Legacy: Gangsters, Corruption and the London Olympics

Proper good read and well worth the money even more weird reading it as im from the area and was brought up in the same area as the people mentioned and know all the names and faces in the book, even to say hello to on a daily basis, what's more shocking is the absolute corruption in the met police we all knew in east london they was the shiftiest police force in the country but never as bad as the book says,this is a must read i wish i brought it when it come out but most of the stuff in the book i knew anyway from talk around town,but the police corruption just clarified what i knew and others knew all along......the met police are the shiftiest police force in the country, they are the most organised gang in london☆☆☆☆☆

Brilliant book which joins up a lot of missing pieces of the jigsaw that other such books missed. Very well written, diligently researched and structured with useful footnotes. I served as a police officer for 30 years and I can safely say that there was corruption at all levels, and a nasty culture of spite and vindictiveness.If you like this read Broken Yard by Tom Harper

Interesting reading. Not much “meat on the bones” re Olympics. I enjoyed the book as a whole though

The alleged link to local government and localcrime gangs is a real eye opener. Have things changed; probably not. Is it possible that when politicians have total political control they can do as they like.? Have a read and see what you think. A great read for Newham residents and non Newham residents alike.

How has this never been investigated?

Having read a few of the reviews I was not sure what to expect. It is basically a number of families having a dispute over land that became part of the 2012 Olympics. The end result is I am not sure who wins the incompetent prize between, Newham Council, the Mayor of that Borough, the Police. The only winner is West Ham FC.

Self-promotion is almost part of a journalist’s job description these days. With the ‘dead tree’ media reeling from unprecedented economic pressures, journalists are driven to relentlessly promote themselves as ‘brands’ - ceaselessly tweeting their opinions, for example, and putting themselves at the centre of their articles.Not Michael Gillard.After publicly exposing the crime boss David Hunt, Gillard was sued by him, and then issued with a formal ‘Osman warning’ (i.e. the National Crime Agency informed Gillard of a threat to his life). Because of this, and his long, venerable history of investigating serious organised crime and police corruption, Gillard would have been perfectly justified in giving himself a central part in his book.Yet in his descriptions of the epic libel battle between Hunt and The Sunday Times (who Gillard was reporting for) and throughout the rest of Legacy, Gillard himself is largely absent - or referred to fleetingly in the third person only when unavoidable ( as “the reporter”).This restraint, one assumes, is because Gillard sees the real story being how one of the most violent and powerful criminals of his generation could operate for so long in the shadows without being held to account by the criminal justice system, and of the brave few detectives who risked their careers – and physical health – to do so.To get a sense of the rigour and determination characterising Gillard's work, one could turn to Mr Justice Simon, and his judgment in the libel case between Hunt and The Times newspapers:“During the course of many hours of cross examination about his [Gillard’s] journalistic methods, both generally and in relation to the writing of the Article, he came across as extremely self-confident, but also thoughtful about the role of investigative journalism, and clear and persuasive in his views about the proper treatment of the information he discovered… His evidence was both lucid and entirely credible… I was left with the distinct impression that, if he said that information had come from a source, it had; and that he had conscientiously evaluated its weight. I am also satisfied that he did not uncritically accept anything he was told by, or read, from a source: rather the contrary.”The Sunday Times and Gillard won that action after withstanding the full scrutiny Hunt’s expensive lawyers. This book is the crowning achievement of Gillard’s work on the case.It is, without doubt, one of the greatest British true crimes books of the last 50 years: both for its revelations charting the wider story of East End crime over the past few decades and exposing rottenness at the core of Scotland Yard – as well in how it is told.

If this is true- and I suspect the author would have been ruined in court if it wasn’t- then it’s a hair raising and interesting look into a world one assumes barely exists in this country any more.Some of these hard, focused and ruthless people come across as parodies from sitcoms.I found it to be an easy read with a chatty style, and I was glad that the author let the story tell itself without preaching to the reader.