Share
Crime World
Episode 665: Lennox Rodgers - Breaking Better (Audio Extract)
•
Lennox Rodgers had been to court five times by his 11th birthday and groomed into becoming a pimp by his 14th.
He spent half his life in London's murky underworld as a drug dealer, a gang enforcer, and an armed robber before he hit rock bottom, collapsed behind a bin on Oxford Street when a strange experience became the catalyst for him to turn his life around.
Now the co-founder and CEO of Refocus, an early intervention and crime prevention charity, Rodgers' book Breaking Better gives a searing and honest account of his descent into darkness and of how he found the light.
Today in a crime world special, we're bringing you an extract from his book read by Lennox and his wife, Bali.
More episodes
View all episodes
Spanish court places social media ban on Madison Smyth after fatal road crash
36:00|She’s the wife of a murder suspect, an Only Fans creator and now Madison Smyth has been involved in a fatal collision in Spain’s Costa Blanca and banned from social media pending further investigation.Nicola talks to the Belfast Telegraph's Allison Morris about John George murder suspect Johnny Smyth and his new wife who play out their chaotic lifestyles in a series of selfie movies.
Brother of notorious gangster jailed for transporting body parts of Keane Mulready-Woods
36:50|Convicted drug dealer Stephen Carberry who blamed gangland killer Robbie Lawlor for his brother’s murder has been jailed for six years for helping him transport the remains of Keane Mulready-Woods after he was brutally killed and dismembered.Carberry once made millions along with his brother and Lawlor dealing drugs in County Louth, Dublin and Meath.But he told a court that he was roped into disposing of Mulready-Woods’ remains by Lawlor at a time he was vulnerable, grieving and taking cocaine.Eamon Dillon was in court to hear Carberry’s pleas to a judge for leniency and to hear the sentence he will serve for his role in the grotesque killing.
The Firm out for revenge after Armagh City attack on alleged enforcer
21:07|The North-Armagh crime outfit ‘The Firm’ will take matters into its own hands after convicted double killer Stephen Smith died in January. Smith passed away after a seizure at home but that followed him being injured in an attack in Armagh before Christmas. That incident is being linked to a rival crime gang based in Armagh City – and the Firm are not happy. Why not? The Belfast Telegraph’s crime correspondent Allison Morris joins Ciarán Dunbar on our sister podcast the Bel Tel.
Prince Andrew's arrest & James 'Mago' Gately's CAB battle
37:24|A photographer has captured the news image of the year after he snapped Prince Andrew slinking in the back of his car after his arrest.The shamed royal, Seamus Culleton’s woes, James ‘Mago’ Gatley’s CAB battle, and the 35-year-old shoplifting grandmother all hit the headlines this week.Niall talks to Eimear Rabbitt about the stories that got our readers talking.
Should we be morally outraged by Rex Ryan's The Monk play?
01:01:11|It’s arguably the most controversial stage show in Irish theatre but should we be morally outraged by Rex Ryan’s production The Monk or should we simply view it as a piece of art?Nicola speaks with Niall Donald about The Monk, the play that everyone is talking about.
Dundon McCarthy gang associate who killed man in gangland shooting jailed
28:51|A man has been jailed for 15 years for helping the McCarthy-Dundon gang murder a rival in Limerick at the height of their feud nearly two decades ago.Darragh Quinlivan had lived in the US and later in Manchester in the UK in the years after the murder of Noel Campion but a cold case investigation led to his guilty pleas for weapons charges and organised crime offences.Nicola speaks with Niall Donald about Quinlivan and his long journey to the dock.
How Seamus Culleton's bid to highlight ICE arrest went wrong
33:57|Seamus Culleton made headlines across the globe when he described the ICE detention centre he was being held in as a modern day concentration camp. But sympathy for the Kilkenny-native started to evaporate after he emerged he had been facing drugs charges when he left Ireland for the US in 2009.Niall talks to Nicola about how Seamus' publicity campaign has backfired.
Sex and drug shame Fine Gael councillor gets formal ban from corporate office
21:12|Sex and drug shame councillor Sean McKiernan has been disqualified from acting as a director of any company for a five-year period.The 44-year-old former Fine Gael councillor, who is in jail after pleading guilty to stealing more than €170k from a housing charity, has now been hit with the disqualification order until December 2030 in his latest fall from grace.
Ex-UVF man reveals he was also an IRA member
38:51|A former UVF man who Mark ‘Hannibal’ Haddock tried to stab to death has claimed in an interview that he is a former member of the IRA.Terry Fairfield, who now runs a bar in the UK, claims he was in both organisations and is adamant that nobody suggested a conflict of interest.Nicola speaks to Steven Moore about Fairfield, his claims and the spectre of Haddock’s return to Belfast.