"Maybe he was bored with going to prison," Ronnie Richardson, Charlie's widow, tells the programme. Although he was acquitted, a further five years were added to his sentence. During World War 2 he was a deserter - escaping from his barracks on several occasions. He saw himself as an innovator, claiming to have invented the Friday gang, robbing wages clerks carrying money from banks; he would use a starting handle to beat his victims and to deter any watching have-a-go heroes in the street. The Forty Thieves posed as wealthy housewives innocently browsing the rails of the UK's most luxurious clothing stores before shoving stolen items down their undergarments. He was very skilled at manipulating people and he played a long game, letting people believe he was mad, with the intention of winning in the end. He was then then given a 15-month prison sentence atHMP Wandsworthfor shop-breaking - this was just the first of 20 prisons Fraser would be sent to. A mugshot of Forty Thieves' Hughes, who was uncontrollable and dissipated by drink. A witness changed his testimony and the charges were eventually dropped, though Fraser still received a five-year sentence for affray. '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.'. 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. Following the Frankie Fraser story is akin to re-tracing the history of gangland London throughout the 20th Century. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road inWaterloo,London on December 13, 1923. An unregenerate villain of the deepest dye, Fraser satisfied the public appetite for vicarious thrill-seeking with a series of self-exculpatory memoirs in the 1990s that launched him on a twilight career as a celebrity criminal. Frankie Fraser was a south London gangster who knew no language but violence and spent half his life behind bars. People shook his hand in the street, others kissed him or asked for his autograph and taxi drivers honked their horns. 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. Mad Frank and Sons: Tougher than the Krays, Frank and his boys on 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. With Warren at his heels, Fraser ambushed Spot in a Paddington street, knocking him to the ground with a shillelagh. Who was 'Mad' Frankie Fraser? | The Sun Whatever you nicked you could sell, they'd be queuing up to buy it off you.". The youngest of five children, he grew up in poverty in the Elephant and Castle and Borough, areas teeming with moneylenders, prostitutes and backstreet abortionists. It will only make me a worse villain!'. 'Mad Frank' the thug, hitman and enforcer The book upset some of those mentioned in it, and Morton was dismayed to arrive home one evening to find a message from Fraser on his answering machine, demanding to speak to him urgently. He was full of contradictions: He hated authority but at the same time he understood the need for society to have rules and was against anarchy. He regularly led conducted tours of East End crime scenes, invariably ending up in the Blind Beggar pub where Ronnie Kray shot George Cornell dead. MAD FRANK and SONS - Home - Facebook Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Fleet-footed cop chases an offender riding a scooter, Two Russian tanks annihilated with bombs by Ukrainian armed forces, Alex Murdaugh unanimously found GUILTY of murder of wife and son, Isabel Oakeshott clashes with Nick Robinson over Hancock texts, Insane moment river of rocks falls onto Malibu Canyon in CA, Do not sell or share my personal information. He was released from prison in 1985.[17]. He undoubtedly had a wicked temper and a lack of empathy as seen in his capability for violence but he described that to me in terms of a soldier doing his job. [6] Fraser was the youngest of five children and grew up in poverty. When he was 10, the pair stole a cigarette machine from a local pub, hauled it to some waste ground and jemmied it open. 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. Following a trial at theOld Baileyin 1967, he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. She was one of the top thieves during the war. On his release, Fraser joined Richardsons brother Eddie in a company called Atlantic Machines, installing fruit machines at some of Sohos most profitable sites, with Sir Noel Dryden recruited as the respectable frontman. Indeed, his criminality was closely bound up with what one criminologist described as an overt almost Samurai vindication of violent action in pursuit of inverted honour. At 17 he was sent to Borstal for breaking and entering a hosiery shop in Waterloo and was then given a 15-month prison sentence for shopbreaking. 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. He also attacked various governors. The Kray twins (pictured) held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard. Frankie Fraser's Last Stand: Directed by Matt Blyth. When caught by police she replied: 'I don't know anything about it.'. While serving this sentence, Fraser received 10 years for his part in the so-called Richardson torture trial. His new career took off and he was in regular demand as a radio and television pundit. Part of his mouth was shot away in the incident. He had 10 years added to a sentence he was serving in 1967 along with The Richardson Brothers in the Torture Trials which were the longest trials in British criminal history. 