THE SUN
IT was an offer I could refuse. John “Goldfinger” Palmer, Britain’s richest criminal, sat surrounded by court papers at a desk in front of me and he wanted my help.
This confident geezer was the petty crook who went on to be worth £300million — as wealthy as the Queen.
He flew everywhere in his Learjet or a helicopter, owned a chateau in France, a huge property empire, a yacht and a fleet of supercars.
Yet on this cold day in early 2001 we were in a pokey little office near St Paul’s Cathedral just around the corner from the Old Bailey where he would soon be on trial for the largest timeshare scam ever.
Goldfinger was wearing a pin-striped Savile Row suit, deliberately-tailored a size too big because he always wore a bullet-proof vest under his hand-made shirt.
He’d summoned me for the meeting because at the time I had ducked out of journalism and was carving a new vocation in PR and word had reached him.
I was curious to see him up close so agreed.
He looked up at me and fixed me with an earnest look: “I want you to become my public relations man.
“I want you to tell the world that I am just a good businessman. I’m not a gangster.”
Not a gangster? It was all I could do to not burst out laughing
