Inside ‘Sexy Beast’ life of bank robber Ronnie Knight, from peep shows to mixing with the Krays – and a soap legend wife
AS Ronnie Knight relaxed in the Spanish sunshine looking out over the blue Mediterranean sea from the pool of his mountain-side villa, he felt he was set up for life.
The original Sexy Beast was living the life, partying by night and topping up his tan by day — with a fortune to spend from the proceeds of Britain’s biggest-ever cash robbery.
Not bad for a working-class boy from Hoxton, in London’s East End.
But the good life on Spain’s Costa del Crime eventually dried up, and the heat from Scotland Yard resulted in him returning to Britain with The Sun to a cold British prison cell.
Knight ended up broke and living off a state pension before passing away aged 89 on Monday in a Cambridgeshire nursing home.
His surroundings were a far cry from the champagne lifestyle he led as a successful nightclub owner, married to Barbara Windsor and rubbing shoulders with celebrities.
Knight had battled with Parkinson’s disease for the last few years of his life and also had dementia, according to friends.
A family friend said: “His condition had deteriorated over the last few weeks.
“He got pneumonia and never recovered.”
Knight, who married and divorced three times, had been supported by his third ex-wife Sue Haylock during his illness, with the associate saying: “She remained a true and loyal friend and a tower of strength for him.”
Old friends and criminal accomplices last night paid tribute to the celebrity villain who denied ever being a gangster, preferring to be known as a “loveable rascal.”
Fred Foreman, who carried out the record-breaking £6million Security Express robbery with Knight in 1983, said: “He was a lovely man.
“Ronnie wasn’t a heavy but he was a lovable rogue who did what he had to do.
“He was always very pleasant to be around and loved to party.
“He was handsome, dressed smartly and was never short of female company.
“But the main woman in his life was Barbara — he loved her to bits.”
Maureen Flanagan, a former Page Three model and close friend of the Krays, said: “I knew Ronnie well through Barbara.
“Barbara loved him and she would always sing the old song You Made Me Love You to him.”
Knight loved rubbing shoulders with celebrities.
In his memoirs, Black Knight, he recalled meeting stars at a party thrown by drag artist Danny La Rue.
He wrote: “Noel Coward, tinkling away on the ivories . . . Roger Moore drew the girls like horseflies to a cow pat.”
It was a far cry from his East End roots growing up with a large family.
The Knights were friends with the Krays, who ruled the roost.
Ronnie committed minor offences in his youth while his brothers John and James were more seriously involved in crime.
But in 1961 he was jailed for 15 months for handling stolen goods.
At the time he was married to first wife June, with whom he had two children, Lorraine and Garry, but was seeing Barbara.
The pair first met when she noticed a smart-looking man in a lemon and grey Ford Zephyr driving slowly past her as she walked to a cafe in Stamford Hill, North London.
Knight later said: “I fancied her so much my front teeth ached.“
He called her at home and politely asked her out and the couple fell in love.
But she recalled: “There was still a lot I didn’t know.
“One day, having phoned to say he was coming round to see me, he didn’t turn up.
“I didn’t hear from him until late the next day, that he had been arrested and charged with receiving £3,000 worth of suit material.”
Babs ended up sitting in Stoke Newington Magistrates’ Court, in North London, listening to the case against her boyfriend — with Ronnie’s pregnant wife also present.
Barbara said: “I was shown another side of Ronnie — flash and arrogant.
“He showed no respect for the law, looking at the magistrate with a bored expression that said, ‘You’re wasting my time, you stupid old prat’.”
Despite her reservations, Dame Barbara, who died in December 2020 after also suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, married Knight in 1964.
But Knight’s dark side was always there.
As well as clubs, he also operated peep shows in London’s Soho.
‘I woke up that morning and thought, I’m going’
In 1970 Knight’s younger brother David was stabbed to death in a fight in a North London pub.
Alfredo “Italian Tony” Zomparelli pleaded self-defence and was jailed for four years for manslaughter.
Then, in September 1974, freed Zomparelli was shot dead at the Golden Goose arcade in Soho.
