London Underworld

Rare footage and first-hand accounts from London's gangland.

  1. The Man Who Broke a Girl's Jaw in Fred Foreman's Club · Fred Foreman was called the managing director of British crime. In polite company he was well dressed and quietly spoken, the kind of man you would be glad to have a drink with. In the underworld he was something else, a
  2. Mick Kelly: Armed Robbery, the Essex Boys and Deadly Feuds (Interview) · Mick Kelly came to London from Ireland in 1983 with no door experience at all. By the end of the decade he was standing on the door of Hollywoods in Romford beside Tony Tucker, and within a few years he was running secur
  3. Jimmy Brand: South London's Hardest Man · Six foot three and a natural heavyweight, Jimmy Brand was known in underworld circles as one of the hardest men in London. People who knew him put him on a par with Lenny McLean and Roy Shaw. And for years a whisper went
  4. Canning Town and the ICF v Millwall · The tall, silver-haired man swerved his Mercedes in front of a huge mob of Millwall. They had taken a wrong turn and were sauntering away from the Canning Town firm, 60 handed and waiting for them. He and four other lump
  5. Roy Shaw, Pat Tate and the Pub Fight · The story goes that Roy Shaw hit Pat Tate with a left and a right, broke his jaw and knocked him spark out. The rumour has done the rounds since the mid to late 1990s, and it turned up again in a book on Shaw done with h
  6. Ronnie O'Sullivan Sr and the Murder of the Krays' Driver · A world champion's father, a millionaire Soho sex-shop baron, pulled a six-inch hunting knife in a swanky Chelsea members' club. When it was over, the man who used to drive for Charlie Kray was dead. Big Ronnie O'Sulliva
  7. Roy Shaw Knocked Out, Then His Revenge · Roy Shaw went down. For a man who would become one of the hardest names to come out of London, it is not how the story is supposed to go. But it happened, and Roy confirmed it himself. It was the mid-1950s, before the l
  8. An Irish Enforcer Hunts a London Hardman · Michael Boyle waited three hours in a parked van in Walworth, disguised and awake. When Tony Brindle stepped out of his house, Boyle opened fire. One bullet went through Brindle's left elbow and lodged in his lower left
  9. John Bindon v Johnny Mack · A shirtless man with a scarred chest stood in a bedroom doorway in Chelsea and started giving Johnny Mack the mouth. Mack knew the face from television. It took him a moment to put a name to it. It was John Bindon, and t
  10. The Krays v Albert and Bobby Reading · Two hard men from Canning Town hijacked a lorry full of tobacco. Within days, the story goes, they were sitting in Vallance Road with a cup of tea in front of them, being told by the Kray twins that the load was theirs.
  11. The Most Feared Canning Town Armed Robbers · A guard fought back. Two people were shot. And a heavyweight East London villain was left staring at an 18-year sentence for a job that was meant to be flawless. To understand how he got there, you have to go back to Can