by Dick Kirby
Without Downs in the dock, with Smithson unavoidably absent, Ellul having other things on his mind and Christmas Humphreys conducting the prosecution, it took no time at all for the jury to acquit Thomas of both charges.
Downs, on the other hand – a three-time loser – was brought up from the cells for sentence. Mr Justice Ashworth said:
I have got to deal with you on the footing that you took part in the most brutal assault on Caruana. I have seen the weapon and the thought of you and Smithson setting about that man and reducing him to a pitiful state of terror compels me to impose a quite severe sentence.
He then sentenced Downs to three years’ imprisonment.
There was just one more matter to consider. Remember the diamond ring which Smithson had given to his previous paramour, Zoe Progl, in the event that she fell upon hard times?
Well, it appears that she did. Detective Sergeant Terry O’Connell of the Flying Squad (later Commander O’Connell QPM) spotted her in two clubs, The Rehearsal and The Plonker, endeavouring to sell the ring; when he saw her at an address at Chelsham Road, Clapham on 19 February 1960 he not unnaturally wished to know if it was stolen. She told him that she had had the ring for years, that Smithson had given it to her and that she had pawned it ‘dozens of times at Attenborough’s in the West End’. By the time she made an application for the ring to be returned under the Police Property Act at Marylebone Magistrates’ Court on 2 January 1962, she did so under escort from Holloway Prison, where she was serving a four-year sentence of corrective training for six cases of receiving and false pretences, imposed the previous year at Southampton Quarter Sessions. After she told the magistrate, Mr Geoffrey Raphael, that she ‘didn’t know where Smithson got the ring and didn’t ask him’, the ring worth, in her estimation, ‘a few hundred, I should say’, was restored to her.
And that appeared to be the end of a sordid series of events which culminated in the death of Tommy ‘Scarface’ Smithson, except for one matter: just about everything said by the defendants during his murder trial was a lie. George Caruana would experience several more brushes with mortality, and seventeen years would pass before anything like the truth would unfold.
CHAPTER 2
Tommy Smithson – the Maltese Syndicate
Following the demise of the Kray brothers – you’ll have to be patient, we’ll come to them in due course – a gap appeared which the East End’s underworld was keen to fill. Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read was aware that this would happen and he entreated the Home Office to establish a permanent squad instead of his ad hoc one, and eventually they did.
The Serious Crime Squad was thus formed, and on 29 March 1971 it was headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Albert Samuel Wickstead, then approaching his forty-eighth birthday. Short and stocky, a career detective with twenty-three years’ service, he tore through the underworld like an avenging angel wielding a flaming sword. Utterly unscrupulous in his treatment of criminals, he was known as ‘The Old Grey Fox’, and the East End villains were terrified of him. Two of the most violent characters were once hauled into his office and, after Wickstead had finished ‘telling them their fortune’, he flung his door open and astonished members of his team were amazed to see the two thugs on their knees with tears streaming down their faces.
‘Look at ’em!’ roared Wickstead. ‘The terrors of the East End! They don’t look so fucking terrifying now, do they?’
This was not an isolated incident; Wickstead had that effect on criminals.
The first on Wickstead’s list were contemporaries of the Krays, the Dixon brothers. Taking a leaf out of Nipper Read’s book, Wickstead’s evidence came from other criminals who received his ultimatum: ‘Come over to my side or end up in the dock!’ Many of them did and provided the evidence for the extortion rackets, the woundings and the beatings which resulted in sentences of twelve years for George Dixon and nine years for his younger brother, Alan.
Next on the agenda were the Tibbs family from East Ham; Wickstead exposed a shocking catalogue of shootings, stabbings and bombings against rival factions which led to seven members of the gang being sentenced to a total of fifty-eight years’ imprisonment.
That was the East End tidied up, so where next? The West End of London beckoned; a group known as ‘The Maltese Syndicate’ were running vice – and just about everything else – in Soho. The profits from prostitution and pornography were enormous, and there was more than enough left over to bribe some very stupid, very crooked police officers – as unscrupulous in their way as Wickstead was in his.
