Leonard John McLean (9 April 1949 – 28 July 1998) was an English unlicensed boxer, bouncer, bodyguard, businessman and actor. He was known as "The Guv'nor", "the King of the Cobbles" and "the hardest man in Britain". Lenny McLean was born into a large, working-class Irish family in Hoxton in the East End of London. His father, Leonard John McLean Sr., had been a Royal Marine during the Second World War, but after being debilitated by a near-fatal disease which he contracted in India, he became a petty criminal and swindler. He died when Lenny was four years old. [ citation needed] [4] I said ‘Now then, now then, now then!’ and looked over, gave him a scowl and a growl, and he behaved like a choirboy for the rest of the night. 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.

Book review: ‘My Dad, the Guv’nor’ by Kelly McLean Book review: ‘My Dad, the Guv’nor’ by Kelly McLean

Reynolds, Alexander (7 July 2017). "Lenny McLean vs. Roy Shaw: Battle of the Guv'nors". Vice . Retrieved 24 February 2020. A joint Scotland Yard and NSPCC report branded him one of the UK’s most prolific known sexual predators. Making the best of what you had, and maintaining your reputation was important in themanor. Most people would make a fuss of little Kelly and Jamie, very recognisable with theirbright red hair, because they knew they were the Guv’nor’s children.But I think from an early age I realised people feared my dad. We didn’t have a normal upbringing.”

The Autobiography of a Football Hooligan Gang Leader Guvnors: The Autobiography of a Football Hooligan Gang Leader

The book does leave some unanswered questions; the Guv’nor was arrested for attemptedmurder, causing distress to his family, but the sentence was eventually changedto grievous bodily harm. We learn very little about the crime he was accused of orabout the victim. Similarly, the author hints that she is no longer speaking to her brother Jamie,but we never learn why.

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. Val eventually had a breakdown and ended up in St Clement’s Hospital:, which was a ‘mentalhospital’ as they were called then. When she recovered, she gave Lenny an ultimatum tostop drinking or lose his family, which seemed to have worked. However, as Kelly explains, unfortunately her father’s moods were not just drink-related, but stemmed from his unhappy and abusive childhood and possibly from undiagnosed mental health issues as well.