'Any girl worth her salt in South London in those days was a hoister because they could outearn us men two to one,' he said. Various members were eventually caught, though and served their time in Holloway prison, where rations were meagre and they slept on boards. Photos of Frankie "Mad" Fraser - Find a Grave Memorial A bucket boy would offer to clean the bookies' blackboards with a sponge, for which they were obliged to pay the Sabinis. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. Many of the Forty Thieves were noted for their beauty as well as their shoplifting skills, such as Madeline Partridge and her sister Laura (pictured left), whose mother was often used by Diamond to sell stolen goods. 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. The criminal, who has spent almost half his life in prison, passed away earlier at King's. Tue 11 Jun 2013 11.55 EDT He may be in his 90th year but "Mad" Frankie Fraser is still causing mayhem. On this release, he determined to write his memoirs. Fraser was defended by a young solicitor called James Morton, who later became an author and wrote a history of Londons gangland in 1992. Shortly afterwards, Fraser kidnapped Eric Mason, a Kray gang member, outside the Astor Club in Berkeley Square, with even direr consequences. In 1991, while emerging from Turnmills nightclub in Clerkenwell, London, he was shot at by an unidentified gunman. Mad Frank. 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. Many of the Forty Thieves were noted for their beauty as well as their shoplifting skills, such as Madeline Partridge and her sister Laura, whose mother was often used by Diamond to sell stolen goods. These recollections, while often disordered and jumbled, nevertheless shed light on Frasers shameless and unrepentant defiance of the liberal consensus. A witness later changed histestimony,and the charges were eventually dropped, though Fraser still received a five-year sentence for affray. His fourth son, Francis, in Frasers joking words, let me down by having no criminal career at all. 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. 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 pair were the only ones of the children to embrace a life of crime. Last seen in public in October at the funeral of his former boss, Charlie Richardson, Fraser is one of the few remaining members of a generation of "celebrity criminals". At the age of five, Fraser, running in the road to beg for cigarette cards, was knocked down, and from his injuries he developed meningitis. Notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser died in hospital today aged 90, relatives have revealed. Queen of Thieves: The gangland women who made Peaky Blinders look like He was given an asbo, one of his sons told film-makers, after getting into an argument with a fellow-resident and is unrepentant about his life of crime. She was an alcoholic and onceran out of a jeweller with a tray of 34 diamond rings and bumped straight into a policeman. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. Fraser received seven years. Their view on Hatton Garden was that the world had moved on and robbing banks now was akin to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid trying to get away on horseback, while the police gave chase in cars. In 1969, Fraser was one of the ringleaders of the major Parkhurst Prison riot, which resulted in him spending the six weeks in the prison hospital due to his injuries. He had been shot in the face. She was taught by Alice Diamond in the 1930s and a very senior member throughout the. Fraser served a total of 42 years in over 20 different prisons in the UK for numerous violent offences. At the age of five, he moved with his family to a flat on Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle. 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. Richardson Gang - Wikipedia Alice herself was famous for clouting three furs in one go: one down each leg and one under her gusset. You understand the choices that lay ahead of you if you were a working-class girl. Although he was conscripted, Fraser later boasted that he had never once worn the uniform, preferring to ignore call-up papers, desert and resume his criminal activities. Reporters claimed she was 6ft tall - despite police records from 1919 putting her at 5ft9in. Mad Frank: Memoirs of a Life of Crime appeared in 1994, with two further volumes following in 1998 and 2001. Both Fraser and his sister, Eva, were also active juvenile thieves. Author Beezy Marsh said: 'These women fought harder than the men and were feared by men and women in their communities. Afraid of being heavily medicated for bad behaviour, Fraser stayed out of trouble and was released in 1955. It was not that he thought he was Napoleon. 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. He had an ungovernable temper and an inability to think through the undoubted consequences of his proposed actions. 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. 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. Frank Davidson Fraser (13 December 1923 - 26 November 2014), better known as 'Mad' Frankie Fraser, was an English gangster who spent 42 years in prison for numerous violent offences. When the police arrived, they found Hart lying under a lilac tree in a nearby garden. 