London's Gangs at War
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But when Fraser next appeared at that court he was in company with Robert Warren, and the court was told that there had been ‘certain intimidation of witnesses’, as indeed there had. Rita told police that she had received letters and telephone calls threatening her with disfigurement and her children with kidnapping if she continued to assist the police.
‘Warren lies in prison at this moment’, roared Marrinan with a fine disregard for accuracy, since his client was in the dock no more than a few feet away. He then vilified Rita Comer for her inaccurate testimony, adding that whilst she was a woman of fortitude and loyalty to her husband, ‘One must not allow that to deflect one’s knowledge from the truth’. Coming from a lawyer as crooked as Marrinan, that was a bit rich.
Now, despite Marrinan’s ardent appeals for bail, Fraser and Warren were both committed in custody to the Old Bailey for the attack on Spot – and that was just the end of round one.
During the trial at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Donovan, Fraser and Warren pleaded not guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent to do so, and Jack Spot went into the witness box to say that neither of the two defendants had been among his attackers. His decision to do so was possibly influenced by the fact that Billy Hill had arranged for a dozen or so men whom Jack Spot had previously cut (including Jimmy Wooder) to be seated in the court’s public gallery and to gaze malevolently down on the witness. In addition, Billy Hill and several of his cohorts took up temporary residence at Rex’s Café, opposite the Old Bailey, to scowl at and generally attempt to intimidate anybody likely to give evidence at the trial.
However, when Marrinan cross-examined Superintendent McIver, he scored a couple of own goals. At the Magistrates’ Court, when Marrinan had asked if Dimes and Hill were present at the attack on Spot, it had appeared that the police were satisfied that they were not. But on asking McIver the same question once again, the officer replied, ‘Well, at one time, I thought I was quite happy about that. Since then, there have been enquiries made which might show one of them could have been.’
That was bad enough, and Marrinan wisely refrained from asking, ‘Which one?’ But then, when he asked whether Rita Comer had named a certain person who had allegedly taken part in the attack, McIver truthfully replied, ‘No. It was Mr Comer who had named that person.’ It came a little too late for Marrinan, who should have remembered to study the evidence rather than rely on his own booming rhetoric, because the cat was now well and truly out of the bag. When a witness says one thing in a statement and then completely contradicts it in the witness box, that witness can be cross-examined and the whole matter aired before the jury.
The judge demanded to see Spot’s statement and then immediately recalled him to the witness box. He read out the pertinent, damning passages and demanded, ‘What is the explanation of your evidence on Thursday?’
Comer replied, ‘Those names were read out to me. That is the second day I was in hospital.’
So apart from seeing Jack Spot’s scars and hearing rather unconvincing denials as to his attackers’ identities, the jury also heard positive identification from Rita Comer and an equally damning statement to police from Fraser upon his arrest. This, of course, was denied, and when Fraser went into the witness box he stated that at the time of the attack he was working until 10.30 pm at a bookmaker’s office in Brighton, calling three witnesses in support of his alibi.
One of them was Sammy Bellson, a bookmaker, although Fraser would later say that when he was asked in court the colour of the telephones in Bellson’s office, Marrinan slipped out of court to brief his answer to the alibi witnesses. Quite apart from that, Bellson was not the most satisfactory of witnesses, since he had a number of convictions for being a suspected person, being on enclosed premises for an unlawful purpose and attempting to steal women’s coats; two of these offences merited imprisonment with hard labour. Matters became even less satisfactory for Bellson less than two years later, when he was convicted, together with two very crooked Brighton police officers, of conspiracy and was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.
Another witness was Paddy Carney, who although he made himself scarce on the night of the attack had tarried long enough to be able to tell the court that he was sure that neither Fraser nor Warren were amongst the attackers.
‘That was a very unkind thing to do,’ Rita Comer called out; but since Carney was halfway through giving his evidence, she was severely admonished by the judge for doing so.
