Latest news with #KennethNoye
Daily Mail
11 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Revealed: Kenneth Noye's new life. He brutally stabbed two men and stole £26m. Now as he swans around Kent with a much younger lover and plays doting grandfather, friends expose the dark truth
Life, of late, has been undeservedly kind to Kenneth Noye. Despite having a couple of killings under his belt, not to mention a ruthless hand in one of the most lucrative heists in British history, the gangster is a familiar sight on the streets of Sevenoaks, Kent. He is often seen pottering around his local supermarket, clutching an eco-friendly bag for life, nipping into the gym opposite his top-floor flat or simply whizzing around in his Mercedes 4x4. Noye, 78, has been spotted, too, playing the part of doting grandfather alongside other families during sports day at a nearby £30,000-a-year private school.
Telegraph
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Everything the BBC gets wrong about The Gold as the heist thriller returns
When the first season of the Brink's-Mat heist thriller The Gold was broadcast in 2023, it depicted the true(ish) story of Britain's then largest ever heist in 1983, in which £26 million's worth of gold, diamonds and jewellery was stolen from Heathrow. The show ended with its lead villain Kenneth Noye convicted of conspiracy to handle stolen gold, but the realisation on the part of the police that they have only recovered half the treasure. A second series beckoned. As the new season of The Gold begins, there is a new central antagonist, in the form of the jeweller and gold dealer John Palmer (Tom Cullen), who was acquitted of any involvement in the robbery and has now established himself as a respectable businessman, selling timeshares to British holidaymakers. However, it becomes clear that the gold has been smelted down and turned into cash and the police resume their cat-and-mouse hunt for the malefactors, set against an international backdrop. The Gold's creator Neil Forsyth has always been upfront that the show has contained a generous helping of dramatic licence. Nonetheless, he has also suggested that 'the series is very much inspired by real events'. With this in mind – and given that many of the events throughout the second, and final, six-part instalment seem almost to defy belief – we delved into what's accurate historical recreation, and what's Forsyth's own invention. (Warning: comnt Was the remaining Brink's-Mat gold really hidden in tin mines in Cornwall? When it became clear that only half the Brink's-Mat gold had been recovered, excitable rumours began to spread about what had happened to the rest of it. It was suggested that it had been hidden everywhere from a builders' merchant in Hastings (which was excavated in 2001 after a tip-off) to, of all places, Bristol Rovers football ground. The fruitless search for it takes up a good proportion of the first episode of The Gold season two, as Boyce and his lieutenants are thwarted by the machinations of the various criminals, who duly melt down the gold and, with the connivance of crooked Hatton Garden jewellers, turn it into cash. The second stash of gold was never discovered by the police (or anyone else), so whatever happened to it is the inevitable source of speculation. However, the show suggests that the remaining gold bullion was hidden in an abandoned Cornish tin mine. Forsyth comments,'That came from one article the researcher Adam Fenn and I found in the Evening Standard from the 1980s which we decided to explore in the opening of series two. It's very exciting for me knowing that that's never been dramatised before, and it became a key part of our opening episode.' It may or may not be true, but it's certainly original. Is Tony Lundy a real person? There are many new figures who appear on both sides of the law in The Gold, but perhaps the most interesting is police detective Tony Lundy, played by Stephen Campbell Moore. Lundy is portrayed as a brilliant but morally complicated detective chief inspector who refuses to follow the relatively straightforward path that Boyce and the others go down in order to pursue their investigation. While many of the characters in the series are carefully drawn composites, Lundy is in fact a real detective superintendent. Long since retired, he's now resident in Spain: ironically, home to many of the villains that he spent his career attempting to put away. He retired in 1988 on the grounds of stress-induced ill-health, and continued to be a controversial figure for years afterwards. He was sufficiently well-known for the News of the World to publish an interview with him in 1994 entitled 'Bent or Brilliant?' If The Gold suggests that he is the former, there's still enough of the night about him, in Campbell Moore's nuanced performance, to leave doubts in both his colleagues' and the audience's mind. As Campbell Moore says, 'We meet him when he's at the very end of his career, he's hit an absolute brick wall. Then he's given a chance and in a way it's his dream job… I think he felt that it was very unjust that he was being treated like this by the force that he had served for such a long time.' Was the police enquiry really 'the longest and most expensive' in the Met's history? One of the running themes during both series of The Gold is the Met's Assistant Commissioner Gordan Stewart (Peter Davison) complaining vociferously about the cost and man hours of the ongoing Brink's-Mat investigation. In reality, the investigation did indeed drag on for decades. First, the police's search for the missing half of the gold was largely fruitless given that, as the show suggests, it