New drama The Gold will bring to life the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery, starring Dominic Cooper, Hugh Bonneville, Jack Lowden and Stefanie Martini.
Starting tomorrow on BBC One at 9pm, it depicts the £26m theft and the smelting of ingots by “Goldfinger” John Palmer. He was acquitted after saying he did not know the gold was stolen.
In an extract from Goldfinger and Me: Bullets, Bullion and Betrayal: John Palmer’s True Story, his wife Marnie reveals her memories of the heist...
There were two versions of the John Palmer story. The first version he hated: “Goldfinger”, the most ruthless criminal kingpin of his era – a tale of dirty money, racketeering, violence and intimidation.
The second version he revelled in: the working-class lad who became richer than the Queen – the ultimate 1980s “yuppie” who went from selling scrap to buying Learjets.
Both tales were true to a certain extent, but the real story fell somewhere in the middle.
John was well on his way to his first million by the time he was 25. He would sit down at the kitchen table and pull out a wad of notes from his bag. He was in love with cash. Often, with a wry smile, he would hold his earnings up to his face and breathe it in. “I love the way it smells,” he would say.
I would come across money hidden in socks in the wardrobe, under the bed, and even stuffed underneath our fitted drawers in the kitchen. The really valuable stuff would eventually be kept in a secret vault built into the cobbles in our stables.
His biggest early break was getting to know Garth Chappell. They set up a carpet business, moving on to selling old scrap before John came up with an idea that changed his life: he decided to build an industrial-scale smelter. He hit upon the idea because of the vast quantities of old gold that were being sold as scrap. All those unwanted gold teeth could become hugely desirable rings, he thought.
The smelter was made of huge bricks and corrugated iron. It took just a couple of days to build and was tucked in behind a stable, in a lean-to. John never saw any need to hide it. On the contrary, he was proud of the smelter. He enjoyed showing anyone and everyone.
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Unwanted cast-offs from dealers, merchants and car boot sales were transformed into sought-after jewellery.
However, the Brink’s-Mat gold was just too hot to handle; even John would come to rue the day it landed on
our doorstep.
The robbery would be a half a billion pound bonanza for the underworld, yet it left a 30-year trail of blood and ruined dozens of lives. “Fool’s Gold” was how it came to be bitterly referred to by associates of those involved. I, for one, can vouch for that description.
Anyone with half a brain would have told them that stealing the gold would be the easy bit. Making the loot vanish and turn to cash would be the true conjuring trick. It would be months before John got involved. The robbers had turned to crime boss Kenneth Noye, and his right-hand man Brian Reader, to fence the loot. It was then, via their Hatton Garden contacts, that our little business in the West Country was identified.
Noye and Reader knew the gold ingots had to be melted down to get rid of their traceable serial numbers, and that selling pure unidentified gold would be too suspicious. Noye started off sending a few ingots, before steadily increasing the amounts over a matter of weeks. Soon it was coming down the M4 thick and fast. Reader was also at one point said to have taken briefcases full of gold bars on the train from London to Bedminster, in Bristol.
It may sound naive, but I believe John and Garth didn’t initially realise they were handling Brink’s-Mat gold.
I’m not saying for one minute that the boys were squeaky clean, but their business was always dependent on a little bit of discretion. By the time they twigged, it was too late to pull out.
The ingots were beautiful; they glistened and were perfectly formed. I saw about 10 bars at the Coach House, but genuinely thought nothing of it as we were getting bagfuls of valuable jewellery coming in every day. Like everything else, the gold was shoved in with all the scrap. John would be dubbed a “mastermind” for turning the red-hot ingots into cold hard cash. But, as I saw with my own eyes, this was not rocket science. He just carried on doing what he always had done – mixing everything together with the unwanted jewellery.
John was worried about what he and Garth had got themselves into, but he never mentioned this to me. By that stage, there was no turning back. After the gold left our property, I really have no idea where it went. As much as 70% of the haul has never been traced and is said to be still sloshing around London’s criminal underworld and property market today.
Some of it was allegedly smuggled in Tupperware boxes to Britain from Holland, where it had been taken after the raid as part of an additional “earner” involving the VAT, but I honestly couldn’t see John getting involved in that. He could barely sign his own cheques.
In October 1984, I booked us a trip to Tenerife via Lunn Poly. I still have the receipt. I was so excited. We flew out in January 1985 on a two-week package deal. We had £1,000 in cash, two suitcases, and our two girls, Janie, then seven, and Sammy, still a baby. The sun was shining in January and the girls were having a lovely time paddling in the pool.
Unfortunately, our holiday bliss wouldn’t last long. A few days later a call came through on the hotel intercom for us to report to reception. The staff said I needed to call my mum urgently. I dialled home and my stepdad answered after barely half a ring.
“Your house, your house,” said my stepdad, breathlessly. “It’s the SAS, they’ve raided your house.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It made no sense. I screamed across the atrium at John to get on the phone.
“It’s the police,” my stepdad told John. “They’re at your home looking for the Brink’s-Mat gold. It’s all over the television and the reporters are saying police want to arrest you.”
The blood seemed to drain from his face, and he was shaking. “Don’t worry, love,” he said. I was thinking: “Don’t worry? Our world is falling apart!” Unbeknown to John, he and Garth had been under surveillance for months; police had been waiting for the right moment
to pounce.
The police drilled holes in the floor and walls looking for the bullion, but only recovered one bit of gold, left underneath a cushion on the settee. The police took everything they could; even our brand new Range Rover Vogue, which had arrived just a few weeks earlier.
However, despite the painstaking searches, I was delighted they failed to find our safe underneath the cobbles. I don’t think there was any Brink’s-Mat gold in there, but they did miss a good deal of our precious jewellery. John thought the sniffer dogs failed to catch the scent because there was so much horse hay and manure in the stables. Needless to say, I was white with shock at news of the raid. But John stayed pretty calm.
What happened next...
The couple stayed in Tenerife, with John remaining for 17 months, running a timeshare business, before trying to move to Brazil where police deported him back to England.
After his 1987 acquittal, he continued to accumulate wealth and in 1996 was named on the Sunday Times Rich List. In 2001 he was found guilty of masterminding a timeshare scam and jailed for eight years. Four years later, he was declared bankrupt with debts of £3.9m.
On June 24, 2015, he was assassinated as he stood outside his home in South Weald, Essex.
In May 1986 Chappell went on trial charged with handling the stolen gold.
He was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years and given a £200,000 fine.
Extracted by Sanjeeta Bains from Goldfinger and Me: Bullets, Bullion and Betrayal: John Palmer's True Story by Marnie Palmer, published by The History Press.
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