Masons ‘ousted Brink’s-Mat mastermind over £10 fee’

THE leader behind the laundering of millions from Britain’s biggest bullion theft was expelled from the Freemasons for failing to pay a £10 increase in membership fees, it is claimed.

Kenneth Noye, who attempted to cultivate friends among police officers who were Masons to protect himself from prosecution, repeatedly failed to pay his subscriptions.

Noye had joined the Hammersmith lodge in the hope of forging links that might prove useful during his criminal activities as a fence for stolen property.

His dealings with the Masons only worsened after he was arrested for his part in the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery, which saw £26million of gold bullion, diamond and cash taken by armed robbers from a Heathrow warehouse.

By this point Noye – whose activities have been dramatised in The Gold – had booked 20 places at a Ladies’ Festival, the dinner dance parties where he liked to show off. But after he was remanded in custody in 1985 for conspiracy to handle stolen goods Noye was unable to pay for the tickets and his fellow Masons had to cover the substantial cost.

Noye’s relations with the Freemasons were unearthed by Mike Neville, a retired Scotland Yard detective chief inspector. Mr Neville, himself a Mason, examined Noye’s membership as part of his book about Masonic involvement in criminality: Crime and the Craft.

The Gold, which concludes on BBC One today, includes several scenes of Noye cultivating the friendship of a corrupt senior Kent police officer at lodge events, including a Ladies’ Festival.

Mr Neville says that although Noye’s attendance at lodge meetings was irregular “he did however like to attend Ladies’ Festivals – where he could show off to friends and be ‘flash’.”

Noye was eventually expelled from the Hammersmith lodge in October 1987 for “Rule 148” non-payment of his annual subscription.