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). For latest book news including updates on the forthcoming film Mad Frank and Sons please like my page Beezy Marsh. 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. 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. Born 1920s. [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. 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'. Shortly afterwards, Fraser kidnapped Eric Mason, a Kray gang member, outside the Astor Club in Berkeley Square, with even direr consequences. He stopped following a warning from the Kray Twins. She is thought to have killed herself in the 1970s. Afraid of being heavily medicated for bad behaviour, Fraser stayed out of trouble and was released in 1955. When Mason demurred, Fraser buried a hatchet in his skull, pinning his hand to his head. Frasers partner in this endeavour was Bobby Warren, an uncle of the boxing promoter Frank Warren. Jack 'Spot' Comer showing the scar on his face left by Frankie Fraser and Alf Warren (GETTY), By 1956, Fraser had racked up 15 convictions and had twice been certified insane. 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. Nevertheless he was good at sports, captaining the football team at St Patricks school, Southwark, and boxing as an amateur. They bought fur coats, jewellery and went dancing in West End nightclubs. He chose the latter because they had taken sides on behalf of his sisters husband, Tommy Brindle, who had received a heavy beating by the Rosa brothers from the Elephant and Castle. 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. In 1996 he was cast as the gangleader Pops Den in the film Hard Men, which premiered at the London film festival. On this release, he determined to write his memoirs. 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. Franks mother, Margaret, was a huge influence on him but his best pal and early partner in crime was his sister, Eva. Mink stoles and furs were the top prize, but some of the gang stole silverware and one even put on a maternity girdle to pinch an entire china tea set. If you weren't actually stealing, you were outranked by The Forty Thieves. I don't think they felt bad about it. [14] According to Fraser, it was they who helped him avoid arrest for the Great Train Robbery by bribing a policeman. Reporters claimed she was 6ft tall - despite police records from 1919 putting her at 5ft9in. 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. Because of Frasers behaviour in jail over the years, he forfeited almost every day of his remission. 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. It was during this sentence that he was first certified insane and was sent to Cane Hill Hospital before being released in 1949. Photograph: Alex Segre/Rex. Had it all gone to plan, she could have inhabited a very different side of the West End to her little sister Eva. After one snatch, he and his companion were arrested when their car would not start. Fraser, who was jailed for 10 years in the so-called "torture trial" in 1967, is now frail and in poor health. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. But Beezy said: [Kathleen] experienced the slums of Waterloo as a place buzzing with excitement and the tight-knit community, with its Catholic Church parades, which gave her the chance to shine, though she instead works at the old Hartleys jam factory in Bermondsey. 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. Fraser served a total of 42 years in over 20 different prisons in the UK for numerous violent offences. Although his parents were not criminals, Fraser turned to crime aged 10 with his sister Eva, to whom he was close. In 1991, while emerging from Turnmills nightclub in Clerkenwell, London, he was shot at by an unidentified gunman. Together they set up the Atlantic Machines fruit-machine enterprise, which acted as a front for the criminal activities of the gang. 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. Sister of Frankie Davidson Fraser. Fraser in 1997 with his then girlfriend Marilyn Wisbey, daughter Of Great Train Robber Tom Wisbey (REX FEATURES). HP10 9TY. 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. Nothing ever got to Frankie, wrote Charlie Richardson. Fraser, tried separately, was jailed for 10. She operated out of Walworth, South East London and her home was called an 'Aladdin's cave of loot'. Both Fraser and Warren were given seven years for their acts of violence. He was moved from prison to prison more than 100 times because he was virtually impossible to control. Updated November 28, 2014 2.43pmfirst published at 2.41pm Save Share Not long after being released, Hughes was involved in the Lambeth riot of Christmas 1925, when the home of Bill Britten was stormed. 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). 