‘I was going to cut his throat’: Ex-criminal enforcer turned bishop reveals how he planned to kill rapist
“I should have been dead many times,” says Pastor Mick Fleming.
The 57-year-old has survived several attempts on his life after working as an enforcer for the criminal underworld.
He narrowly avoided being killed in a drive-by shooting when he felt bullets “whizz” past his body. “I think that was the closest I came to be being murdered,” Mick tells Sky News.
He also survived his own attempt to kill himself when he pointed a gun at his head, pulled the trigger but the weapon failed to fire.
“I dropped the gun and I cried,” he says.
“It was the first time I’d cried since I was little boy.”
After years of violence and drug use, Mick says he had grown to “despise” himself.
He suffered two traumatic events growing up in Burnley, Lancashire, that sent his life spiralling into crime and substance abuse.
Aged 11, he says he was raped by a stranger in a park as he walked to school.
Mick Fleming pictured as a boy
“I felt a hand over my mouth and I was dragged into this bandstand,” Mick says.
“I was petrified. I still sometimes think about it. It hasn’t gone away.”
The next day, Mick was told his 20-year-old sister Ann had suffered a heart attack and died in her father’s arms.
“My dad came through the front door and shouted: ‘Come down, your sister’s dead’,” he says.
“It was cold and blunt… then he broke down. He was a tough guy my dad, but a nice man. I’d never seen him cry.”
Mick Fleming says he began dealing drugs as a teenager
Life of crime
Mick says he went “inward” and started imagining carrying out crimes like pickpocketing “to escape the real world”.
Soon after, he started stealing and dealing drugs as a teenager before working as an enforcer collecting debts for criminals.
He admits there was “a lot of violence” and that his family described him as “demonic” at that time. It was not until 2009 that his life changed.
Mick says he spent years dealing with drug abuse
Armed with a gun wrapped in a plastic bag, Mick went to collect a debt from a man outside a gym. But when he walked towards his target, he realised the man was holding hands with two little girls – and there appeared to be “light shining off their hands”.
“It was a really surreal moment,” he says. “I felt sick. I started to cough and splutter and I couldn’t see.
“I felt this thing in the pit of my stomach. It was a horrible, dark feeling – like a sickness.
“I got back in the car and drove round the corner into this little industrial unit and pulled over. I was throwing my guts up. There was blood everywhere. I looked like I’d been stabbed.”
Mick was an enforcer for the criminal underworld
It was at this point that Mick tried to shoot himself. After he failed, he was later admitted to a psychiatric unit.
“I’ve never had a drink or used drugs since,” Mick says. “I was on a road to recovery from that point on.”
Meeting his rapist – and the plan to kill him
Mick had been clean of drink and drugs for about a year when he says, by chance, he met the man who raped him.
He spotted his attacker in a McDonald’s restaurant. The man was drunk and Mick bought him a cup of tea.
“I knew it was him,” Mick says. “He didn’t know it was me.”
Mick arranged to meet the man the next day with the intention of killing him.
“I went back with a knife in my sock,” he says.
“I was going to cut his throat. I was going to kill him. Everything was building up inside me.”
Mick Fleming is known locally as Pastor Mick
As Mick walked towards the man, he says he imagined killing him, with “clear, vivid pictures” of the brutal act in his mind.
But instead of carrying it out, Mick says he sat down and listened to what the man had to say.
“I didn’t say anything,” Mick explains. “In that moment I got this real understanding. I thought: ‘I’m not going to live in your sin.’
“People say resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. That’s what I’d been doing.
“I didn’t grow to love the guy but, in the end, I can honestly say I didn’t hate him.”
Mick says the man died about two years later.
Becoming a priest
After leaving the psychiatric unit, Mick went on to achieve a degree in theology from the University of Manchester, overcoming difficulties he faced with dyslexia.
Now ordained as a priest and recently consecrated as a bishop, he is known locally as Pastor Mick and runs a charity called Church On The Street, helping people struggling in the cost of living crisis.
Among its services, the charity provides food, mental health support and Citizens’ Advice – and has recently had to start helping families pay for funerals.
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Church helping families in Burnley
“At the moment, it’s far, far worse than the pandemic,” he says. “It’s ordinary people with children who are in dire straits.”
He is also concerned about the impact of the cost of living on mental health and suicide risk.
“I’ve got NHS mental health teams working with us in our building. People can’t afford to have a funeral for their loved ones. It’s horrendous. We pay an undertaker to do the funerals for us and then I do the services for free.”
William and Kate met Pastor Mick during a visit to his charity last year
Meeting William and Kate
Mick’s work was recognised by royalty when Prince William and Kate visited the charity in January last year.
William has since written the foreword to Mick’s book – with a TV series about his life in the works – and he was invited to Kate’s Christmas carol concert in December.
“I got to pray for them which was quite an honour,” Mick says. “I really felt they’re going to need prayers.”
Mick believes William and Kate understand the problems people are facing with the cost of living despite their royal lifestyles.
“Obviously they haven’t experienced it but you don’t have to dead to be an undertaker, do you?” he says.
“They’ve got the ability to open doors and ask questions that need to be asked and point fingers in right directions.”
Mick – who was married with three children during his time as a criminal enforcer – says he has repaired relationships with his family over the years.
“I wasn’t a good father,” he says. “I have to live with that fact.
“I’d want it to be better with my children, that’s the truth. But it’s all right – my family have come to accept me, and love me, and care for me. It’s the best I can do.
