Born 1920s. 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. He had an ungovernable temper and an inability to think through the undoubted consequences of his proposed actions. 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. The two Richardson brothers were convicted, and the elder, Charles, sentenced to 25 years. "From there he goes on to burgle, and she goes onto shop lifting with a famous female gang called The 40 Thieves. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. [13], It was in the early 1960s that Fraser first met Charlie and Eddie Richardson of the Richardson Gang, rivals to the Kray twins. [3][4], Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London. Both Fraser and his sister, Eva, were also active juvenile thieves. Frasers partner in this endeavour was Bobby Warren, an uncle of the boxing promoter Frank Warren. But the victory was pyrrhic in many senses, because by the time he finally left prison the in mid 1980s, the world had changed and gangland had moved on. 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. In August 1963, invited to take part in the Great Train Robbery, Fraser pulled out because he was on the run from the police. Eva was a chip off the old block and as well as being Franks first partner in crime, stealing sweets from the corner shop, she had a lucrative career in a daring gang of girl shoplifters, The Forty Thieves, which traced its roots back to Victorian London and cleared many a West End store for furs and luxury goods. 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. The most famous queen,Alice Diamond, was the daughter of a docker and renowned for her row of diamond rings that doubled as a knuckle duster. But by the time of his death at the age of 90 from complications following leg surgery, Fraser had become something of a minor celebrity. Underneath glamorous ensembles the women wore specially-adapted petticoats with hidden pockets or baggy bloomers with elastic at the knee. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road inWaterloo,London on December 13, 1923. Part of his mouth was shot away in the incident. Had it all gone to plan, she could have inhabited a very different side of the West End to her little sister Eva. 'You name it, we nicked it,' he tells the . 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. 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. His mother was of Norwegian-Irish stock and his father was half Native American. Another grandson, Anthony Fraser, was being sought by police in February 2011 for his alleged involvement in an alleged 5 million cannabis smuggling ring. 42 years a lag She had died in. It spent six weeks in the Sunday Times top ten and held the coveted #1 Globe and Mail chart slot in Canada for three months. 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. Notorious for high-speed getaways, she was eventually caught stealing lingerie and sentenced to hard labour in prison. 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. "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. 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. Always well turned out and ineffably polite and punctual, he had a large and appreciative audience, and one woman was so impressed she named her son after him. Fraser received seven years. At signing sessions of his books he was always willing to be photographed pretending to extract a tooth with pliers brought by the fan. 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. This service is provided on News Group Newspapers' Limited's Standard Terms and Conditions in accordance with our Privacy & Cookie Policy. His fourth son, Francis, in Frasers joking words, let me down by having no criminal career at all. It has emerged that the former gangland enforcer, who has spent 42 years in prison for 26. 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. His wife, Doreen, whom he married in 1965, and who with Eva loyally toured the prisons to visit him, died in 1999. Tony Lambrianou, a one-time henchman of the rival Kray brothers, was also a fan. She helped him sell on his loot. of James Fraser and Margaret Alice (Anderson) Fraser. It was almost as if the biggest thrill of all was the act of stealing itself. With Warren at his heels, Fraser ambushed Spot in a Paddington street, knocking him to the ground with a shillelagh. For other inquiries, Contact Us. They bought fur coats, jewellery and went dancing in West End nightclubs. The violent thugs, the Kray twins, held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard during the 1940s and 1950s. He also attacked various governors. But few would perhaps know about the equally incredible lives led by his three sisters. Frankie Fraser was a notorious torturer and hitman, who worked as an enforcer for some of London's most feared gang leaders, including Billy Hill in the 1950s and the Richardson gang in the 1960s. Young Frankie attended local schools, captained the football team, and acted as bookies runner to one of the teachers. 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. 'And they were the best fun for a night out.'. Mad Frank: Memoirs of a Life of Crime appeared in 1994, with two further volumes following in 1998 and 2001. [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. Aged seven, Ms Pitts was stealing milk and bread to provide food for her five siblings. Because of Frasers behaviour in jail over the years, he forfeited almost every day of his remission. A mugshot of Forty Thieves' Hughes, who was uncontrollable and dissipated by drink. Then they were turned over to Fraser. Frankie Fraser was a notorious torturer and hitman for the Richardson gang of south London criminals in the 1960s. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription you will not receive any newsletters until your subscription is confirmed. 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. He had been shot in the face. 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. His enduring nickname Mad Frank derived from his violent temperament which caused him to attempt to hang the governor of Wandsworth prison (and the governors dog) from a tree, and to be certified insane on three separate occasions. The raids seem often to have been left to chance, and he was particularly unfortunate with cars. 