FREDDIE FOREMAN
ONCE AN ENFORCER FOR TWO OF THE MOST POWERFUL GANGSTERS TO WALK THE STREETS OF LONDON, FREDDIE FOREMAN HAS SEEN IT ALL. UNLIKE MANY GANGLAND LEGENDS, HE’S LIVED TO RECALL THE DEATH AND THE GLORY HE WITNESSED AS ‘BROWN BREAD FRED’
It’s clear that Freddie Foreman’s presence still commands some respect, as an entourage of producers, friends and family surround him in a small room at Lionsgate Studios in London. Now 86 years old, he beams a warm, grandfatherly smile as he talks about growing up in London, the terrifying war he lived through and his time spent consulting on the set of the biopic gangster movie Legend. It’s easy to forget that this is a man who has shot several people, has been linked to numerous other disappearances and murders, and has taken part in some of the biggest criminal schemes in British history.
Despite all of this, Freddie Foreman has still come out swinging. Speaking to Real Crime, he insisted that the biggest crime a man can commit is to not provide for his family. This is a mindset that led him down a path of criminal activity and eventually brought him alongside two of Britain’s most infamous gangsters: twin brothers and east London criminal entrepreneurs Ronnie and Reggie Kray.
Freddie has served time for being an accomplice in the killing of criminal Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie, as well as for armed robbery. He has faced trial for the murder of Frank ‘The Mad Axeman’ Mitchell, only to be found not guilty. Once known as ‘Brown Bread Fred’ and ‘The Man Who Gets Rid Of Bodies’, the Kray twins’ enforcer became a key figure in London’s underworld, which still fascinates people today.
Everyone has to start somewhere: can you tell us a bit about the era and the place where you grew up?
I was born in 1932 and I was the youngest of five boys. We lived in a very poor neighbourhood in Battersea (southwest London), it was called Sheep Coat Lane. It ran alongside a railway, there were arches and stables with horses and goats and chickens – it was like something out of the Bronx. I can remember it so vividly. In 1939 we was moved out of these old cottages and we got a council flat in Warmsworth Road in Clapham, but then, as we moved into the block of flats, war [WWII] was declared.
For a while, as a young man, you worked hard and earned an hones