The head of the Maltese Syndicate was not Maltese at all – his name was Bernard Silver and he was an East End Jew, born in 1922. Shortly after taking command of the Serious Crime Squad, Wickstead had heard his name and in accordance with the maxim ‘know thine enemy’ started asking questions about him. Silver had heard of Wickstead’s enquiries and wanted a meet with him – not to confess to any of his misdeeds but to see if a deal could be brokered. Ed Williams, then a detective sergeant, who met Silver in the foyer of Tintagel House (then Wickstead’s headquarters), told me:
He didn’t look well. He wasn’t a tall man; I’d say five foot six to seven. I do recall he was wearing an ill-fitting grey/green suit. His whole appearance was ‘crumpled’. His face was pale and pasty. He looked more like a man awaiting execution than a person in control of the situation. When Silver extended his hand to me, I shook it and was conscious that he held on to my hand for far too long, for the specific purpose of making it very clear that he was a freemason, as I was at that time.
Bert remained seated when I walked Silver into his office. Silver extended his hand, which Bert took. As they released hands, Bert’s face was furious. He said, ‘I saw what you did then, and that’s going to get you nowhere.’ I assumed that Silver had also given Bert a sign that he was ‘on the square’. I knew that Bert was also a freemason.
Silver said, ‘I hear that you want to see me over something in the past, some old problems. Is that true? Are you bringing me in?’
Bert smiled the Wickstead smile and said, ‘Where did you hear that?’ Silver said, ‘Is it true?’
Bert said, ‘When I decide to bring you in, if I decide to bring you in, you’ll be the first to know about it . . .’
Silver was patently afraid and Bert’s strategy may have been to let that Fear fester. Bert seemed pleased with the encounter, knowing full well that he had said a temporary farewell to his criminal prey. I sensed that ‘The Old Grey Fox’ was preening his whiskers.
News of Wickstead’s new enterprise in Soho – and his interest in Silver – naturally filtered out, and it reached the fox-like ears of Commander Wallace Virgo, the head of C1 Department at the Yard, the department of which Wickstead’s Serious Crime Squad was just one section.
Virgo was extremely well informed; it was said that sparrows were unable to fart without his being aware of it. It was also rumoured that Virgo could hear the rustling sound of a £5 note falling on to a mattress from a distance of five miles; what was more, he was as straight as a corkscrew.
Virgo therefore decided to pay a courtesy call to Wickstead’s headquarters, which had now moved to the old married quarters at Limehouse police station. Placing an envelope containing £500 on Wickstead’s desk, Virgo blandly informed him that a similar sum would be made available to him, every week – with the proviso that he stay out of the West End.
This, I assure you, was symptomatic of the bare-faced arrogance of those crooked detectives; Virgo must have been mightily surprised when with a roar of rage Wickstead threw him and his bribe out of his office. But Wickstead went further than that. Previously, all of his reports had been submitted to the commander of C1, for onward transmission through the chain of command; it was necessary, a courtesy and common sense for the commander to see what Wickstead was doing at Limehouse, and Virgo was the head of Wickstead’s department.
Overnight, that changed. Wickstead’s reports now went nowhere near Virgo’s office; instead
, they went right over his head to the desk of Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ernie Bond OBE, QPM, who was in charge of ‘C’ Department’s operations. Bond was a very tough character who had been David Stirling’s sergeant in the wartime Special Air Service; he was worshipped by the rank and file CID officers and, in turn, he admired the Serious Crime Squad.
‘Every time you come to my office’, he would good naturedly grumble, ‘you leave my fucking drinks cabinet bare!’
Although Wickstead was a heavy smoker, he seldom drank; but he ensured that his staff kept Ernie Bond’s drinks cabinet fully stocked.
