Donal MacIntyre & Karl Howman (2023) A Million Ways To Stay On The Run.

Most career criminals live in grey areas and not the eternal sunshine of the superwealthy. Some of us may know them. Paul Tait for example came out as The Bad Guru and offers redemption. I knew he indirectly bought and ran with his brother many legitimate businesses in Clydebank, such as The Horse and Barge. A Celtic pub. What interested me more from an authorial perspective were his links with the IRA and his ability to flit from country to country and have dealings with Taliban in Afghanistan, for example. This suggests a former career as a drug dealer had propelled him into the super league of multimillionaires. He’d deny it, of course.

Kenny Noye was already in the super league when Paul Tait was punting dope and eccies in the square in a pre-internet age. Noye was the go-to man for the Brink Mat robbery, which involved stealing an estimated £26 million. If we use as a yardstick of a packet of peanuts he took from a hunger-striking prisoner in return for brokering a deal with the governor of the prison, his cut from the robbery would have been around 20% or 25%. That would be shared with an old colleague and accomplice, John Palmer who was also charged with smelting the gold but got off with it. Palmer shared a place on Rich List next to the Queen Elizabeth. He helped his old mate escape.

Private jet, of course, May 1996 when he was fleeing from his imminent arrest for the stabbing of Stephen Cameron, age 21, in a road rage incident off the M25. Cameron’s fiancée was 17 and witnessed the fight. She was photogenic and grieving. Perfect front-page fodder for the tabloids, especially since they’d already marked down Noye as a cop killer. He’d been acquitted of the killing of John Fordham an undercover cop. Public enemy No 1.

Noye had a plan. He wanted to cut a deal. He’d give himself up to the authorities for the guarantee of a manslaughter charge rather than murder. He was on the run for two-and-a-half years before bumping into a couple that knew him from his previous life in London.  He was living in plain sight, still going on holiday, chasing women and cutting deals. His girlfriend was friends with the actress Penelope Cruz, with whom they had meals and drinks and played games of pool.   He lounged on beaches in Aruba, dined with FBI officers who had no idea who he was, and even perched in Fidel Castro’s presidential seat. He played air guitar with Bob Marley’s guitar. Scotland Yard, MI5, INTERPOL, and the FBI couldn’t find him. He went into a police station in Amsterdam to report that his bike had been stolen (it hadn’t) and defaced the pixelated image of his face hanging on the board. The only person charged with the killing of a police officer in the Old Bailey to walk away was walking away again.

He was a risk-taker. Familiar with the way things worked. As a member of the Masons, he was on more than nodding terms with high-ranking officers. He had some police officers on his payroll. And estimated that around one in ten of the Met Force were corrupt. A figure not disputed by one of the straight cops hunting him, Detective Inspector Ian Brown.

Noye served over 30 years in a long criminal career. No matter how many millions he doesn’t get that time back. Lost time. A wasted life. If he had his time back he’d have walked away from that fight with Stephen Cameron in May 1984. Most of his life wouldn’t have been spent in prison. Ironically, he admits he was fitted up for the crime he did commit. He might well have gotten off with murder if he hadn’t been as fixated on negotiating for what he believed was his right: to cut a deal and receive a sentence for manslaughter. All those witnesses, but the police couldn’t place him as being the killer. They’d no forensics. Nothing more than hearsay evidence. Noye would have walked.

Notes.

            1983 – Brink’s Mat gold bullion raid; Noye plays a central role.

            1985 – Undercover officer John Fordham is killed during a police operation involving Noye.

            May 1996 – Noye murders Stephen Cameron in a road rage incident and flees the UK.

            1996–1998 – Noye’s on the run.

            Travels through South America, Africa, Cuba, Holland, France, Aruba, and other locations.

            1998 – Spanish police, supported by UK officers, arrest Noye (alias “Mick the Builder”).

            Stephen Cameron’s former fiancée, now in witness protection, plays a crucial role in identifying him for extradition.