She operated out of Walworth, South East London and her home was called an 'Aladdin's cave of loot'. 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. He spent more than 40 years in prison. Both Frank and his sister, Eva, whom he adored, inherited their fathers features and his jet-black hair. Descendants . [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. As a reward, he was shown his examination answers, and thats how I come top, he later boasted. 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. A mugshot of Forty Thieves' Hughes, who was uncontrollable and dissipated by drink. Eva knew the Krays well and they treated her with reverence, although she saw them as little more than naughty boys. Frankie Frasers wife Doreen, with whom he had four sons, died in 1999. After one snatch, he and his companion were arrested when their car would not start. 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. As he languished in jail, his sons David and Patrick and their older brother, Frank Jnr currently living quietly on the Costa del Sol carved their own careers as bank robbers and jewellery thieves in 1970s London. Nevertheless he was good at sports, captaining the football team at St Patricks school, Southwark, and boxing as an amateur. Frank stole because he loved to have money yet when he had it, he gave it all away. 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. Frankie Fraser belonged to a bygone era of crime and was cut from a different cloth than so many other gangsters of his generation. Ms Marsh said: 'These women fought harder than the men and were feared by men and women in their communities. The Forty Thieves, a London-based exclusively female gang whose exploits were worse than those depicted in BBC drama the Peaky Blinders, posed as wealthy housewives innocently browsing the rails of the UK's most luxurious clothing stores. 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. Involvement in such activities often led to his sentences being extended. But by the 1930s, the breeding ground for its recruits was South London. The Soho gang boss Billy Hill - brother of the fiery Maggie Hughes - was also careful not to encroach too much on their territory because he respected their right to earn their own money, free from male interference. Fraser served a total of 42 years in over 20 different prisons in the UK for numerous violent offences. 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. 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. 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. His mother was of Irish and Norwegian descent, while his father was half Native-American. With Frankie Fraser, Chris Keenan, Steve Box, Michael Boyd. When the police arrived, they found Hart lying under a lilac tree in a nearby garden. She is thought to have killed herself in the 1970s. He also claimed to have been the first bandit to wear a stocking mask. It was during the war that he first became involved in serious crime. The thieves' earnings allowed them to live like upper-class debutantes. 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 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. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. Please report any comments that break our rules. 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. He had been shot in the face. 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. An early nickname Razor Fraser reflected his penchant for shivving his enemies faces with a cut-throat blade. At the age of five, he moved with his family to a flat on Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle. The violent thugs, the Kray twins, held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard during the 1940s and 1950s. Shegot her first criminal record aged just 14 and, in 1923, she was jailed after running out of a jeweller's with a tray of 34 diamond rings straight into the arms of a policeman. contact IPSO here, 2001-2023. Prisoners and ex-prisoners all over Britain speak about him with undisguised admiration. Fraser was acquitted but received five years for affray. Nothing ever got to Frankie, wrote Charlie Richardson. He later joined the notorious Richardson gang, formed by brothers Eddie and Charlie, and began carrying out more criminal activities. A witness later changed histestimony,and the charges were eventually dropped, though Fraser still received a five-year sentence for affray. Yet they fiercely guarded their right to 'earn' their own money. The big question everyone has about Frank is Was he really mad? He was certified insane three times once by the Army, twice in prison and he was diagnosed as a psychopath but his family argue, and I tend to agree, that he played the system to suit himself. When police visited she showed them ledgers to demonstrate her honest buying. [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. Registered in England & Wales | 01676637 |. She was an alcoholic and onceran out of a jeweller with a tray of 34 diamond rings and bumped straight into a policeman. A feature film production is currently[when?] 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. The grim terraces of Waterloo and the tenements of Elephant and Castle provided plenty of girls desperate enough to join The Forty Thieves. She was chauffeured in a Bentley and always wore a sable coat. His decision to join the Richardsons rather than their rivals, the Krays, has been described as "like China getting the atom bomb". 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. 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". 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 by a kangaroo court. 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. Frank's mother, Margaret, was a huge influence on him but his "best pal" and early partner in crime was his sister, Eva. "You name it, we nicked it," he says. Eric wasnt a bad fellow, Fraser later explained, but that particular night he was bang out of order.. 