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Dave Courtney - It’s a mixture of Ealing comedy, Lock Stock And Two Barrels and The Long Good Friday.

PEOM - That’s an interesting combination.

Dave Courtney - Yeah it is, I bring an element of realism to the film. I am a local Mr. Fix It, who wakes up one morning to find a letter on my pillow next to me, & I'm on my own in a locked house. You then see my day unfold without knowing what the letter says.

PEOM – The plot sounds complex.

Dave Courtney - Yeah, but it all makes sence at the end when you find out what the letter says.

PEOM - Your currently filming a feature film with Lee & Mat from 4Ground Media called 'Clubbing to Death' what's it about and how's it going?

Dave Courtney -It’s going really well. I shoot Deepak Verma (Eastenders) into a freezing cold lake the other day. I play a total cunt that owns the five biggest nightclubs in London.  I am supplying the drugs to all of them. However I get greedy and  decide to rip off  my supplier. Who happens to be a psychotic Mafia boss, played by my old mate Huey Morgan from The Fun Lovin Criminals.

PEOM - Are you happy with your acting abilities?

Dave Courtney - Yes I am. I am not trying to kid anyone and tell them that I am the best actor in the world, but I play a very good Dave Courtney. If I was asked to play Hamlet, in all honesty, I would probably fuck it up, but playing ‘Dave’, I’m all right.

PEOM - Have you had any formal training in acting or are you self-taught?

Dave Courtney - No, I’ve had no training. But please believe me the training of life gives you those skills. We are all very good actors.

When you’re up before a judge and you say you’re not guilty, when you are, and you walk out a free man. That’s acting.

So when it comes to doing it in front of a camera and someone says, "Look more ferocious Dave". That’s nothing in comparison to being in court and acting for your freedom.

PEOM – Do you find the acting process an ordeal?

Dave Courtney - No, I can do it with ease and confidence. You can always do another take if it goes wrong. But, like I said before, I have been in a situation where I haven’t had that opportunity to do a re-take.

Without being big headed, I am relaxed in front of the camera and that comes across in the film.

PEOM - You first came to the public’s attention in the BBC documentary, Bermondsey Boy, and then later, acting along side Leslie Grantham in The Paradise Club.

Was it working on those shows that gave you the taste for fame as opposed to infamy?

Dave Courtney - Notoriety is infectious my friend. At the beginning of notoriety, you are unaware of the minuses that come with it, only the plusses. Like getting laid a lot for a start.

The Bermondsey Boy was a documentary about a young man who was supposedly going to prison. I had a court case pending with seven witnesses against me. But due to the nature of the beast, I went for a plea of not guilty.

The filmmakers had permission from the Home Office to film me inside. They were going to film my wife to see if she stayed faithful to me. Then they would film me when I came out, to see if prison had worked. That was the synopsis of the documentary.

They filmed me as naughty as I could be before I went inside, with car repossessions, throwing squatters out, I was Rent-a-Clump. The filmmakers were giving me gear, LSD. With the aim of the documentary saying prison works, because I was meant to come out of the slammer a nice guy.

But with the intervention of God I was found not guilty. So the whole idea behind The Bermondsey Boy changed.

PEOM – When you say ‘with the intervention of God’, are you a religious person?

Dave Courtney - Yes, I am Christian. I am not ashamed about that. Listen, the Mafia are deeply religious. They always pray to God before and after they coup someone.

I am going to try to make this as sound as un-callous as possible. You shouldn’t mock what you don’t know. Only a fool does. If someone offers you a religion with a get out of jail free card, which I would consider the Christian faith to be. The number one thing is to repent and you will be forgiven.

You can do all the fuck you want all day, just as long you say a pray at the end of the night. I am not trying to mock religion. But in short, if someone offers you an acceptance into a gang, that might be right about heaven and hell, who’s going to turn it down, when it only cost’s you ten seconds a night?

PEOM - Do you pray every night?

Dave Courtney - For sure, I am not embarrassed by that either. Because I am joining a club for no money, that might stop me burning in hell for eternity.

Even if you’re not a gambler and the entrance to this club is kneeling down and putting your hands together, you’ve got nothing to lose. I would like to go more public with my religious beliefs.

PEOM – But aren’t you doing that just for your own personal gain?

Dave Courtney - I’m doing it from my heart.

PEOM - Was becoming more religious due to a life changing moment?

Dave Courtney - I was in a coma, I was fucked. Unless anyone has been in a coma, there aren’t any words in the dictionary that describe it.

When you hear the saying ‘He’s fighting for his life’, you don’t understand what it really means until you’re in a coma. You are literally fighting for your life, because a single breath is a struggle. At this point, dying is easier than living. You have to stay awake.

I ran out of gear in there. Something else carried on. I am not saying there was lights, angels,or God. I knew I had just run out of steam. I woke up four weeks later, alive and well. Something just kept me going during that time.

I was on a life support machine. You hear things, but no one knows that you can hear. I heard my mum getting me baptised, the priest giving me the last rites saying "He’s in no pain, he’s going to another place" and in my head I’m saying "Fuck off, I’m going nowhere". I was trying to open one eye to let the people know that I was alive.

