The Three Tuns, Gateshead, 1992

The pub was busy. The darts team were tucking into sandwiches and pies laid on by the new landlady, while regulars supped their pints and chatted around the bar. Behind the scenes, the landlord was making his usual checks.

John L. Gardner was no ordinary landlord. Born and bred in Hackney, East London, he was a former British and European heavyweight champion. In the ring, he had fought men most people would have crossed the road to avoid. But as he made his way through the Three Tuns in Gateshead that night, he saw a face that sent a shiver down his spine.

The man in front of him was Peter Foster. Foster was already barred from the pub after attacking a previous relief manager. He also carried a sinister local reputation. Gardner knew enough to understand that this was not someone he wanted anywhere near the premises.

“Get out of the pub. You’re barred,” Gardner told him.

Foster did not answer. Instead, he pulled a ski mask over his head and produced an eight-to-twelve-inch butcher’s knife. This was no drunken argument. This was deadly serious.

Gardner had once fought and beaten notorious prison hardman Paul Sykes to defend his British title. He had stood across the ring from men who could punch holes through walls. But now, in a narrow pub passageway, he was facing something far more chaotic and dangerous. There were no gloves, no referee and no bell. Only a masked man, a blade and seconds to react.

Foster burst towards him, thrusting and slashing with the knife.

The Hard Edge of the North East

The North East has always produced tough men. Names like Viv Graham, Lee Duffy, Brian Cockerill, Ernie Berwick, Dave Garside, Ian Freeman, Eddy Ellwood, Billy Robinson and Richie Horsley became part of the region’s hardman folklore.

Most of those men, for all their reputations, were known primarily for using their hands. But there has always been another type of violent figure in the underworld. A more unpredictable breed. Men with no boundaries, no discipline and no hesitation when it came to weapons.

Peter Foster, from Gateshead, was one of those men.

By the early 1990s, Gateshead was still a gritty industrial town on the south bank of the River Tyne, closely tied to Newcastle but with its own hard reputation. Working-class communities, pub culture, street violence and economic decline all formed part of the landscape. Areas such as Bensham and Dunston had their own stories and their own tough characters. In certain pubs, violence was not unusual. Fights could erupt quickly, and reputations carried weight.

But Foster stood apart from the usual hardman culture. He was not simply a fighter. He had a far darker edge.

In 1986, he made headlines after a vile attack on a woman he knew. He broke into her house and waited for her to return. When she arrived, he attacked her, threatened her with a knife and subjected her to a degrading sexual assault.

At the time, the offence carried a maximum sentence of ten years. Foster changed his plea to guilty partway through the trial and, after receiving credit for that plea, was sentenced to six years. By the time he crossed paths with John L. Gardner at the Three Tuns, Foster was already a known danger.

Liberty’s Nightclub, Birtley: The Taxi Rank Bloodbath

A year before the attack on Gardner, another night out in Gateshead had ended in bloodshed. In 1991, Graham Watson and his friends left Liberty’s nightclub in Birtley and climbed into a taxi that had been booked for someone else. An argument followed almost immediately. Another clubber began shouting abuse, and Watson, no stranger to confrontation, got out of the taxi and attacked him with punches and kicks.

Then Russel Baldwin stepped in. Baldwin was a 6ft 3in boxer and a respected local hardman in Birtley. He had a reputation as a no-nonsense figure in the local boxing scene, and when he tried to break up the fight, it should have been a routine intervention. Instead, it turned fatal.

Watson’s group were not looking for a fair fist fight. One of the men was armed with a butcher’s knife. Baldwin was stabbed in the stomach, the blade severing an artery and leaving him bleeding out in the street. The scene descended into panic.

Watson and others, including a recently released Peter Foster, took control of a taxi. A knife was held to the driver’s throat and he was forced to drive them away from the scene. The driver later described the terror of those moments, saying he had seen everything before they got into his cab, put a knife to his throat and ordered him to drive.

The group escaped Gateshead and fled to Brighton, where they evaded police for a week before being caught. Although the killing shocked the region, the focus initially fell on Graham Watson as the main suspect. Foster’s name did not appear prominently in the early reports, despite his presence in the escape and his existing reputation for violence.

But his name would surface again in connection with Watson during another explosive court incident.

