Louisa Clarence-Smith
Mon, 23 October 2023
Dave Courtney started a security firm and gained notoriety for organising the security for the 1995 funeral of Ronnie Kray - ITV/Shutterstock
Friends mourning the death of the notorious gangster Dave Courtney remember him as a “gentleman”, but he was never far from a weapon.
At a digital clay pigeon shooting bar in the City of London where I was celebrating a friend’s birthday last year, he offered advice to fellow participants on how to hold a gun.
Impressed by a female friend’s attempts, he cheered: “Go on gel, you could be a gangster.”
Ticking off an instructor for his shooting poise, he grabbed the gun and wielded it like a sawn-off tool of gangland murder.
Mr Courtney, 64, was found dead by his best friend Brendan McGirr, 56, in bed on Sunday morning.
Police are investigating his death, but friends said they believe Mr Courtney took his own life.
When I met him unexpectedly last year he appeared to be enjoying life running a film-prop company, supporting his football club Charlton and gallivanting as a reformed celebrity gangster.
However, he was famous for his earlier life as a gangster with associates including the ruthless Kray twins behind the 1960s East End criminal empire.
Friends said Mr Courtney was capable of knocking people out with one punch with a knuckle duster - Alex Woods/Shutterstock
Thousands of tributes have poured in to friends and family of the larger-than-life character, who is rumoured to be the inspiration behind Vinnie Jones’s character in Guy Ritchie’s gangster film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Mr Courtney was born in Forest Hill, south east London, friends said. His mother, who is still alive, was a cub scout leader and his late father was a gas fitter.
He started a security firm and gained notoriety for organising the security for the 1995 funeral of Ronnie Kray. He also worked as a “debt collector”, said Mr McGirr.
Friends said that the Kray funeral effectively marked an end to his security firm because he became known to the police who told companies not to work with him.
He later reinvented himself in the entertainment industry. He starred in a film called Hell to Pay, published six books and starred in podcasts.
Mr Courtney had a reputation for repeatedly evading the law, claiming to have been found not guilty in 19 separate trials.
He has previously told journalists that he killed people, but was never convicted of murder. He spent time in jail, including at Belmarsh. Friends said he was on remand for assault for which he was later found innocent.
From painters to porn stars
Mr Courtney called his own gang “The Firm” and friends said loyal fans ranged from painters and plumbers to porn stars. Always by his side in recent years was Mr McGirr, his flatmate and business partner.
Mr McGirr said of his death: “I opened his bedroom door and he was slumped on the bed. But he looked at peace. He looked happy.”
He added: “I’ve lived in that world a long time. So you know, I’ve seen dead people before and I’ve seen people… so it wasn’t the shock that a normal person will probably feel.
“It was a relief for me to see someone I love at peace, because I’d seen him in so much pain for a long, long time. And I just kissed him and said thank you, and I’m eternally grateful. He has left me just so many good memories and so much love.”
Mr McGirr said: “He was the last era of gentleman gangsters.
“Like pirates, cowboys, knights in shining armour, they don’t exist anymore. They’re all now fictitious figures. That gangster world doesn’t exist anymore. The new gangsters are modern-day drug dealers. Drugs have changed the whole criminal era to a very ruthless, violent way of life.”
Another mourning friend of Mr Courtney, who didn’t want to be named, said: “Gangsters respect women, they respect elderly people, and they respect communities. The young ‘uns of today don’t. They don’t respect anyone.”
Friends said that while Mr Courtney diversified his career long ago, he never gave up his knuckle duster.
‘Lovable rogue’
“He was a lovable rogue,” Mr McGirr said. “A very crafty character. But he was always, on the day, if he had to be violent, if you want to use that term – if he had to apply violence to protect his own, or to do justice, he was exceptionally good at it.”
He said he was capable of knocking people out with one punch with a knuckle duster.
“He was still doing that up to about four months ago”, knocking out a young man who was “being rude and cheeky” at a bare-knuckle boxing show.
Mr McGirr said that his friends believed he “only ever used a fair amount of violence for what was needed at the time”.
“He wasn’t a bully,” he said. “He would bend over backwards to be exceptionally nice to everyone.” All the people he harmed had “antagonised him” and “left him no option but to make that decision”, he said.
Bunches of flowers were piled up outside Mr Courtney’s home on Monday afternoon, where police have taped off the premises.
Mr Courtney leaves behind five children. In a statement on Monday, his family said: “On October 22 Dave made the decision to ‘stop the ride’.
“He had lived an incredible, colourful rock-‘n’-roll life in which he touched the hearts of so many.
“The physical pain of living the lifestyle he chose, especially due to the pain of both cancer and arthritis in his later years, became too much.
“So, rather than be a burden to his family and friends, he chose to ‘stop the ride’ and take his way out.”
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