Despite Marrinan telling Marylebone Magistrates’ Court that Bobby Warren had ‘a complete account of his movements and a complete answer to the charge’, whatever they might have been, the jury at the Old Bailey never got to hear them, because Marrinan called no evidence on behalf of his client.
In his closing speech for the prosecution Reggie Seaton declared:
Comer is in effect saying, ‘This is nothing to do with the law. This is my affair. I am the man who was hurt and I say it was not these two men.’ You might wonder why it is we are all here and the answer surely is this: if you are going to have in the West End of this great metropolis a gang of rascals who indulge in this sort of thing and who, when they think fit, because they do not like the way somebody else is carrying on his business, get together and use knives and commit grave assaults on a person or persons they do not like, then it becomes more than a matter for the injured person.
Marrinan told the jury that the only evidence against Warren was that of Rita Comer’s identification and not to pay the slightest attention to the evidence Spot, whom he called:
That vile, cut-throat gangster, that corner boy of the lowest ilk, who prided himself on being king of the underworld – the scum of the earth . . . the sweet-faced little Mrs Comer who comes into court, a tearful wife and mother. This is a woman who was prepared to go and live with a gangster and have a voluntary association with him. It is not the case of a woman marrying an honest man for better or worse and then sticking to him. Is it possible to convict Warren on the evidence of Mrs Comer when she was convicted herself of conspiracy to commit perjury, by procuring false evidence from an old clergyman?
Summing up, Mr Justice Donovan told the jury:
Comer is clearly a man who said one thing one day and something else the next. But if Comer had said nothing in the witness box to incriminate the accused, the situation was entirely different when one considered Mrs Comer because she said the two men were there. This much is clear. One side or the other is doing their best to deceive you by hard lies. They are doing their best to see that a wrong verdict is returned by you. You will probably ask yourselves, what has Mrs Comer to gain by inventing a false story? If her story was false, what repercussions might she expect in this world of violence in which she and her children had been living for some time past and from which she has said she would give anything to escape?
You may think you have been taken from your usual avocations to deal with a pretty unsavoury lot of people, who indulge in the activities of horse racing, employing race-gang warfare, people who you may think contribute nothing to the community except trouble and cause more trouble than they are worth. The civic value of the man Comer is neither here nor there. We are dealing with a very bad case of violence in the public streets in this city. It matters not at all who was the victim here – whether the best or worst of citizens. Everybody is entitled to the protection of the law, and everybody expects violence of this kind to lead to the punishment of those responsible, if apprehended. If this sort of thing is allowed to spread, it would not be safe for any of us to walk the streets, let alone the racing fraternity.
After an hour and fifty minutes on 15 June 1956 the jury returned verdicts of guilty on both men. Marrinan declined to give any mitigation for Warren, saying that he intended ‘to take another course’ (he meant by appealing), and Mr John Richie, the barrister for Fraser, told the judge, ‘It is manifest that there are behind this great forces who had made use of the two defendants’, adding that, ‘Fraser is weak, mentally.’
I am not going to punish you for your criminal records; you have been punished for your past crimes and it would be unfair to punish you again. Neither am I going to distinguish between you. I had intended to impose a longer sentence on you, Fraser, but I am affected by what I have heard about you. This was an extremely wicked offence.
Both men were sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.
Meanwhile, enquiries were still being pursued to track down and arrest more of Jack Spot’s attackers. And within a couple of weeks, 288 miles away across the Irish Sea in the Emerald Isle, events would be set in motion which would involve two more of the gang and the intervention of two of Scotland Yard’s toughest and most tenacious detectives.
CHAPTER 7
Revelations in Dublin
Thomas Marius Joseph Butler had less than seven years service when, in 1941, as a detective constable he was posted to the Flying Squad. A brilliant young detective, he would spend the war years with that elite crime-busting unit under the charismatic leadership of the very tough, red-haired Scot, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Beveridge. A small man – he was just one and a quarter inches over the minimum height requirement for the Metropolitan Police – Butler was a workaholic and when he was promoted to detective sergeant (second class) after five years service with the Flying Squad, he had accrued a total of eighteen commendations for smart police work. Posted to ‘G’ Division in the East End, he kept his links with the Flying Squad; the Yard’s ultra secret Ghost Squad had just got underway and this unit needed reliable men to carry out the arrests that their informants had suggested; Butler was one of them.