was smelted down and reformed in untraceable fashion. Second, many of the villains involved in the heist absconded to countries that didn't have extradition treaties with Britain, including Spain – where the existing treaty expired in 1978, not to be renewed until 1985 – making attempts to remove or repatriate them nigh-on impossible. And finally, as with Lundy, there was the necessity of recruiting officers who not only had the skills needed but were also above suspicion. After all, there were considerable sums of illicit cash available for bribery purposes. Those recruited were generally ex-flying squad, an elite group of undercover officers hired both for their professionalism and ability to liaise with the criminal underworld without arousing suspicion. In the series, although Stewart's apparent aversion to Boyce's investigation is played up for dramatic purposes, the investigation was a protracted and costly process that lasted until 2001 – and therefore took 18 years from the initial heist – that became about the principle of recovering the gold or money as much as anything else. Who was John Palmer, really? John Palmer, as played by Tom Cullen, was a supporting figure in the first series of the show, and most significant as the robber who got away. Palmer, a West Country jewellery and bullion dealer, was acquitted at the Old Bailey after successfully claiming that he was unaware that the gold he was handling was stolen. When the second season starts, Palmer is apparently a successful businessman, whose Tenerife timeshare activities mean that he is to be found on the Sunday Times Rich List next to the Queen: a source of grave embarrassment for the Met, who are determined to nail him for his illegal activities. He therefore becomes the principal antagonist of the show. In reality, Palmer spent the 1990s a free man. In 1993, the High Court of Justice successfully applied for an injunction to freeze his assets, meaning that his extraordinary wealth (estimated at around £300 million at one point) could now be delved into more closely, and its origins properly analysed. Palmer, as The Gold suggests, remained a source of great interest for the international police, although his descent into cocaine-fuelled paranoia à la Henry Hill in Goodfellas is good old-fashioned dramatic invention, as are his suspiciously regular confrontations with Boyce. The real-life Palmer was convicted of fraud in 2001. He spent the next decade in and out of jail for various convictions. He was shot to death in 2015; two years later, a man volunteered to be interviewed about the crime. No-one, though, has been convicted of the killing. Is Douglas Baxter a real character? The most entertaining character on screen in the second series of The Gold is Joshua McGuire's self-righteous but corrupt financial advisor Douglas 'Dougie' Baxter, who becomes involved with various money launderers out of a mixture of greed and desperation. McGuire and Forsyth are having almost too much fun with Baxter, who keeps coming out with instantly quotable one-liners – 'I once asked for a Martini in a pub on the Isle of Man and the landlord came at me with a poker' – and if he really existed, he should be flattered (or horrified) by his presentation in the drama. In fact, Baxter is a composite, albeit all-too-believable, character: one link in the chain that is the international laundromat for dodgy cash. The presentation of the Isle of Man as a semi-corrupt tax haven where virtually every financial adviser is crooked may be broad, but the famously low-tax regime has certainly attracted some characters of dubious legality. Can the police really use the money from drug busts? When Stewart is moaning to Boyce about the costs of the investigation, the dogged detective suggests that, should the money be recovered from the criminals, it would then pass straight into the hands of the police force to offset the money spent on investigating them, as long as there might be some drug-related offence involved. Although this sounds like a particularly neat (or contrived) piece of dramatic invention, the Drug Trafficking Offences Act was a real piece of legislation that was introduced in 1986, as a result of Operation Julie: an attempt to recover the profits that were made from a major LSD-smuggling ring in the 1970s. The act was later replaced by the 1994 Drug Trafficking Act, which broadened the scope to suggest that a confiscation order of a defendant's assets might be made if they were found guilty of having received 'payment or any other reward' from drug-related activities. Therefore, while the original Brink's-Mat robbery had nothing to do with narcotics, by the time that the considerable sums of money being involved were being used to finance and facilitate international drug deals, it had inadvertently played right into the Met's hands. Did Kenneth Noye kill someone by accident in a road rage incident – or was it deliberate? The surprise reappearance of Jack Lowden's Kenneth Noye in Tenerife at the end of the show's third episode, asking a reluctant Palmer for help, was revealed in the programme's trailers, as otherwise it might have been a genuinely surprising twist. By the time that he re-enters the second series, Noye has been released on licence after serving eight years of his fourteen-year sentence for conspiracy charges, and promptly goes on the run after murdering a 21-year old motorist, Stephen Cameron, in what was widely reported as a road rage incident. The show implies that Noye had acted with deliberate intent. Noye, who is still alive – unlike many of the villains depicted in the show – was said to have been flattered by the casting of the