Roy Shaw

Royston Henry Shaw (born 11 March 1936 in Stepney, London), also known as Roy "Pretty Boy" Shaw, Roy "Mean Machine" Shaw and Roy West, is an English millionaire, real estate investor, author and businessman from the East End of London who was formerly a notorious criminal and Category A prisoner. During the 1970s-1980s, Shaw was a well known and respected figure in the criminal underworld of London and was frequently associated with the Kray twins. Shaw is perhaps best remembered today for his infamous careers as both a professional boxer and an unlicensed fighter, becoming a legend in bare-knuckle boxing and during which time he became arch-rival with the also legendary Lenny McLean.

Early life

Shaw was born in Stepney, London, to a working class family and from an early age was involved in unlawful behaviour. Before and outside of prison, Shaw has mainly lived in Bethnal Green. A reputed tough guy from an early age, he was acquainted with the Kray twins since at least the very early 1960s. Shaw attended the funeral of Reggie Kray in 2000, and was quoted as having said: "We grew up in the same era. They were into protection rackets and I was into blags. I never got in their way and they never got in mine. Ronnie was more of a friend than Reggie, but I've come along today because he was one of the 'chaps'. Today is like the end of an era. The Krays were legends."

Prison sentences

Shaw was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment for a record breaking armed robbery in 1963, one of England’s biggest armoured truck robberies. Shaw "pummelled" his way out of two different holding cells at Her Majesty’s Prison at Maidstone, assaulting a number of prison guards, the first recorded such instance of this in the British prison system.

Shaw, who claimed he "simply hates the system", and that the "system could never beat him", was consistently moved onto different prisons for the safety of others and spent time at the infamous Broadmoor Hospital, then known as Broadmoor Hospital for Criminally Insane, and generally believed to be the worst prison in Britain at the time, holding the worst offenders in the country. According to Shaw's 2007 autobiography, Pretty Boy, "uncontrollable prisoners, were deliberately drugged up with the aim of turning them into permanent 'cabbages'". At Broadmoor, Shaw underwent experimental electroconvulsive therapy in an attempt to control his temper. His doctor claimed that Shaw had at first come across as a large and intimidating yet soft-spoken gentlemen, but when faced with treatment he didn't want, Shaw became "the most powerful and dangerous man I have ever tried to treat." The doctor reported the treatments as having been a complete failure, and only served to make Shaw even more aggressive and unpredictable.

Shaw routinely stabbed informers and even slashed the throat of a former best friend while incarcerated due to his strong belief in a "code of honour" amongst criminals which must not be broken.

During his time in Broadmoor, Shaw again encountered Ronnie Kray, with whom he had long been acquainted since before their time in prison. Shaw also spent time with such characters as Ronnie Biggs and Charles Bronson behind bars. By 1974, Shaw had already spent around 18 years behind bars, and had spent time in over 22 different prisons.

Bareknuckle boxing career

Shaw started bare knuckle boxing in 1978, aged 42, and gained many infamous victories, including one over Donnie "The Bull" Adams. Roy also beat former world heavy weight contender Ron Stander, who had also previously fought Joe Frazier.

His fights with arch-rival Lenny "The Guvnor" McLean were described by critics as among the bloodiest of the century and drew massive crowds. Shaw beat McLean once, but lost in two other matches to "Britain's hardest man". Shaw has since claimed in his books that they fought only in two matches and not three (the autobiographies of the two men disagree on this point), and that McLean embellished his victories and was nothing more than a bully. However, Shaw has also on occasion stated a begruding respect for McLean and also admiration for McLean's record. According to research published in an online BBC news article regarding the history of the sport in London, McLean and Shaw did indeed fight three bouts, and not two.

At one point, Shaw was sent back behind bars for a series of petty crimes but escaped prison, and for a short time before being recaptured and while on the run from the law, Shaw continued his boxing career under the alias "Roy West".

Roy states on his website that the two unlicensed boxers he most admires are Cliff Fields, who also beat Lenny McLean, and Johnny Waldron who twice knocked out McLean, both times in the first round.

Roy Shaw's unlicensed fight record is - 11 Fights, 9 Wins, 8 K.O.s, 2 Losses, 0 Draws.

In other media

Press

Shaw was something of a minor celebrity in the tabloids in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which frequent articles were written on him, due to a pique of interest in British gangsters in the general public. Shaw has sometimes appeared in the press in recent years, such as his attending of Ronnie Kray's funeral or his 2009 court case (see 2009 court case section below).

Television

Shaw appeared on political debate television show Question Time in 1980, discussing the topics of crime and punishment. Archive footage of Shaw with the Kray twins has also popped up on occasion in documenaries on the Krays.