But on the day that Butler left the Flying Squad, a newcomer arrived to fill his vacancy; his name was Detective Constable Jasper Peter Vibart, an ex-soldier who had come to notice after arresting eleven people for housebreaking and receiving. Vibart’s service on the Flying Squad would last almost exactly twelve years, and during that time he would be promoted to second-class, then first-class detective sergeant. Utterly fearless, he specialized in tackling dangerous criminals, two of whom were the very violent Arthur Frederick Parkyn and Harold Berlinski, wanted for inflicting grievous bodily harm on a police officer. When he was charged with attempting to murder Vibart and two other officers, Parkyn replied, ‘I didn’t think it would be as bad as that’ – but it was, and he was sentenced to twelve years’ penal servitude, with Berlinski receiving seven. The case added to Vibart’s growing list of commendations which, by the time Butler returned to the Flying Squad on 2 August 1955 as a detective inspector, totalled twenty-eight.
With ten squads making up the Flying Squad, Butler, now forty-three years of age, took over the running of No. 1 squad, and Vibart joined him.
The pair took on the underworld together; when Butler was commended for arresting ‘a troublesome safeblower’, so was Vibart. It happened again in a case of robbery and once more after they arrested two violent criminals; when they nabbed ‘a persistent criminal’ they were again commended, as they were for their ability in a case of robbery with violence. And all these accolades were collected within the space of just four months; Butler and Vibart were making a name for themselves in the underworld. Just one inch taller than his counterpart and forty-one years old, Vibart could in no way be described as Butler’s twin – but nevertheless, the nickname bestowed on them was ‘The Terrible Twins’. When they were called upon to assist in the razor-slashing Spot case, no one was particularly surprised; and quite a few criminals had cause to be worried.
Working under instructions from Superintendent McIver, Butler and Vibart flew to Dublin on 27 June 1956 where they liaised with Detective Inspector Philip MacMahon, a member of Eire’s police force, An Garda Siochána. The Yard detectives were in possession of warrants issued by London Magistrate Mr Raphael on 23 June for the arrest of two men – on description, only – for the attack on Spot. This meant that when the warrants were executed, the persons arrested could be questioned as to their identities, during the course of which questioning all kinds of revelations might come to light.
On the evening of 28 June arrests were carried out at a public house in Morehampton Road in Dublin’s Donnybrook district by members of the Gardaí who were, as always, armed. One of the men arrested was William Patrick ‘Billy-Boy’ Blythe, a thirty-nineyear-old costermonger (or barrow boy) from Myddleton Street, Clerkenwell, EC1. If the descriptive warrant portrayed him as a bald-headed, satanic midget, this would have been a reasonable representation of ‘Billy-Boy’, who, like Fraser, was a former army deserter. He was the possessor of eleven previous convictions, including one for cutting a Flying Squad officer in the face whilst resisting arrest, for which he was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude, and another, also for causing grievous bodily harm, two years later, for which he had similarly been sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. Described by Reggie Kray as ‘a cold, calculating, vicious rogue’ (which many might think was rather like the pot calling the kettle ‘grimy-arse’), Blythe, since release from prison in June 1950, had of course been a pillar of the community.
The second man to be arrested was Robert ‘Battles’ Rossi, a thirty-three-year-old asphalter from Sapperton Court, Gee Street, Clerkenwell. He had previous convictions for shopbreaking and receiving but none for violence. Both men were taken to Dublin Castle.
