John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer melted down the £26m Brink’s-Mat bullion in 1983 and became Britain’s richest villain with a champagne lifestyle.
The king of crime was as wealthy as the Queen and loved nothing more than splashing the cash when spending Christmases at Gleneagles where he was treated like royalty.
At the time, it was the biggest heist the world had ever seen and was chronicled by Broughty Ferry screenwriter Neil Forsyth in the six-part drama The Gold on BBC One.
A gang from south London carried out the robbery at Heathrow Airport’s Brink’s-Mat warehouse on November 26 1983 expecting to make off with about £3 million in cash.
The gang got much more than they bargained for when the piles of cash turned out to be 6,800 gold bars as well as a stash of £100,000 worth of cut and uncut diamonds.
The robbers were out of their depth and didn’t know what to do with the gold they stole.
They turned to crime boss Kenneth Noye.
And the one person he knew he could count on was his criminal associate Palmer, whose gold and jewellery dealing company in Bristol also handled stolen goods.
They were offered 25% by the gang to recycle the gold bars.
Palmer began smelting the gold in a garden shed at his home in Essex that was mixed with copper and brass to look like scrap gold which was then sold on to jewellers.
The net tightened.
Palmer evaded arrest in 1985 and moved to Tenerife where he turned his Brink’s-Mat gold into riches beyond his wildest dreams after setting up a timeshare business.
He was deported back to the UK but somehow, at his trial in 1987, Palmer managed to convince an Old Bailey jury that he did not know he was smelting Brink’s-Mat ingots.
£180 glasses of whisky at Gleneagles
Marnie Palmer – the wife of Palmer since 1975 – in her book Goldfinger and Me said the couple were at their most extravagant during the period between 1990 and 1998.
“We would have many holidays,” she said.
“There were three or four Christmases at the Gleneagles resort in Scotland.
“Neither of us played golf, but it was a lovely place, and very festive if you got snow.
“We would fly up in our jet and John would join us a few days later when he had wrapped up business.
“Our rooms were about £1,000 a night each, and we were very indulgent.
“We would have a raucous time of it, drinking posh Scotch whisky and dancing.
“They put on the most spectacular show for us, and the girls loved it.”
One year at Gleneagles, the couple were dressed as “Victorian-era aristocracy”.
“John was very generous during our stays there,” she said.
“One Christmas Eve, he bought a £180 glass of whisky.
“The waiters were so excited about it that he ordered them both a glass too.
“Dinners were always rounded off with the most expensive Cuban cigars available.
“John just loved the show of it all.
“The staff treated us all like royalty, probably because John was tipping so heavily.
“He loved pleasing those around him.”
Di Stefano thought he could get Brink’s-Mat villain off
The couple enjoyed a last holiday at Gleneagles before Palmer was arrested and accused of swindling 16,000 people out of millions of pounds in a timeshare “holiday con”.
Step forward Giovanni Di Stefano.
Di Stefano was also known locally for making a takeover bid for Dundee in March 1999 which the board declined after his links with Serbian warlord Arkan became public.
He was referred to as the “Devil’s Advocate” for representing high-profile criminals including Harold Shipman, Saddam Hussein, Jeffrey Bamber and Slobodan Milosevic.
He had some strong views on how Palmer might get out of these fraud charges.
In his book Killing Goldfinger, author Wensley Clarkson said Palmer was so impressed by Di Stefano’s brazen approach that he agreed to meet him.
He said: “Many believe that Palmer knew about Di Stefano’s own dodgy background but used it to guarantee he’d never blabber about Palmer’s criminal activities.
“Di Stefano was extremely dismissive of Palmer’s legal team and encouraged him to break the so-called ‘golden rule’ of the legal defence by presenting his own case.
“At first Palmer was reluctant to turn his back on the lawyers who’d so skilfully got him off those earlier Brink’s-Mat charges.
“Eventually Palmer used an excuse that his original lawyers were overcharging him.
“Which of course they were not.”
Palmer reckoned he’d found “a combination of Jack the Lad and Perry Mason” in Di Stefano who also seemed “incredibly upbeat about Palmer’s chance of an acquittal”.
Killing Goldfinger said Palmer also ignored cautious warnings from his own former lawyers, who dismissed Di Stefano as being “about as relevant to the law as a milkman”.
Palmer’s apartment close to the Old Bailey became the “nerve centre” for Palmer’s new defence team where Di Stefano had at least eight assistants working alongside him.
Clarkson wrote: “In many ways, Palmer looked on Di Stefano as a court jester.
“He found the Italian entertaining and he didn’t even bat an eyelid when Di Stefano said he was having a few problems at home and asked to stay at Palmer’s apartment.
“Palmer believed that Di Stefano was ‘good camouflage’ because his antics took the heat off Palmer in the run-up to the Old Bailey trial.
“Palmer was particularly amused by a televised press conference given by Di Stefano about another one of his ‘celebrity” clients before Palmer’s case had even commenced.”
Di Stefano borrowed Palmer’s Armani suit
Palmer laughed his head off while watching the TV appearance when he realised Di Stefano had raided his wardrobe and was wearing one of his £1,000 Armani suits.
Palmer was finally convicted in May 2001, and was jailed for eight years for the £33m timeshare con, which was said to have enabled him to amass a £300m fortune.
He was given three years by Judge Gerald Gordon to pay the £33m confiscation order to the Treasury while 360 fraud victims would get a share of £2m compensation.
Di Stefano said his client would appeal.
“It must be remembered that in this country there is a presumption of innocence,” he said, referring to the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery.
“When the jury find someone not guilty, you must respect this verdict and live by it, and not pick on people and target them.
“Brink’s-Mat will always be with him.
“I’m sad to say that his acquittal has led to a persecution rather than a prosecution.”
Asked whether Palmer was upset by the result, Di Stefano replied: “How would you feel if you received a gas bill for £33m?”
Di Stefano exposed a legal mistake and the £33m confiscation order was overturned by the appeal court in 2002 on the basis there had been “crucial flaws” in the procedure.
Palmer served just over half of his term.
What happened to John Palmer?
His wheeling-dealer lawyer’s stock had never been higher.
Di Stefano made more headlines after being offered a place on the Dundee FC board in August 2003 by owners Peter and Jimmy Marr following his previous takeover attempt.
What followed was one of the most remarkable periods in Dundee’s history including the capture of Italian superstar Fabrizio Ravanelli which shocked the football world.
Di Stefano wasn’t the white knight the Marr brothers had hoped for and they claimed his financial promises failed to materialise with the club almost going out of business.
It would later emerge he had no legal qualifications, at all.
Di Stefano was eventually jailed for 14 years in March 2013, after being convicted of offences including deception, fraud, and money laundering following a 78-day trial.
He was serving his sentence at HMP Highpoint in Suffolk when his former client was murdered on June 24 2015, at the age of 64, after being shot six times at his home.
Palmer’s murderer remains at large.
Forsyth is writing a second season of the BBC drama “which sees the consequences of the robbery and its aftermath grow only more surprising, dramatic and far-reaching”.
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