Carlton Leach - Rise of the Footsoldier. In My Game, the Choice Is a Jail Or a Grave

F or 20 years, Carlton Leach ranked among the toughest of Britains brawn brigade. He led a powerful army of bruisers involved in the lucrative world of security and protection, from club doormen at top nightspots to underworld minders guarding millions of pounds of drug-trafficking cash.

He was a key member of the dreaded Essex Boys gang which ran riot in the Eighties and Nineties, sparking a savage drugs war which saw three of his pals wiped out in the 1995 Range Rover massacre at Rettendon. He gives a unique insight into the ruthless world of modern-day gangland and believes his name is on a bullet to become yet another casualty of that simmering feud.

His notoriety made him a star of a TV documentary on Britains worst soccer thugs. He featured in Channel 5s hit series Hard Bastards with the chilling words, In my game, the choice is jail or a grave.

Leach, now 49, was minder to boxing champ Nigel Benn throughout his glory years in the ring and tells the blood, sweat and tears inside story of their special relationship.

Once a 17-stone man-mountain buoyed up on massive doses of steroids, he recounts the day he defied a crazed gunmans bullets at a London rave party, then saw the man left for dead in an alley as his heavy mob exacted instant justice, underworld style.

And he tells how he saved four of his firm from being tortured to death and their wives and daughters raped in front of them after a 10 million consignment of heroin went missing.

He has been questioned by police in connection with four murders but says he never killed anyone, although it came pretty close to it a few times.

Leach still earns a living from his muscle as one of the most successful debtcollectors in the country.

He lives by a primitive code of conduct, whereby only the toughest and most ruthless survive. Image, reputation and respect are all important. But scratch beneath the surface and the human face of Carlton Leach emerges, a father dedicated to his children especially the son he gave up for adoption at birth and met again 25 years later a generous man who would be rich today if he hadnt given most of his money away to friends in need, a compassionate man who cried unashamedly when his pet dog died.

To those in his world he was a fearless ally, but a deadly enemy prepared to use guns, knives and coshes to defend his territory. To those outside his world, he appears a brutal monster who has used violence and intimidation as a frightening form of currency throughout his adult life with the sole aim of making easy money. He is, in fact, a complex combination of good and bad, as he readily admits, and leaves it to the reader to conclude where the scales of justice will rest on judgement day.

Like so many truly hard men, he is adored by wives and girlfriends past and present and idolised by his six children and his grandchildren. He has enjoyed massive success with his film Rise of the Footsoldier and maintains his connections with his old firm.

This is Carlton Leach, muscle for hire.

Mike Fielder