UNDERWORLD legend Freddie Foreman died this morning aged 94.
Foreman was the personal embodiment of the changing face of British crime over decades – and knew first-hand where the bodies were buried.
Back in the 1960s, Freddie was known as the , a ruthless criminal who was a key figure in the ‘ gang, The Firm.
He was variously known as ‘The Guv’nor’ and ‘Brown Bread Fred’ – cockney rhyming slang for the word ‘dead’ – because of the rivals he killed or had disposed of.
Foreman was acquitted of murder twice at the Old Bailey, but later admitted to carrying out both killings and getting rid of their bodies at sea.
He was a minder for 1950s gang boss Billy ‘King of the Underworld’ Hill and a hitman and body disposer for the Kray Twins.
The villain was also a close associate of the Great Train robbers and went on to carry out the record-breaking £6 million Security Express cash heist in 1983.
Foreman went on the run to the ‘Costa del Crime’ before he was eventually brought back to Britain and jailed for handling proceeds of the robbery.
He was eventually released from jail in 1995 and went on to become an author – penning eight books.
Foreman became a celebrated figure in the underworld and rubbed shoulders with showbiz and sports stars, retaining a lifelong love for boxing.
He died at 6.48 am this morning at the care home where he lived in Maida Vale, North London, following a short illness.
Foreman’s eldest son, Greg, was with him at the time.
A family friend said: “It was a peaceful ending when it came.
“Despite his formidable reputation, Fred was a true gent who always stood firm and was very warm and kind. There will never be another like him.”
Foreman is survived by another son, actor Jamie, and a daughter, Danielle, as well as grandchildren.
The South Londoner was born on 5 March 1932 and brought up in Battersea.
He drifted into crime and became a full-time thief at 18 before working as a minder for a gang of female shoplifters from South London’s Elephant and Castle known as the ‘Forty Thieves.’
Foreman later went on to work for 1950s godfather Billy ‘King of the Underworld’ Hill – who paid his men by the number of stitches inflicted on rivals which the evening papers reported.
During the 1960’s, Foreman was part of a heavy duty team of robbers, which included notorious hitman Alfie Gerarrd.
Foreman lent the Krays his “professional services ” in exchange for a cut in their rackets.
He had already made his bones with the January 1965 killing of Tommy “Ginger” Marks, a pal of George “Jimmy” Evans, who shot Foreman’s brother George in the groin with a swan-off shotgun a month earlier.
Foreman – acquitted of Marks’ murder together with Alfie Gerard – later admitted involvement, saying: “Alf drove the car past Marks and Evans.
“I pulled out a .38 and started shooting. The pair of them danced about like puppets on a string. But Evans was a coward and used Marks as a shield.”
In December the following year, Foreman took part in the execution of Frank “The Mad Axeman” Mitchell, sprung from Dartmoor Prison by the Krays eleven days earlier.
Like Ginger Marks, his body was never found.
Foreman said: “Taking Mitchell out of prison was like unleashing a mad Rottweiler on the public.
“The twins cosied him up with a girl in a flat but he became a nuisance and had to go. Ron asked me to help as a personal favour.”
Foreman was also acquitted of Mitchell’s murder with Gerard after one of the Kray gang, Albert Donoghue, turned Queen’s Evidence.
Donoghue told the court how Mitchell was put in a van by Foreman and Gerard and riddled with bullets.
As the Mad Axeman lay dying, Gerard was alleged to have said: “Give him another one Fred, I’m empty.”
By this time the Krays reigned supreme in London after years of simmering tensions with the Richardson brothers, Charlie and Eddie, who ran a scrapyard in Camberwell, South London.
Foreman had a lifelong grudge with Eddie Richardson, who died in August, which boiled over in a scrap between the elderly pair at the 2017 funeral of Great Train robber Tommy Wisbey.
has a close relationship with Freddie throughout their reign, though Foreman has since described his time working with them as his “biggest regret.”
Foreman retired nearly 30 years ago after he was imprisoned in 1990 for 10 years for the then record £7million Security Express heist.
The enforcer had been snatched by Spanish cops in the Costa Del Sol and taken back to Britain after being on the run since 1983.
Freddie was introduced to the Kray twins in the early 60s through their elder brother .
The Krays’ reign – the subject of the 2015 Legend – saw the bloodthirsty pair involved in armed robbery, protection rackets and assaults.
Foreman and the Krays’ gang ruled the streets of East London for a large part of the 60s.
After all three were imprisoned in 1969, Foreman’s lucrative association with the twins ended.
At their height they mixed with politicians and celebrities but they were finally snared over the murders of fellow gangsters Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie and George Cornell.
The Kray empire began falling apart when Ronnie shot dead Richardson associate George Cornell at the Blind Beggar pub in the East End in 1966.
In October 1968, the Kray twins Reggie and Ronnie murdered McVitie – and left Foreman to pick up the pieces afterward by burying him at sea, as he had done with Marks and Mitchell.
He said: “I had a friend on the coast who wrapped Jack in chicken wire, attached some weights to him and dropped him in the drink well away from shipping lanes. It was a tip from American friends.”
In 1969 Foreman was jailed for 10 years after being convicted of being an accessory to McVite’s murder.
After being released, he moved to the US in the 1970s running a gaming machine business before returning to Britain.
He returned to crime and was part of a gang who broke into the Security Express depot in Shoreditch, East London, in Easter 1983.
Foreman was one of five men linked to the robbery – known as the ‘Famous Five’—who moved to the Costa del Sol, in Spain, which at the time did not have an extradition warrant with the UK.
Among the five men was Ronnie Knight, then married to actress Barbara Windsor, whom Foreman had known well since the Kray days.
Foreman became a real-life ‘Sexy Beast’ on the so-called ‘Costa del Crime,’ sunbathing by day and partying at night.
The good life ended in 1990 when Spanish cops arrested him at his Marbella apartment for being an ‘undesirable’ and bundled him onto a flight back to the UK while he was still dressed in white shorts and sandals.
Foreman was jailed for nine years for handling proceeds of the robbery and released in 1995, when he was a pallbearer for Ronnie Kray’s coffin.
He later set up the Punchbowl pub in central London with son Greg, which was later sold to Guy Ritchie.
By then, Foreman had separated from his late wife Maureen after starting another relationship while he was in Spain.
Reflecting on his life of crime, Foreman later spoke of his sorrow at missing “sixteen birthdays and Christmases” away from his family in prison.
He said: “You can’t get that time back.”
Foreman was an advisor during the filming of Kray movie Legend, starring Tom Hardy, who wrote a foreword to one of his books, The Last Real Gangster.
Yet Foreman himself rued the changing face of crime and also spoke of his disgust at the gratuitous violence used by criminals.
He told me when we met on the Costa del Sol in 2011: “In my day there was a golden rule that you never did any work on your own manor and if people did they would get a clump and be told to hand the gear back.
“Nowadays you have got smackheads beating up old women and getting a smacked wrist. You tell me if things have changed for the better.”