PEOM – That has to be your biggest fight ever?

Dave Courtney - I cannot put it into perspective of anything else. I am not being cocky, but until my coma, I have never experienced panic before.

What might scare other people, doesn’t with me. I love being up the front. This automatically makes you leader material. No one wants to follow a coward. Not because I am the best fighter, half of the fellas I employ could kick the shit out of Dave Courtney.

The coma was madness, I experienced darkness and light. I didn’t know what day or week it was. Inside I was panicking, fearing about going back into the darkness.

PEOM – You’ve never experienced panic in the dock?

Dave Courtney - I love the dock, give me the dock any day. I panicked because three years before I went into the coma, I saw on TV a woman who kept her husband alive for 21 years on a life support machine. I turned round to my missus at the time, and said if that ever happens to me please pull the plug. Even if you get caught, you’ll only get a year inside. She promised that she would.

So when I was in my coma, all I could hear was the words of my missus telling me that she promised to pull the plug. I was trying to use ESP to stop her.

But after a few sun beds, a few flashy suits and my pretty girlfriend. People might think that the experience didn’t scare or hurt me, but it did.

PEOM - After an experience like that did you feel guilty about repossessing people’s goods?

Dave Courtney - No. I say this at my live shows, I like to think that I can justify all of my actions. It was easy, as a debt collector, because this person has robbed that person for half a million quid.

It doesn’t matter what methods I used to get the money back, because I had my Robin Hood hat on. The police obviously do not look at it like that.

PEOM –In the documentary (Bermondsey Boy) you showed a softer side, with the pity you had for one particular old boy who had a small gambling debt.

Dave Courtney - For sure, everyone has bad days at work. One day PEOM might have to interview a paedophile, but you will still have to smile and have tea with him. You won’t enjoy it, it’s just a work face.

PEOM - During Bermondsey Boy you were involved in a heavy court case involving a dispute at the Queen's Reservoir Club.

How did you handle the seriousness of the situation, did it add to the occasion?

Dave Courtney – During my debt collecting and doorman phase. I was on the "Get a load of me" trip, so I enjoyed all the attention

PEOM - You’ve made a film, ‘Hell to Pay’, which you funded. You used real life people playing roles they would do in every day life. Debt collectors playing debt collectors.

You used professional actor's such as Bill Murray. What was behind the idea getting him involved?

Dave Courtney - In my little warped brain Bill Murray was used in Hell to Pay, because of the fame he had achieved as DS Beech, the bent copper in The Bill. In the movie, he plays my big brother, who falsely accuses me of being a grass.

I rate Bill as an actor. He’s good at playing, sneaky, slippery and underhanded characters.

PEOM - Did you find it a struggle making Hell to Pay or did you enjoy the whole filming process?

Dave Courtney - I enjoyed the whole process. I’m afraid to say it again, but I naturally fall into a leadership role. You are born, soldiers and leaders. No one is more important than the other. A leader ain’t no good if he hasn’t got good soldiers around him, and vice versa.

It was easy for me during the filming to order people to have this done and that done, as I would in real life. It was just a job. Just as long as I’m in charge then I’ll get it done.

PEOM – How long did Hell to Pay take to make?

Dave Courtney - Six to seven weeks

PEOM – That was quick.

Dave Courtney - There was no fucking about on set. It was more or less first take every time. The ones that fucked up weren’t used in the film.

PEOM - Do you think Hell to Pay being written and made by real life gangsters, gave the audience a better portrayal of the lifestyle?

Dave Courtney - In all honesty, if you made a film that was a true portrayal of a gangster’s life, it would be a very boring film. The gangster world is only glamorous on paper or screen. It’s an image that people love.

I drive out of this house sometimes, wearing a two grand suit in a roller, but I ain’t got a pint of milk in the fridge, but I look the part.

I don’t want to sound mushy, millions now know me through the world because of the Internet. I am seen as a un-moralistic wanker, I take that very seriously. If you want to do that to me, I will try my hardest to be that for you.

I live in the house you expect me to live in. I will dress the way you expect me to dress. I am in the unenviable position where I have to practice what I preach and that is not nice. Because I'm a silly romantic fool, I will try to strive to be that for you.

Now I’m painting big pictures of myself on the side of the house, but I am not being a wanker. Where as far as the police are concerned, their main objective is to give me a hard time and make out that crime don’t pay. But Courtney is making it look like a career option.

PEOM – Dave Courtney has become an icon?

Dave Courtney - Eyesore more like. I am aware of what other people think of me, that is why I stupidly be what people want me to be. But I don’t think that I am an icon. I’m doing this interview in my under pants for you.

I know what the public thinks of me, I don’t want to let them down and say I’m not that.

PEOM – But you don’t have to.

Dave Courtney - If you say so.

PEOM - Going to back to gangster films. You say that a true portrayal would be boring. In that case, don’t you think the public should get a better understanding of the dark side of the life?

Dave Courtney - No, not really. Because they are given all that by the media in every single sense of the word, on the radio in the newspapers and the TV. You will get more than the truth of the downside of crime, you’ll get what scum and shit we all are.

