'I felt it was time for their story to be told and it inspired my novel, which is the first in a planned trilogy for Orion about the gang, stretching from the 1920s to the 1950s.'. Following a trial at theOld Baileyin 1967, he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. With Warren at his heels, Fraser ambushed Spot in a Paddington street, knocking him to the ground with a shillelagh. The big question everyone has about Frank is Was he really mad? He was certified insane three times once by the Army, twice in prison and he was diagnosed as a psychopath but his family argue, and I tend to agree, that he played the system to suit himself. Monty Python sketch featuring the Piranha brothers, Doug and Dinsdale. At her kitchen table, Alice would teach her girls how to roll furs on the hanger and shove them down their drawers, which the gang called 'clouting'. Fraser was the youngest of five children who were growing up in poverty - he first turned to crime at the tender age of 10, alongside his sister Eva. 'It was not just a man's world, despite the countless column inches still spent poring over the phenomenon that was the Kray Twins,' she added. While the award-winning TV show Peaky Blinders was inspired by the all-male Brummagem Boys gang from the same period, the Forty Thieves make some of even their escapades seem tame by comparison. 'My gran liked to go for tea at the Ritz, especially if she could pinch someone's fur coat from the cloakroom on the way out. On the night of March 7 1966 Fraser and Eddie Richardson were badly hurt in a brawl at Mr Smiths club in Catford, the incident that broke the Richardson familys grip on south London. Both Fraser and his sister, Eva, were also active juvenile thieves. As a young woman, Eva became an accomplished hoister (shoplifter). Aged seven, Ms Pitts was stealing milk and bread to provide food for her five siblings. When shoplifting she used a number of techniques including: wearing different wigs, putting stolen items under her skirt and the use of barrier bags lined with tin foil to prevent the detection of security tags. If you love GANGLAND and women in crime who rubbed shoulders with Frank and the Krays, you're going to QUEEN OF CLUBS my new book set in seedy 1950s Soho and inspired by the Forty Thieves hoisters gang including Frank's sister Eva Fraser and the notorious hoister Shirley Pitts from Walworth who grew up with his sons David and Patrick. Their loot would be stuffed into these 'hoister's drawers', allowing the women to leave the stores undetected. [26] On 21 November 2014, he fell critically ill during leg surgery at King's College Hospital, Denmark Hill[27] and was placed into an induced coma. Frank's mother, Margaret, was a huge influence on him but his "best pal" and early partner in crime was his sister, Eva. Registered in England & Wales | 01676637 |. As people facedblackouts, rationing and a lack of professional policing due toconscription, Fraser had ample opportunities for criminal activities, such as stealing from houses while the occupants were hiding for safety in air-raid shelters. When caught by police she replied: 'I don't know anything about it.'. Please enter your username or email address to reset your password. Together they set up the Atlantic Machines fruit-machine enterprise, which acted as a front for the criminal activities of the gang. Frankie Fraser, who has died aged 90, was a notorious torturer and hitman for the Richardson gang of south London criminals in the 1960s; he spent 42 years behind bars before achieving a certain cult status in later life as an author, after-dinner speaker, television pundit and tour guide. Fraser owed his success in the fruit machine business to Billy Hill, whose patronage Fraser courted when he attacked and almost killed Hills gangland rival Jack "Spot" Comer. The following year, the British mobsterJack Spotand wife Rita were attacked on Billy Hill's say-so, by Fraser, Bobby Warren and at least half a dozen other men. During the 1940s it was not unusual for 'hoisters', a historical term for shoplifters, to be paid a hundred pounds a week - out earning men's average wages ten-to-one. Some became pals with young actresses as they partied in Soho nightclubs and stole dresses to order for them to wear on the red carpet. With the help of Hill and mafia interests, Fraser and Eddie Richardson established Atlantic Machines, a successful business placing one-armed bandits in clubs throughout Britain. Eva (Fraser) Brindle (1920s-2000s) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree [15] In 1966, Fraser was charged with the murder of Richard Hart, who was shot at Mr Smith's club in Catford while other Richardson associates, including Jimmy Moody, were charged with affray. It will only make me a worse villain!'