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. Fraser was jailed along with other members of the Richardson gang for violently punishing people whom the Richardsons believed owed them money. But his greatest moment of national notoriety came a quarter of a century earlier, during what the media billed as the Torture Trial (in fact a series of trials) in 1967 that became one of the longest in British criminal history. Fraser earned his mad nickname during the second world war, when he managed to get himself out of military service by pretending to be mentally ill. To prove his unsuitability to the force, he assaulted a doctor before jumping out of the window at the Bradford assessment centre where he had been sent. There were car chases and bank raids which would not have looked out of place in The Sweeney. Nothing ever got to Frankie, wrote Charlie Richardson. [16], Fraser's 42 years served in over 20 different prisons in the UK were often coloured by violence. Mad' Frankie Fraser and London's Most Notorious Gangsters Profile manager: Evelyn Wolff [send private message] The first came when he was in the army during the second world war, the second time when he was sent to Cane Hill psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon, Surrey, and the third when he was transferred from Durham prison to Broadmoor. Once again, he was sent toprison, this timefor taking part in bank robberies. 'And they were the best fun for a night out.'. The notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser's sister Eva had risen through the ranks of the gang after joining in the 1930s. Fraser, tried separately, was jailed for 10. 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. Frasers partner in this endeavour was Bobby Warren, an uncle of the boxing promoter Frank Warren. [12], 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 at HM Prison Pentonville. Their alleged specialities included pulling teeth out using pliers, cutting off toes using bolt cutters and nailing victims to floors using 6-inch nails. . After trying his hand at crime as a. But little by little, over weeks and months of interviews, cups of tea and chats, their life stories emerged and with that came a fascinating insight into the Fraser family history and what really made Frank tick. For further details of our complaints policy and to make a complaint please click this link: thesun.co.uk/editorial-complaints/, 'Mad' Frankie Fraser was a notorious English gangster, Funeral of South London enforcer, FRANKIE FRASER at Honour Oak Crematorium, Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). 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'. As a subscriber, you are shown 80% less display advertising when reading our articles. Her story has been told in The Queen of Thieves, written by author Beezy Marsh, which sheds a light on the lives of the girl gang that gained the respect of male criminals because of their lucrative and violent methods. Even the gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser, whose sister Eva was a leading light in the gang in the thirties and forties, spoke with great reverence about Alice Diamond. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription you will not receive any newsletters until your subscription is confirmed. 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 one snatch, he and his companion were arrested when their car would not start. 'You name it, we nicked it,' he tells the . He shot, slashed, stabbed and axed. On the morning of Derek Bentleys execution at Wandsworth in 1953, he spat at the executioner Albert Pierrepoint and tried to attack him. I dont think people realise how close we came to all-out battles in London between Communism and Fascism, before WW2 brought the country together, Beezy said. She had died in 2000 but her daughter Beverley, who shared Evas reticent nature, agreed to talk to me and that revealed that Eva had been leading criminal in her own right. To evade discovery they posted the stolen items back to London or depositing a suitcase of loot at the railway station's left luggage office, to be collected later. Each incident added more time to his sentence. Tony Lambrianou, a one-time henchman of the rival Kray brothers, was also a fan. Family ways of 'Mad' Frankie | The Northern Echo Diamond took her under her wing and showed her how to shoplift in 1947, when Pitts was just 12. What saved him I think was the branch; it was supple and it bent. Although Lawton survived, the dog died. Frankie Frasers wife Doreen, with whom he had four sons, died in 1999. Frankie Fraser was known anotorious torturer and hitman, who worked as an enforcer for some of London's most feared gang leaders. 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. Sometimes the hoisters' lives became entangled with those of underworld bosses through affairs, family ties or marriage. It has emerged that the former gangland enforcer, who has spent 42 years in prison for 26. She once stabbed a policeman in the eye with a hatpin, blinding him. The Old Bailey jury heard, in grisly detail that still resonates 50 years on, how Frankie Fraser tried to pull Coulstons teeth out one by one with a pair of pliers. During the 1950s, Fraser's main criminal occupation was as bodyguard to well-known gangsterBilly Hill. His greatest moment of national notoriety came during what was known as the 'torture trial' of the Richardson gang in 1967, which became . She lived an unashamedly lavish lifestyle and splashed her money around. 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'.