Film is purely what it is, a film. It’s only very young people that think that real life is really like that.

Gangster is a historical word, same as knights in shining armour, cowboys and pirates. They are all romantic, naughty men. Most naughty men look after their own community.

What’s made it big for me, is my choice of colour of my girlfriend, which has given me an extra 20 million bad boys that all the other super gangsters didn’t want. I don’t have to go to the States and say I like black people because they already know that, because of my girlfriend.

PEOM – So Dave Courtney is successful in the States?

Dave Courtney - If I could bottle a fart they would buy it. I’m out there to live very soon.

PEOM – Would you like to be a huge success in the States?

Dave Courtney - I would just like to go there and use my full potential of what I can do. In the States, if you’re an author and you have a number one selling book, it will earn whatever, same as a number one selling record.

It’s the land of opportunity. They’ve made a peanut farmer President. I’m an author, made an album, made my own film and I can do stand up. I’ll juggle midgets if they want, I am multi-talented.

PEOM – New York or LA?

Dave Courtney – Both, I’ll have to commute.

PEOM - You state that a person is born naughty/bad. Even your headmaster Mr. Gerrard said that you would cause your wife, mother, and the police a lot of heartache.

Do you believe that is the case, was your headmaster right in his assessment of you?

Dave Courtney - Yes. People are born naughty. Mr Gerrard was right about me, because he had seen children, due his to job.

Whatever your profession is, you can learn early on what mistakes are. If you’re a builder you know if the foundations aren’t right. It doesn’t matter how nice the wall paper is, you know it’s falling down.

Headmasters study children, and they know from an early age what children are going to be as adults. So when he met me, he knew exactly what I would become.

You are born naughty. You can’t stand up in front of a judge, and say "There were no green areas for me to play on" or "The classroom's were packed when I was a kid, that’s why I robbed the post office your honour." It don’t cut it with him and certainly don’t cut it with me. It’s only do-gooders that say the opposite.

PEOM - In your youth, was it watching films like Angels with Dirty Faces with James Cagney or the kid down your street driving the flash car that inspired you to become a ‘bad boy’. On the other hand, did you just fancy it?

Dave Courtney - I always wanted more then I knew I was ever going to get doing a nine to five. I was spoilt as a youngster earning good money, through little misdemeanours. Not realising the value of money, I was actually nicking more money than my dad was earning to run a family of four.

I also learnt at an early age, that being the court jester was the best going through life in any situation, be it school, be it family or prison

PEOM – Were you the funniest kid in your classroom then?

Dave Courtney - I like to think I was, I wasn’t the hardest. I liked a giggle.

PEOM – What about the influence of the gangster films of James Cagney?

Dave Courtney – I am not afraid to admit it, but I would bang one over him on tape. But the film that I love is Scarface, that film has a lot to answer for. If any gangster film has ever had influence over the youth, it’s that film.

PEOM - Would you like to make a gangster classic like Scarface?

Dave Courtney - Of course I would. But I would be stopped in this country from getting on. The authorities don’t want to show that crime pays or make it look glamorous.

I know how many books I have sold, because I get paid for them. This month I’ve sold 17,236. I look in the top ten best sellers, and the number one seller has sold 14,000. I am not even in the top ten, let alone the number one spot.

The managers of WH Smith's have told me that my books have come in. They have to keep them wrapped and send them back after two months to my publishers (Virgin), and say they haven’t been sold. My film has been banned from Blockbuster. It’s hard to get hold of Hell to Pay.

The police turn up to my live shows, and say to me "You’re coming for a licence in two months time, you won’t fucking get it." I get all this aggro all the time.

PEOM – That’s annoying

Dave Courtney - Is it really, fucking tell me about it.

PEOM - I understand that you were a skinhead in your younger days. Did you wreck havoc on the streets of your birthplace Bermondsey?

Dave Courtney - I was too busy, giggling and having a laugh.

PEOM - You certainly dress well. Were you a stylish skinhead or just simple boots and braces with a grade one?

Dave Courtney - I’ve always been very clothes worthy. Even though the saying "You can’t judge a book by it’s cover", is true. But you do go on your first impressions I’m afraid.

This might go against the grain. I am very old fashioned, you should always have shining shoes, fucking creases in your trousers and you should have a short haircut.

PEOM – Sorry, I’ve got long hair.

Dave Courtney – And you’ve got no fucking creases in your trousers. I am also an admirer of the military, not the regime, but the input it has into a man’s personality.

You’ve got all these people saying they should bring back national service. They don’t mean they want the youth of today going to war. What they are saying is, that they want the youth of today at an impressionable age to be locked away from all their privileges. Mum, Dad, money, girlfriends, the lot.

You order the same clothes, same food, have the same haircut but you appreciate a man’s worth. Which makes you stop to think if you want to punch someone in the mouth.

You’re a good tank driver, but that cunt is a good sniper, right? Even though he fucks you off, you’ve got to learn to turn the other cheek.

Once you’ve been locked away for three years from all your privileges you learn men. So when you come out in the general public, you’ve learnt a lot of things. The only thing equivalent to that in the learning process is prison.

