Big Guy: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Bouncer
2026 Mirror Books memoir by Marcus Redwood, founder of the Marc-One door agency
Big Guy: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Bouncer is the 2026 memoir of Marcus Redwood, the Margate doorman who built the Marc-One agency. It was published by Mirror Books. The copyright page credits Redwood with the story and Mark McLaughlin with helping him tell it, and states that some names and identifying details have been changed. The paperback ISBN is 978-1-917439-87-9; the ebook ISBN is 978-1-917439-88-6. The foreword is by Carlton Leach.
This page is a chapter-by-chapter summary of the text as supplied, not an independent investigation. Claims about fights, arrests, Operation Mayflower, the Ronnie Kray funeral, Dave Courtney, Thai property and the later loss of his SIA licence are his account unless a footnote says otherwise. The book does not mention Discovery Park, the Schreiber family or 147 Stamford Hill. The Marc-One of the 1990s chapters is the trading name he describes, not the later Companies House companies of the same name.
Publication
- Author: Marcus Redwood, with Mark McLaughlin
- Publisher: Mirror Books
- Year: 2026
- Paperback ISBN: 978-1-917439-87-9
- Ebook ISBN: 978-1-917439-88-6
- Foreword: Carlton Leach
- Note on the copyright page: some names and identifying details have been changed
Big Guy: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Bouncer is the 2026 memoir of Marcus Redwood, the Margate doorman who built the Marc-One agency. Mirror Books published it. The copyright page credits Redwood with the story and Mark McLaughlin with helping him tell it, and states that some names and identifying details have been changed. Paperback ISBN 978-1-917439-87-9; ebook ISBN 978-1-917439-88-6.
This page is a chapter-by-chapter summary of the text as supplied, not an independent investigation. Claims about fights, arrests, Operation Mayflower, the Ronnie Kray funeral, Dave Courtney, Thai property and the later loss of his SIA licence are his account unless a footnote says otherwise. The book does not mention Discovery Park, the Schreiber family or 147 Stamford Hill. The Marc-One of the 1990s chapters is the trading name he describes, not the later Companies House companies of the same name.
Setting the scene
Redwood opens in a hospital bed in his early 30s with a bullet in his leg, police at the bedside, and a claim that he had been shot on his doorstep. He says the gunman was a traveller he had thrown out of a club for fighting, and that he slammed the door on the man’s hand. He dates the start of door work to age 21 and says that by his early 60s he had done more than 40 years of it, with about 200 staff at the peak and work across Kent, London, Essex and Surrey. The tally he gives is more than 3,000 street fights and, on his estimate, about 1,000 knockouts. He says he has never been convicted of a violent offence. The plate B119 GUY is mentioned as a later joke on the nickname. He says the book is not a manual.
The early years
He says he was born in 1962 in Canterbury, the family moved to Margate when he was small, and his father died when he was six. An older brother is named as the sibling who looked out for him. School was Dane Court in Broadstairs. He describes himself as a skinny, bullied child who took up weights and boxing after a beating, and who was expelled more than once. A job in a local factory is the work he gives before the doors. The first arrest he records is a teenage fight outside a Margate chip shop.
My beginnings in doorwork
The first door is a Margate pub, about 1983, at £15 a night. He says he was attacked on the first shift, knocked the man out, and was kept on. Early rooms named are the Ship Inn, the Rose in June and Bar Majestic. He describes learning by watching older doormen, and says the job was then unlicensed. A broken leg from a motorbike crash is the injury he gives as the reason he cannot run. Training with Big Lloyd starts in this stretch.
I do like to be beside the seaside
The Kent circuit is Margate, Ramsgate, Broadstairs and Cliftonville: the Lido, the Mecca, and clubs he calls Escape and Frank’s. He describes coach parties from London, bank-holiday weekends that ran Friday to Monday, and a rule of throwing out anyone who would not calm down. He says he began to be known as “Marcus from Margate” and that other towns started ringing him when their own door staff walked out.
Building the agency
Marc-One is described as a trading name from about 1990, not a Companies House vehicle. He says he began by covering doors other firms had lost, then took on area managers and peaked at about 200 weekend staff. Venues named in this stretch include La Parisienne and clubs in Canterbury, Dover and Folkestone. He says the staff were self-employed and that he ran the rota from a mobile phone. Gareth Brett is not in these pages; the handover is later.
Fights and more fights
A run of door fights: a coach party at Bar Majestic in which he says he dropped three men; a Folkestone scrap in which he finger-jabbed a man in the eye; a Margate lock-in that spilled into the street. He repeats that there was usually no CCTV and no witness who would speak. The 1,000-knockout figure is his own estimate, not a recorded tally.