“Some of it is my regret around my children. I wish I could turn the clock back with that but I can’t so I accept it and do the best with it.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
UK
How Britain’s most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective’s talk
Britain’s most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch.
Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink’s-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials.
Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink’s-Mat Gold in 2019, said: “I go outside and they say ‘he’s here’ and I say ‘who’s here’ and they say that table over there in the corner, that’s Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head.”
Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink’s-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold.
After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron.
“They said what are we going to do?” said Mr Brown.
“I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives.”
Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown. Pic: Robert Mulhern
Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink’s-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery.
Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery.
He said: “He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it.”
The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole.
Read more:
What happened to the Brink’s-Mat gold?
Kenneth Noye, left, and Stephen Cameron
Mr Brown, 86, said: “I went over to him and said ‘thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in’, but I don’t believe you’ve turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer.
“And he said ‘I want to make sure you don’t say I’ve been dealing drugs’ and I said ‘I’ve never said that Kenny’.”
The retired detective told Noye he wasn’t going to change his presentation just because he was there.
“He said ‘mate, I wouldn’t expect you to and I’ll come up [on stage] if you want me to’.
“Can you think how he’s turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that.”
The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I’d been told about the meeting.
A Sky News podcast told the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist in 2019
I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983.
“It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better,” said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean.
He said he chatted to one of the show’s writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more.
“They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I’m just very sad that that is what people will believe.
“And I couldn’t work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops.”
He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.
Oasis have reunited on stage for the first time in almost 16 years – with brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher sharing a high five and the briefest of hugs as they closed a performance that for fans was more than worth the wait.
After the split in 2009, for many years Noel said he would never go back – and for a long time, as the brothers exchanged insults through separate interviews (and on social media, for Liam), it seemed pretty unlikely to ever happen.
But now, here they are. As they walked out on stage at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, all eyes were on the Gallaghers for a sense of their relationship – dare we say it, friendship? – now after all these years.
There was no reference to their fall-out or making up, but the gestures were there – lifting hands together as they walked out for the first time.
The headline “OASIS REUNITED” was shown on stage at the gig. Pic: PA
Fans at the Oasis gig. Pic: PA
Headlines and tweets of speculation and then confirmation of the reunion filled the screens as the show started. “This is happening,” said one, repeatedly.
In the end, it was all about the music.
Liam has received criticism in the past for his voice not being what it once was during his solo or Beady Eye performances, but back on stage with his brother tonight he delivered exactly what fans would have hoped for – a raw, steely-eyed performance, snarling vocals, and the swagger that makes him arguably the greatest frontman of his day.
This was Oasis sounding almost as good as they ever have.
Fans sang along and held up their phones to film as Oasis performed. Pic: PA
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Oasis: ‘It’s good to be back’
They opened with Hello, because of course, “it’s good to be back”. And then Acquiesce, and those lyrics: “Because we need each other/ We believe in one another.”
The song is said to be about friendship in the wider sense, rather than their brotherly bond and sibling rivalry, but you can’t help but feel like it means something here.
Over two hours, they played favourite after favourite – including Morning Glory, Some Might Say, Cigarettes & Alcohol, Supersonic and Roll With It.
Liam Gallagher as Oasis takes to the stage in Cardiff. Pic: PA
In the mid-section, Liam takes his break for Noel to sing Talk Tonight, Half The World Away and Little By Little; the tempo slows but there is by no means a lull, with the fans singing all his words back to him.
Liam returns for hits including Stand By Me, Slide Away, Whatever and Live Forever, before sending the crowd wild (or even wilder) with Rock And Roll Star.
Noel Gallagher performing on stage. Pic: PA
An Oasis fan is pointing at the stage during the gig. Pic: PA
When the reunion announcement was made last summer, it quickly became overshadowed by the controversy of dynamic pricing causing prices to rocket. As he has done on X before, Liam addressed the issue on stage with a joke.
“Was it worth the £4,000 you paid for the ticket?” he shouted at one point. “Yeah,” the crowd shouts back; seemingly all is forgiven.
After Rock And Roll Star, the dream that very quickly became a reality for this band, Noel introduced the rest of the group, calling Bonehead a “legend”.
Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs of Oasis. Pic: PA
Liam Gallagher carried a tambourine in his mouth during the concert. Pic: PA
Then he acknowledges all their young fans, some who maybe weren’t even born when they split. “This one is for all the people in their 20s who’ve never seen us before, who’ve kept this shit going,” he says before the encore starts with The Masterplan.
Noel follows with Don’t Look Back In Anger, and the screens fill with Manchester bees in reference to the arena bombing and how the song became the sound of hope and defiance for the city afterwards.
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‘I’d have paid £10,000 to see them’
Two fans sat on their friends’ shoulders as Oasis performed. Pic: PA
During Wonderwall, there’s a nice touch as Liam sings to the crowd: “There are many things I would like to say to you, but I don’t speak Welsh.”
It is at the end of Champagne Supernova, which closes the set, that it happens; Noel puts down his guitar, and they come together for a high-five and a back-slap, a blink-and-you’d miss it hug.
Read more:
What you need to know about the Oasis tour
Liam Gallagher hits out at council after fans branded ‘rowdy’
“Right then, beautiful people, this is it,” Liam had told the crowd as he introduced the song just a few minutes earlier. “Nice one for putting up with us over the years.”
From the roar of the audience, it’s safe to say most people here would agree it’s been worth it.
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