Kenneth Noye revelled in his image of a rags to riches businessman. But his wealth and luxury lifestyle was funded by crime, including his role in Britain's biggest robbery.

Born in Bexleyheath, Kent, he grew up with his father, who ran a post office, and his mother, who managed a dog-racing track.

He left school at 15 with a prodigious work ethic and was proud to have several jobs at once. He started delivering newspapers and milk, helping in shops, selling programmes at greyhound tracks and also had a spell as a newspaper vendor in central London.

But he was tempted by crime at an early age and was sent away for receiving stolen cars.

At the age of 23 he married Brenda, an engineer's daughter, and trained as a process artist in the print trade.

Booming business

During the 1970s he worked nightshifts in Fleet Street.

But he soon tired of working for others and decided to go it alone, setting up a haulage company in a run-down caravan behind a garage in West Kingsdown, Kent.

He then went into the building trade, and then property - most noticeably making a £300,000 profit from a US trailer park.

Yet he again ran foul of the law and in 1977 he was given an 18-month suspended sentence for receiving and possessing a shotgun.

But his business prospered. In 1980 Noye built a 10-bedroom mock Tudor mansion on 20 acres of land near West Kingsdown.

He also bought a villa in northern Cyprus and a £700,000 yacht.

Then on 26 November 1983, six gunmen burst into a warehouse near London's Heathrow Airport. They doused security guards in petrol and threatened to set them on fire before escaping with a fortune in precious metal, jewels and cash.

The Brinks Mat bullion robbers took 6,800 gold bars weighing three tons, platinum, diamonds and traveller's cheques. The haul was valued at £26,369,778.

As detectives hunted the gang, the gold was melted down and sold.

Gold bars

The following February, Anthony Black - a security guard "mole" - was sentenced to six years at the Old Bailey.

The net was closing on the robbers. In December 1984 two of the gang were convicted and given 25-year terms. A third accused man was cleared.

Suspicion was also falling on Noye. That year to he flew to Jersey with a bag containing £50,000 in £50 notes. He also bought 11 gold bars from a bank, took them away in a shopping bag and deposited them in a safe.

Then in January 1985, a Scotland Yard detective investigating the Brinks Mat robbery was stabbed to death in the grounds of Noye's West Kingsdown home. Eleven gold bars were found hidden around the premises.

Noye was charged with murdering John Fordham. But the jury at his trial cleared him on a majority verdict, deciding that he acted in self-defence.

But Noye was back in court in 1986 and, after an 11-week trial at the Old Bailey, was convicted of conspiring to handle gold from the Brinks Mat robbery and conspiring to evade VAT payments. "I hope you all die of cancer," he shouted at the jury.

Noye was sentenced to 14 years and fined £500,000 plus £200,000 costs.

One of his co-defendants - who was acquitted - was a 25-year-old asphalter from Islington called Thomas Adams.

Tommy Adams was later to became one of the leaders of London's most notorious crime gang, the A Team, and in 1998 he was jailed for seven years for masterminding a cannabis ring.

It may have been Noye's connections with the Adams family which persuaded Scotland Yard to throw an armed cordon around the Old Bailey during his trial and give the jurors escorts to prevent "nobbling".

On his release in 1994 Noye returned home and managed to keep a low profile for two years until his name, and face, was once again emblazoned on the front of the nation's tabloids in connection with the M25 murder.

For a professional criminal with such a high profile to lose his rag and kill a man in broad daylight was unusual to say the least.

But as the prosecution suggested at his trial, it appeared Noye's fiery temper, and his injured pride were ultimately his downfall.

Taking a hiding from a younger man was too much for him to cope with and he reacted by knifing Mr Cameron to death.

But despite his success, Noye left the UK in 1996, and the following year his wife sold a squash club which he owned in Dartford, Kent.

He was arrested in Spain in 1998, and was extradited to Britain for the murder trial of Mr Cameron.