Shot on the doorstep
He returns to the shooting. He says he had finished a shift, driven to a friend’s house in Canterbury, and was getting out of the car when a traveller he had barred fired at him. The bullet hit the leg. He says he drove himself toward the hospital, that police treated it as a doorstep shooting linked to the club, and that the gunman was not charged. This is the night he says he was then taken to the Ministry of Sound and introduced to Dave Courtney.
Dave Courtney, first meeting
Courtney is introduced by a Canterbury friend as “Mr Courtney.” Redwood says they laughed all night, that Courtney pointed out Ian Tucker as “a proper soldier,” and that Tucker already knew him. He says he did not work in London; the trips were days off.
London doors and the West End
He describes being let into the Ministry of Sound and the Gass Club by back doors, and being on VIP lists because of Courtney. He says he did the same for Courtney’s people in Kent, with gold wristbands. No London door contract is claimed in these pages.
The Kray funeral, first account
A shorter first telling of the Ronnie Kray funeral: he says Courtney asked him to do security at the Bethnal Green parlour, that he was filmed because a lighter looked like a gun, and that the local press and the police both noticed. The longer account is in the later chapter “How I found fame.”
Scrapes with the law
Before Operation Mayflower he lists arrests for assault, ABH, GBH and affray, and says the cases were dropped or ended in acquittal. He describes a raid in which personal drugs were found and a shotgun for which he had no licence was left uncharged. He says a police friend told him a Genesis file had been opened. The chapter breaks off as the Mayflower surveillance is introduced.
Police Operation Mayflower
After the Ronnie Kray funeral, Redwood says local people treated him with more respect and Kent Police opened a file on him. He says a “Genesis” intelligence file grew to about 20 pages, then later to 28, and that friends in the police told him he was being looked at. He describes dawn raids on his house, office and car, and says officers found a small amount of drugs he calls personal use from raves. He denies dealing.
He names the operation as Operation Mayflower: about 120 officers from what he thinks were five counties, six months of surveillance, and, as he heard it, more than £1 million spent on surveillance. He says his phone was tapped and that the targets were himself, Big Lloyd, Ricky Hards and two police officers suspected of taking bribes. On the police theory, as he retells it, he was an importer, a gun runner, a hitman, an enforcer and a debt collector. He says he was none of those things.
He describes being stopped on Margate seafront after dropping what he calls a gram of “whiz” in the car, a strip search at the station, and his plate B119 GUY (“Big guy”). Anonymous letters then named a man in a red Ford Mondeo, then a blue car, as the informant. He says he asked Lloyd to have a CID officer called Andy run the plates, that the checks were flagged because his phone was tapped, and that dawn raids followed. He was taken to Folkestone, Lloyd to Dover. A pump-action 3-inch Magnum for which he had no licence was found; he says he was not charged for it. He says he memorised an officer’s mobile number from a clipboard and later recited deployments back to them. He says Andy was charged with possession and another officer was suspended; the rest were released. He says the officer in charge later left the force after a mental breakdown.
On door licences, he says he was refused a badge because of arrests even where he was not convicted, then worked in a suit as a manager until spent convictions let him get an SIA licence. He says he has never been sent to prison, estimates about 100 arrests, and says he has been arrested in the five years before writing, while in his early 60s.
Taking the police for a ride
He describes a bank-holiday Monday in his early 30s when he and Lloyd left a lock-in on a 1,000cc Kawasaki without helmets, were pursued, and turned into Dane Valley Park. The bike came off on wet grass. He says he dropped it on a policeman, ran, was bitten by a dog he names Barney, and was struck seven times on the head with a torch. He says he threw the dog back over the wall and that it bit an officer. Charges listed in the chapter quote are speeding, reckless driving, dangerous driving, failing to stop, ABH on a police officer, and no crash helmet. He says he pleaded not guilty. Dangerous and reckless driving were dropped as duplicative; speeding went because the police speedometer was not calibrated; the ABH was dropped. He says one officer who described the torch blows was later moved. Lloyd, who had been on the pillion, was not arrested. Later in the chapter he says relations with some licensing officers improved and that one would call at the house to go through weekend incident books.
