HENRY Bacon had the potential to become Suffolk’s brightest boxing star since former middleweight world title challenger David Starie.

However, his embryonic career now lies in ruins and he will face the fight of his life to resurrect it.

In April last year the Ipswich super-middleweight told The Star of his hopes and dreams for the future ahead of his professional debut in Newmarket, under the tutelage of former boxer Steve ‘Spartacus’ Smith.

Bacon spoke of how he had to ‘stick up’ for his seven younger siblings growing up as part of the travelling community and described his boxing style as ‘blood and guts’.

The former Claydon High School pupil said: “As someone who has just become a professional boxer this will probably sound strange, but I really didn’t have much confidence growing up.

“Being gypsies we are a very close-knit family and there was real pressure to be the alpha male and stick up for my four younger sisters.”

Bacon started boxing because his father Frank, a former Suffolk amateur champion, wanted his son to follow in his footsteps and train under him at his Lowestoft Triple A Boxing Club.

A meeting with Suffolk’s former British Light Heavyweight champion Spartacus changed everything.

Bacon’s talent was there for all to see when reached the semi-finals of the Amateur Boxing Association Championships on his debut in the competition in 2010.

He said: “I enjoy the discipline. I’ve never smoked and am not really a big drinker.

“I just don’t have the tolerance for it so I’m always the one to go home early. My one vice is food.

“The sky’s the limit is the way I’m looking at it.

“I just want to go as far as I can.”

Just two months after he gave that interview police went to his terraced house in Lone Barn Court, off Bramford Road in Ipswich at just after 7am on June 7 to arrest Bacon. It was one of a series of early-morning swoops in Suffolk, Norfolk and Merseyside.

Despite his arrest, Bacon went on to fight professionally three more times with his last bout being in December at Bethnal Green. His professional record stands at three wins and one draw.