there.
Hi, you off down then?
How you doing? You still in your own place still? Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
[Christian Simpson] I was in the east end yesterday, Shoreditch
and there was a chap, who notified me that, ah, young Gregory
has got engaged and there's an engagement party
to his beautiful girlfriend, this Saturday night.
That'd be great.
[interviewer] I was speaking to Fred yesterday and he said that it's been
over a year, possibly two years since he spoke to Greg, and also Jamie.
It's a shame, there's a distance between them, for whatever reasons.
-It's private to that family -God bless you.
I'm pushing this much
as it would be lovely to see Fred and yourself on Saturday evening
we will not agree to a director and a cameraman coming
-as well to film. -I want me and you to go.
It's going to be a private party with just close family and friends
which Fred is welcome to attend.
I hope you understand best wishes Lisa and Greg.
[interviewer] I think they just didn't want our camera.
[Freddie] They didn't want a camera. No, of course not, no.
Well I don't know why but...
A nice cup of tea now. You fancy a cup of tea now?
[interviewer] Yeah lovely Fred, thank you.
It wouldn't have done them any harm, honest.
Would have done them good in fact
because the boys back to himself
but can't do him any harm.
I got my cleaner coming tomorrow.
Lynn, she is a diamond, she is.
My Lynn, she looks after me, she does.
Their saying, come along
but, because it's only family and friends,
then Fred said over there,
"Well, if it's only family and friends, close family and friends,
"why was I never invited in the first place?".
Yeah, yeah.
[Christian] He misread that email.
[interviewer] What about this thing tomorrow?
The party, I'm just wondering if you're going to go?
[man] I think it would be nice for you just to go and see them.
[Freddie] No, fuck them.
Don't even entertain them now.
Don't need them.
I don't start begging there's no begging bowl for them.
Asking favours of them...
[interviewer] They're ashamed of you, your children?
[Freddie] I think they are.
I don't think any of the children
are ashamed at all of Fred. I think there's a lot of love there.
[Freddie] I mean the people I mix with the ex-criminals you know.
They didn't mind when I was paying all the fees,
and the education.
So I'm angry with them.
The way I feel now, we'll have a row and I'll spoil the fucking night.
I would do. I'd spoil the night.
I've got so much anger in me, you know.
Maureen died and the family just sort of split up.
My family any way.
I've been in this place here since 2000.
And my sons have never set foot in this place.
You know, you're discarded. You're not wanted.
It's turning me a little bit bitter.
Yeah, I don't even want to fucking see them to be honest.
I want to kick them in to touch, the lot of them.
I didn't want to go anyway. I don't want to go to it.
There's too much fucking bad feeling there.
It'll all be crocodile tears when I fucking
pulled that bollocks.
That's what Janet says better not all that shit
when the day comes you know what I mean.
She'll tell them a thing or two.
Ah!
Ah! Dear, dear, dear!
That's fucked that day up.
It's a shame really.
I'm not happy about this Paul I'll tell you.
This is where, allegedly the...
The shooting took place here, Marks and Evans.
That's about all I know about it actually.
Apparently this is where it,
the shots,
some bullets supposed to have gone into the wall
which is looks like they could be somewhere there,
around there. I mean I don't know.
I wasn't here.
[children playing]
[reporter] Tell me one thing, because people would find this interesting,
but also very chilling,
the way you say it in such a gentle style.
-We're talking of taking people's lives. -I know.
When you're at home sometimes late at night, do you ever say to yourself,
what a wasteful life it's been, in a sense,
you would like to have done something entirely different something
a little more charitable?
Oh naturally, with the right education and the right upbringing,
I would have lived a different life altogether.
But it was just...
I've been a war time child,
and living through the Blitz, and the bombing,
and hard times. And my brothers all served for the...
All served for the, in the British army and Navy. Four of them.
And they was in about eleven campaigns during the war.
I think they served their country well enough,
my family can hold its head up.
[reporter] All right, thanks very much indeed.
My, my pleasure.
Through there to the shelter.
See if that's still there.
Yes, that's the gate.
Well, would you believe it.
God save me!
Oh there it is, there it is, that mound there look.
That's the shelter.
[interviewer] Do you remember being very scared?
I wasn't crying, but very scared.