42 years a lag She had died in. Involvement in such activities often led to his sentences being extended. He built a reputation as an enforcer and strongman for various gang leaders, including Billy Hill, self-styled King of Britains Underworld in the 1940s and 1950s and, in the 1960s, the Richardson brothers. '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. Members of The Forty Thieves, whose mugshots were captured by the Police Gazette ahead of regular stays at Holloway Prison, often wore beautifully designed hats, coats and dresses in order to fit in - known as 'putting on the posh'. It is important that we continue to promote these adverts as our local businesses need as much support as possible during these challenging times. Aged 17 she was convicted for stealing from a hat shop in Oxford Street. [4] He was involved in riots and frequently fought with prison officers and fellow inmates. Fraser was jailed along with other members of the Richardson gang for violently punishing people whom the Richardsons believed owed them money. She helped support her young siblings by taking milk and bread from neighbour's doorsteps. "If you play by the sword, you've got to expect the sword as well," says his son. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. In 1941, Fraser was given his first taste of punishment when he was sent to borstal for breaking into a Waterloo hosiery store. 'And they were the best fun for a night out.'. But she was once caught stealing stockings and was sent to prison.. 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. 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. 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. 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. Fraser himself was accused of pulling out the teeth of victims with a pair of pliers. 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. Young Frankie attended local schools, captained the football team, and acted as bookies runner to one of the teachers. She helped him sell on his loot. ", A deserter during the war he pretended to be mad to avoid the call-up Fraser was certified insane three times and spent time in Broadmoor secure hospital. 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. 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. Please report any comments that break our rules. Morton was relieved that, rather than remonstrating, Fraser wanted him to write his life story. Frank stole because he loved to have money yet when he had it, he gave it all away. [24], Fraser's wife, by whom he had four sons, died in 1999. On 26 November, Fraser died after his family made the decision to turn off his life-support machine. '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. Born on Cornwall Road, Waterloo, Lambeth, South London, Fraser was the youngest of five children and grew up in poverty. His first conviction was for stealing cigarettes, and with the second he was sent to an approved school. View our online Press Pack. When police visited she showed them ledgers to demonstrate her honest buying. The thieves' earnings allowed them to live like upper-class debutantes. As her reign came to an end, Forty Thieves queen Diamondpassed on her 'wisdom' to a future queen, Shirley Pitts. Pictured, Marble Arch and Oxford Circus in the 1920s, Petite shoplifter Bertha Tappenden (right) stood just over 5ft 2in tall, but was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm on a man in Lambeth, after kicking down his front door and attacking him with razors and knives, to settle a score, aided by Diamond and another gang girl, Gertrude Scully (left). [9], Fraser was an Arsenal fan, and his grandson Tommy Fraser is a professional footballer. In the summer of 2013 it emerged that, at the age of 89, Fraser had been served with an Antisocial Behaviour Order (Asbo) after another incident, this time at his care home in Peckham, south London. "Hill paid by the stitch if you put 50 stitches in a man's face, you could expect 50," says James Morton, Fraser's biographer. I just waited, caught up with him, knocked him about and strung him up with his dog, Fraser remembered. Mad Frank (1994), which went on to sell around 100,000 copies, was the first in a successful series. 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. The notorious English gangster turned to a life of a crime and before he knew it, he was behind bars. It will only make me a worse villain! 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. 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 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. They stole to put food on the table. The publisher also decided to include a glossary for the reader. contact IPSO here, 2001-2023. To inquire about a licence to reproduce material, visit our Syndication site. He was still serving his sentence for the Catford affray when he was handed a further 10 years for his part in the Richardson torture case. 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. Fraser died at the age of 91 on November 26, 2014. He had an ungovernable temper and an inability to think through the undoubted consequences of his proposed actions. Mad Frank. But few would perhaps know about the equally incredible lives led by his three sisters. [11] In 1942, while serving a prison sentence in HM Prison Chelmsford, he came to the attention of the British Army. 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', The notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser's sister Eva had risen through the ranks of the gang after joining in the 1930s. 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. Each incident added more time to his sentence. 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