Linda Calvey robbed post offices and security vans to avenge her husband’s police shooting. Then she was convicted of murder. Now the subject of a BBC true crime podcast, the so-called Black Widow has settled into a new life as a bestselling author in Basildon. She spoke to the Echo.
Linda Calvey’s sliding doors moment was accepting an invitation to a party. If she hadn’t gone, she would never have embarked on her life of crime. Perhaps nobody would have ever heard of her.
But she went – and as a result, she achieved tabloid infamy as Britain’s worst female gangster, carrying out armed robberies and dubbed the Black Widow after two of her partners were shot dead. She was convicted of the second one’s murder.
It all started because her cousin invited her to a party. That was where Linda, born in Ilford in 1948, met Mickey Calvey. The two fell in love, marrying when she was just 22.
Mickey was an armed robber. In 1978, eight years into their marriage, he was shot dead by a police officer as he fled a south London supermarket he’d just robbed.
A post-mortem found he had been shot in the back, but the police officer claimed he’d shot Mickey in self-defence. The death was ruled a lawful killing. Linda never forgave the authorities.
Before Mickey’s death, she tells the Echo, she never participated in his criminal antics.
“I used to listen when Mickey was discussing things, so I knew what they did, but I never actually did it myself,” she says.
But when he was killed, “Something happened to my brain.”
She felt compelled to pick up where Mickey had left off. Looking back, she thinks she saw it as an act of vengeance against the establishment that had killed her husband without consequence.
“My whole world flipped upside-down,” she says. “Prior to that, I wouldn’t have picked a sweet up in a shop – but then, suddenly, here I am in this armed robbery. I look back and that woman is so alien to me. Totally alien.”
Her first robbery was a post office. She and her gang mainly hit post offices or security vans. Staff and bystanders would be sprayed with ammonia. A judge later called the crimes “horrifying”.
Linda doesn’t disagree.
“I don’t glorify crime,” she says. “I always say that if I could turn the clock back, I would never, ever have done it. It’s my biggest regret. I deserved to get arrested and go to prison. I’m glad my children have never followed in my footsteps.”
Nowadays, she lives on the outskirts of Basildon borough, writing fiction and non-fiction. She has six books out, a seventh on the way and at least two more gestating.
But the BBC podcast has put the focus back on her criminal past, with her memoir 'The Black Widow' re-released to coincide.
Linda and her gang were finally brought to book in the mid-1980s when a private eye, hired by one gang member's suspicious wife, began following him.
Expecting to catch him in an affair, the PI actually caught him holding up a Hornchurch post office and reported the crime to police.
Police began their own surveillance and caught the gang when they tried to hold up another post office in Stepney Green.
Their years-long crime spree is estimated to have netted £1million.
“It was quite a lot of money,” Linda says. “I wanted my kids to have everything.”
But when she was banged up for seven years in 1986, she learned the hard way that her children didn’t appreciate her efforts.
“The first thing they both said when they visited me was, ‘Why did you do it, Mum? We only wanted you. We didn’t want the stuff’,” she recalls.
Her son and daughter, having already lost their dad to the police shooting, had to go and live with relatives.
By the time Linda came out, she had little to show for her former lifestyle.
“It was easy come, easy go,” she says. “We spent it all. There was no saving it up. I think that’s the mentality of most crooks.”
But her release was only the beginning of her infamy.
After being granted parole, Linda’s new partner – Brink’s-Mat gold robber Ronnie Cook – was shot dead in her home near Royal Docks.
She claimed a man burst in and shot him in front of her, but police and prosecutors said she did it.
They claimed she was heard to shout at Ron to “kneel”, before shooting him in the head. Linda said she was actually shouting for her son, Neil.
She has always maintained her innocence, insisting police fitted her up and the results of gunshot residue tests on her hands were mysteriously never disclosed.
She was found guilty, handed a life sentence and spent 18 years behind bars, alongside notorious child killers Rose West and Myra Hindley.
After her release in 2008, she married businessman George Caesar and settled down in Kent.
But, she says: “All my family were in Essex. I missed them so much.”
The couple moved to south Essex, near Linda’s parents, children and grandchildren. Nowadays, she prefers Essex to her old east London stomping ground.
“I have great memories of London. I loved London growing up. But it’s very different now,” she explains.
“Nowadays I prefer Essex, but my heart will always be in the East End. Essex is quieter. I’m 77 now. It’s nice to have a quiet, peaceful life. London is always hectic.”
George died of cancer in 2015. In his final years, says Linda, he had been nagging her to write a book about her life.
Reclaiming her tabloid nickname, she released 'The Black Widow' in 2019.
When it was released, an appearance on This Morning sparked protest from viewers who said Linda should not have been given a platform to promote herself.
When she appeared on the show again this summer, interviewed by Rylan Clark about the new BBC podcast, there were no such protests.
Another reason she likes Essex is because she has found its residents so non-judgemental.
“I’ve been accepted whenever anybody has found out about me. I’ve never had much of a negative response, ever,” she says.
Nonetheless, she has undergone a cutting edge lie detector test in recent years, where a computer monitored her eye movements while she was questioned about Ron Cook’s shooting.
The test found she was telling the truth when she denied the murder.
The Echo spoke to the tester, who confirmed she had passed with flying colours.
“It was important for me, because my children can say their mum did the lie detector, she didn’t kill Ron Cook and she’s not a murderer,” Linda says.
Her 2019 memoir earned praise from crime writers Martina Cole, leading to further book deals for a second memoir about life in prison and a string of crime novels.
Her latest trilogy, titled Faith, Hope and Charity, is inspired by the lives of real women she met in prison.
Given the renewed interest in her own story thanks to the BBC podcast, and the success of true crime dramas like 'Joan', 'The Gold' and 'Mrs Biggs', she is “amazed” nobody has yet initiated a TV series based on her life.
“Watching things like Joan, I’m sure my story has so much more content,” she says.
Who would she liked to play her?
“Most people say to me Sheridan Smith. I think she would be good to play me.”
In the meantime, she is working on her books.
“I sell enough to give me a comfortable life, which is all you can ask for really – especially doing something that you enjoy,” she says.
*Linda Calvey will host a fundraising night at the Palms Hotel, Hornchurch, on November 1, to benefit Newham and Swanley boxing clubs.
Other guests will include Kimberley Chambers and former West Ham players.
Entry is free, but the night will include a raffle and an auction.
Share