RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER
‘IN MY GAME, THE CHOICE
IS A JAIL OR A GRAVE’
CARLTON LEACH
Dedicated to the memory of Mike Fielder, my fearless co-author
Carlton is a great guy and a true friend. He has got me out of a few scrapes in our time together as pals – and now we have ended up making a cult film about his life together. I’m not sure many people can say that about a friendship.
Carlton has a beautiful wife and lovely children and he really does deserve the best in life, now and forever. He’s a real-life dangerous man with great intelligence that can have a row with anyone and also talk to anyone about anything. He has a real heart of gold.
Love you.
Your mate,
Terry Stone Hanover Films
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
PREFACE
FOREWORD
1 ’ROID RAGE
2 BIRTH OF A FOOTSOLDIER
3 STREET FIGHTING BOY
4 CARNAGE
5 GHOSTS
6 DOOR WARS
7 BAD VIBRATIONS
8 KING OF THE HOOLIGANS
9 DUTCH COURAGE
10 SORTED
11 VIVA ESPAÑA
12 CHEQUE MATE
13 THE BENN YEARS
14 MOLLS
15 TALKING TURKEY
16 WELCOME HOME, SON
17 RAVING MAD
18 FOUR MURDERS AND A FUNERAL
19 THE NEXT GENERATION
20 CRASH AND CARRY
21 DANCING QUEEN
22 RISE OF THE FOOTSOLDIER
About the Co-Author
Copyright
For 20 years, Carlton Leach ranked among the toughest of Britain’s 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 Britain’s worst soccer thugs. He featured in Channel 5’s 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 gunman’s 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 debt–collectors 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 hadn’t 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
(Ricci played the role of Carlton in
Rise of the Footsoldier)
It’s 1 March 2008 and I’m sitting in a pub somewhere in Epping listening to the sound of voices singing ‘Happy Birthday’. Someone walks in carrying a cake with my face on it – but this is not my night, it’s Carlton’s. I blow my nose for the fiftieth time (Jesus, this fucking cold is driving me mad) and I watch him as he blows out the candles – he’s happy.
My mind flashes back to the first weekend we spent together, when I was an eleven-stone jobbing actor wearing black glasses and flat cap. I saw Carlton, with his arms covered in tattoos and a big grin on his face, and thought, Fuck, we look nothing like each other. He wasn’t as big as I’d seen in the photos, but that shark-eyed look was still there, make no mistake.
We spoke about the films I’d done and the training I was going to have to do and it dawned on me that I’d probably bitten off more than I could chew. After a few pints of Guinness, Carl and his mate Steve took me to off to Cats lap-dancing club in Basildon to introduce me to some more of their close friends. I was transported into a world of cage-fighters, ex-paramilitary, black belts and women. ‘This is my fiancée, Anne,’ said Carlton with his arm wrapped around a really tall, good-looking blonde who was one of the dancers at the club. I shook Anne’s hand as she stood there topless and I thought to myself, Whatever you do, don’t look at her tits.
I was woken up the next morning by Carlton. ‘Come on, son, get up – I wanna take you with me, show you a bit of work.’ Despite a steaming hangover, the next thing I knew I was sat in McDonald’s guzzling a supersize Cola. We listened to an Asian father and his son telling us about a wedding that had gone wrong – the bride’s old man was chasing him for £30,000 compensation. He looked me straight in the eye as he told us this and spoke to me as though I was part of the firm. He said the other fella had hired the services of some lump to put the pressure on. To cut a long story short, I was then treated to a Little Chef veggie breakfast paid for by a wad of fifties the size of a brick!