Protecting Our Own: Vigilante Justice on St. Matthews Estate, Leicester 1998

Leicester, 1998: A New Start, A New Threat

Leicester, 1998. I’d just come out after a three-stretch for battering a bloke who was about to slap his bird around. I did what needed doing, no regrets. Moved in with my sister on St Matthews estate, Wharf Street end. Proper working-class patch back then: maisonettes, social housing, kids everywhere, men who still had a bit of iron in them.

Word went round quick that the new neighbours had moved in next door and the fella was a wrong ’un. A nonce. A kiddie-fiddler fresh out the nick. My sister couldn’t see it, or didn’t want to, but I clocked the way he looked at my nephews and my little girl. That sickly, lingering stare that turns your stomach. Funny thing is, twenty-seven years later in 2025, half the country seems to think that look is fine now, even “brave.” Different times.

The Truth Revealed: A Confession and a Plan

One afternoon I’m cutting through town and spot his missus and her mate hammered in The Fountain on Church Gate. They’re banging on the window like old pals, so I go in. Both of them are steaming, proper London accents, couldn’t stand up straight. She’s meant to be picking her own kid up from Taylor Road school in twenty minutes but she’s too pissed to walk. I told her to get stuffed; not my problem she’s a shit mum.

That’s when the mate, even more drunk, spills the full story. He’d done time for interfering with kids, got out, went to stay with her and his old prison mate. Started shagging her behind the bloke’s back. When the boyfriend found out, he told the whole estate what the new lodger really was. They got run out of town and ended up hiding in Leicester. Now I had names, dates, the lot.

Taking Matters into Our Own Hands

Ten minutes later I’m round the front trying to kick the bastard’s door off its hinges. My sister drags me inside: “You’ll be straight back inside, you daft sod!” Most blokes would’ve stopped there. We didn’t. Prison was just somewhere you sometimes had to visit; it never stopped us protecting our own. Even inside, your family was looked after because your mates picked up the baton. That’s how it worked.

That night me and John Bale (Bale, God rest him) went back with a couple of cans of spray paint. Big black letters across their front wall and door: “NONCE”, “BEAST”, “RIP”, the usual calling card. Message sent: pack your bags or worse is coming.

The Confrontation: Justice Delivered

Next morning I’m cycling back from some bird’s house, pull into the little courtyard at the entrance to our block and there’s already a crowd—twenty-five, thirty people. Bale’s got hold of the cunt overnight and done a proper number on him. The nonce is only just coming round, trying to stand up, face like a butcher’s bin. I tell my sister to get the girlfriend out the way; my turn now.

He staggers through the gate. I step in and throw the cleanest righthand I ever landed in my life. Lights out before my knuckles left his jaw. He went backwards, crown of his head smacked a coping stone, then rag-dolled flat on the deck. I swear I thought I’d killed him stone dead.

I was in the house in seconds—changed my top, stuck a beanie on, out the back way and gone. Heart banging like a drum, already working out ferry times to France, then down to Spain. Ended up at my sister’s mate Gloria’s gaff. She rings my sister: “He’s breathing, they’ve got him in the recovery position.” Relief doesn’t even cover it.

The Aftermath: Unofficial Justice, Official Silence

Couple of days later I’m back home and the best part of the story comes out.

Old Bill rolled up, normal two cars, blues and twos, cordon the area like they’re meant to. Only when the coppers clock who’s lying spark out on the floor, they don’t ask a single person what happened. Not one witness statement. Nothing. They just called the ambulance, stood around having a fag, and left.

Because every copper there had kids, or nieces, or nephews. Once they knew it was the estate nonce on the pavement, they didn’t give a toss who’d done it. Job done as far as they were concerned.

Then and Now: A Stark Societal Shift

Roll forward to 2025 and it’s the exact opposite. The men left on those same estates are shadows of what we were. Scared to raise their voice, never mind their fists. Terrified of a knock on the door or a letter from some solicitor. So the nonces walk free, groom kids in plain sight, and nobody lifts a finger.

We had hundreds of stories like that. Mad, violent, sometimes stupid—but our streets were safe for our kids because we made them safe. We paid the price when we had to, and we never ran from it.

Call it vigilante, call it thuggery, call it whatever trendy word you’ve got today. It worked. Our daughters, our sons, our little cousins—they played out till dark and nothing touched them.

That’s the difference between then and now.

We protected our own.

Today, most couldn’t protect a packet of crisps.