Wensley Clarkson - Kenny Noye: Public Enemy Number 1

To Spain...

the last frontier

Many of the characters described here would not have made it into this book if it had not been for my numerous sources who, naturally, would rather you did not know their identity.

So to all the faces Ive met over the years and the policemen whove given me a helping hand, I say, Thank you.

Without their help, this book would not have been possible.

Some of the dialogue used in this book was constructed from available documents, some was drawn from courtroom testimony, and some was reconstituted from the memory of participants.

Backhander - Bribe

Bird - Prison Sentence

Blag - Robbery

Brief - Solicitor/Lawyer

Bungs - Bribes

Clink - Prison

Coke - Cocaine

Cozzers - Police

Cronies - Associates

DCI - Detective Chief Inspector

DCS - Detective Chief Superintendent

DEA - Drug Enforcement Agency

DI - Detective Inspector

DS - Detective Superintendent

E - Ecstasy

Faces - Top Criminals

Fence - Criminal who sells stolen goods

Finger - Accuse

Fitted up - Framed

Frummers - Orthodox Jews

Grass up - Tell police about another criminal

Manor - Area where a criminal operates

Met - Metropolitan Police

NCIS - National Criminal Intelligence Service

Nicked - Arrested

Old Lag - Long-term prisoner

Pavement artist - Robber

Puff - Cannabis Resin

Scam - Deception

Screws - Prison officers

Shooter - Gun

Snitch - Informant

Stitch up - Set up

Stretch - Stay in prison

Team - Gang of robbers

'I hope you all die of cancer.

Kenny Noye's response to the Old Bailey jury when he was found guilty of his role in handling the Brink's-Mat gold in 1986

'During my career, I made a point of mixing with criminals. It is essential that you do so. You cannot expect them to give information about crimes if you ostracise them except when you want information from them.'

Former Scotland Yard Flying Squad Commander Ken Drury

No. We won't leave it, we will get that sorted out right now.'

Kenny Noye's response to a question by the prosecutor at his Old Bailey trial for the murder of Stephen Cameron in April 2000

ATLANTERRA, SOUTH-WESTERN SPAIN, 28 AUGUST, 1998

The beige 3-litre Vectra headed off slowly behind the shining new dark blue Mitsubishi Shogun as it began twisting and turning down the hill from the big villa up on the cliff overlooking the tiny hamlet of Atlanterra. Two other vehicles a Golf GTI and an Astra joined the convoy from different positions as the Shogun hit the straight road out of Atlanterra through the village of Zahara de los Atunes and towards the town of Barbate seven miles north. The Shogun eventually drove straight through Barbate and headed on to a narrow road that ran through a forest towards the small, beachside community of Los Canos de Meca.

Minutes later the Shogun driver picked up an attractive brunette woman from her rented beachside house and the couple headed once again back towards Barbate at high speed. Behind them, their shadows had decided that because the road was so quiet and the area so sparsely populated, they would use only the 3-litre Vectra to follow their subject. The two other cars moved separately back to Barbate to await instructions.

Then disaster struck as the Shogun sped through the isolated forest road from Los Canos to Barbate.

'We lost him at the second curve,' one of the pursuers later explained. 'He just disappeared. There was a

crossroads up ahead and he could have gone in any of three directions.' For the next half an hour no one caught even a glimpse of that dark blue Shogun. Perhaps their subject had been tipped off about the surveillance operation? He was certainly someone with a lot of friends in high places. Maybe he had slipped through their grasp once again.

As the minutes ticked towards eleven, it was decided that the three cars should float around Barbate in the hope of spotting that distinctive Shogun with Belgian plates parked up in the busy town. They just prayed he was eating dinner somewhere.

At just after 11pm, the driver of the Vectra spotted the Shogun parked near the town's best known fish restaurant. Minutes later all three of the pursuing cars met in an adjoining street. The occupants bought some litre bottles of beer from a nearby bar and three of them got back in the Astra and double parked it virtually in front of the restaurant. Then they began playing Prodigy's 'Firestarter' at full blast on the car stereo.

Three of the men then tumbled out of the car and manoeuvred themselves near enough to their subject's table to establish that he was definitely their man. He was just ordering a bottle of Rioja and a seafood salad. More officers then linked up from the other cars nearby and they began weaving in a group back up the pavement towards the restaurant.

Then four of the 'drunks' surrounded their subject's table. The man and his female companion tried to ignore them in the hope they would go away. The last thing they wanted was some aggravation with a bunch of drunken hooligans.

Just then one of the 'drunks' dropped his bottle of beer on the floor and leapt on the man. There was a smash of a glass on the table. The man got his subject in a painful headlock and fell to the ground with him. Two other men then piled in and locked on to each of the subject's arms which were yanked up behind his back while a fourth man handcuffed him.

Astonished customers looked on as the four burly men literally picked their subject up off the floor and carried him to the back of the Astra. The man's female companion got up and immediately walked off into the darkness.

As two of the men got in the front of the Astra, the man they had grabbed shouted, 'Why am I being detained? I wanna see a lawyer and I wanna see a doctor.'

Britain's most wanted man, Kenneth Noye, had finally been apprehended...

Across the Thames from the City of London lies the borough that was for centuries effectively the second largest city in England the Borough of the South Works of London Bridge, or Southwark. Borough High Street runs directly from London Bridge.

In 1197 two 'tycoons' swapped a pair of manors from their real estate portfolios. The Archbishop of Canterbury accepted Lambeth, on the Thames bank about a mile west of the Borough, in exchange for Dartford in Kent. He decided to use it as his town house instead of adding it to his investments, and Southwark innkeepers profited from the increase in travel between Canterbury and London.

Along the Bankside of the river between east Lambeth and Southwark, the Bishops of Rochester and Winchester bought properties, which their successors leased out. In Henry VEH's reign Rochester's cook, Richard Ross, poisoned the soup at a banquet and became the sole victim of Henry's new penalty for poisoners. He was boiled alive.

Meanwhile Winchester's properties became notorious as brothels. The carnival atmosphere of the Bankside was further enhanced by a bear-baiting ring, theatres and the first of the south bank pleasure gardens. All these attractions also encouraged the criminals of the day to head into the crowds to pickpocket and scavenge off the rich visitors. Then they headed back to their homes in the dreadful slum areas around Mint Street ('the Mint') and south of Union Street ('Alsatia').

Eastwards, numerous leatherworks centred on the district of Bermondsey. The drawback to tanning, however, was the obnoxious odour that drifted across the entire area. As a result, Bermondsey developed atrocious slums and by the 1840s Jacob's Island was the worst area of urban deprivation in London. It was from these south bank slums that the great 19th century cholera epidemics sprang.