It was a thief's paradise, Gor blimey! As a young woman, Eva became an accomplished hoister (shoplifter). View the profiles of people named Frankie Fraser. Profile manager: Evelyn Wolff [send private message] After trying his hand at crime as a. Frank's mother, Margaret, was a huge influence on him but his "best pal" and early partner in crime was his sister, Eva. 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. Monty Python sketch featuring the Piranha brothers, Doug and Dinsdale. Fraser was defended by a young solicitor called James Morton, who later became an author and wrote a history of Londons gangland in 1992. Fraser himself was accused of pulling out the teeth of victims with a pair of pliers. His mother was of Irish and Norwegian descent, while his father was half Native-American. 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. He stopped following a warning from the Kray Twins. He received a further five years when, in 1970, he was acquitted of incitement to murder but convicted of grievous bodily harm after he had led the Parkhurst prison riot the previous year. Eva (Fraser) Brindle. The thieves' earnings allowed them to live like upper-class debutantes. 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. Facebook gives people the power. David had perfected the prison whisper talking very quietly, in case he was overheard by the guards. She was taught by Alice Diamond in the 1930s and a very senior member throughout the. Nevertheless he was good at sports, captaining the football team at St Patricks school, Southwark, and boxing as an amateur. He was a deserter during the Second World War, escaping from his barracks . They would go through Selfridges department store in the West End and steal furs and expensive clothes. It will only make me a worse villain! After trying his hand at crime as a child, Fraser then continued into his later life. The violent thugs, the Kray twins, held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard during the 1940s and 1950s. 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. Fraser was part of Britain's Underworld between the 1940s-1960's. 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'. Join Facebook to connect with Frankie Fraser and others you may know. 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 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. She is thought to have killed herself in the 1970s. Newsquest Media Group Ltd, Loudwater Mill, Station Road, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. After one snatch, he and his companion were arrested when their car would not start. '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. contact the editor here. He was then then given a 15-month prison sentence atHMP Wandsworthfor shop-breaking - this was just the first of 20 prisons Fraser would be sent to. Diamond took her under her wing and showed her how to shoplift in 1947, when Pitts was just 12. Fraser also appeared as East End crime boss Pops Den in the feature film Hard Men, a forerunner of British gangster movies such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and had a documentary made of his life, Mad Frank. Young Frankie attended local schools, captained the football team, and acted as bookies runner to one of the teachers. Ms Marsh said it 'was time to reappraise London's gangland' when she wrote The Queen of Thieves. 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. 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. In 1969 Fraser led the Parkhurst prison riot on the Isle of Wight and found himself back in court charged with incitement to murder. If you are dissatisfied with the response provided you can His greatest moment of national notoriety came during what was known as the 'torture trial' of the Richardson gang in 1967, which became . 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. 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. From then on until the end of the 1980s, Fraser was more often in jail than not. Not long after being released, Hughes was involved in the Lambeth riot of Christmas 1925, when the home of Bill Britten was stormed. 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. Following a trial at the Old Bailey in 1967, he was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. 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. I saved myself from Royal life, Harry says & insists 'sharing's an act of service', Love Island's Olivia Hawkins breaks silence as she returns to the UK, Loose Women star lined up to be Strictly's first contestant in wheelchair, Coronation Street fans horrified as Amy Barlow is raped in disturbing scenes, News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. 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. Fraser was just 13 when he was sent to an approved school for stealing 40 cigarettes. Following the Frankie Fraser story is akin to re-tracing the history of gangland London throughout the 20th Century. Many started as child lookouts. His parents never knew about his illegal activities, and if they ever suspected him apparently turned a blind eye, a habit . Alice herself was famous for clouting three furs in one go: one down each leg and one under her gusset. 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He emerged from jail in 1989 and has not been back since. 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. 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. 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. 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. Fraser in 1997 with his then girlfriend Marilyn Wisbey, daughter Of Great Train Robber Tom Wisbey (REX FEATURES). The following year, the British mobster Jack Spot and wife Rita were attacked, on Hill's say-so, by Fraser, Bobby Warren and at least half a dozen other men. He claimed to have no regrets about his criminal life, apart from being caught. Reporters claimed she was 6ft tall - despite police records from 1919 putting her at 5ft9in. Frankie Fraser belonged to a bygone era of crime and was cut from a different cloth than so many other gangsters of his generation. He was given an asbo, one of his sons told film-makers, after getting into an argument with a fellow-resident and is unrepentant about his life of crime. "From there he goes on to burgle, and she goes onto shop lifting with a famous female gang called The 40 Thieves. Both Fraser and Warren were given seven years for their acts of violence. Sometimes the hoisters' lives became entangled with those of underworld bosses through affairs, family ties or marriage. Her story has been told in The Queen of Thieves, written by author Beezy Marsh, which sheds a light on the lives of the girl gang that gained the respect of male criminals because of their lucrative and violent methods. His mother was of Irish and Norwegian descent, while his father was half Native-American. The publisher also decided to include a glossary for the reader. 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. Fraser was released in 1988 and almost immediately served a two-year sentence for receiving. The years just after World War II were a boom time for the gang, as clothing was rationed until 1949. 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 got six months in jail, for stealing stockings from Bentalls in Kingston upon Thames. Frankie Fraser was born on Cornwall Road inWaterloo,London on December 13, 1923. A witness later changed histestimony,and the charges were eventually dropped, though Fraser still received a five-year sentence for affray. Harts killing was avenged within 24 hours when Ronnie Kray shot George Cornell, the Richardsons chief lieutenant, at the Blind Beggar pub deep in Kray territory on the Mile End Road, using a 9mm Mauser semi-automatic pistol at point-blank range. 'And they were the best fun for a night out.'. 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'. Fraser was placed into an induced coma, but just five days later, on November 26, 2014, Fraser passed away after his family made the decision to turn off his life-support machine. At the age of five, he moved with his family to a flat on Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle. As a solicitor, I defended him in the trial following the Parkhurst riot and as a result wrote a number of books with him. 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 spent 42 years almost half his life in prison for 26 offences. When police switched on to the gang's methods they branched out, with trips to Southend, Brighton, Liverpool and Manchester. 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. His decision to join the Richardsons rather than their rivals, the Krays, has been described as "like China getting the atom bomb". Women carried tools needed for burglaries so the police had no evidence if they stopped the men following the crime. The Kray twins (pictured) held The Forty Thieves member Eva Fraser in high regard. Fraser was the youngest of five children and grew up in poverty. Descendants . 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. HP10 9TY. It was during the war that he first became involved in serious crime, with the blackout and rationing, combined with the lack of professional policemen due to conscription, providing ample opportunities for criminal activities such as stealing from houses while the occupants were in air-raid shelters. [22], Fraser gave gangland tours around London, where he highlighted infamous criminal locations such as The Blind Beggar pub. For latest book news including updates on the forthcoming film Mad Frank and Sons please like my page Beezy Marsh. The most famous 'queen', Alice Diamond (left), was the daughter of a docker and renowned for her row of diamond rings that doubled as a knuckle duster. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. 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. [9], Fraser was an Arsenal fan, and his grandson Tommy Fraser is a professional footballer. 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.