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. Their alleged specialities included pulling teeth out using pliers, cutting off toes using bolt cutters and nailing victims to floors using 6-inch nails. It wasnt that we chose to be thieves, said Patrick. Beezy a former Sunday Times journalist whose biography Mad Frank & Sons was published last year was given unprecedented access to interview the family and learn about the three bold women, who grew up in Howley Terrace, in Waterloo during the 1930s. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. A Gannett Company. Fraser was released in 1988 and almost immediately served a two-year sentence for receiving. Prisoners and ex-prisoners all over Britain speak about him with undisguised admiration. 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. The notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser's sister Eva had risen through the ranks of the gang after joining in the 1930s. And I felt the same way,' she said. 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. As her reign came to an end, Forty Thieves queen Diamondpassed on her 'wisdom' to a future queen, Shirley Pitts. Their loot would be stuffed into these 'hoister's drawers', allowing the women to leave the stores undetected. His decision to join the Richardsons rather than their rivals, the Krays, has been described as "like China getting the atom bomb". Photograph: Crime and Investigation network. 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. [9] He was a deserter during the Second World War, escaping from his barracks on several occasions. He appeared on pop records and in television documentaries, toured his one-man show of criminal reminiscences (flexing a pair of gilded pliers), and found himself invited into bookshops to sign copies of his memoirs. They also spoke, as Frank did, using the prison slang of a bygone era, which they had to translate for me. A ponce was someone who thieves looked down on, because they lived by taking a cut from someone elses earnings. Fraser died at the age of 91 on November 26, 2014. By 20 she was leader of The Forty Thieves and wore a row of diamond rings that acted as a knuckle duster. 'They didn't see anything wrong in it because these things were too expensive for most people to afford and shops had insurance. 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. Notorious gangster 'Mad' Frankie Fraser died in hospital today aged 90, relatives have revealed. Not long after being released, Hughes was involved in the Lambeth riot of Christmas 1925, when the home of Bill Britten was stormed. When the police arrived, they found Hart lying under a lilac tree in a nearby garden. As a subscriber, you are shown 80% less display advertising when reading our articles. On the morning of Derek Bentleys execution at Wandsworth in 1953, he spat at the executioner Albert Pierrepoint and tried to attack him. Fraser was just 13 when he was sent to an approved school for stealing 40 cigarettes. 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). But Hill was already an admirer: a picture taken at a party to launch Hills ghosted autobiography in 1955 shows Fraser draped artistically over a piano. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London. It was not that he thought he was Napoleon. Jewellery was a favourite target, as it was easy to hide up a sleeve - rings could be switched for worthless fakes. Born inLambeth, south London, Frankie committed his first crime at the age of 13, when he stole a packet of cigarettes and was sent to an approved school. 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). 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. He was a rock.. Fraser himself was charged with pulling out people's teeth with pliers and sentenced to 10 years in prison. News reports were checked to see how much was owing. A feature film production is currently[when?] Whilst in Strangeways, Manchester in 1980, Fraser was 'excused boots' as he claimed he had problems with his feet because another prisoner had dropped a bucket of boiling water on them after Fraser had hit him; he was allowed to wear slippers. 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. By the time of the Swinging Sixties, she was drinking champagne with the Krays. But she was once caught stealing stockings and was sent to prison.. None of the gang were afraid to use razors on those who crossed them, Some of London's The Forty Thieves' antics made the Peaky Blinders look like choirboys. 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.. ", 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. 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. He was moved from prison to prison more than 100 times because he was virtually impossible to control. On 26 November, Fraser died after his family made the decision to turn off his life-support machine. She also passed on her 'wisdom' to a future queen, Shirley Pitts. She lived an unashamedly lavish lifestyle and splashed her money around. With Frankie Fraser, Chris Keenan, Steve Box, Michael Boyd. It was a thief's paradise, Gor blimey! 'The other side of the story involves these feisty women and it is perhaps more fascinating given the limited powers such working class girls had to earn a decent wage.'. After trying his hand at crime as a. [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. He stopped following a warning from the Kray Twins. Dubbed 'The Most Dangerous Man in Britain' by two Home Secretaries, Francis Davidson Fraser was born on the 13th of December 1923, and grew up in Waterloo, London.He and his sister, Eva started their life of crime at a young age, stealing from handbags and pickpocketing. She once stabbed a policeman in the eye with a hatpin, blinding him. His mother was of Irish and Norwegian descent, while his father was halfNative-American. [9], Fraser was an Arsenal fan, and his grandson Tommy Fraser is a professional footballer. However, according to a new documentary, he is clearly not going gentle into any good night. 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 imprisonment. Mason was found, barely alive, wearing only his underpants and wrapped in a blanket, on the steps of the London Hospital in Whitechapel. 