To some Stephen French is ‘The Devil’ but to John Lloyd he is an angel
A boxing coach said his life was saved by Stephen French after he collapsed behind the wheel of his car. John Lloyd, 74, from Aughton, has been with the Kirkby Amateur Boxing Club for 63 years.
The club has helped produce some of the city’s greatest fighters over the decades, from John Conteh to Paul Hodkinson and Shea Neary. Mr Lloyd said that on August 1 he was on his way to a business meeting in Kirkby.
Mr Lloyd was driving his car and as he pulled up to talk to someone he collapsed. The next few moments are a blur for him. Mr Lloyd told the ECHO: “My eyes rolled backwards and my lips went blue. Unknown to me, there were two people walking past. One was Stephen French and one was Gerald McCormack. I don’t remember anything at all.”
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Stephen French, known in the city as a former gangster who used to make a living robbing drug dealers, said: “He was beginning to turn purple. I laid him on the floor. He had no pulse. I started CPR straight away. After about three minutes I decided he was dead. He’d actually turned purple at this point. My friends encouraged me to carry on. I blew into him like I was blowing into a whale.”
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Mr Lloyd said the next thing he recalls is the paramedics helping him and taking him to hospital. He said: “I felt every pothole from Kirkby to Aintree.”
Mr Lloyd said the cause of his collapse was unknown at this stage, but doctors had told him it could be linked to his type two diabetes. He claims to have struck up a close friendship with Mr French since the incident, and said he visited him in hospital on Saturday, August 3.
He said: “He came to the hospital to see me. What a character he was. He sat down and talked about how he’s into boxing.”
Mr French said: “We’re both mad Liverpool fans. We’re both boxing fans. We’re aiming to bridge the gap between different communities. I’m all about mending fences and building bridges. I’m all about trying to make Liverpool as cosmopolitan as it makes out it is.”
Mr Lloyd said: “He gave me a hug, he gave me a kiss. I said, ‘you never even bought me a drink when you gave me mouth to mouth.’ I owe him my life. I can’t thank him enough honestly. He learnt CPR through his boxing. Thank God he was there.”
Formerly one of the most feared and brutal gangsters in Britain, French grew up in Toxteth and began his life of crime as a petty mugger and house burglar. But, as the drugs business, he began to rob city barons of their huge fortunes, torturing them until they paid up.
This earned him the nickname of ‘The Devil’. In recent years, he has promoted himself as a reformed peace activist and anti-gun campaigner. Mr French said he had been influenced by his faith as a born-again Christian and added: “I’ve moved on from that. I’ve served my time. I’m doing lots of good things and I’m involved with lots of charities.”