. Throughout his life he denied the justice of this conviction, but he was happy to trade off it. Their alleged specialities included pulling teeth out using pliers, cutting off toes using bolt cutters and nailing victims to floors using 6-inch nails. Borstal was followed by prison, where in 1943 he met the influential London villain Billy Hill, for whom he worked on and off for more than a decade, culminating in his slashing of Hills rival Jack Spot in 1956 after the self-styled kings of the underworld had fallen out. He was a deserter during the Second World War, escaping from his barracks . Diamond took her under her wing and showed her how to shoplift in 1947, when Pitts was just 12. When she married the father of five of her seven children, Chris Hawkins, he subjected her to cruel beatings - but quickly stopped following a warning from the Kray Twins. He was moved from prison to prison more than 100 times because he was virtually impossible to control. It has emerged that the former gangland enforcer, who has spent 42 years in prison for 26. Who was 'Mad' Frankie Fraser? | The Irish Sun The police were cozzers and a burglary was a screwer, hitting someone was a clump, while jewellery was tom as in Tom Foolery, in rhyming slang. If you love GANGLAND and women in crime who rubbed shoulders with Frank and the Krays, you're going to QUEEN OF CLUBS my new book set in seedy 1950s Soho and inspired by the Forty Thieves hoisters gang including Frank's sister Eva Fraser and the notorious hoister Shirley Pitts from Walworth who grew up with his sons David and Patrick. His gangster boss Charles Richardson remembered him as one of the most polite, mild-mannered men Ive met but he has a bad temper on him sometimes. Updated November 28, 2014 2.43pmfirst published at 2.41pm Save Share They enjoyed buying nice things with the money and putting on the posh. Another grandson, Anthony Fraser, was being sought by police in February 2011 for his alleged involvement in an alleged 5 million cannabis smuggling ring. Queen of Thieves: The gangland women who made Peaky Blinders look like The gang's ringleaders appeared in a secret register of criminals, that is now kept by the National Archives, which then existed to help police track down the most persistent offenders. As a reward, he was shown his examination answers, and thats how I come top, he later boasted. Her wartime experience was spent on the switchboards during the Blitz. Morton was relieved that, rather than remonstrating, Fraser wanted him to write his life story. Although his parents were not criminals, Fraser turned to crime aged 10 with his sister Eva, to whom he was close. ', The notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser's sister Eva had risen through the ranks of the gang after joining in the 1930s. Francis Davidson Fraser, known as "Mad" Frankie Fraser, was the scourge of prison governors and warders up and down Britain during the periods when he served a total of more than 40 years'. Fraser was part of Britain's Underworld between the 1940s-1960's. He was a known associate of gangster Billy Hill throughout the 1950s. But she was once caught stealing stockings and was sent to prison.. After trying his hand at crime as a child, Fraser then continued into his later life. Eva was a leading light in the gang in the thirties and forties, having risen through the ranks of the gang after joining in the 1930s. From the time of Frankie Fraser's sister Eva and the gang of hoisters The Forty Thieves, comes a book which will have you gripped this summer. Fraser has complained in the past that "I had no help from my family; my mother and father were dead straight so I had to make my own way. Charles Richardson was a criminal businessman who reputedly specialised in various tortures administered at secret courts at which he presided, sometimes robed like a judge, a knife or a gun to hand. End-right girl on the back row is Eva.. Every old-school south Londoner knows the folklore of cockney criminal Frankie Fraser, whose violent tendencies were infamous on the streets of Walworth. It was during this sentence that he was first certified insane and was sent to Cane Hill Hospital before being released in 1949. As an adult she was beaten by one of her boyfriends and the father of five of her seven children, Chris Hawkins, who was a fruit and vegetable seller in Hoxton. The gang probably had its roots in the Victorian slums around Seven Dials, near Covent Garden, infamous in Dickens's day. Fraser had no problem dealing with rival operators whose business was dented as a result. Fraser was one of the ringleaders of the major Parkhurst Prison riot in 1969, spending the following six weeks in the prison hospital because of his injuries. Photo taken in the late 1940s on a pub Beano (day out) in Walworth, before the group travelled to Margate On the back row: the girls mum, Margaret, next to daughter Kathleen. Fraser was seen kicking Richard Hart, a Kray associate, as he lay on the pavement outside. His funeral took place on December 18, 2014. Mad Frankie Fraser - Everything2.com I don't think they felt bad about it. Photograph: Alex Segre/Rex. For a time he was engaged to Marilyn Wisbey, daughter of the Great Train Robber Tommy Wisbey, with whom he briefly ran a massage parlour in Islington, in which Fraser made the tea. Fraser was the youngest of five children who were growing up in poverty - he first turned to crime at the tender age of 10, alongside his sister Eva. After the war, Fraser was involved in a smash-and-grab raid on a