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. 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. By the 1950s, the gang were facing ever-present store detectives and had to rely more on disguises. At the age of five, he moved with his family to a flat on Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle. Born to criminal parents in Southwark, South London, in 1886, her first crimes were aiding and abetting men. 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. His greatest moment of national notoriety came during what was known as the 'torture trial' of the Richardson gang in 1967, which became . Queen of Thieves, by author and journalist Beezy Marsh (published by Orion, November 4 2021, 8.99). The memoir KEEPING MY SISTER'S SECRETS, (Pan Macmillan 2017) tells the moving story of three sisters born into poverty in 1930s London and their fight for a survival through a decade of social upheaval. Police reveal more details, as man remains at large after brutal attack outside school, Interview with MP Neil Coyle after Commons suspension: Why the drinking has stopped having started in childhood, but the swearing wont, plus deliberately avoiding Labour leader Keir Starmer, Read our print products (Digital Editions). 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. Had her first criminal conviction aged 14 and went on to become Diamond's accomplice. Fraser was part of Britain's Underworld between the 1940s-1960's. [3][4], Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London. After being sent to HM Prison Durham for taking part in bank robberies, he was again certified insane and this time was sent to Broadmoor Hospital. Eva got into shoplifting, but had a heart of gold. With Warren at his heels, Fraser ambushed Spot in a Paddington street, knocking him to the ground with a shillelagh. David had perfected the prison whisper talking very quietly, in case he was overheard by the guards. 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). Franks mother, Margaret, was a huge influence on him but his best pal and early partner in crime was his sister, Eva. She helped support her young siblings by taking milk and bread from neighbour's doorsteps. But who were the gang's most brazen members? If you weren't actually stealing, you were outranked by The Forty Thieves. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. 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. She was an alcoholic and onceran out of a jeweller with a tray of 34 diamond rings and bumped straight into a policeman. On the morning of Derek Bentleys execution at Wandsworth in 1953, he spat at the executioner Albert Pierrepoint and tried to attack him. 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'. Ancestors . [28], "Gangland enforcer sets the record straight about 'the bad old days': Rhys Williams meets "Mad" Frankie Fraser, once known as Britain's most violent man", "Find & contact The White Hart in Waterloo", "Local and community news, opinion, video & pictures - Southport Visiter", "Tories condemn prisoners' freedom to read criminal memoirs", "Gangland enforcer 'Mad' Frankie Fraser dies at 90", "Mad Frankie Fraser given Asbo at age of 89 after bust-up at care home", "Gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser dies at 90", "Mad Frankie Fraser dead: Notorious gangster dies in hospital aged 90 following leg surgery", Personal website with biography and details of gangland tours, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Frankie_Fraser&oldid=1107726220, This page was last edited on 31 August 2022, at 15:09. 'You name it, we nicked it,' he tells the . A bucket boy would offer to clean the bookies' blackboards with a sponge, for which they were obliged to pay the Sabinis. It was during the Second World War that he was branded 'Mad' Frankie, after he feigned a mental illness to avoid being called up to the front line. Fraser, tried separately, was jailed for 10.
'Mad' Frankie Fraser handed an asbo aged 90 - the Guardian Hughes was famed for her red hair, a love of drink and a violent temper.
'Mad' Frankie Fraser dead aged 90 | Daily Mail Online She and her friends looked like film stars when they went out down the pub. None of the gang were afraid to use razors on those who crossed them. Ronald 'Ronnie' Kray and Reginald 'Reggie' Kray, were identical twin brothers who led an organised crime ring in East London from the late 1950s to 1967.