You go to prison or the army, you come out with extra gifts that you couldn’t have had in life without going there.

PEOM - Such as?

Dave Courtney - Like I said, you learn men. You learn what their disguises are. When you’re living 24 hours a day with a man, you see a man more than his wife does. You understand what I mean? You only see your wife 12 hours a day because of work.

A geezer living with you in prison, day and night, 24 hours day for 3 years. He knows you.

In prison, you get people who are shy, he tries so hard not to be shy, that you think that he’s an extrovert. You get people that are such a fucking wanker, they try so hard not to look a wanker. You get blokes who are gay and go on about shagging birds. But you learn to see through those disguises. So when you come out in the general public, you see through these disguises and you’ll know what he's hiding.

PEOM - Was your first taste of violence, a baptism of blood?

Dave Courtney - I am afraid not. I'd like to say I’m a real fucking warmonger, but I’m not. I was a bit above average at doing it on the cobbles.

I was lucky when I was doing my fighting that people that would fight for death for me, such as Seymour, who has always surrounded me.

Morale is probably the most important weapon an army can have, and I mean that. In the Alamo, you can fight the whole Mexican army if your fucking morale is high. I’ve been lucky throughout my life, to have been surrounded by people who make me feel like that.

PEOM - In your book Stop The Ride, I Want To Get Off, you state that you prefer to use the threat of violence as opposed to the actual use of violence.

Did you find that having your name going before you, you got people to do what you wanted ?

Dave Courtney - Yes, having my name go before and the reputation of the people standing beside me did. I can’t actually take all the credit for this Dave Courtney thing. I am not going to sit back, rest on my laurels, and say "get a load of me". Because I am into all for one and one for all. I genuinely believe that.

You cannot be a fucking proper little firm of people, if not everyone is going to have it. Fuck that. And the police are fully aware of that.

A process has happened in England. After the war years, the whole nation was known as a bulldog nation. Because we said things like "Loose lips sink ships", "Walls have ears" and "One spy is more dangerous then 10,000 men".

That was a terrible time to be a policeman, because everyone that they caught didn’t say fuck all about anyone. Why? Because it was ingrained into us not to be a grass.

In the last 20 years or so, the police have slowly caught up. If you had told me 20 years ago, that there would a programme on every TV station at prime time saying, "Have you seen this geezer, just ring up and I’ll give you some money. Here’s another two blokes, just ring me and we’ll catch them as well".

20 years ago, I would have laughed in your face. Now there is a grass line for car tax, grass line for drugs, grass line for guns. So now, it’s ingrained into the nation that it’s not bad to grass. There has to be backlash in turning a nation like this into a nation of grasses

It’s only because that I am well travelled that I understand. It’s a small island with a small island mentality, making it easy to put a little dome over the country, brainwashing it into thinking what they want you to think.

No disrespect to you journalists, but you are purely a weapon for the authorities to portray what they want you to portray. Unless you’re the editor.

PEOM – Which I am.

Dave Courtney - OK, I’ll shut my mouth. If the Chief of the Police comes round to you and says "I don’t want that in please, don’t tell Dave that I’ve been round here." You would phone me up and tell me that he said that, because you don’t want to make an enemy out of me.

PEOM – Of course I would.

Dave Courtney - I love you for saying that but that is what happens.

PEOM – Going back to your former career, is there still a camaraderie between criminals?

Dave Courtney - It’s gone I’m afraid, with the influx of drugs into the crime world. If you had twenty criminals around you, twenty years ago. You would have had a hijacker, a shoplifter, a car thief, a fucking safe cracker, a bank robber, a get away driver, you name it, they were there.

Now that the financial reward is so vast, everyone is involved with narcotics. I’m afraid with the influx of so much money, everyone’s morals are bent.

It’s a bit neanderthal to think that the best fighter was in charge of the firm years ago. You’re the best fighter, you’re the boss, but that’s not always the way.

Now you get some little prick who knows a few fucking phone numbers, a couple of phone calls a month and earns himself a million pounds per month from drugs. He can pay someone 5 or 10 grand to get someone wasted. It means nothing to him. It’s fucked up the whole gangster world.

The influx of the foreign naughty men that are in this country now hasn’t helped.

PEOM - Do you think nowadays it is the Eastern European gangs that run most of England’s underworld?

Without going into conspiracy theories that the British government have allowed these gangs to grow in force by very heavy back handers

Dave Courtney - I think they might have bitten off a little bit more than they can chew, where the Russians are concerned. It was a major part in my deciding to stop the ride, I want to get off.

I don’t mind fighting when the odds are against me, in fact I look for them. But we’re just every day criminals, they’re not. They are highly trained KGB agents, who all got the sack on the same day.

They are not over here, flipping burgers in Macdonald’s. They are cleverly, long term planning, to take over here. They are putting their kids through Oxford, Cambridge, because they are earning more money than us.

England holds the value of human life very high. You’ll get a smack in the mouth if you do something wrong. In Moscow, Albania, Poland, or whatever, you’ll get shot mate. Now they are all over here.