More drugs, less violence
He dates his drinking to the end of his first marriage and his drug use to the rave years. Favourite rooms were the Ministry of Sound and the Gass Club. He says he first met Dave Courtney at the Ministry of Sound, and later met Carlton Leach, described as a former Essex Boys figure who later helped a Broadstairs “Big Guy Charity” event for orphans in Thailand. He describes following a convoy from Deja Vu in Swanley to a house in Bexleyheath, chopping two wraps of cocaine on a kitchen table, and being allowed to stay after a vote. He says dealers asked him to deal because he controlled doors, and that he refused. His stated rule in clubs was that dealing inside meant a ban. He argues for legalising ecstasy and describes a weekend rave near Dymchurch, about 25 door staff, gold wristbands for a VIP room, and staff picking up people who had overdone it. He says he became addicted to several drugs, used cocaine for a couple of years until paranoia, and that Courtney warned him off it.
How I found fame
He says he visited Reggie Kray in prison while helping with security for Ronnie Kray’s funeral, and that visitors smuggled vodka and ecstasy. His role at a Bethnal Green funeral parlour was overnight security after an attempted roof entry: ushering visitors and lifting the coffin lid. He says a lighter that looked like a gun put him on front pages and television. Payment for the funeral security was arranged at the Blind Beggar; he says nobody paid and the men treated it as work done for the Krays. Through Courtney he says he met Freddie Foreman, Frankie Fraser and Tony Lambrianou, visited Foreman’s house, and “sorted out some problems” for Foreman in Dover. He also names Harry Haywood at Courtney’s Deptford club and Lenny McLean.
Around the funeral he says he did extra work on the Spice Girls film, in the background, then played a minder in five of seven episodes of the Channel 4 series Lock Stock. He describes a party bus to Cannes, which he thinks Courtney organised, for the launch of Hell to Pay, a lift from Ian Tucker, and a Portsmouth-area shoot with replica guns in which “Big Mark” threatened a clampers with a replica and police later raided a London address.
Mr Courtney and me
He dates the meeting with Courtney to the night he was shot at by travellers: a Canterbury friend took him to the Ministry of Sound, where Courtney introduced Ian Tucker. He says they were friends for over 30 years, that he went to London most weekends for about ten years without working there, and that Courtney had a following in his own clubs. Anecdotes include Courtney offering a bag of cocaine to pay for a smashed car, which Redwood says he refused; Courtney selling on a Yamaha Vmax Redwood had sold him; a Renegade Jeep stuck on Margate beach; and a British film-awards afterparty at the Royal Albert Hall where Redwood says his girlfriend sat on Courtney’s knee and Steve McFadden offered a lift to Browns. He says Dartford door staff refused a contract because they thought he was “Courtney’s boy.”
Courtney-ing more trouble
On a second night, at Deja Vu in Swanley, he says they drank about six bottles of Moët and that Courtney later drove a restored Mark 1 Jaguar into a 14-foot car-park wall. Redwood drove him toward Plumstead, clipped a traffic island, and was stopped in Hackney. He says boxes from Courtney’s boot went into his, and that police found a knuckle duster, a 19-inch knife with spiked knuckle dusters, flyers and handcuffs. He was held at Hackney and charged with two counts of carrying offensive weapons. At a three-day Crown Court hearing he says Courtney was his star witness, that Courtney had sex with his wife in the gallery on the first day, and that Courtney’s evidence — including a claim about a rubber dildo that was not in the car — was reported as a sex-toy story. He says he was found not guilty and the knife was returned. Ricky Hards is named as a witness for the knife.
All good things must come to an end
He dates Thailand to about 37 or 38, after a friend took him there. He says he formed Big Guy Company Limited with Thai partners, bought land, and over seven years put about £100,000 a year into 12 debt-free houses, claimed rental income of about £1,000 a week plus about £4,500 a week from UK door work, and paid tax on it. The 2009 crash, he says, cut profits by £75,000 a year while he was in debt from remortgaging. In 2016 he liquidated nearly all the Thai houses, kept one, and reinvested in the UK. Winters in Thailand are given as November to March.
He says he stopped door work at about 59 after shoulder replacement and back surgery, and after lockdown removed about 95 per cent of the business. The SIA licence was then revoked. The account is that Eastbourne area manager Alan Sidders (“Sid”), an SIA instructor, failed to vet two door staff: one licence had expired and one had been falsified. Redwood and Sidders were taken to court, fined, and given criminal convictions; one man was fined about £10,000 and the other £5,600. He says the conviction ended his ability to run a security company. He also describes an early fight at Bar Majestic with a coach party.