John L. Gardner: The Forgotten Champion

John L. Gardner had once been one of Britain’s most formidable heavyweights. Known as the Hackney Rock and the Mini Marciano, he became British and European heavyweight champion, but over time he slipped from public memory and became known by some as the Forgotten Champ.

His early life had been brutal. Terrorised by a violent father and shunned by many of his peers, Gardner grew up in a deprived part of the East End. His closest companions were his devoted mother and an Alsatian called Vic. Boxing gave him a way out.

At his peak, Gardner was relentless. He was not the biggest heavyweight at around six feet tall, but his work rate, punch output and refusal to back down made him a nightmare opponent. He fought and beat Paul Sykes, the feared Wakefield prisoner and fighter. He went toe-to-toe with Muhammad Ali in an exhibition. Later, he was stopped for the first time by American heavyweight Michael Dokes.

Gardner retired after the Dokes fight in 1981 and took his family to Tenerife. He made a brief return to the ring in 1983, winning two and losing one, before retiring for good.

In September 1992, the Gardner family accepted an offer from Newcastle Breweries to move north and manage the Three Tuns in Gateshead. They knew the pub had a rough reputation. They also knew it needed a firm landlord. But at that point, Gardner could not have imagined the horror waiting for him only a couple of months later.

The Attack at the Three Tuns

By November 1992, Gardner had begun putting his stamp on the pub. The Three Tuns was full that night. The darts team were playing, regulars were enjoying a drink, and Gardner’s wife Michelle was helping look after the customers.

Gardner was checking the premises and making sure areas of the pub were properly managed when he saw Peter Foster. Foster had been barred after attacking a previous relief manager who had refused to serve him. Gardner knew his reputation and made it clear that he had to leave.

Then Foster pulled the ski mask over his head, drew the butcher’s knife and lunged. The blade went deep into Gardner’s stomach.

The two men struggled violently in the hallway. Gardner fought back, punching Foster to the head and trying to force him against the wall. But then his strength began to go. He collapsed to the floor, badly wounded. He would later describe the horrifying sight of his own stomach injury, with blood pouring out and his insides exposed.

He had been stabbed fourteen times.

Michelle heard the commotion and ran in. She saw Foster standing over her husband and launched herself at him, crashing into him to get him away from John. Foster then turned the knife on her.

He stabbed Michelle several times as the couple fought desperately with him in the corridor. Foster thrashed and slashed at them as they struggled to survive. Then Gardner saw his wife hurt and somehow, despite his wounds, found another burst of strength. He got back to his feet and punched Foster repeatedly. Michelle fought back with everything she had.

Finally, Foster fled. He left behind a corridor covered in blood and a married couple fighting to keep John L. Gardner alive. Michelle was left trying to hold her husband’s body together.

It was a hellish scene.

Gardner was rushed to hospital, where a five-hour operation saved his life. Michelle’s wounds were serious but not life-threatening. Foster was caught and remanded in custody.

The Courtroom Twist

The case then took another extraordinary turn. While Foster was facing proceedings over the attack on John L. Gardner, reports also linked him to another court case involving Graham Watson and the killing of Russel Baldwin outside Liberty’s nightclub.

The two cases had disturbing similarities. Both involved a butcher’s knife. Both involved wounds to the stomach. Both involved violence against men connected to boxing. Fortunately, Gardner survived. Baldwin did not.

Then, during court proceedings, Foster somehow managed to smuggle a penknife into the courtroom. He attacked his co-accused Graham Watson, stabbing him, and also wounded a female prison officer. Their injuries were not life-threatening, but the incident underlined once again just how dangerous and unpredictable Foster was.

In another surprising outcome, Foster was cleared of involvement in the Birtley knife attack after recounting his part in the incident. Watson, who claimed self-defence, was jailed for manslaughter rather than murder. The charge against Foster for the attack on John L. Gardner was also reduced from attempted murder to wounding with intent.

Across three serious incidents, Foster was either cleared or saw the most severe potential charges reduced. For John and Michelle Gardner, none of that changed what happened inside the Three Tuns.

A former heavyweight champion, a man who had fought some of the hardest men in Britain, had nearly been killed not in a boxing ring but in a Gateshead pub corridor by a masked attacker with a butcher’s knife.

John L. Gardner had survived some brutal fights in his life, but the night Peter Foster walked into the Three Tuns may have been the deadliest of them all.