You take someone from a war torn country, that’s been fucking mutilating people all day, every day for the last fifteen years. You piss him up and put him at the bottom of your road with a chamy leather. You think that he is a wanker.

He’s killed more people then you’ll ever know. So now, he is washing cars for pennies. So if you go to him and say here’s a grand, drive to Sheffield, shoot this bloke his name is Bill Smith, he can’t even say Bill Smith.

He thinks well I’m standing here collecting buckets, and he is paying me a grand for something that I used to do all the time at home. I was doing ten a day at home for nothing you prick.

He drives there, shoots the cunt, whose name he can’t even pronounce. The fella who was shot can’t identify the fella and the cops don’t know him. How the fuck do you ever catch that bloke?

Now you can buy a gun of your choice. I remember buying guns, you could choose what calibre maybe, but you couldn’t choose what gun you wanted. The guns you bought were so old, there was a keyring at the end of it from the War. Now they are coming through by the weight, by the tonnage, with laser sights. Now the guns look like something out of Star Trek.

What do you want a gun for? Killing people or scaring people. It’s got to be kill, because guns don’t scare people any more.

If you have a look on a computer game, you’ve got this as a weapon and they’ve got that. No one would pick England to win their fight. Stop the ride I want to get off, no in fact I’ll go to America thank you very much. Bye.

PEOM - It seems that you lead a colourful life consisting of burgling, hijacking of lorries, prize-fighting, and debt collecting

Your collar wasn’t felt until an incident on New Years Eve 1979 involving you, a sword and a Chinese waiter. This lead to your first spell in prison. Did you feel that going to prison was a case of earning your stripes?

Dave Courtney - No I didn’t see that I was earning my stripes. Listen, you don’t learn nothing in life, unless it hurts you. You touch a hot kettle and it burns you, so you’ll know that you don’t touch it again.

At the time it is hurting you, by hook or by crook you stop the pain, but you never learn the fucking lesson until later.

PEOM – How did you handle every day?

Dave Courtney - I was the court jester, that was my job.

PEOM – The court jester?

Dave Courtney - My job was to make you laugh. Whether you were IRA, gay, black, white, or whatever. Everyone liked it, no one wanted to fight me. Fighting was an everyday thing.

If you were black, the whites wanted to fight you. If you were white, the blacks wanted to fight you. If you were IRA, they wanted to fight you for that. If you wanted to do your bird quietly and go home, they would fight you just for that. If you were the flash cunt who liked fighting, you were worth beating up because you were the flash cunt. I was the court jester, they all liked Dave, and I’ve carried that throughout my life.

PEOM - Was the idea of being a writer something you wanted to do from an early age?

Dave Courtney - Try and explain to my English teacher that Dave Courtney would write six best sellers. He would call you a fucking prick.

With regard to writing, I’m afraid I have to as much as I don’t like to. But you’ve have put it on me. I’ve got to be honest I don’t have a ghost writer. What I do with my book, is this. I talk into a tape recorder, I talk into it with as much passion as I am talking about me, as I do here with you, because I’m fucking telling you, because I want you to know.

Whoever it is puts on the headphones and they type out what I say word for word. None of my books are ever going to win anything for English literature, but they do come out how I told it to you.

The reason I have done this is because there are a lot of these ‘celebrity gangsters’ that have said things to me. As I have walked away, I have thought what a fucking proper nugget of wisdom that was.

Then I’ve seen the same thing they’ve told me in their book, and it’s worded different.

Because they have a ghost-writer. The geezer has spent pages saying one thing that could have been said on one page. A writer is a writer, he wants to flair it up.

I personally think that the best way for me to get my feelings over is to say it how I speak it. I’m not posh, but at least you understand what I mean. That’s why I defend myself in court, fourteen not guilties.

I am not paying some cunt a vast amount of money to argue on my behalf. If he fucking loses, I’ll go to prison. Shut the fuck up, I’ll argue for me. "I’m sorry if I was swearing your honour, but if I want to say not so fucking likely, there is not another word that fits in there".

PEOM – What about acting, do you think you could have gone into acting at an early age in light of your court jester persona?

Dave Courtney - If I had of known earlier, yea I would have done. I got a part in the TV show The Paradise Club and everyone was saying, "This is for you, if not the acting bit, the entertainment game, stand up comedian bit".

Leslie Grantham, (star of the show), said to me that he was just playing me. A South London night-club owner, who is a cheeky chappy, and he was getting paid two and half grand a week for it.

Then I had a big fight, where my nose was bitten off, which made the front page of The Sun.

PEOM – Yea, The Sun gave you a hard time over that.

Dave Courtney - (Long Sigh) Well that’s what cost me the acting thing. The Sun going Dave Courtney this, Dave Courtney that. Who would fucking employ me, and try to sell the programme to the BBC when it's got it’s own naughty man in it. So straightaway I can see the pro’s and con’s of the notoriety thing.

Then I went into security, just at the right time, as the rave culture was getting big in this country. At one stage, I had 600 doormen working for me at the weekends. That’s huge, more or less every club in London, the M25 raves.