Now Wickstead and his men were meeting their informants, getting a breakdown on who did what in Soho – and there was an additional bonus. Quite apart from vice and prostitution, the word on the street was that Silver had been responsible for the murder of Tommy Smithson.
*
Silver and his lieutenant – ‘Big Frank’ Saviour Mifsud, an eighteen-stone former Maltese police officer – had been running brothels and gaming clubs in the East End during the 1950s. The Messina gang who had run prostitution in Soho had been broken up, its members imprisoned, deported or deceased. Just four months prior to Smithson’s murder, Silver was one of eight men and one woman who had been acquitted on charges of living on immoral earnings, and the way was becoming clear for Silver to gain a substantial toehold in the West End. However, any sign of weakness would be catastrophic; and Tommy Smithson had been making himself very busy in threatening Silver and other ponces in the East End for protection payments – as his assassins were told, ‘This punk has got to be exterminated.’
After Ellul and Spampinato had initially fled to Manchester following the murder of Smithson, they were contacted by the Syndicate and ordered to return to London and surrender themselves to the police. They were told that they would be convicted of manslaughter but would be rewarded to such an extent that they would never need to work again. Eleven years after Ellul’s close brush with the hangman’s noose he was released and went to collect his impressive reward. Instead, sixpence was contemptuously tossed on the floor and he was told to get out and never return. Spampinato received the same peremptory dismissal, without even the benefit of sixpence.
Ellul had gone to the United States, Spampinato to his native Malta. Unsurprisingly, both were bitter, disgruntled – and penniless. Could they be found? And if they could, might they be induced to return to the United Kingdom to give evidence against the Syndicate?
Enquiries therefore needed to be made in Malta, and this presented a problem. Originally a British possession, the island had been awarded the George Cross for displaying courage during the Second World War. However, following its independence in 1971, Dominic ‘Dom’ Mintoff had become Prime Minister. Although his wife was English, he dismissed the British Governor General, annulled the British defence agreement and expelled the Commander-in-Chief of the NATO naval forces. Consequently, Malta was a political hot potato.
Normally, for British police officers to make enquiries in a foreign country, a Commission Rogatoire (Letter of Request) had to be prepared and signed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, politely requesting the competent judicial authority of that country to assist the officers in their investigations. However, that was precisely what could not be done in this case. But since Malta was a popular holiday destination, Wickstead was able to demonstrate his fox’s wiliness. His officers untruthfully recorded in the duty book that they had taken annual leave, became ‘tourists’ and spoke to quite a number of the island’s residents during their stay; they also received immense help from a local police officer, Inspector Fred Calleja.
Victor Spampinato, now in a fairly impoverished state, was traced with the assistance of a Maltese informant by Detective Sergeants Bernie Tighe and John Lewis to a casino in the early hours of the morning. After several clandestine meets he made a written statement implicating Silver, Mifsud and Anthony Mangion in the murder of Smithson and eventually he agreed to return to the UK. George Caruana was also seen by the officers; he gave a statement but refused to come back. He had been the subject of planned assassinations, it was said, by the Kray twins at the behest of Bernie Silver – first by dynamiting his car, then by means of a crossbow.
There was another important witness to trace who was believed to be in West Germany; this task was given to the late Detective Sergeant Terry Brown GM and Bernie Tighe. The latter told me:
Terry Brown and myself spent a week or so, initially in the Reeperbahn district of Hamburg, as we were told that Frank ‘The Snake’ Dyer, a ponce, had fled there with his wife. We visited many, many sex clubs and saw things that would make you blush. [You, a hardened Squad officer, blush?!] Even saw a couple having sex on a trapeze whilst swinging over the audience. However, having exhausted our enquiries, we received further information that Dyer and his wife were in Frankfurt.
There was an immediacy in tracing him, as two contract killers had left the UK to silence Dyer and his wife. Much time was spent in the vice area of Frankfurt and eventually we found the wife in a sex club – also Dyer. They were taken into protective custody by police, and Terry and I persuaded them to return to the UK.