Other door staff named in this stretch: Micky “Five Holes,” said to have survived five shots in a home attack; Ken Hargreaves, a Brighton operator refused an SIA licence over a 12-year-old armed-robbery getaway conviction; Chris Bailey and Warren Treasure of Luminar; Stevie Wraith of Newcastle, met at the Kray funeral.
Thailand, trouble and me
He describes a Pattaya beating by a group he later ties to an Australian, Judd Reid, and to a man he calls Archie, after he elbowed a man who had knocked over an elderly drinker. He says he needed seven stitches inside the lip and a brain scan because he was on blood thinners. Nick Kara, described as a former Australian K1 champion, is named as best man at his wedding to Rungnapha. He says the group later apologised at a barbecue.
He says the Pattaya house was built about 2000–2002. Work pattern moved toward six weeks on, six weeks off, then two months on and off. A later Danish man in a Pattaya bar is said to have been knocked out after tapping his shoulder and referring to the Danes conquering England. On Ko Samet he describes a hotel guest the staff called mental, whom he told to stay quiet.
The Thai ‘old bill’ and the mafia
He describes Thai police helmet purges and drink-drive enforcement at 0.05, and says a night stop cost about 21,000 baht to secure his release. A speed-trap ticket of 400 baht was, on his telling, later treated as a licence to speed. The day after his 2016 marriage, tenants and taxi drivers at one of 12 Pattaya houses attacked his wife and then him with iron bars; he says a bottle in the left eye damaged his sight for about a year. Nick Kara is said to have joined the fight. Police held his passport and first wanted 100,000 baht; he says he settled at 50,000 baht. He says he then sold the houses. He also says he assembled a .22 pistol sent in pieces from America.
He says that in about 2018 he was questioned over a murdered Hells Angel after appearing in a bar photograph with him, and was released after a second interview. A separate bar fight with Bangkok “rich kids” is described, with a Dutch barrister and MMA fighter named Roy. He notes a friend remanded seven months in Thailand over 0.75 grams of cocaine.
Charity: my passion
The first named UK event is for Charlie, a Margate casino croupier with terminal breast cancer. Escape nightclub was used free; five DJs gave an hour each; entry money included £1,000 from a man called Kevin and a payment from Courtney. He says the night raised about £3,750 and that she took her three children to Disney World. Later UK events covered shelters for battered wives. In Thailand he ties fundraising to the Jesters motorbike club and a street-kids’ refuge, and says he bought six Anthony Robbins seminar tickets for friends. Big Guy Charity is described as an unregistered name used for more than 20 years, with a Facebook page, beach days for more than 520 children, and help for schools in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai (generator, water purifiers, desks). Craig Blewitt is credited with a website; his son Connor Blewitt is an MMA fighter using gear from John Froggatt. He says he is trying to turn it into a Thai foundation.
Life lessons
The working rule he states is politeness and reputation: point, and people leave. He describes returning a stolen PlayStation by smashing a door and leaving a note. One regret is a Margate bank-holiday fight after which he chased a man who went through a fence at the cliff edge; he says he does not know the outcome. A 2025 return to the trade is framed as instructor work. Avni and Ollie of Canterbury are named as founders of Akon Security, formerly competitors, later a training firm. Ollie is said to have bought Avni out about ten years ago. Redwood says he shared his accountant with them, that their staff were engaged as self-employed, and that in summer 2025 they agreed to take him as an SIA instructor after he re-trained. He says he has passed the online part and is waiting on a renewed SIA licence.
Life in retirement
He says he no longer drinks or uses drugs, has spinal stenosis, lost nearly three inches of height, and paid £10,000 for private L1–L5 decompression after an NHS wait. Nerve damage in the legs remains. He attributes later health problems in part to steroids, which he says a Southend doctor prescribed for £15 a time before being struck off. He says he forged that doctor’s scripts for himself and friends until a pharmacy check; the man who copied his forgery later killed himself, and police treated that man as the source.
Family: third wife Rungnapha, 25 years younger, married 13 years; two earlier wives, the second named Amy, who left for Australia; son Damion, who worked in the security business about ten years and is now an osteopath; grandchildren Hermione, 17, and Hudson, 14; an 11-year-old girl in Thailand looked after by his wife’s family, not a blood relative. Height is given as 6 ft 2 in, down from 6 ft 4 in. He plans summers in England and winters in Thailand.
Acknowledgements
Thanks Dodge Woodall of the Eventful Lives podcast, Mark McLaughlin for help writing the book and finding an agent and publisher, and the podcasts Criminal Connection, the Dozen and Adds and The Content Cast, with hosts Terry Stone and Liam Tuffs among those named.