M25 killer gets life

BBC News

April 14, 2000

A man who carried out a "road rage" killing is beginning a life sentence after being convicted of murder at the Old Bailey in London.

Kenneth Noye, 52, stabbed Stephen Cameron in the heart and liver as they fought on a slip road alongside the M25 motorway in 1996.

Noye had been angered by the driving of Mr Cameron's girlfriend, Danielle Cable, who had cut into the lane ahead of his Landrover.

When the vehicles came to a halt he got out and confronted Mr Cameron who died at the scene in the arms of Ms Cable.

After the killing Noye fled to the Costa del Sol in Spain where he was arrested in 1998 by British police.

Described by police as a "professional criminal", Noye had already been acquitted after a trial for stabbing an undercover policeman to death.

However, he served a 14-year jail term for handling proceeds from the UK's biggest robbery, the Brinks Mat bullion heist.

As the verdict was announced, Stephen Cameron's parents leapt up and hugged each other.

Outside the court, Mr Cameron's father, Ken, described the family's "torment" in the four years since the killing.

"The uncertainty of not knowing whether we would get justice for our son tore us apart," he told a news conference.

Danielle Cable's courage throughout the ordeal and the inquiry was praised by police after the trial ended on Friday.

"She watched her fiancé get stabbed to death when she was only 17," said Detective Superintendent Dennis McGookin.

"Her courage in sticking by the investigation and coming to court and giving evidence against a man like Kenneth Noye is somewhat outstanding, and is a great tribute to that young lady," he said.

The search for Kenneth Noye

BBC News

Friday, 14 April, 2000

A motorist cuts in front of another, there is a screech of brakes and an argument.

It happens countless times on the UK's increasingly busy roads.

But on the morning of Sunday 19 May 1996 it ended in death.

Stephen Cameron, 21, from Swanley, Kent, annoyed the driver of a Land Rover Discovery when his fiancée, who was driving, made a late lane change on a slip road near the junction of the M25 and M20.

The other driver got out, confronted Mr Cameron on the verge and stabbed him to death with a nine inch knife before driving off, leaving his 17-year-old fiancée Danielle Cable in shock.

May 1996: Police investigating the incident track 17,000 Land Rover Discoveries before finding one owned by Anthony Francis, allegedly a cover name for Noye.

June 1996: Noye flies to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and stays with his son Kevin, 22. Police there said he left shortly before British police contacted Turkish authorities about the Cameron murder.

November 1996: At an inquest, Dartford coroner Frank Warriner records a verdict of unlawful killing on Mr Cameron.

Throughout 1997 newspapers continued to speculate on Noye's whereabouts.

Various theories suggested he had undergone cosmetic surgery and was living in Brazil, was running a timeshare operation in northern Cyprus, or was financing a drug-smuggling ring in Russia.

July 1998: Police, acting on a tip-off from a holidaymaker, travel to Spain. British and Spanish detectives keep watch on a £470,000 villa near Cadiz.

The reconnaissance operation is backed up by experts from MI5 and the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham.

Stephen Cameron's girlfriend Danielle Cable is sent out disguised as a tourist and identifies Noye.

Friday 28 August 1998: 10.24pm: Police arrest Noye at a restaurant in the resort of Barbate as he eats a seafood meal with a female companion.

31 August: He appears in front of magistrates in Cadiz.

16 November: Noye promises to fight extradition at a preliminary hearing at the Spanish High Court in Madrid.

1 February 1999: His lawyer, Henry Milner, tells an extradition hearing in Madrid that Noye's arrest was illegal. He says he cannot face a fair trial in the UK because he has already undergone trial by media.

March: Noye's appeal against extradition is turned down by a panel of judges in Madrid.

21 May 1999: He appears for the first time at Dartford Magistrates' Court with armed police surrounding the building.

3 June 1999: He is remanded to Belmarsh prison, south-east London.

July 1999: Committed for trial at the Old Bailey.