Then I took the security for the Kray twins funeral that actually bought me to attention of the general public. Heir to the throne, and all that shit, and the attention of the old bill, which fucked me.

PEOM - You have many aliases, The People’s Villain, The Yellow Pages of Crime, and The Heir to The Krays. Which tag, if any do you prefer?

Dave Courtney - Just Dave Courtney.

PEOM - You certainly know how to cause a stir. Great example was turning up to court at Bow Street Magistrates dressed as a court jester in 1999. Did you do that to wind people up?

Dave Courtney - No, I wasn’t just winding people up. Listen, what was actually being said about me, if believed was that I was going to get another fucking belly button. I didn’t want that right.

I’ve been paying coppers all my fucking life. I’m afraid there is a certain person, that actually believes that if you talk to a copper you’ve got to be a grass.

But as a professional criminal, if you can pay for the information of who’s following you, when you’re going to get raided, the registration numbers of the cars following you. If can you get your mates out of fucking trouble, lose bits of fucking evidence for court. If you can get that information, and you choose not to, cos talking to a coppers makes you a grass, I’ll say you’re an arsehole.

I’ve paid policeman, and still do. Most of my friends who got not guilties, it’s down to that.

A mate of mine is running around with a fucking bulletproof vest, bought from a geezer that I went to court with. The geezer who sold the bulletproof vest says in court he’s not paying me, I’m paying him. So I thought it was a fucking joke. That was the thing, the court jester.

When I went in the courtroom, I knocked him out cold, the cheeky little cunt. I got up their nose, it was me paying him. I had actually taped the policeman, they didn’t tape me. They had a photograph of me talking to a copper on a bench, and they said you’re a grass. I said listen, here’s the tape of what I actually said. I have tapes and CCTV videos of me talking to 27 different policeman over a 15 year period.

They put me in incommunicado for three days. After that, the Lords spoke about me for 2 minutes 27 seconds in the House of Lords. They said Dave Courtney might be an informer. I thought they were going to let me off, I have just given tapes of what was said to the cunts. What were they talking about, that Dave Courtney might be an informer?

What they tried to do, was to get me killed before I went to court. When I went to court, I had to get not guilty because I had a tape with me. They collapsed the case rather than produce the informer.

Fucking eight months before I went to court. The police put my name, face, telephone etc everywhere, saying that I might be an informer. When it went to court and they found out that I weren’t. They didn’t put that in the fucking paper. So along the way I beat them up as a court jester.

I’ve left the court, asked for the tape back. Then I sued the Metropolitan Police for attempted murder. I went to the High Court Justice with Bill Murray the famous bent policeman. I took out the summons for £280.00 and nicked the police for attempted murder.

"I’m saying that I gave you a video of me paying the police and after me giving you that, you say that I might be a grass. I’m saying you tried to get me killed, unless you give me any other explanation. I gave you the video of me paying them all and you put in the paper that Dave Courtney might be a grass. You tried to get me shot whilst I was waiting for the court case."

I was strangely run over on the A2.

PEOM – Seriously?

Dave Courtney - On the A2, at midnight when I was on my own. Luckily behind me was an unmarked police car. Who stopped the whole road after the accident. He took 13 witness statements, but lost them all.

The whole of the A2 that night wasn’t being filmed, from London to Dover. They tried to kill me, that’s what Stop The Ride I Want To Get Off is all about. I’m not making it up, I’m not a silly cunt.

PEOM – You obviously stay one step ahead with the old bill. What about stress relief?

Dave Courtney - After the hospital thing, it took me a couple of years, 2 or 3 to get well enough to start training again. In the meantime, I stuck on about 3 stone.

I employed a fitness instructor from American. Mr Universe and all bollocks like that.

So he came over here to live in my house. (Mock American Accent) "Come on one more, one more, you can do it".

(Insane giggle) He was here for two weeks, never done drugs, a total health freak. Went back home on gear. He went to the Joey Pyle benefit I organised and loved it.

PEOM – What was the Joey Pyle benefit?

Dave Courtney – Joey Pyle is someone, who is very close to me. Whenever I needed an ally or help, Joey has always been there for me. He now has xxx disease, so I put him up for a lifetime achievement award.

The ‘normal’ press said it was un-reportable. Their thing is that you can not glamorise crime.

PEOM – But they do.

Dave Courtney - You put a show for 1,600 people for a lifetime achievement award for a criminal, attended and supported by criminals, with a award for being a criminal.

They couldn’t even start to report it. Here’s the program of the night for you. If you report about this event you will be the only person who has, because everyone else has been too frightened to do it.

I had Joceyln Brown on stage, Howard Marks, Storm. A proper event.

PEOM – Caprice as well, I see.

Dave Courtney - I done a gumball rally with Caprice. That’s was a mental thing doing a gumball rally with her. Driving 3,000 miles all round Europe.

PEOM - Have you ever thought about writing something like children’s fiction, please I am not mocking you. However, thanks to JK Rowling the market is massive and even Madonna and Prince Charles have penned children’s stories.

Another reason that I suggest this, is that you seem to enjoy helping kids out.