Mad Frank and Sons: Tougher than the Krays, Frank and his boys on 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. Fraser considered that Lawton had meted out cruel and vindictive punishment to him at Pentonville in 1948, and to avenge himself Fraser assumed the role of hangman. There was also quite a comeuppance for both Patrick and David who both served their time. But when her brother Frankie was in prison, she helped to run his protection rackets in Soho and even sent her daughters to collect payments, as the police would not stop a child. He shot, slashed, stabbed and axed. The two Richardson brothers were convicted, and the elder, Charles, sentenced to 25 years. 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. Questioned by police, Fraser reportedly gave his name as Tutankhamen (gangland slang for shtum) and asked What incident?. The violent thugs, the Kray twins, held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard during the 1940s and 1950s. He has been part of the most infamous criminal gangs of the past 100 years, while maintaining his South London roots and deep devotion to his family. One such member was Lilian Goldstein, who was known as the Bob-Haired Bandit. 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! According to one of his sons, David, Fraser was unharmed but he did not inform on his assailant. Frank's mother, Margaret, was a huge influence on him but his "best pal" and early partner in crime was his sister, Eva. Please enter your username or email address to reset your password. 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. It has emerged that the former gangland enforcer, who has spent 42 years in prison for 26. 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. 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. He emerged from jail in 1989 and has not been back since. Registered in England & Wales | 01676637 |. Descendants . There was no evidence that Fraser had fired the fatal shots, and although he claimed to have been fitted up for the killing, he was convicted of affray and sentenced to five years imprisonment. She would send her girls out in teams of three or four at least three days a week, to stores all over London and as far afield as Birmingham and Brighton. 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. Their alleged specialities included pulling teeth out using pliers, cutting off toes using bolt cutters and nailing victims to floors using 6-inch nails. She once stabbed a policeman in the eye with a hatpin, blinding him. Though like Eva, she struggled to come to terms with the choice facing women to work or marry. They enjoyed buying nice things with the money and putting on the posh. She was chauffeured in a Bentley and always wore a sable coat. "As I was growing up, I never had to buy a shirt Eva made sure she nicked them for me. The Frasers were both contemporaries of the Hatton Garden heist gang members many of whom also came from south London and who operated on the same bank robbing scene and shared jail cells with the Fraser boys at some point. It wasnt that we chose to be thieves, said Patrick. 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. The notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser's sister Eva had risen through the ranks of the gang after joining in the 1930s. It was almost as if the biggest thrill of all was the act of stealing itself. Yet they fiercely guarded their right to 'earn' their own money. They bought fur coats, jewellery and went dancing in West End nightclubs. Nothing ever got to Frankie, wrote Charlie Richardson. contact IPSO here, 2001-2023. Various members were eventually caught, though and served their time in Holloway prison, where rations were meagre and they slept on boards. They didnt go to jail, they did bird or got a lagging. He also attacked various governors. In 1966, Fraser was charged with the murder of Richard Hart - who was shot at Mr Smith's club inCatfordwhile other Richardson associates, includingJimmy Moody, were charged withaffray.
By the time of the Swinging Sixties, she was drinking champagne with the Krays. Because of the type of person I am, he wrote, in the life I led, you learn to shrug off adversity better than people whove worked hard all their lives.. 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. People shook his hand in the street, others kissed him or asked for his autograph and taxi drivers honked their horns. But few would perhaps know about the equally incredible lives led by his three sisters. They also spoke, as Frank did, using the prison slang of a bygone era, which they had to translate for me.
From the time of Frankie Fraser's - MAD FRANK and SONS | Facebook When Frank Sinatra came to London in the early 1970s, he made a special visit in his limo to Eva in her little terrace house in South London to pay his respects. While still a teenager, in the spring of 1943, he took part in a daring raid to free an Army deserter from a squad sent to collect him from Wandsworth Prison. Frasers partner in this endeavour was Bobby Warren, an uncle of the boxing promoter Frank Warren. 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. It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times. She also passed on her 'wisdom' to a future queen, Shirley Pitts. Profile manager: Evelyn Wolff [send private message] Frank Davidson "Frankie" Fraser, better known as "Mad" Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London, he grew up in poverty and was the youngest of five children, Fraser and his sister Eva, whom he was close too, turned to crime at the age of 10, on several occasions during World War 2, Fraser would escape his barracks and deserting many a times. Eva Fraser - the sister of notorious gangster Mad Frankie Fraser - was reputedly one of the last members of the Queens of the Forty Thieves shoplifting gang, which sold stolen goods from. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London on December 13, 1923. It was just what we knew and to be honest, we loved it.. '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. Both Fraser and Warren received seven-year sentences. After another, the car ran out of petrol in the Rotherhithe tunnel. Although he was never convicted of murder, police reportedly held him responsible for 40 killings, but the bluster and bravado of a media-savvy gangland relic almost certainly inflated this tally, the actual scale of which remains unfathomable.