jeweller, for which he received a two-year prison sentence, mostly served atHMP Pentonville. His decision to join the Richardsons rather than their rivals, the Krays, has been described as "like China getting the atom bomb". Having chronicled the life of old mad Frank, author Beezy Marsh has turned her pen to Peggy, Kathleen and Eva; in her new book Keeping My Sisters Secrets. So it was in January 1965, when a club owner called Benny Coulston was hauled before Richardson for swindling him out of 600 over a consignment of cigarettes. A witness later changed histestimony,and the charges were eventually dropped, though Fraser still received a five-year sentence for affray. By the 1950s, the gang were facing ever-present store detectives and had to rely more on disguises. Eva got six months for stealing stockings from Bentalls in Kingston upon Thames. An early nickname Razor Fraser reflected his penchant for shivving his enemies faces with a cut-throat blade. "At the races, I'd be bucket boy," says Fraser in the documentary, Frankie Fraser's Last Stand, which will be broadcast on the Crime and Investigation network on 16 June at 9pm. [11] In 1942, while serving a prison sentence in HM Prison Chelmsford, he came to the attention of the British Army. Author returns with book about the fascinating lives of notorious Members of The Forty Thieves worked department stores including Selfridges in teams of three or four during hoisting trips up to three times a week. contact IPSO here, 2001-2023. 'Mad Frank' the thug, hitman and enforcer Physically slight at only 5ft 4in, and invariably wearing a smile and in retirement a sharp Savile Row suit, Frankie Fraser was nevertheless a ferocious and brutal hatchet man. He spent 42 years almost half his life in prison for 26 offences. At signing sessions of his books he was always willing to be photographed pretending to extract a tooth with pliers brought by the fan. Diamond's second-in-command Maggie Hughes (right) was known as 'Babyface' for her sweet looks and made a habit of cheekily shouting back at the judge when she was sentenced to jail: 'It won't cure me! The Kray twins (pictured) held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard. Eva Brindle formerly Fraser. Born 1920s. During the 1950s, Fraser's main criminal occupation was as bodyguard to well-known gangsterBilly Hill. A machine costing 400 could quickly recoup its cost if well-sited, and Frasers company offered club owners 40 per cent of the take rather than the standard 35 per cent as an inducement to install their machines. Possessed of a ready wit and good repartee, he followed this up with stage performances both in the East and West End, where he appeared with his then companion of 10 years, Marilyn Wisbey, the daughter of a Great Train Robber, Tommy Wisbey. It was almost as if the biggest thrill of all was the act of stealing itself. Women carried tools needed for burglaries so the police had no evidence if they stopped the men following the crime. With Frankie Fraser, Chris Keenan, Steve Box, Michael Boyd. The gang passed on their secrets from mother to daughter, aunt to niece, so whole generations of families saw crime as a way of life. For latest book news including updates on the forthcoming film Mad Frank and Sons please like my page Beezy Marsh. Fraser was just 13 when he was sent to an approved school for stealing 40 cigarettes. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. The family was hard-working and kept themselves clean [out of crime].. By 20 she was leader of The Forty Thieves and wore a row of diamond rings that acted as a knuckle duster. contact the editor here. Yet they fiercely guarded their right to 'earn' their own money. . Various members were eventually caught, though and served their time in Holloway prison, where rations were meagre and they slept on boards. Fraser served a total of 42 years in over 20 different prisons in the UK for numerous violent offences. 'In fact, she was one of the people who spotted his talent for stealing after he pinched a cigarette machine from a hotel as a small boy. In the early half of the 20th century one queen, Diamond, regularly appeared in the press where she was once described as a 'tall and commanding figure with a cool demeanour'. His last jail term ended in 1989, but in 2011 he was handed an Asbo after getting into an argument with a fellow pensioner at the sheltered accommodation where he lived in Bermondsey. Swathed in luxurious fur coats, wearing diamond rings as a knuckledusters and hats to hide their stolen wares, Britain's most notorious all-female gang ruledthe tenements of Waterloo and Elephant and Castle and earned the respect of Soho's most feared underworld bosses. News reports were checked to see how much was owing. Each incident added more time to his sentence. Nothing ever got to Frankie, wrote Charlie Richardson. 