Dave Courtney - I have, because I am fully aware of the barriers I will get from the authorities, I am going to have to go, no.

PEOM – So you would to write one then?

Dave Courtney - Of course I would, I’m shit hot with kids. I love making comedy films. Like I said before, I know the barriers I would get in this country.

The very last word is down to someone who rolls his trouser leg up and does the moody handshake at a fucking lodge with Paul Condon, the judges, the chief of police, the chief of the prisons, chief of the BBC as members.

I’ve had so many uphill struggles with that, I can only do it in America.

PEOM - Do you think the book market has now become saturated with ex cons or football hooligans writing kiss and tell stories?

Dave Courtney - Yea, very much so. But for me personally, the more people that do it, the better.

PEOM – Why is that?

Dave Courtney - Because I know how good mine is. It can only be judged on it's purity. I don’t mind the competition because I know mine is from the heart mate.

PEOM - As well as being a writer you have released a track with Tricky. Released a CD entitled ‘In His Own Words’ with your son Beau providing the music and worked on music with Rob Ferguson. Have you got any other music projects on the go?

Dave Courtney - I’m doing a deal with a rapper called The Game and Clive Black, who is The Game’s manager. Clive is going to help me out as my manager in America.

I’ve just finished an album produced by Beau Courtney. called ‘Heroes And Villains’, featuring Storm and Creed, a famous MC.

That is coming out with the publication of the book, ‘Heroes And Villains’. That comes out in paperback in September, in unison with a genuine gangster rap record done by me.

PEOM - Music has always been an important part of your life. What songs make you laugh, cry, or just give you a rush?

Dave Courtney - I’ve got rave records, that I call going to war music. You put that on and say show me a wrap, cos I want to have it. I love the records from the early days of the rave scene.

PEOM - Who would you like to work with in terms of music. Perhaps Morrissey, as he seems to have a passion for the underworld?

Dave Courtney - Yea, because I am very much a geezer who keeps his feet on the ground, right? I am now in position, where I know that other people would consider me a celebrity. This has given me an inside thing into how other celebrities feel.

I have read things in the paper that I’ve supposed to have done, and said "did I do that? When? Fuck me." I can talk to people with this ardour around them and say listen cos I am one. I can say to them "cut that out, I’m talking to you".

When I met 50 Cent at the Brits this year, the minute he made a bit of eye contact with reality, he was humble, he went to me "we’re all striving for a bit of reality" I said "How real do you want? You’re singing about popping a cap in his arse, I'd shoot the cunt in the head, shut the fuck up."

PEOM - As we know, your books have been best sellers and there has been much speculation over ‘Stop The Ride I Want To Get Off’ becoming a film. Tarantino’s name has been associated with the project. Can you tell us more?

Dave Courtney - He's signed up for another two films, before he gets to mine.

PEOM – So he really wants to do it?

Dave Courtney - Yea

PEOM - Who do you think would do you justice in playing the role of Dave Courtney?

Dave Courtney - I would very much like to play me in the later years. As for an early Dave Courtney, I’ll probably end up with Danny Devito, knowing my fucking luck.

PEOM - You currently host An Evening With Dave Courtney. If any one reading this article wished to attend, what are they likely to expect?

Dave Courtney - I cannot rehearse my shows, because it’s a questions and answers show, right from the start.

I start the show by saying "Hello I’m Dave Courtney, there is no such thing as a celebrity gangster, it can only be one or the other. Anything you want to know about, as long as I don’t drop anyone in the shit, ask me."

I’ve addressed the Oxford Union. The photo from that, Jay-Z used for his album cover, cos he thought that was the funniest thing ever. Dave Courtney addresses the future parliament of England. Even P Diddy has used my knuckle-dusters.

PEOM - An earlier point raised in this interview was born to be bad. Don’t you think that Dave Courtney was born to be famous?

Dave Courtney - Yes, I’m afraid so. I would have been a cocky postman, a cocky milkman.

PEOM - You’re very open to an interview, which is refreshing for an online magazine like ours. Why is that ?

Dave Courtney - Because my life is on a set of scales, with the general public not knowing whether I am infamous or famous.

I need as many normal people, not bald headed, flat nose six-foot blokes going "Dave is alright, he’s a nice bloke". I need you (points to me) I need you (points to Joe) to say I’ve been there, I’ve sat there in his house. That’s what I need. My front door is open mate.

(Puts on High pitch voice) "Don’t talk to that Dave Courtney he might be a grass."

Stop it. There’s no moody letters or phone calls that come here. My walls are white, there is nothing sprayed on my fucking walls. Do you understand what I mean? The press would try and portray something different that can’t say the geezer is running it.

PEOM - Would you like to do Celebrity Big Brother?

Dave Courtney - That would be brilliant. They’ve already asked and it got down to the nominations, and they went no.

PEOM – You’ve been approached?

Dave Courtney - I’ve been approached three times. I’ve been up for I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. But they just won’t have it.

PEOM – That’s the public’s loss.

Dave Courtney - How do you think I feel? You don’t know what I feel on that.

PEOM - A fun question: if you could plan the prefect caper whom would you have in your gang. Be they alive, dead, or fictional and what would be the prefect caper?