DVD

Shaw was the subject of a 2006 documentary DVD, released in the US by Entertainment Programs, Inc., entitled Roy Shaw: Brute Force. It was directed by Liam Galvin, produced by Gangster Videos and contained original footage of Shaw's unlicenced boxing matches, and also interviews with Shaw himself and other former criminal underworld figures and boxers he was associated with. Roy Shaw: Brute Force has sold over 26,262 copies on Amazon.com.

Internet

Shaw maintains his own official website (currently off-line), and has a MySpace page and a Facebook page. Numerous boxing bouts in which Shaw fought were recorded but were hidden for years due to their semi-legal nature at the time of recording, although many of these recordings have nowadays surfaced and become available for viewing on Youtube.

Books

Shaw has been mentioned or discussed in numerous books, most notably in arch-rival Lenny McLean's 1998 autobiography The Guv'Nor.

Shaw co-wrote a book with Kate Kray, the widow of Ronnie Kray, entitled Roy Shaw: Unleashed. The book was published by Blake Publishing and released on 23 May 2003, and currently has a sales rank of 747,208 on Amazon.com. The book is a collection of stories and anecdotes about the criminal underworld of London in the 1970s/1980s, as well as Shaw's boxing/bareknuckle boxing career.

Shaw's autobiography, entitled Pretty Boy, was also co-written by Kray. It goes into further detail Shaw's early life, personal and private life, time in prison, and also expanding on stories begun in his previous book. The new edition of Pretty Boy was published on 11 September 2007 by John Blake Publishing, and is currently classed as a bestseller of the crime/boxing biography genre (selling over six times as many copies as Lenny McLean's autobiography The Guv'Nor) on Amazon.com, with a sales rank of over 65,000.

Later life

Shaw, now aged 73, despite a number of relationships never married and still lives alone in Waltham Abbey, Essex, and keeps two Rottweilers as pets. He has recently become a millionare after selling off land in Chadwell Heath that had skyrocketed in value since he bought the land two decades before.

In 2000, Shaw was one of the most well-known mourners to attend the funeral of Ronnie Kray, a life-long friend. Shaw said of Kray: "Kray came from an era before drugs became common currency, when there was honor among thieves and few criminals double-crossed their friends. In those days there was loyalty. Nowadays they are all having each other over all the time."

Having served all his prison sentences, Shaw stated that he is going legitimate and is retired from both a life of crime and bareknuckle boxing. Shaw became a businessman and author with numerous financial and non-financial ventures, such as a bestselling autobiography. He co-produced and co-wrote the Roy Shaw: Brute Force documentary DVD, numerous internet ventures, and real estate investment. The land investments, something Shaw had actually been involved in since before his first prison sentence, were the ventures which eventually made Shaw a millionaire.

2009 land sale court case

Shaw formally owned highly valued land in Chadwell Heath, North East London, which he sold in a £2.6 million land sale in 2008. Shaw allegedly gave £643,000 of this to Linda Finnimore, 43, a former girlfriend he had met in Spain some two and a half decades earlier. Finnimore had managed Shaw's business affairs and acted as a manager when he was a boxer, and the two had allegedly enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle together. At one time Miss Finnimore called herself Linda Kray, claiming to be a daughter of Reggie Kray upon which Shaw would allegedly show her off to other underworld figures as a "trophy wife", although in reality the two never married.

After the sale of land in Chadwell Heath, Finnimore, who had remained amicable with Shaw before the sale, then proceeded to file a lawsuit with the High Court against Shaw. She claimed that he had broken their verbal contract that he would give her half of the £2.5 million, some £1.25 million of it, much more than the £643,000 she had received. Shaw claimed there was no such verbal contract, and that furthermore, he had not even authorised the money she had already taken from the land sale. Shaw had sole legal possession of the land when he sold it, and there was no written contract between Shaw and Finnimore regarding the land sale.

High Court judge Sir John Lindsay said both characters were part of a "criminal milieu... of villains and gangsters", and that Shaw had liked to "show her off as a girlfriend" and that Finnimore had been "untruthful" in her case evidence. Of Miss Finnimore, the judge said: "She, for whom the word 'feisty' could have been minted, is more educated than he and far more intelligent. Unfortunately, her considerable skills have not always been applied to acceptable purposes."

Judge Lindsay ultimately dismissed Miss Finnimore's claims against Shaw in March 2009 and ruled there was no such verbal contract and ordered Finnimore to repay the money, together with sums of £208,450, £20,000 and £57,000, plus interest. Shaw was awarded nearly £1 million in total. Judge Lindsay said that when it was put to Mr Shaw in court that he intended to transfer £643,000 to her, he replied: "Don't talk so silly - she took me for a right mug."

References

• Gerrard, Peter (1998). The Guv'nor. John Blake Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1857825705.

External links

• IMDB page
• Roy Shaw Myspace Profile

See also

• List of bare-knuckle boxers