'Mad' Frankie Fraser handed an asbo aged 90 - the Guardian She had known their father, who was a fence (seller of stolen goods) or a 'thieves' ponce' - he would put up the money to finance criminal operations - which was a career on which she looked down. Join Facebook to connect with Frankie Fraser and others you may know. She was one of the top thieves during the war. Two people were left dead. Had her first criminal conviction aged 14 and went on to become Diamond's accomplice. Over the last decade or so he was on the cabaret circuit and ran gangland tours of the East End, taking in such sights as the Blind Beggar pub, where Ronnie Kray shot dead George Cornell, one of the Richardson gang, in 1966. Frankie Frasers wife Doreen, with whom he had four sons, died in 1999. Young Frankie attended local schools, captained the football team, and acted as bookies runner to one of the teachers. "You name it, we nicked it," he says. Alice herself was famous for clouting three furs in one go: one down each leg and one under her gusset. Bought stolen goods and sold them on in a role known as 'the fence'. He then worked for legendary Soho crime boss Billy Hill in the 1950s, earning the nickname razor Fraser for his attacks on those who crossed him, before becoming embroiled in protection rackets in the 1960s, rising to the position of the Boss of Soho. 'It was incredibly subversive to go against the class system and steal furs and luxury items and swan about like they were rich - but that is exactly what they did. The Guardian, October 12 1980 Frank Fraser is a thorn in the Prison Department's side - a thorn so big that he is possibly the only British criminal who has become a legend simply by serving time. After trying his hand at crime as a. He received a further five years when, in 1970, he was acquitted of incitement to murder but convicted of grievous bodily harm after he had led the Parkhurst prison riot the previous year. However, according to a new documentary, he is clearly not going gentle into any good night. Frank had been active as a criminal from the 1930s and was given his first prison sentence at the outbreak of the Second World War. Frankie Fraser Biography | HowOld.co Nevertheless his campaigns and, on the outside, those of Eva, did bring the attention of the general public to the unpalatable conditions in which prisoners served then their sentences. AS is the case with so many crime families, the key to understanding the men came through getting to know the women who cared for them. Fraser, he recalled, was more than capable of doing what he threatened. MAD FRANK and SONS - Home - Facebook Theres one account of one of Peggys colleagues pretending to still be single so she could carry on working as a Post Office manager. Whereas for Eva it was about her earning her own money on her own terms. It was not that he thought he was Napoleon. I saved myself from Royal life, Harry says & insists 'sharing's an act of service', Love Island's Olivia Hawkins breaks silence as she returns to the UK, Loose Women star lined up to be Strictly's first contestant in wheelchair, Coronation Street fans horrified as Amy Barlow is raped in disturbing scenes, News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. He also claimed to have been the first bandit to wear a stocking mask. They set up a fruit machine enterprise, which they would sell to pub landlords, to cover up their crimes. Her brother was the notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser, who joined turf wars between London gangs in the sixties. Fraser treated his various brushes with death as an occupational hazard: his thigh bone was shattered by a bullet fired during the melee in Catford, and part of his mouth was shot away in an incident in May 1991 when someone botched an attempt to assassinate him outside a nightclub in Farringdon. Eva (Fraser) Brindle. At least two home secretaries considered Fraser the most dangerous man in Britain, an image which, in old age, he only half-heartedly sought to dispel. But by the 1930s, the breeding ground for its recruits was South London. Francis Davidson Fraser was born on December 13 1923 in Cornwall Road, a slum area of south London on the site of what is now the Royal Festival Hall. The women were completely faithful to their leader, known as the queen, who doled out harsh punishments and carried strict rules including not helping police officers by informing. They would go through Selfridges department store in the West End and steal furs and expensive clothes. It was during the war that he first became involved in serious crime, with the blackout and rationing, combined with the lack of professional policemen due to conscription, providing ample opportunities for criminal activities such as stealing from houses while the occupants were in air-raid shelters. The violent thugs, the Kray twins, held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard during the 1940s and 1950s. The notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser's sister Eva had risen through the ranks of the gang after joining in the 1930s. According to Eddie Richardson, Fraser had Alzheimer's disease for the last three years of his life. inaccuracy or intrusion, then please They worked department stores including Selfridges in teams of three or four during hoisting trips up to three times a week. In 1991, while emerging from Turnmills nightclub in Clerkenwell, London, he was shot at by an unidentified