[interviewer] You mentioned to me that you have nightmares sometimes.
[Freddie] Oh, yeah I do yeah!
[interviewer] How long have they been going on?
Oh, well!
From the war actually.
[interviewer] You've had eighty years of nightmares?
[Freddie] I've had, I've had, yeah...
Not nightmares,
but bad thoughts, it's just I wake up sometimes,
"Fred get that out of your mind.
"Why you thinking about that for?"
And get back to sleep, you know,
and cast it aside, yeah.
Just on the left-hand side there was a street, a whole street
was wiped out.
There was forty people killed there.
Where those buildings are now, I could look down from there,
but this poor little girl...
I looked out and there she was you know.
So, I went down
and with all them
bits and pieces, they was pulling forty people they laid
down on the pavement.
It's a sad, it's, I feel very sad coming back here.
[interviewer] Have you ever seen a therapist?
No!
No I've never seen a... I didn't think it was necessary
to see any psycho, psychoanalysts or anything like that.
[interviewer] Tony Soprano saw one for years.
Did he really? [laughs]
[Clarkson] People like Fred, brought up in that
criminal environment from a very young age.
Of course, they suffer trauma,
but a lot of it was considered perfectly normal back then.
Inside themselves is this
thread of trauma that exists,
which has probably had a bigger effect on their lives than anything else.
[interviewer] You said that over your career you have no regrets.
[Freddie] Oh, I've got regrets, yeah, of ever meeting the fucking
Kray twins, excuse me my language, my French.
I can get a bit of speed up.
Who suffers with you, your family of course.
And missing my children growing up. Dad wasn't there, was he?
[woman] Beautiful garden.
It's lovely, isn't it?
So nice, isn't it?
You've come at just the right time to see these beautiful lilies.
[Freddie] Isn't it?
I mean, ah, in hindsight, I wish none of it happened at all.
[Hobbs] You look at the way he talks about his family, about his businesses,
there's no reason why this wouldn't weigh heavily on him.
But we all need neutralisations, we all need to able to say, well I did
that he deserved it, he done this to me and therefore I reacted,
and that makes it all right.
So, that's how you've got to neutralise things.
[Clarkson] They talk about an eye for an eye,
a lot of criminals like Fred,
but there's a great inconsistency in that phrase.
For example, when Jimmy Evans shot Fred's brother
in the leg, another criminal called Ginger Marks was murdered because if it.
Now Fred's brother didn't die, he wasn't that seriously injured,
but in a way that sums up the chaos,
and the unfairness, and the inconsistency of the underworld.
They might like to project it as being black is white, white is black,
eye for an eye and everything else, but it doesn't work like that.
[interviewer] Do you think murder is wrong?
[Freddie] Oh murder is wrong, course it is, yeah.
To take another life, that's not right.
But I'll do it over again, If someone hurt
anyone, one that's close to me or my friends close to me.
You know, I'd stand up and be counted.
As old as I am, well I'm eighty-five now but I'm still capable.
[Clarkson] And that's why it's a twisted world,
and can never be accepted by most people.
[interviewer] Do you feel lonely sometimes?
[Freddie] I'm never lonely now I've too many friends to be lonely.
[Burton] Freddie Foreman, oh yeah, king of the underworld,
he'll go down in history for what he did.
[Anderson] Well I think anybody in their right mind
would never underestimate Fred,
that would be a bad mistake.
If you've got comeuppance, you're going to get it.
And no one fucked about with him.
[McLean] But if they met him,
they'd have a totally different idea of him, completely.
If you stay on the good side of Fred he is one of the nicest guys you'll meet.
One of the most respectable men that I've ever known, yeah.
If I'm in London I'll pop into his flat,
and make sure that he's got enough milk,
or make sure that he's you know he's OK,
because I think, it's just a friendship.
I would take a bullet for him
because I love him.
He's the Godfather, without a doubt.
He owes me fifty bob I've got to remind him.
But I do miss my family,
and, ah, I'm a bit disappointed in them.
Not much else to say.
[interviewer] Do you believe in heaven and hell?
[Freddie] When you're dead, you're dead. Ah, it's all...
Ah, it's all, no, once, to that country once born, no traveller returns,
you know what I mean.
That's Shakespeare.
[Freddie laughs]