Thomas ‘Ginger’ Marks (1928-1965) was a gangland figure who was most known for being shot dead in Cheshire Street, Bethnal Green by Freddie Foreman, Alfie Gerrard and Jerry Callaghan in January 1965, when he was aged 37. The shooting took place outside the Repton Boxing Club.
The proposed victim was Jimmy Evans, the small-time villain who had shot Freddie Foreman’s brother George in the groin over an affair sometime before. Evans was the original target when Foreman accidentally killed ‘Ginger’ Marks. His body never being found, it is assumed he was buried in the depths of the English Channel beyond Newhaven.
Murder[]
The murder of Tommy "Ginger" Marks is no longer one of the London Underworld mysteries as his killers are now publicly known. Freddie Foreman & Alfie Gerrard. Underworld legend has it that Marks was shot in mistake for Jimmy Evans, a safe blower who was involved in a deadly conflict with Foreman. They went on trial ten years after the event but were cleared, and in the late nineties, Foreman admitted that he and Gerrard were the killers. He had already been cleared of the murder.
Scotland Yard issued photo of Thomas "Ginger" Marks, a 36 year old dealer, who police fear may have been the victim of a shooting. © Alamy
Evans, in his memoirs, rubbishes the Foreman version of events, and actually, gives very reasonable and logical arguments over the shooting. Evans states that Marks was called over to a car with four occupants. Two opened fire, killing Marks. Shots were then fired towards him but he escaped. The story goes that Marks misheard the call and thought it was him that was beckoned. Foreman claims this and that Evans hid behind Marks and used his body as a shield. Evans was then supposed to have hidden under a vehicle. Evans rubbishes this by stating that Foreman & Gerard opened fire from six feet away, and not in a position to mistake Marks for him, even in the dark. Marks was six foot four and around fifteen stone, whilst he was five foot eight and eleven stone.
Evans says that the reason Marks was targeted was that he had been told by "Duke" Osborne that Foreman was in cahoots with Butler & Williams, the heads of the Flying Squad. Marks told Evans what Osborne had said to him and was telling anybody who would listen. Evans` argument over the shooting was that Marks became the immediate target for Foreman, despite the war between them, and that they could easily have killed them both. Of course, some people hated Evans for his claims about Foreman, but I have not heard anybody rebut Evans`version of events. Despite the change to the Double Jeopardy law, a change to an eight-hundred-year-old law, Foreman has never been charged, not even for perjury, for Marks or Frank Mitchell, despite admitting that the evidence of Albert Donoghue was the truth. Evans claims that Foreman has had high-level protection, including for murder.