charismatic Lowden in the first season; it will be interesting to see whether his reappearance leads to similar admiration. Are 'supergrasses' a real phenomenon? When the Comic Strip group released their comedy The Supergrass in 1985, in which a nobody boasts about being a successful drug smuggler and is mistaken for a police informant, the idea of the 'supergrass' was an unfamiliar one; so much so that they might have been believed to invent it. The 'grass' – or informant – has been a well-known feature of the legal system since the late 1930s, when the word was used to describe a police stooge; the expression came from the term 'snake in the grass'. But the term 'supergrass' first emerged in the early 1970s to denote someone whose knowledge might be able to crack open and convict whole criminal networks. But this idea was always more optimistic than anything else, and by around 1985, the term 'supergrass' had fallen into abeyance. The system was discontinued after a series of high-profile trials in Northern Ireland fell apart due to the 'bizarre, incredible and contradictory' statements of one such supergrass, and many of the informants' evidence was regarded as tainted. By the time that the second series of The Gold begins in the early 1990s, supergrasses were largely obsolete (although they would, of course, give their name to the Britpop band). Therefore, the late introduction of an old-school villain (who shall remain nameless here) who is secretly working for the police is a surprising throwback, as is the revelation of which of the central characters has been in charge of them. This epitomises the tense, at times compromised relationship between the police and criminals – and the blurred lines between the two – which becomes such a central feature of The Gold. The first season of the show was one of the most popular dramas on the BBC in the past few years, and there's no reason why the second instalment shouldn't recreate its success. But go in expecting dramatic invention, rather than documentary fact, and you won't be disappointed.
Telegraph
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Gold, series 2, review: bleaker, more desperate, but the show retains its sparkle
The first series of The Gold (BBC One), a drama about the 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery, was an accomplished piece with one major flaw: a soft spot for its chief villain. Everyone likes a Robin Hood figure, but Kenneth Noye is a convicted murderer who also stabbed a police officer to death. This isn't loveable rogue territory. The second series wisely avoids doing the same thing again. It differs in two ways. When Noye (Jack Lowden) eventually appears, he is now just a nasty piece of work. And the sequel is more interested in two other characters linked to the heist: John 'Goldfinger' Palmer and Charlie Miller. They're not exactly nice guys either, but they've got more nuance in storytelling terms. Cast your mind back to the ending of series one, and one of the final shots was of Miller (Sam Spruell) sunning himself on the Costa Del Sol. He was revealed to be one of the armed robbers, and that tied in with Scotland Yard's realisation that they had only ever been on the trail of half of the Brink's-Mat gold. Now they're going after the other 50 per cent – all £13 million of it – and the drama explores various theories, which range from stashing it down a Cornish tin mine to laundering the money through a former public schoolboy based in the British Virgin Islands. 'A lot of blokes in South London become villains to be big men in South London. I became a villain to get out of South London. I became a villain so that one day I wouldn't have to be a villain any more,' says Miller, but his unsophisticated ways soon tell and he finds out that acquiring wealth and knowing what to do with it are two separate things. Meanwhile, Palmer (Tom Cullen) is sitting pretty on the Sunday Times Rich List thanks – on paper at least – to his dodgy timeshare business. Unfortunately for him, he's a magnet for trouble. With the chauffeur, private jet and champagne comes cocaine, Russian gangsters, and angry pensioners fleeced out of their life savings. There are so many threads to the story, which freely admits to being based on theories rather than facts, and writer Neil Forsyth handles them with great skill. While it may lack the narrative drive of series one, it will keep you watching through the strength of the writing and the top-notch performances from everyone involved – Bafta nominations for Cullen and Spruell would be well-deserved. If the scenes in Tortola begin to drag, they are pepped up by a great turn from Joshua McGuire as Douglas Baxter, a prissy, disgraced lawyer who brings a welcome note of comedy. There's also a great little cameo from Phil Davis as a crime boss hankering after the good old days. The hunt for the gold is again led by Hugh Bonneville as Brian Boyce, the dogged detective who personifies everything that was good and proper about old-fashioned British policing. At the beginning, he's under pressure to wrap it up – this has been the longest and most expensive investigation in the history of the Met, and its failure has become an embarrassment. But Boyce presses on, aided by trusty colleagues Brightwell and Jennings (Charlotte Spencer and Emun Elliott) and new addition Tony Lundy (Stephen Campbell Moore). It's no spoiler to say the police never did find the gold. But nobody got clean away. Where series one was full of verve, this series has a bleaker, more desperate tone. Pulling off the heist was all well and good. This follow-up is about the reality of being on the run, and it's not much fun.
