Freddie Foreman

Frederick Gerald Foreman was born on 5 March 1932 at 22 Sheepcote Lane, Battersea, in south London. His father, Herbert Edward Foreman, was a taxi driver, and Freddie was the youngest of five brothers; his elder brothers served in the Second World War. He was evacuated as a boy but returned to London during the Blitz, and he told The Guardian in 2018 that what he saw still gave him nightmares.

His teenage years were marked by street violence. He recalled appearing at the Old Bailey at 16 for affray, with a sand-weighted sock produced in evidence. By 18 he had become a full-time thief.

Details of Foreman's formal schooling have not been made public beyond his wartime childhood in Battersea, which was disrupted by evacuation. In later interviews he said he hoped the film about his life would encourage young people to get a good education, implying regret about his own path.

In the 1950s Foreman worked as a minder, including for the Forty Thieves, a gang of female shoplifters from the Elephant and Castle, and for the gang boss Billy Hill. In the 1960s he was part of a robbery team that included Alfie Gerrard and became a close associate of the Kray twins, lending them his services in exchange for a cut of their rackets while running his own pubs and clubs, including the Prince of Wales on Lant Street, Southwark.

After Reggie Kray murdered Jack "the Hat" McVitie on 29 October 1967, Foreman disposed of the body, which was never found. In 1969 he was convicted as an accessory to the murder and jailed for ten years. He was acquitted at the Old Bailey of the murders of Tommy "Ginger" Marks (shot in Bethnal Green in 1965) and of Frank Mitchell, the Dartmoor escapee who vanished in December 1966. He later admitted both killings in print and on television.

After his release he spent part of the 1970s in the United States running a gaming machine business. He was later linked to the April 1983 Security Express robbery in Shoreditch, a £6 million raid that was then a British record, and lived for years on the Costa del Sol in Spain. Detained in Marbella in 1990 and returned to Britain, he was jailed for nine years for handling the proceeds and released in 1995. In total he served about 16 years in prison.

Foreman married Maureen Foreman, and they had three children: Gregory (Greg), the actor Jamie Foreman (born 1958), and Danielle. The marriage broke down after he began a new relationship in Spain. He had grandchildren. His brother George was shot and wounded in 1964, an attack Foreman later linked to the killing of Tommy Marks.

He was godfather to Nick Reynolds, son of Great Train robber Bruce Reynolds, and supported train robbers including Buster Edwards and Ronnie Biggs. He kept a lifelong love of boxing and mixed with showbusiness and sports figures. In 2018 reports said he was living in sheltered accommodation with little money and saw little of his family. He later lived in Maida Vale before moving into a care home.

In later life Foreman repeatedly said he did not want to glamorise crime. He told The Guardian that 16 years in prison outweighed anything he gained, and that missing birthdays, Christmases and his children growing up was the real cost. He condemned modern knife crime, saying you do not prove you are a hard man by stabbing someone, and contrasted it with the bare-knuckle "straightener" of his youth. He described his years with the Krays as his biggest regret and called the twins "bad news".

Foreman was among the last surviving figures of 1960s London gangland, linking the era of Billy Hill, the Krays and the Great Train robbers to the Costa del Crime of the 1980s. His admissions about the Marks and Mitchell killings came years after his acquittals, under the old double jeopardy rule that was later changed by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Foreman said many people believed the 1980 film The Long Good Friday was based on him, and he advised on Legend (2015). His books and filmed interviews remain widely used first-hand accounts of the Kray era.

Foreman received no public awards or honours. His public recognition came through books, documentaries and press coverage of his criminal past.

Foreman put his name to about ten books, including Respect (late 1990s), The Godfather of British Crime (2005), Brown Bread Fred (2007), Getting it Straight (2011), The Last Real Gangster (2015, foreword by Tom Hardy), The Krays: Read All About It (2016), Running with the Krays (2017) and Freddie Foreman in Pictures (2017).

He appeared in a 2000 television documentary in which he admitted the Mitchell killing, and in many later true-crime documentaries and podcasts. He advised Tom Hardy and the production of Legend (2015). The documentary Fred: the Godfather of British Crime, directed by Paul Van Carter, was released in the UK on 17 March 2018.

Foreman was convicted as an accessory to the murder of Jack McVitie (1969) and of handling proceeds of the Security Express robbery (1990). He was acquitted of the murders of Tommy Marks and Frank Mitchell but later admitted both, prompting a police interview after a 2000 television confession; prosecutors declined to reopen the cases. His later celebrity, books and media appearances were criticised by some as glamorising violent crime, a charge he rejected. In 2017 he was involved in a scuffle with Eddie Richardson at the funeral of Tommy Wisbey.

Freddie Foreman died at 6.48am on Saturday 10 October 2026 at a care home in west London, following a short illness. He was 94. His eldest son Greg was with him. He had recently left his flat in Maida Vale after a stay in St Mary's Hospital. His godson Nick Reynolds described it as "the end of an era", and a family friend said it was a peaceful ending. Funeral arrangements had not been made public at the time of writing.