Jamie: 'Derek's worse than any gangster I've met'

EastEnders star Jamie Foreman has claimed his character, Derek Branning, is worse than any gangster he's ever known.

The 53-year-old actor has published an autobiography revealing his real-life gangster past, growing up knowing the notorious Kray twins and the Great Train Robber Buster Edwards. But he told the Daily Mirror that EastEnders bad boy Derek is nastier than any of the people he has encountered.

Jamie said: "Derek is the man 10 million viewers love to hate, and I'm thrilled at the impact he's made.

"But Derek is so nasty he even makes me cringe. And, trust me, I've met some really nasty b******s in my time."

The Layer Cake star - who joined the soap as Max's older brother last year - said he wrote his book, Gangsters, Guns And Me, 'to explain what it was like to be born into that world and to grow up around these characters - the real people, the strong men and women, not the gangster caricatures'.

And Jamie is planning to make his own film, about what the Kray twins were really like.

He said: "When I leave EastEnders I'm hoping to produce and direct my own film about the world - and plan to play both the Kray twins myself."