Entertainment
Who was The Gold’s John Palmer and how was he involved in the Brink’s-Mat robbery?-Pierra Willix-Entertainment – Metro
His links to the heist are explored in the new BBC series.
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When six men carried out the infamous Brink’s-Mat robbery in 1983, they ended up involving countless others in their lucrative heist, a web of people that are explored in the new BBC series The Gold.
Launching tonight on BBC and iPlayer, the six-part series tells the story of how £26million worth of gold bullion, diamonds and cash was stolen from a warehouse near Heathrow Airport.
When it happened, it became the biggest robbery in history, worldwide.
Although the thieves expected to find £1million worth of foreign currency, what they ended up with left them trying to figure out what to do with their loot, and how they could actually make money off it.
One of the people whose help they enlisted was John Palmer, a career criminal who eventually amassed a jaw-dropping £300million fortune, some of which came from his assistance in melting down the bullions.
In the series he is played by Becoming Elizabeth’s Tom Cullen, while Prime Suspect 1973’s Stefanie Martini plays Palmer’s wife Marnie, who inadvertently finds herself wrapped up in what unfolds.
But decades after the robbery, in 2015, Palmer was shot and killed, with his murder still unsolved to this day.
Who was John Palmer?
John and Marnie Palmer were married for 40 years (Picture: Jones/REX Shutterstock)
One of seven children born in Solihull, Warwickshire, Palmer left school when he was 15 to become a roof tiler, and also sold paraffin from ‘the back of a lorry’.
In 1975 he married Marnie Ryan, whom he would remain with until his death 40 years later despite several reported attempts on her part to divorce.
He ran a gold and jewellery dealing company, Scadlynn Ltd, in Bristol with business partners Garth Victor Chappell and Terence Edward James Patch.
A few years before the Brink’s-Mat robbery, Palmer and Chappell had found themselves in trouble and were arrested and charged after obtaining credit on furniture by providing false references,
Palmer received a six-month suspended prison sentence.
How was he involved in the Brink’s-Mat robbery?
Alongside Palmer, Kenneth Noyce (Jack Lowden) helped melt down the bullions (Picture: BBC/ Tannadice Pictures/ Sally Mais)
Two years after the robbery, Palmer’s two partners were arrested for helping to melt down the gold from the robbery and try to pass it off as legitimate.
Police had been investigating the company’s records, which had been falsified, but before Palmer could also be arrested, he fled to Tenerife with his family days before the company was raided.
Eventually deported back home, he faced trial, and although he admitted to melting down gold bars from the robbery in his backyard, he successful argued he wasn’t aware they were stolen and managed to avoid a sentence.
Tom Cullen plays Palmer in the series (Picture: Getty Images)
His involvement also saw him pick up the nickname ‘Goldfinger’, a moniker his wife would later use as the title of her 2018 memoir about their life together.
However, Chappell wasn’t so lucky, and had earlier been sent to prison for a decade.
What happened to him?
Palmer was murdered at his home in Essex in 2015, with the case still unsolved (Picture: PA)
By the time of his death, Palmer’s luck with the law had run out.
In 2001 he was found guilty of masterminding ‘the largest timeshare fraud on record’ and jailed for eight years after swindling an estimated 20,000 people out of around £30 million.
While he served just over half his term, by the time he got out his once £300million fortune had been decimated, and he was declared bankrupt in 2005.
In 2007 he was again arrested on fraud charges, but two years later he was released after having never been charged.
The police investigation into the Brink’s-Mat robbery is explored in The Gold (Picture: BBC/Tannadice Pictures/Sally Mais)
But in June 2015, aged 64, Palmer was murdered in his home in Essex after being shot in the chest.
His true cause of death was only revealed in a post-mortem after the gunshot wounds to his chest were mistaken for wounds following his open heart surgery operation.
No-one has ever been charged with his murder.
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In 2018, Marnie said she had ‘given up hope’ the case would ever be solved, and asserted there was ‘more chance of Lord Lucan showing up than of police finding my [John’s] assassin’.
The cast of The Gold also includes Downton Abbey’s Hugh Boneville alongside Jack Lowden (Slow Horses), Dominic Cooper (The Preacher), Charlotte Spencer (The Duke), and Sean Harris (Southcliffe).
The Gold starts tonight at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer.
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