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. A Hoisters' Code of loyalty dictated rules such as having an early night before 'going shopping', handing over all they pinched to the Queen in return for generous weekly wages, and never stealing each other's boyfriends (bad for morale). Even decent folk were often only too happy to 'take a bit of crooked' to have something new. 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 was during this sentence that he was first certified insane and was sent to Cane Hill Hospital before being released in 1949. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map. 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. Here are some pictures of Eva Fraser of the Forty Thieves and her sister Kathleen. When caught by police she replied: 'I don't know anything about it.'. 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. The publisher also decided to include a glossary for the reader. This site is part of Newsquest's audited local newspaper network. By Emer Scully and Beezy Marsh for MailOnline, Published: 10:41 GMT, 4 November 2021 | Updated: 13:07 GMT, 4 November 2021. 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 Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. of James Fraser and Margaret Alice (Anderson) Fraser. 42 years a lag She had died in. 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. Its clear she still had to feed her family by acting on the wrong side of the law Beezy said. 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. Both Fraser and Warren were given seven years for their acts of violence. During his time in prison, Fraser was involved in a number of riots and frequently fought with prison officers, fellow inmates and governors. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London on December 13, 1923. 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. News reports were checked to see how much was owing. He was moved from prison to prison more than 100 times because he was virtually impossible to control. '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. The Richardson Gang was an English crime gang based in South London, England in the 1960s.Also known as the "Torture Gang", they had a reputation as some of London's most sadistic gangsters. For latest book news including updates on the forthcoming film Mad Frank and Sons please like my page Beezy Marsh. But few would perhaps know about the equally incredible lives led by his three sisters. 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. For a time he was engaged to Marilyn Wisbey, daughter of the Great Train Robber Tommy Wisbey, with whom he briefly ran a massage parlour in Islington, in which Fraser made the tea. She was taught by Alice Diamond in the 1930s and a very senior member throughout the. His parents were honest and hard-working, but Frankie and his big sister Eva, to whom he was closest, soon turned to crime. Their loot would be stuffed into these 'hoister's drawers', allowing the women to leave the stores undetected. 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. Fraser was part of Britain's Underworld between the 1940s-1960's. He was a known associate of gangster Billy Hill throughout the 1950s. Fraser himself was charged with pulling out people's teeth with pliers and sentenced to 10 years in prison. 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. 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. [24], Fraser's wife, by whom he had four sons, died in 1999. His major stretch in prison came at the end of the Swinging Sixties, shortly before his rivals, the Krays, were jailed, but he was so badly behaved behind bars that he lost every day of remission and even had five years added to his sentence for one of the worst riots in prison history at Parkhurst in the Isle of Wight. She helped him sell on his loot. He refused to discuss the shooting with the police. 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. "From there he goes on to burgle, and she goes onto shop lifting with a famous female gang called The 40 Thieves. ", 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. Following a trial at the Old Bailey in 1967, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. Francis Davidson Fraser was born on December 13 1923 in Cornwall Road, a slum area of south London on the site of what is now the Royal Festival Hall. He was frequently punished for breaking prison rules or fighting prison officers: "I've done more bread and water than any man alive. As a solicitor, I defended him in the trial following the Parkhurst riot and as a result wrote a number of books with him. After another, the car ran out of petrol in the Rotherhithe tunnel. MAD FRANK & SONS, by David Fraser, Patrick Fraser and Beezy Marsh is published by Sidgwick and Jackson on June 2. 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. Frankie Fraser was tried at the Old Bailey for Harts murder, while six others, including Eddie Richardson, faced lesser charges. 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. He really did live by a code of honour which he took with him to the grave. 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. Check your inbox or spam folder to confirm your subscription you will not receive any newsletters until your subscription is confirmed. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. Although he was acquitted, a further five years were added to his sentence. Beezy said: "Frank's sister Eva was the one who led him into crime as a small boy. Mason was found, barely alive, wearing only his underpants and wrapped in a blanket, on the steps of the London Hospital in Whitechapel. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. 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.