12/08/07 - Last Man Standing
By Andy Lea
Daily Star

CARLTON Leach was once one of Britain's most feared gangsters. He ruled the East London underworld with fellow hard- men Pat Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe as leader of the notorious Essex Boys. But their reign of terror came to an abrupt end in December 1995.

Tucker, Tate and Rolfe were blasted to death in a Range Rover in a drugs ambush. And in that moment Carlton, now 48, went from feared gang boss to last man standing. He should have been in the Range Rover too but decided against going because of "heat" from two murder probes. Now the story of his nearmiss has been made into a movie starring Ricci Harnett, Craig Fairbrass and Terry Stone.

Rise Of The Footsoldier, out next month, charts Carlton's life from football thug to feared crime boss. Last night, in an exclusive interview with the Daily Star Sunday, he said: "I didn't know it at the time but Pat, Craig and Tony dying was my wake-up call. "I had two choices - I could die like that or I could live to tell the story And that's what I'm doing.

The film is the REAL story" It began when Carlton became a founder member of West Ham hooligans The Inter City Firm. Muscle Carlton, played in the film by Ricci Harnett, recalled: "I liked violence. It started with football violence then moved on. "If there was a problem in a club, I was hired to sort it out.

"I became a head doorman, then I started doing my own security and from there I started knowing drug dealers, then looking after drug dealers. "Then you get muscle money, debt money - it snowballs. "That's why the film is called Rise Of The Footsoldier. I was a young kid and I was a soldier. Then I became a general - a head of a firm."

Carlton's fearless reputation brought him to the attention of ex-world boxing champion Nigel Benn, who hired him as a minder after he was rumoured to have been targeted by underworld hitmen. But the gang was doomed by its own appetite for drugs. Tony Tucker had become a close friend.

But Carlton said: "Tony was in awe of Pat Tate and they started getting really heavily into drugs. "By the end, the drugs took over everything and they weren't thinking straight. "If you've got dangerous people taking steroids and heavy-duty Class A drugs you're going to see them explode. "If you go to those extremes, it's the grave or it's prison."

In the end, it was a fall-out with a rival gang over a dodgy drugs deal that led to the three deaths. The gang used a bogus deal to lure the men to a secluded spot in Rettendon, Essex, where they were ambushed. The killers were brought to justice in 1998. Drug barons Micky Steele and Jack Whomes were each given three life sentences for the murders of Tate, 36, Tucker, 38, and Rolfe, 26.

Died And Carlton revealed he was close to being in the Range Rover himself. He said: "My main concern was Tony - I wanted to get him out of it. "But people had died in the clubs where I had been doing security so I was under some heavy heat myself. "He asked me to come but because of my problems they got Craig to drive. I would have been in that car."

Dad-of-six Carlton has now gone straight and owns a debt collection business. He lives a quiet life in Essex with wife Anne. But he said: "I will never forget Tony and I still visit his grave to talk to him. "By making the film, I hope I can keep his memory alive."

Rise Of The Footsoldier is released on September 7.