Much of the conversation which took place at the arrest and shortly thereafter would later be strenuously denied by the prisoners. Blythe denied, for example, that he had said, after Butler had cautioned him, ‘You can all go and fuck yourselves. They came at me with guns tonight. I only wish I had one. I would have blown holes in the lot of them.’ Similarly, he would later challenge the fact that when Butler told him he would be detained and taken back to London as soon as practicable, he had replied, ‘You cunts are nicking everyone. You’ve even nicked Spotty for something he hasn’t done.’ This was an interesting comment – and it merits a whole chapter to itself later on.
But the prisoners were not taken to London, ‘as soon as was practicable’, because on Saturday, 30 June an application was made at Dublin High Court for a conditional order of habeas corpus for the two men, alleging that the arrest warrants had not been property made out. Garrett Brennan, Deputy Commissioner for the Eire Police, told Mr Justice Murnaghan that he had endorsed the warrants for execution in Dublin since he had reason to believe that the persons described in the warrants would be found there.
‘Don’t rush matters’, the judge told Mr G. Clarke for the Attorney General, ‘and don’t press me to deal with the matter today’; he then adjourned matters until Monday 2 July.
And on that date, Mr Justice Murnaghan did indeed order the release of the two men. However . . . by that time fresh warrants, properly made out in the prisoners’ names, had arrived in Dublin.
Blythe and Rossi were brought into an office at Bridewell, where Butler was present, as were Marrinan and Mr Curneen (their solicitor), and they were told they were free to go. As they left, they were followed by the police officers, MacMahon, Butler and Vibart, and it was then that Butler heard Marrinan say to Blythe, ‘They are all outside and they are going to nick you again. If I were you, I should make a dive for it.’
Blythe, buttoning up his overcoat, replied, ‘Too fucking true’.
MacMahon tried to get past Marrinan, who apparently blocked his way, but the officer seized hold of Blythe on the steps and in Butler’s words ‘took steps to restrain him’ – although it was later alleged that MacMahon had ‘struck him several blows’.
Whatever the truth of the matter, it was also said that Blythe had told MacMahon, ‘If I get you in London, I’ll fuck you up’, although it was also suggested that Blythe’s words were ‘I’ll cut you up.’ It was all slightly confusing, although Blythe’s general meani
ng was fairly plain. The men were then taken back into the entrance hall of Bridewell, with solicitor and barrister threatening habeas corpus and contempt of court.
Marrinan, referring to the alleged assault on Blythe, told MacMahon, ‘I’m ashamed to be an Irishman when I see a thing like that.’
MacMahon crushingly replied, ‘You get back to London.’
But why was Marrinan there in the first place? Both prisoners not only had solicitors, they also had leading counsel. It was later revealed that Marrinan had gone to Dublin following a meeting with a journalist from the Daily Express at a restaurant in Old Compton Street, Soho. Also present was one Albert Dimes, as was Franny Daniels (who had participated in the 1948 London Airport robbery but escaped arrest). Marrinan would later explain that he had been asked to go to offer evidence in the habeas corpus proceedings, in order to prove that the warrants for the arrest of Blythe and Rossi were based on invalid information. Right. However, to act in proceedings a barrister has to be instructed by a solicitor – not that this really mattered, because none of the explanation was true. Marrinan had been instructed by Billy Hill, whom all the men at the meeting saw at his flat at Barnes, where Marrinan received a sizeable bursary from Hill and a further £20 from Dimes, and a plane ticket to Dublin was booked.
The son of a Royal Irish Constabulary officer, Patrick Aloysius Marrinan had studied law at Queen’s University, Belfast and had been convicted and fined for harbouring uncustomed goods in Liverpool in 1942. A greedy and unscrupulous racetrack gambler, he practised as a barrister in London, where he made the acquaintance of Billy Hill. By 1955 he was on far friendlier terms than was considered desirable for a barrister to be with the man who proclaimed himself ‘The Boss of Britain’s Underworld’. He constructed defences and invented alibis for Hill’s men, and it is no exaggeration to describe Marrinan, as one detective put it, as being ‘as straight as a dog’s dick’.