Dave Courtney - To succeed in nicking the Crown Jewels, only just to give them back. Because I wouldn’t want the Country without the Crown Jewels. Do the job, get away with it, return the stolen goods, and claim the money they would give as a reward for finding the gems. That would be my ideal thing.

PEOM – Gang members?

Dave Courtney - Just me

PEOM - Why do you call your house Camelot. Do you see yourself as a King Author of the Round Table?

Dave Courtney - I don’t. How that came into play, I was arranging the Kray twin funeral with some major players.

On the morning of the funeral, I had 150 hand picked of my best set of security men to look after the funeral. There was going to be three quarters of a million people in attendance. I looked out of the window at my men. I wanted to invade Iraq.

Before the funeral, I had a meeting with 12 main players. It just so happened we were sitting at a big round table in my little castle round the back of my house. Mr Liverpool, Mr Glasgow, Mr Manchester, Mr Leeds, so on and us.

I am a silly romantic wanker, I got the camera out, gave them all a fucking knuckle duster. I know it’s mushy. There was a little ceremony, which went, "I swear that I will never raise this in anger against you, I will always raise it in defence of you" Bop, you got a knuckle-duster, a kiss on the forehead and you became a knight.

PEOM - You cite many icons. One that fascinates me is Fidel Castro. Why him?

Dave Courtney - Cos I think he is the nuts. I'm not into beards but any cunt who can keep a man like Che Guerva under control, I salute him. I’m a leader myself. I’m a Guerva fan, but Castro controlled him.

PEOM – Would you like to meet Fidel Castro?

Dave Courtney - I suppose I would. But there is a lot more people I'd rather meet in front of him.

PEOM – What about Hugh Hefner?

Dave Courtney - I like Hugh Hefner, my house is very similar to his. I have ladies brought round here for me. I’m a lucky lucky cunt. I’m a dirty old bastard. I see myself as a bit Hugh Hefneress. Even right now, he is trying to diary his life, which is what I am trying to do with all the documentaries and interviews I am doing.

PEOM - You are a busy man‘ You do tours, acting, writing, your website, and your own TV channel. When do you find the time to relax and what do you do when you do relax?

Dave Courtney - I don’t know if you can write this, and not make me sound like a pervert. No, I actually am a pervert. I have had my own dungeon built at the bottom of my garden.

PEOM – Oh I see.

Dave Courtney - Dirty laugh

PEOM - Finally Dave, when are you the most happiest?

Dave Courtney - When I am making the people immediately around me happy, I get off on that.

Well you certainly made PEOM happy Dave.

After talking to Dave Courtney, you can fully appreciate why we are fascinated about the world of villainy. It is a crazy place to live. It is a more understandable obsession than that of the average bland celebrity who has little tale to tell.

To be successful in the entertainment industry, you have to accept the celebrity culture. Whether Dave Courtney likes the star treatment or not, does not matter. He understands the fame game and he uses it to his advantage.

Dave Courtney is frank about his past, and has no qualms about talking about it. You feel no threat, when probing Dave about his former career. After all, it is what made him successful. However, you are aware there are boundaries you cannot cross.

Is it interesting? Yes. Is it a lifestyle for everyone? No. The glamour is appealing, but you need to be constantly living on your wits, to maintain your reputation plus access to unlimited funds to enjoy it. No one shakes the hand of a poor gangster.

Cunning and loyalty are the main ingredients for the sweet taste of success, with out them the tang is bitter. Yet it is a dangerous world, the paranoia and deceit that surrounds it is enough to send any good man over the edge.

Nonetheless Dave Courtney seems to be surrounded by a loyal bunch of family, friends and employees who keep an eye out for him. He is a lucky man.

With the constant surveillance from the police, disillusionment with the way Britain is being run and the frustrations that his successes are being inhibited by the suits that run the entertainment industry, Dave is understandably disillusioned with this country and so the US beckons.

PEOM believe this will lead to an exciting new chapter in his life and maybe that is the antidote. A fresh challenge, to cure the blues.

Dave Courtney is a natural leader, a showman. With the old school values, witt, charm and politeness. He delivers ripping yarns that live long in the memory of the listener. He is particular about his appearance and his clothes, although for the interview he went for more at home look.

Of course, there was a dark side, but Dave Courtney wants to focus on the positive, look to the future and greets new projects with a passion.

Whether Dave Courtney likes it or not, he is a product. Moreover, he knows that its his fans that have made him successful. Being in contact with his fans is important to him. That is highly refreshing. Dave Courtney updates his website regularly and offers opportunities for his fans to meet him. Its not an ego thing, he genuinely enjoys meeting people and making them feel welcome. He is a people’s person.

If you have not read his books or seen the film Hell to Pay, PEOM recommends that you do so. They are an enjoyable and fascinating read. Driven by all aspects of emotion known to man and the film has a raw energy to it, which engrosses you from the off.

Much as been said about Dave Courtney over the years. Some true, some not, some good, some bad. Though one thing is for certain, Dave Courtney is a gentleman.

Matteo Sedazzari