AMONG the celebrities, aristocrats and oligarchs dropping off their children at the gates of one of Britain’s most exclusive boarding schools, one parent stands out.
With a false eye, lurching limp and thick Cockney accent, former gangster Marvin Herbert has 21 convictions for 76 offences, including shootings and armed robberies.
SuppliedMarvin Herbert, pictured with daughter Sloane, fell into a life of crime as a schoolboy[/caption]
Since Marvin had fallen into a life of crime early, he feared his youngest daughter was on course to follow in his deadly footstepsSupplied
Brookie/WikipediaSloane is on track to become Head Girl at super posh Millfield School in Somerset – where fees are an eye-watering £58,000 a year[/caption]
Marvin, 53, has spent a total of 12 years behind bars, including being sentenced to five years after getting caught with a machine gun.
“I got arrested for lots, punished for lots, and got away with lots,” he recalls with a wry smile.
But the dad-of-four’s daughter Sloane, 17, is now a model pupil at £58,000-a-year Millfield School in Somerset, starting her A-levels and with an ambition to later become Head Girl.
Pupils there have included DJ Tony Blackburn, F1 driver Lando Norris, Romeo Beckham and bread boss Jonathan Warburton.
But Sloane, who is a keen netball and cricket player, grew up in a very different world.
She says: “One of my earliest memories is rooting around when I was left in the car for a few minutes, and pulling a gun out of the glove compartment.”
But Marvin put crime behind him. He turned to podcasting and motivational speaking to bankroll Sloane’s education, as well as sister Marley Rose, 18, who was at £30,000-a-year Heathfield School in Ascot, Berks, before studying at Nottingham University.
He also now runs a rehab centre in London to help criminals get on the straight and narrow.
Gucci bling
But growing up in Liverpool, he got into crime very young — stealing car parts at the age of eight — before moving to London and falling in with notorious gang the Yardie Hit Squad.
Marvin has been stabbed more than 20 times and shot five times — once losing an eye, and another time a testicle.
He now has 16 pins in his right leg and eight facial scars — not your usual look among the silk-cravat crowd cheering on their darlings at Millfield cricket matches.
Marvin was called a “Premier League villain” by a Crown Court judge when jailed in 2003 over the machine gun. On his release, he scarpered to Spain and set up a business providing security for beach bars in millionaires’ playground Puerto Banus.
He recalls: “I went deep into the highest level of criminality, rubbed shoulders with the best and the worst.”
But there then came a terrifying brush with death, which made Marvin wake up to the error of his ways.
He got into a fight with a local man who was armed with a machine gun. It was over a stolen de- signer watch, and he was shot five times in the eye, crotch, arm and leg.
That run-in motivated him to turn his back on crime. He was distraught at the idea of his kids growing up without a dad, and says: “I’m glad he shot me, if I’m being honest, because I sort of predicted where my life would have ended up if I never got shot.”
InstagramMarvin lost an eye when a rival shot him and also lost a testicle when a bullet travelled through his penis[/caption]
SuppliedMarvin, pictured outside 10 Downing Street, now runs a rehab centre in London where he is helps reform some of the capital’s deadliest criminals[/caption]
SuppliedMost of their dads have boring jobs in business or finance but my dad is a sought-after celebrity at school, says Sloane[/caption]
He spent months in hospital recovering — but was arrested again in 2013 on suspicion of helping cop- killer Dale Cregan evade justice, although the case against Marvin was later dropped owing to a lack of evidence.
He finally returned to the UK in 2015 to build a new life for his kids. He has now split from the mum of his two girls and is single in Camden, North London, while also having sons Dane, 32, and Teigan, 26, sons from a previous relationship.
Sloane, meanwhile, is moving in high society, making friends with the rich and famous — rather than infamous.
She says of boarding school: “I love it. Friends have invited me to their homes in South Africa and Ghana, we have the Prince of Qatar’s cousin here, someone who is about 30th in line to the throne — and loads of super-rich Chinese and Russian kids who are head to foot in Gucci bling.
“Most of their dads have boring jobs in business or finance but my dad is a sought-after celebrity at school. Everyone knows him and wants to hear his stories, and he loves retelling them.
“He’s covered in scars but the other fathers include him in everything — he’s always invited for coffees, dinners and drinks — and the boys get really excited when they know Dad is coming into school, they think he’s cool.”
HIGH SOCIETY CIRCLES
She cringes, though, when Marvin “pretends to be posh”.
He explains: “If I put on my posh voice it embarrasses her. I’m not allowed to speak posh so I’m just myself.”
Marvin attends Sloane’s netball and cricket fixtures but borrows pals’ flash motors to arrive in style. Sloane says: “He turns up in a different car every time — Rolls- Royces, Mercedes, BMWs.”
But she adds: “The thing that winds me up is when people tell me he’s on TikTok Live. He can be a bit much on social media. But I love that my dad doesn’t care what other people think.”
Needless to say, Marvin also has strict rules when it comes to vetting his daughter’s potential boyfriends.
“They don’t touch her or kiss her until I’ve had a chat with them first,” he says — and Sloane’s most recent beau was dumped after he failed to turn up to dinner with Marvin when asked. “He was a bit overwhelmed,” says Sloane.
She insists she is no pushover herself, adding of her dad: “I’m more scary than him.”
But she added: “If people make me angry, I don’t hurt them, I hurt the things they love. I had this habit of hiding car keys and remote controls then calmly watching everyone lose their minds searching for them.”
Marvin is proud as punch of who she is becoming, though. Sloane says that after her schooling, she plans to study business and foreign languages — then ultimately “make money while I sleep”.
PA:Press AssociationMarvin was arrested in 2013 on suspicion of helping killer Dale Cregan evade justice – but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence[/caption]
PA:Press AssociationFollowing the murders of father and son Mark and David Short in Manchester in 2012, Cregan fled and went on to kill police officers Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
