I would like to dedicate this book to Mandy Bruce, who taught me everything I know about writing. Mandy passed away in April 2003. She was a dear friend and will be sorely missed.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1 Once a Fighter, Always a Fighter
2 Finger Fighting
3 Alan Keeps Schtum
4 Boxing Crazy
5 Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
6 It’s Do Or Die
7 The Last King of the Unlicensed Ring
8 Achy-Breaky Heart
9 Bad Boys
10 Shock Treatment
11 Who’s a Naughty Boy?
12 Find the Lady
13 Ronnie Biggs – He Did the Crime but Not the Time
14 The Bad, the Bad and Ugly
15 Bouncing Back
16 Running Riot
17 Good Company
18 Only the Lonely Part One
19 On the Trail
20 Shotgun Wedding
21 Only the Lonely Part Two
Roy Shaw’s Career at Her Majesty’s Pleasure
Copyright
Roy Shaw has always been a private man – he holds his cards close to his chest and has never bared his soul to anyone. Until now. I would like to thank him for putting his trust in me and being so open and honest.
Kate Kray, 2004
Thank you to all Roy’s friends for taking part. Also, Steve ‘Nostrils’ Rolls, Al and Elaine Irvine, St Bernard’s Animal Sanctuary, the many researchers who helped me look for Dorothy. A big thank you to Joan Bentley and, of course, Leo.
ROY SHAW. Harder than life, meaner than death. A vicious fighter with a vicious temper.
Watch out when he gets riled, his eyes narrow, his fists clench and he tears in. You’ll hear bones crack, smell blood and see guts gush out and spill across the floor. Roy has been described as Britain’s most violent man. It’s an understatement. But there’s a man behind the legend, the gangster who has lived an incredible life from bare-knuckle fighting to major crime, extreme violence and championship title fights. I wanted to find out more about him, about the aggression – how did Roy Shaw come about? Was he a kid from the back streets who was dealt a rough hand? Or did Roy discover something about himself and learn how to use it?
Did his natural talent for fighting become an addiction worse than any drug, a crazy fix of pain, power and aggression.
They say that talk is cheap, but the stories I’d heard about Roy Shaw were unlike anything I’d come across before – they ranged from the truly horrific to the grisly, the gruesome and the bizarre. But, although Roy doesn’t let on, I thought there had to be a gentler side to him and I was determined to find it. I meant to peel off the layers of savagery and violence and see what was underneath!
I met Roy’s friends and realised that they all have a different tale to tell. I talked to the boxing fraternity first. More than anyone, they should know if he’d got what it takes. What sort of a fighter was he? Did he have what it takes? Very few boxers make champion – could Roy Shaw have made it to the top? Maybe … if a little bit of armed robbery, murder and gratuitous violence beyond your most hellish nightmares hadn’t got in the way!
London is his territory and Roy became one of the coolest, quietest and most dangerous of the East End villains. Physically powerful and with biceps like marble pillars, when anyone crossed him the rage built up, exploded and then … whack!
Roy was unable to control his murderous rage, bouncing around the mean streets and rubbing shoulders with the bad guys like a powder keg waiting to go off. Everybody knew Roy Shaw and feared him – but with the fear came absolute respect.
Roy grew up fast; he wanted money and nothing was going to stop him getting it. He was strong, super fit, fearless and impervious to pain. A diabolical mix of ruthlessness and terror. In his world, the rules didn’t apply – to him, anyway. He wanted money – he took it. He wanted women – he had them. Everything was within reach of those steely nerves and iron fists.
Until … a raid on a bank van went wrong, his luck ran out and his life went into free fall. Within a few short weeks, he was swapping the soft leather seats in his new Mercedes for the bare walls of a prison cell.
His life was tumbling into free fall, one bad luck domino knocking another down in a chain to hell. Nothing could stop it.
When he was sentenced to be imprisoned for 18 years, he had nothing to lose and punched and kicked and fought his way through his sentence. Something inside him wouldn’t give up or give in.
I don’t know whether it’s good or bad but I don’t think we’ll ever see men like Roy Shaw again. Men who are forged in a cold steel mould, tempered with determination and polished with fury. But now the gladiators are gone and we live in more civilised times.
Roy is still a legend, our last ‘out-of-time’ fighter – a hero or a villain? Who knows. He is a man who doesn’t know how to give in or give up – he settles his scores the only way he knows – with his fists.
As I talked to him and listened to what other people had to say, I realised that he is still the same today. If you need someone on your side, he is the best. But have it the other way and you will encounter an adversary from hell. ‘“Vengeance is mine,” sayeth the Lord’ – and Roy Shaw. He never forgives, he never forgets. Roy lives without rules and he will tell you, without holding anything back, that there is blood on his hands.
He acts first and doesn’t think about it later. Even in his no-holds-barred world, he’s a ruthless bastard who doesn’t hesitate to wade in and who can fight his way out of anything.
It’s been a raging roller-coaster life, high living then off the rails into black tunnels of despair – from maximum-security lock-ups, torture and insanity, this has been