N to love... d dad’s violent rages 20 years after his death

Kelly tries to balance her dad’s awful fits of fury by speaking of the good times – eating ham sandwiches on the beach in Clacton-on-sea, Essex, playing hide and seek and the Christmases where he’d dress in a Santa hat. But his unpredictable nature and terrible temper meant she kept silent about her most troubling childhood experience of all. Aged five, she was repeatedly sexually abused by a teenage female who lived nearby. She lured Kelly to her bedroom under the pretence of playing “nurses and doctors” before pouncing. The nightmare has haunted Kelly during her adult life, causing her to self harm and develop anorexia. But Lenny went to his grave without hearing of her ordeal.

His daughter never breathed a word about the violation until she had a nervous breakdown two years ago and told a therapist.

She is sure her dad would have killed her abuser’s family if he’d found out.

Kelly said: “I know he would have reacted in the only way he knew how. He’d have flown from our house and killed the father of the girl who had sexually abused me.

Sobbing

“Dad would have been serving a life sentence for murder, there’s no doubt about that.”

Instead Lenny became a cult figure and fell into acting after being asked to “mind” the cast of Eastenders.

But Kelly said: “Dad didn’t read the scripts, he just made his own words up.”

While filming Lock, Stock, Lenny became ill with what he thought was flu but he was soon diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.

Kelly claimed director Ritchie had her dad in mind for other big projects but it wasn’t to be.

Lenny died before the premiere of the film, which was dedicated to his memory. Kelly said: “Guy Ritchie came round my mum’s when my dad was ill. As a joke he said, ‘Whatever you do, don’t die before we make the next movie.’

“My dad said, ‘I’ll be dead in six months.’ Guy nearly collapsed. Dad wanted to see the reaction on people’s faces when he said he was dying.

“He used to talk about his funeral every day. He would sit there like a Cheshire cat.

“He said, ‘I don’t want to see a dry eye, I want to see you all sobbing.’ He loved the attention, probably because he got none growing up.”

Kelly and her partner Scott Richardson, 45, left the East End after her mum Val also succumbed to lung cancer in 2007. They now live a quiet life in rural Essex.

Kelly said her “back goes up” every time she drives past her old haunts. She said: “No one has any respect now. It’s not a community. I hate it.”

But part of her remains tied to the East End estate which shaped her life. She runs a fan page for her dad on Facebook.

She said: “I’m so proud of Dad. I don’t think I realised the impact he had on people. People slag him off and say he was a bully but it wasn’t his fault. He probably had this condition.”

My Dad The Guv’nor by Kelly Mclean, published by John Blake, out on Thursday, £7.99.