Six years later Knight was arrested for the murder after a hitman, George Bradshaw, claimed Knight had paid him £1,000 to carry out the killing.
Knight claimed Bradshaw was trying to frame him after earlier ripping him off with a dud £7,000 cheque.
Barbara saved Knight by keeping the cheque and producing it for his 1980 Old Bailey trial, where he was acquitted with hitman Nicky Gerard.
In his memoirs, Knight admitted paying Gerard to carry out the murder as payback for his brother’s death.
He retracted his confession when the double jeopardy law was brought in.
Barbara stood by Knight, and attended the Old Bailey trial.
But the couple’s unconventional marriage was falling apart, with Barbara having affairs with Carry On co-star Sid James and Knight enjoying affairs.
In 1975 he built a house in the mountains above Fuengirola overlooking the Mediterranean.
It became his bolt-hole after the Security Express robbery when he was part of a gang which broke into the company’s depot in Shoreditch, East London.
The raiders held up one guard at gunpoint and doused others in petrol before escaping with the mountain of cash.
Knight’s older brother John, now dead, was arrested soon afterwards and later jailed for 22 years for the robbery.
But Ronnie was one of the so-called “Famous Five” wanted for the Security Express heist who were holed up in Spain, which had no extradition treaty with the UK at the time.
Knight didn’t even say goodbye to Barbara when he fled to Spain, later saying she was “fixed on this showbusiness thing” and he knew he would be gone for some time.
He denied he had left the UK because of the robbery, saying: “I just woke up that morning and thought, I’m going.”
“The next morning, I woke up in brilliant sunshine.
“A couple of years later, Barbara phoned and said, ‘We should get a divorce.’ I said, ‘OK, mate.’ I got the papers through and I signed them.”
One of the group was Foreman, now 91, formerly known as the Managing Director of British Crime.
He said yesterday: “It was a fabulous lifestyle out there.
“There were restaurants and bars around Puerto Buenos where Ronnie loved to go.
“It was a very lively place and a great shame it all came on top.”
Two years after divorcing from Barbara in 1985, Knight married girlfriend Sue Haylock.
To save driving back to his villa at night, the high-profile Knight bought an apartment at a fabulous complex where the other robbers were living in Marbella — and inadvertently led Flying Squad detectives to them.
Foreman was bundled on a plane by Spanish police and flown back to the UK.
Knight, who owned a nightclub and Indian restaurant in Spain, ran into financial problems.
‘Money went and he was reduced to shoplifting’
After more than ten years on the run, in May 1994 he flew back to the UK with The Sun, claiming he wanted to see his sick mother Nellie before she died.
Knight was jailed for seven years after admitting handling £314,913 in robbery proceeds.
But his not guilty plea to robbery was accepted by the Crown.
He had earlier claimed: “Call me a convicted receiver of purloined goods, a baddie, a charmer or what you like.
“But armed robbery, real villainy, is not my scene.”
The Met Police’s flying squad were convinced Knight was directly involved in the robbery.
Knight served half of his sentence and had separated from third wife Sue by then.
He had a new partner, named Diane, and wrote several books — but money problems persisted.
Embarrassingly, he was caught shoplifting £40 worth of luxury items from a Waitrose in Brent Cross, North London, in 2000 — even though he had £270 in cash on him.
Knight was fined £200 with a warning he had narrowly escaped going back to jail.
He later moved to sheltered accommodation for the elderly in Cambridgeshire, surviving on state benefits, before moving into a nursing home as his Parkinson’s worsened.
Former Flying Squad commander John O’ Connor said: “In his prime, Knight was heavily engaged in receiving stolen goods and armed robbery.
“He loved the good life and mixing with celebrities.
“But all the money went and he was reduced to shoplifting.
“He was a prime example of someone living a life of crime and ending up with nothing out of it.
“The police, lawyers, taxman and other villains take it all.
“He made today’s equivalent of several million pounds from the Security Express robbery.
“But he had no idea what to do with the money afterwards and it was all frittered away.
“His is a classic example of how crime does not pay in the end.”