Wales Online
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
Inside Kenneth Noye's life post Brink's-Mat heist as BBC's The Gold returns
Inside Kenneth Noye's life post Brink's-Mat heist as BBC's The Gold returns Kenneth Noye was a key player in BBC's The Gold The Gold season two will be hitting screens today (June 8), airing this evening on BBC One at 9pm, as well as being available as a boxset on the BBC iPlayer, reports the Express. The story will see the investigation into the remaining half of the stolen Brink's-Mat gold and the police pursuit for justice to recover the huge haul. The Gold delves into the events surrounding the heist, where a group of armed men accidentally discovered £26million in gold bullion while attempting to rob the Brink's-Mat security depot near Heathrow Airport. Many of the main players from the first outing will be back in the frame, including criminal Kenneth Noye (played by Jack Lowden). Viewers are eager to learn more about the real-life story behind the world's largest heist and the subsequent fates of some of the key figures portrayed in the TV series, including Noye. The Gold is based on the real-life Brink's-Mat heist (Image: BBC ) Article continues below What happened to Kenneth Noye? After Brink's-Mat Noye was handed a 14-year prison sentence for his involvement in the robbery and was ordered to pay fines totalling £500,000 along with £200,000 in costs. However, he was released from prison in 1994 after serving just eight years of his sentence. In 1996, Noye fatally stabbed another motorist on an M25 slip road in Kent before fleeing the country. Two years later, he was located living in Spain and extradited to face trial for the crime. During the trial, Noye maintained that he had acted in self-defence during a fight with the victim, Stephen Cameron. After being found guilty by a jury, he was given a life sentence but was released on licence in 2019. Noye was filmed publicly speaking for the first time in 2023 when he commented on a portrait of himself sitting on a pile of gold bars, The Sun reported. Jack Lowden as Kenneth Noye in The Gold (Image: BBC ) In the video, Noye praised the painting which put a light spin on his involvement in the Brink's-Mat robbery. The painting also depicted a smelter in the background on one side and an aeroplane jetting off to a sunny location on the other. Former drug lord Stephen Mee painted the picture in 2011, with the artist and Noye discussing it at an exhibition held by the charity the AP Foundation to assist rehabilitating offenders. True crime author, journalist and writer Clarkson commented on the portrayal of Noye in the BBC series back in 2023: "He's a lot shorter than the actor. He is very down to earth and he is two people like most criminals. The Gold season 2 sees the return of Kenneth Noye (Image: BBC ) "He is at least two people. There's a fun bloke who loves partying, who's very good with - in his parlance - 'the birds' - and he's a good neighbour." Clarkson continued: "But the other side of him was the cold-blooded criminal, who we know all about, who's killed two people separately." Speaking about Noye's life post-prison, Clarkson said: "He gets out and is working on a book and he's going from being a reclusive criminal, who hates journalists, to the Prince Harry of the underworld, basically." Regarding Noye's apparent change of heart, the author stated: "He seems to have changed his complete attitude." Clarkson stated: "He was anti-journalists, reclusive, workaholic - renowned as a criminal workaholic who loves a scheme, loves a deal, going back to before Brink's-Mat." He continued: "But now, we're supposed to accept he's rehabilitated. I'll leave that for others to decide if he has and he also wants to be a bit of a celebrity - that surprised me enormously." Clarkson added: "For him, it's something he's thought through very carefully because he does nothing - apart from killing people - without thinking very carefully about it." Jack Lowden as Kenneth Noye in The Gold (Image: BBC ) The author argued that the BBC drama had portrayed real-life figures like Noye and Johnny Palmer in a softer light, transforming them into "likely lads" and "almost happy-go-lucky" characters. However, he noted that in some respects, the show did get surprisingly close to the true story. Clarkson pointed out smaller inaccuracies, such as the interior of Noye's house appearing more "lord of the manor" than the actual shag pile carpets and beige decor in his real home, which Clarkson had seen. He concluded: "I want to be more critical of the show than I really feel I can be. I didn't watch it for a bit. I could have watched it ages ago. Article continues below "But then I realised it is good and I realised that most people who watch TV are in their 60s and this seems to appeal to them. But there's another market that finds it fascinating because of the era in which it's set and the attitudes and the differences and even the retro outfits." The Curse of Brink's-Mat by Wensley Clarkson is available to buy now The Gold seasons 1 & 2 are streaming on the BBC iPlayer now