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'. [23] In 1991, Fraser was shot in the head from close range in an apparent murder attempt outside the Turnmills Club in Clerkenwell, London. 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. There were further language difficulties. He was released from prison in 1985.[17]. In 1945, when he was 21, he assaulted the governor at Shrewsbury prison with an ebony ruler snatched from the governors desk, for which he received 18 strokes of the cat. Keeping My Sisters Secrets was published on July 27 by Pan Macmillan. Frank stole because he loved to have money yet when he had it, he gave it all away. Together they set up the Atlantic Machines fruit-machine enterprise, which acted as a front for the criminal activities of the gang. [25] In June 2013, the 89-year-old Fraser was served with an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) by police after a row with another resident. Fraser was acquitted but received five years for affray. Then theres Frankie himself, who makes a brief appearance. Getting them to relive their exploits had its own difficulties at the start the only time they had ever been interviewed was by the police and they were used to keeping their own counsel. 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. Ms Marsh said it 'was time to reappraise London's gangland' when she wrote The Queen of Thieves. Fraser, tried separately, was jailed for 10. 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. Fraser, who was jailed for 10 years in the so-called "torture trial" in 1967, is now frail and in poor health. [14] According to Fraser, it was they who helped him avoid arrest for the Great Train Robbery by bribing a policeman. 'Speaking to relatives of some of the original gang members during my research for Queen of Thieves, I was struck by how secretive the gang had been about its methods, and how much of a career choice it was for working class girls. Its clear she still had to feed her family by acting on the wrong side of the law Beezy said. 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. 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. [11] In 1942, while serving a prison sentence in HM Prison Chelmsford, he came to the attention of the British Army. She operated out of Walworth, South East London and her home was called an 'Aladdin's cave of loot'. Profile manager: Evelyn Wolff [send private message] During his time behind bars he was involved in violence and was a major instigator in the Parkhurst Prison riots in 1969. Diamond took her under her wing and showed her how to shoplift in 1947, when Pitts was just 12. These recollections, while often disordered and jumbled, nevertheless shed light on Frasers shameless and unrepentant defiance of the liberal consensus. 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. 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 was during the war that he first became involved in serious crime. At the same time Fraser was concerned to protect his West End business interests, chiefly the installation and operation (on an exclusive basis) in the clubs of Soho of one-armed bandits, or fruit machines, then growing in popularity. Once he said he would do something, he did it, and he despised others who backed down. After the war, he worked for underworld boss Billy Hill, for whom he carried out razor attacks. He spent more than 40 years in prison. When police visited she showed them ledgers to demonstrate her honest buying. He claimed to have no regrets about his criminal life, apart from being caught. 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. In the second part, she reveals how Frank wasnt the only member of his family with a chequered past. As a reward, he was shown his examination answers, and thats how I come top, he later boasted. View our online Press Pack. He refused to discuss the shooting with the police. 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. By Emer Scully and Beezy Marsh for MailOnline, Published: 10:41 GMT, 4 November 2021 | Updated: 13:07 GMT, 4 November 2021. The reader is also introduced to the girls brother Jim, who became a sergeant in the army and fought in North Africa. Harry Styles put on an animated display as he took to the stage for a second night at the Accor Stadium in Sydney's Olympic Park on Saturday.. 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. In 1941, Fraser was given his first taste of punishment when he was sent to borstal for breaking into a Waterloo hosiery store. In 1938, she was sentenced for stabbing a policeman in the eye with a hatpin. 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. 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. Both Fraser and Warren received seven-year sentences. Fraser himself was accused of pulling out the teeth of victims with a pair of pliers. Frank's mother, Margaret, was a huge influence on him but his "best pal" and early partner in crime was his sister, Eva. However, it was the during the 'torture trial' of the Richardson gang in 1967, that Frankie Fraser become notorious nationally. 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. contact the editor here. Born to criminal parents in Southwark, South London, in 1886, her first crimes were aiding and abetting men. ', As the photographs show, the women often wore beautifully designed hats , coats and dresses in order to fit in, known as 'putting on the posh'. Eva got six months for stealing stockings from Bentalls in Kingston upon Thames. She was taught by Alice Diamond in the 1930s and a very senior member throughout the. Born near Waterloo station, central London, he was the fifth child of a poor family. On this release, he determined to write his memoirs. Her wartime experience was spent on the switchboards during the Blitz. pre order Queen of Thieves now for just 2.99. 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). The criminal, who has spent almost half his life in prison, passed away earlier at King's. 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. Descendants . Although he was acquitted, a further five years were added to his sentence. 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. Former Northern Echo journalist Beezy Marsh has written a book about London gangster Mad Frankie Fraser. According to one of his sons, David, Fraser was unharmed but he did not inform on his assailant.