Franks mother, Margaret, was a huge influence on him but his best pal and early partner in crime was his sister, Eva. Those ads you do see are predominantly from local businesses promoting local services. 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. 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. 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. Fraser was part of Britain's Underworld between the 1940s-1960's. If you have a complaint about the editorial content which relates to Together they set up the Atlantic Machines fruit-machine enterprise, which acted as a front for the criminal activities of the gang. When police switched on to the gang's methods they branched out, with trips to Southend, Brighton, Liverpool and Manchester. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London on December 13, 1923. She helped support her young siblings by taking milk and bread from neighbour's doorsteps. Fraser was part of Britain's Underworld between the 1940s-1960's. He was a known associate of gangster Billy Hill throughout the 1950s. 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. Had it all gone to plan, she could have inhabited a very different side of the West End to her little sister Eva. 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. They also spoke, as Frank did, using the prison slang of a bygone era, which they had to translate for me. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road inWaterloo,London on December 13, 1923. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription you will not receive any newsletters until your subscription is confirmed. 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. 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. 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. "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. of James Fraser and Margaret Alice (Anderson) Fraser. He was also tried in court in the so-called 'Torture trial', in which members of the Richardson Gang were charged with burning, electrocuting, and whipping those found guilty of disloyalty. Not long after being released, Hughes was involved in the Lambeth riot of Christmas 1925, when the home of Bill Britten was stormed. Fraser, whose health has been deteriorating in recent years, turned to crime aged just nine when he and his sister, Eva, became petty thieves. 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. '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.'. [5][6][7][8] His mother was of Irish and Norwegian descent, while his father was half Native-American. It wasnt that we chose to be thieves, said Patrick. Eva knew the Krays well and they treated her with reverence, although she saw them as little more than naughty boys. 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. And I felt the same way,' she said. Mad Frank. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. Comments have been closed on this article. 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. Beezy said: "Frank's sister Eva was the one who led him into crime as a small boy. Reporters claimed she was 6ft tall - despite police records from 1919 putting her at 5ft9in. After another, the car ran out of petrol in the Rotherhithe tunnel. The comments below have not been moderated. 'They didn't see anything wrong in it because these things were too expensive for most people to afford and shops had insurance. 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. 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. 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. 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. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. [24], Fraser's wife, by whom he had four sons, died in 1999. 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. 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. Fraser received seven years. Fraser was defended by a young solicitor called James Morton, who later became an author and wrote a history of Londons gangland in 1992. Ms Marsh said it 'was time to reappraise London's gangland' when she wrote The Queen of Thieves. 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. Prior to that he was a bodyguard to notorious gangland leader Billy Hill, where he took part in bank robberies and and carried out razor blade attacks - which earned him 50 a time. But few would perhaps know about the equally incredible lives led by his three sisters. During the 1950s, Fraser's main criminal occupation was as bodyguard to well-known gangsterBilly Hill. By the 1950s, the gang were facing ever-present store detectives and had to rely more on disguises. The Sun website is regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), Our journalists strive for accuracy but on occasion we make mistakes. 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.. 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. 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. 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. For latest book news including updates on the forthcoming film Mad Frank and Sons please like my page Beezy Marsh. 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. At the age of five, he moved with his family to a flat on Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle. Had her first criminal conviction aged 14 and went on to become Diamond's accomplice. Born to criminal parents in Southwark, South London, in 1886, her first crimes were aiding and abetting men. Though like Eva, she struggled to come to terms with the choice facing women to work or marry. There was Eva, the naughty girl of the three, who became a key figure in the all-girl gang, the Forty Thieves, who targeted the West Ends big department stores. He emerged from jail in 1989 and has not been back since. They would go through Selfridges department store in the West End and steal furs and expensive clothes. 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. Data returned from the Piano 'meterActive/meterExpired' callback event. A witness changed his testimony and the charges were eventually dropped, though Fraser still received a five-year sentence for affray. She was one of the top thieves during the war. A mugshot of Forty Thieves' Hughes, who was uncontrollable and dissipated by drink. After trying his hand at crime as a child, Fraser then continued into his later life. Their alleged specialities included pulling teeth out using pliers, cutting off toes using bolt cutters and nailing victims to floors using 6-inch nails. Fraser, he recalled, was more than capable of doing what he threatened. 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. Underneath glamorous ensembles the women wore specially-adapted petticoats with hidden pockets or baggy bloomers with elastic at the knee. Photograph: Crime and Investigation network.
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