Wales Online
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
The Gold series 2 start date, cast, trailer and how to watch
The Gold series 2 start date, cast, trailer and how to watch The Gold will be back on screens very soon for a brand new series, and the BBC has teased it will be 'unpredictable' The BBC's critically acclaimed crime drama, The Gold, will make its highly anticipated return with a second season this month, and the broadcaster promises an "unpredictable" and "surprising" ride for viewers. The series draws inspiration from real-life events surrounding the 1983 Brink's-Mat heist and its subsequent investigation, which was first brought to life on screens in 2023 to a receptive audience. Now, the second instalment of the hit drama is due to land on BBC One, featuring many familiar faces and some newcomers. Here's what you can expect from The Gold season two, including the plot, full cast, and air date. What is The Gold series 2 about? The Gold (Image: BBC ) Season two will seamlessly pick up from where the season one finale left off, with a riveting narrative that delves deeper into the aftermath of the crime. Article continues below The full synopsis sets the tone for an enthralling second season: 'Following multiple court cases and convictions of some of those involved in the theft and handling of the Brink's-Mat gold, the police realised that they had only ever been on the trail of half of the money. 'Series two is inspired by some of the theories around what happened to the other half of the money. As the police investigation continues, it becomes a tense, high-stakes journey into international money laundering and organised crime. 'The Brink's-Mat Task Force embark on a series of dramatic manhunts as they desperately try to solve the longest and most expensive investigation in the history of the Metropolitan Police.' Elsewhere, Neil Forsyth, creator, writer and executive producer of The Gold, has teased what's to come, saying: 'The second series of The Gold picks up from the first series when the police realise they were only ever chasing half of the gold. 'This series follows the second half of the Brink's-Mat gold. It's also a story of the consequences faced by several of our key characters. The second and final part of The Gold sees the story of the Brink's-Mat robbery, and everything that stemmed from it, become even more expansive, surprising and international." Who is in the cast? Jack Lowden will reprise his role as robber Kenneth Noye (Image: BBC ) The eagerly anticipated second series of The Gold will see familiar faces return alongside fresh talent. Jack Lowden is set to reprise his role as Kenneth Noye, with Hugh Bonneville once again taking on the character of DCI Brian Boyce. Tom Cullen will continue as John Palmer, Peter Davison returns as Commissioner Gordon Stewart, and James Nelson-Joyce will be back as Brian Reader. The returning ensemble for the second season includes Charlotte Spencer, Emun Elliott, Stefanie Martini, Sam Spruell, Amanda Drew, and Silas Carson. Newcomer Tom Hughes joins the cast as Logan Campbell, while Stephen Campbell Moore steps into the shoes of Tony Lundy. Joshua McGuire features as Douglas Baxter, Tamsin Topolski takes on the role of Alice Harper, Rochelle Neil portrays Kadene, Antonia Desplat appears as Lena, and Lorna Brown embodies Lauretta. Thomas Coombes is set to take on the role of Jed Nixon, while Sean Teale will be joining the cast as Enrique, and Olivia Grant is also slated to appear in the second season, though her character's details remain under wraps. When is The Gold season two airing? The second series of The Gold is scheduled to premiere on BBC One on Sunday, 8 June at 9pm. The subsequent episode will air on Tuesday, 10 June, deviating from its usual Monday slot due to the Belgium vs Wales FIFA World Cup Group J qualifier being broadcast on Match of the Day Live. Fans can binge-watch all six episodes of The Gold's second season when they drop on BBC iPlayer on Sunday, 8 June at 6am. Each episode runs for a full hour. Will there be a third series of The Gold? It has been officially announced that there will not be a third series of The Gold, making the upcoming episodes the show's swansong. The final chapter of the Brink's-Mat heist narrative will unfold in the season two finale, with the authorities still unable to reclaim the majority of the stolen bullion, dubbed the "crime of the century". Neil Forsyth, the mastermind behind the series, commented: "I always saw The Gold as a two series show, following the two halves of the gold, so this will be the final series." Article continues below Viewers can tune in to watch The Gold starting from Sunday, 8 June at 9pm on BBC One, with the first series already available for streaming on BBC iPlayer. The Gold will begin airing on Sunday, 8 June at 9pm on BBC One. Series one is currently available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