gunman. There was also quite a comeuppance for both Patrick and David who both served their time. It sounds like the worst days of Prohibition in Chicago rather than London in 1956, complained Mr Justice Donovan, but words were wasted on Fraser. View our online Press Pack. Born near Waterloo station, central London, he was the fifth child of a poor family. When Frankie was in prison, Eva helped to run his protection rackets in Soho and even sent her daughters to collect payments, as the police would not stop a child. Beezy said: "Frank's sister Eva was the one who led him into crime as a small boy. In 1966 he was charged with the murder of Richard Hart, who was shot at a club in Catford, but the charges were dropped when a witness changed their testimony. The business came to an end in 1966 when a fight in a Catford night club, Mr Smiths, left a Kray associate, Dickie Hart, dead, and Richardson and Fraser, who was charged with Harts murder, in prison. Somehow Eva found herself in the opposite company of her eldest sister Peggy, whose boyfriend was heavily involved in the Communist Party, whom the Blackshirts fought in the famous Battle of Bermondsey, and the even more famous Battle of Cable Street. The years just after World War II were a boom time for the gang, as clothing was rationed until 1949. Fraser was jailed along with other members of the Richardson gang for violently punishing people whom the Richardsons believed owed them money. A constant troublemaker in prison, attacking governors and warders over perceived injustices which inevitably resulted in floggings, bread and water and the loss of remission, Fraser had by this time been certified insane on three occasions. "If you play by the sword, you've got to expect the sword as well," says his son. The Richardson Gang was an English crime gang based in South London, England in the 1960s.Also known as the "Torture Gang", they had a reputation as some of London's most sadistic gangsters. 'Any girl worth her salt in South London in those days was a. But few would perhaps know about the equally incredible lives led by his three sisters. However, it was in the early 1960s that Fraser began to take on even bigger crimes, when he first met Charlie and Eddie Richardson of the Richardson Gang - rivals to the Kray twins. Furs were rolled on the hanger and tucked into the women's undergarments when the store assistant was distracted, while jewellery and watches were swapped for fake versions and hidden under hats or in their hair. We'll never send you spam or share your email address. Pitts wore a school girl's outfit, complete with straw boater, to act as a decoy. Frankie Fraser was known anotorious torturer and hitman, who worked as an enforcer for some of London's most feared gang leaders. Then theres Frankie himself, who makes a brief appearance. Eva knew the Krays well and they treated her with reverence, although she saw them as little more than naughty boys. Mad Frank and Sons: Tougher than the Krays, Frank and his boys on In later life he would say that had there been an elder criminal member of the family to advise him, he would not have served his sentences in what was called the hard way. HP10 9TY. Photograph: Crime and Investigation network. You understand the choices that lay ahead of you if you were a working-class girl. He was a member of the Richardson gang or the 'torture gang', led by brothers Charlie and Eddie Richardson, and were widely feared in Londons underworld. [5][6][7][8] His mother was of Irish and Norwegian descent, while his father was half Native-American. 'Mad Frankie' Fraser - a legend in his own gaol time Fraser, whose health has been deteriorating in recent years, turned to crime aged just nine when he and his sister, Eva, became petty thieves. His mother was of Norwegian-Irish stock and his father was half Native American. ", Of the war years, when he was heavily involved in theft from bombed-out stores, he says: "You wanted to win the war but you wanted it to go on for ever. We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. He was still touring clubs and pubs in 2011. Fraser became a minor celebrity of sorts, appearing on television shows such as Operation Good Guys,[18] Shooting Stars,[19] and the satirical show Brass Eye,[20] where he said Noel Edmonds should be shot for killing Clive Anderson (an incident invented by the show's producers), and writing an autobiography. His wife, Doreen, whom he married in 1965, and who with Eva loyally toured the prisons to visit him, died in 1999. And involvement in such activities often led to his sentences being extended. The cells did not have a reforming effect on her character or on that of her gang leader Diamond, who was arrested on numerous occasions over the following decade. It wasnt that we chose to be thieves, said Patrick. Although he was acquitted, a further five years were added to his sentence. But after shoving their stolen goods into waiting cars the women would head back to the grotty slums of Waterloo and Elephant and Castle - where their 'queen' exchanged the expensive items for a generous weekly wage.
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