It was imperative to keep Dyer’s and his wife’s location secret and as she was Welsh, a safe house was found in Wales, where they were debriefed. They gave important background to the running of the Syndicate.
Now that Spampinato’s testimony had been secured, it was essential to find Ellul. Wickstead flew to the States and liaised with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York Police Department. He then discovered that he was probably on the wrong side of that massive continent – because Ellul was believed to be on America’s west coast, in or around the San Francisco area. The editor of Inside Detective magazine provided help, circulating Ellul’s photograph and details with the request that Ellul, or anybody knowing his whereabouts, should contact Wickstead immediately.
Philip Ellul was eventually spotted on a park bench by two San Francisco Police Department inspectors, Nate Padrini and Bob Martin. He agreed to return to England, and Detective Chief Inspector Ken Tolbart and Detective Sergeant John Farley (later Detective Superintendent Farley QPM) flew out to meet him and escort him back.
Farley told me, ‘I spent a whole day debriefing Ellul. I took a thirty-page statement from him; he had no compassion, gave coldblooded details, showed no remorse, never laughed.’
Both Ellul and Spampinato gave graphic details of the killing: Ellul had been armed with the gun, which had jammed after the first shot, while Spampinato, despite his previous denials, had been in possession of a knife. After the gun’s mechanism had been cleared, Ellul’s second, fatal, shot had hit Smithson in the neck.
Despite the panicky excuses which both men had used in court, Ellul had in fact told his companion, ‘Leave him to me’. And Spampinato’s previous assertion that he had tried to help Smithson now had a hollow ring to it when he admitted, ‘Blood started coming out. Thick blood like liver, from his mouth … I was really enjoying myself.’
So who had supplied the gun? Not ‘a coloured man in Poplar’ as Ellul had previously stated. The person responsible was said to be a certain Joe Farrugia, who had disappeared. Bernie Tighe discovered from an informant that he was in the Canary Islands, where he held an interest in a drinking/sex club. Now Mr Farrugia’s hedonistic lifestyle at Gran Canaria was suddenly interrupted. Moored off the coast of the south-western resort of Puerto Rico in his boat and enjoying the attention of two West End prostitutes, his day was spoilt by the arrival of Bernie Tighe; but he was allowed to resume his intemperate behaviour after Tighe departed, taking with him a written statement in which Farrugia implicated Silver in the murder.
*
Wickstead’s officers had been working non-stop; apart from the Smithson investigation, they had amassed sufficient evidence to be able to charge the Syndicate with offences of kidnapping and conspiracy to live off immoral earnings. The raid to scoop everybody into the net was schedule
d for 4 October 1973, but on the previous day it was discovered that every one of the suspects had vanished. To Wickstead’s fury, there proved to be a traitor in the ranks of the Serious Crime Squad, but with insufficient evidence to prosecute him, the officer in question was merely transferred. Wickstead now set about establishing a disinformation exercise: search warrants were supposedly withdrawn, newspaper stories were published which suggested that he had no further interest in the Syndicate and he carried out a raid on a pornographic bookshop with a view to hammering home the point that his interest in the West End was porn, not vice.
It worked. As the weeks went by, one by one the members of the Syndicate returned to their old haunts in the capital. And then on 30 December 1973, John Lewis received a tip from an informant that Bernie Silver was back in London.
‘I phoned Bernie Tighe at home’, Lewis told me, ‘and we kept observation on Silver’s flat at Wilton House, Knightsbridge. We saw the light go out in his flat and moments later he left, together with his girlfriend, Kathleen Ferguson, and they were arrested.’
With Silver saying, ‘Mr Wickstead, what can I say? You obviously done your job. I can’t say we weren’t expecting it, can I?’, now the other members of the Syndicate were pulled in. On New Year’s Eve 1973, at Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court, Silver and Anthony Mangion were charged with two incitements to murder and they and four other defendants were charged with conspiracy to live on immoral earnings. The magistrate, Neil McElligott, remanded them in custody.