How self-confessed killer Freddie Foreman escaped justice for two murders and dumping another victim of the notorious Kray twins in the sea wrapped in chicken wire

SELF-confessed killer Freddie Foreman evaded justice despite repeatedly admitting to two murders and the disposal of another body that was never found.

Foreman died aged 94 on Saturday, October 10, 2026, after a short illness. He was living in a care home.

He has been widely mourned as a "legend" of the British underworld with his death branded the "end of an era."

But, Forman's nickname of "Brown Bread Fred" was based on a disturbing reality that saw him claim to have murdered two men and to have disposed of their bodies and those of two others by weighing them down in chicken wire out to sea.

The gruesome method prevented internal gasses making the bodies float up so they could be feasted upon by sea creatures,

Foreman (seen above in a screen grab of an ITV 2000 documentary confessing to murders) was a minder in the 1950s for London gang boss Billy Hill, known as the "King of the Underworld" and then later a hitman for the notorious Kray Twins.

He was also close to the Great Train robbers from an early age.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWOT1GH6QXk

Foreman married late wife Maureen (née Puttnam), in 1951, before they separated.

They had three children, former Eastenders actor Jamie, Gregory and Danielle, who were privately educated.

Foreman's first dodge of justice came in 1968 when he was found not guilty at the Old Bailey of the December 1966 killing of Frank “Mad Axeman” Mitchell.

Mitchell was a psychotic gangster who the Kray twins helped break out of Dartmoor prison, but he went on to become a liability so they wanted him gone.

Foreman was cleared due to not enough evidence and the lack of a body.

Justice caught up with him in March 1969 at the same court when he received a ten-year sentence for being an accessory to the murder of Jack “the Hat” McVitie, who had been stabbed to death by Reggie Kray at a party in Stoke Newington in 1967, by disposing of his body.

Ronnie Kray paid McVitie £1,000 to kill former associate Leslie “the Brain” Payne, but he failed to execute the hit.

After the murder in front of guests at the party, Kray associate Tony Lambrianou, wrapped the body in bedding in the back seat of a stolen car, which he used to take it away.

But, it ran out of petrol in Rotherhithe and he abandoned the vehicle.

Foreman was brought in to take over and took the body from the car to Newhaven, where the body was disposed of at sea and never found.

But, there were several witnesses to the murder and members of the Krays inner circle were cracked into turning prosecution witnesses, even about the body disposal chain of events.

While in custody, in November 1975, he was found not guilty at the same court of the murder of Tommy “Ginger” Marks, who shot dead outside Repton Boxing Club (above from Jim Linwood) in Bethnal Green in January 1965.

A lack of his positive identification led to the acquittal.

Foreman was released after six years of the ten-year stratech, relocating to the US on a fake passport to sell slot machines in Pennsylvania.

But, he returned to the UK to take part in the 1983 £6 million Security Express cash heist on Easter Monday.

He went on the run to Spain with Ronnie Knight, then husband of Barbara Windsor, who handled money from the robbery.

In 1989 justice caught up with him again when he was arrested on the Costa del Sol and extradited to the UK to be later sentenced to nine years for handling stolen money in connection with the robbery.

Foreman's celebrity gangster status was born after he was released from Maidstone prison in 1995.

In September 1996 his autobiography Respect was published in which he admitted to the murders of both Mitchell and Marks.

Foreman admitted he and his accomplice Alfie Gerrard, who died from a blood clot on August 5, 1980, after collapsing in a hotel lift in Brighton, had murdered Mitchell on Christmas Eve 1966.

Foreman said they got him into the back of a transit van where he was shot 12 to 15 times in the head.

Foreman then said he bound the body with chicken wire, which was weighted down and dumped in the English Channel. It has never been found.

He said Marks was killed in revenge for the non-fatal shooting in the groin of his late brother George Foreman. Although it is understood the real target was the late East End safe blower Jimmy Evans, who used Marks as a human shield.

Foreman told how Gerrard was also involved and they disposed of the body in the same manner with weighted chicken wire in the sea.

Despite admissions to these heinous crimes, Foreman could not be prosecuted due to the shield of the ancient UK common law rule of Double Jeopardy.

When Foreman published his shocking autobiography, English law strictly dictated that a person could not be tried twice for the same crime if they had already been acquitted.

When he boldly put his confessions in print, the police’s hands were legally tied.

But, when Foreman chillingly confessed to the murders in cold detail in ITV’s 2000 documentary, The Krays, it forced police to reopen their investigation into the murder of Mitchell.

As he had been found not guilty at the Old Bailey in 1968 he could not be tried again for the same crime, but he was arrested with charges of perjury and perverting the course of justice referred to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Frustratingly for police, the CPS decided there was not enough evidence to pursue the case.

It is understood Foreman told officers he had exaggerated his book and refused to cooperate further meaning there was not enough evidence.

The law was eventually reformed by the Criminal Justice Act 2003 to allow retrials based on new and compelling evidence, but by then, a wall of dead witnesses and missing forensic trails made new prosecutions extremely difficult.

Years later, Foreman admitted disposing of a fourth body using the chicken wire technique.

In 2015 during on-camera interviews for the 2015 British documentary The Krays—Kill Order, narrated by former Essex Boys associate Bernard O'Mahoney, Foreman said he got rid of the remains of Teddy Smith after he was murdered by the Kray twins.

Teddy Smith, a Kray firm associate and writer, had mysteriously vanished in 1967 following an argument with the twins.

It is understood that police did not even bother to interview the 83-year-old Foreman after the gruesome further admission.

He got away with two murders and a body disposal although served time over McVitie and the robbery.