London's Gangs at War

by Dick Kirby

  And Marrinan? He returned to Ireland. He became a solicitor.

  CHAPTER 9

  A Bloody Interlude

  Before we leave the blood-letting in which Spot, Hill and Fraser were involved, there is another matter which needs to be slotted in to the story; out of necessity, it has had to be taken out of the chronological sequence of events and it involves, amongst others, ‘Mad Frankie’ Fraser.

  We know that Fraser was cruelly tricked into believing that all was well regarding the attack on Spot; hence his return to Heathrow from Ireland on 12 May 1956. However, the assault was not the only charge he faced.

  Fraser was at that time wanted on warrant, together with Ray Rosa and Richard ‘Dicky Dido’ Frett, for razor-slashing, then attacking with a hammer and, coincidentally, a shillelagh, thirty-two-year-old John Frederick Carter. The three men lay low in Manchester, with Fraser later going to Ireland.

  Carter came from a South London crime family. His own criminal career had commenced at the age of twelve, and he had a whole series of convictions for assaults, including razor-slashings; his lengthiest sentence had been one of five years’ imprisonment for stabbing ‘Whippo’ Brindle, a member of a family related by marriage to Fraser. In fact, Fraser had attacked Carter whilst they were both serving sentences, and lately Carter had threatened Fraser; so there was no love lost between them.

  On 15 April Carter and his wife Tina had been in the Tankerville Arms public house, Goda Street, Lambeth, when four men rushed in. Carter fled through the bar and out of another door, but he was attacked in the street by the group and slashed; his face required the insertion of sixty stitches. Nevertheless, he managed to wrest a piece of sharpened steel from one of his attackers and then fled once more, pursued by the gang. After running some 200 yards, Carter got into a yard, then a house in Hutton Road, SE11 where he gained access to the bathroom; but the gang forced their way in and attacked Carter once more with their weapons.

  On 9 May Rosa and Frett were arrested; they were picked out on an identification parade by Mrs Carter, as was Rosa by John Carter – Frett he already knew. But by the time Fraser had been charged with that offence and the three men appeared at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court on 28 May, matters had changed considerably. On that date, Mrs Carter nervously stated that she could not be sure if it had been those three men who had attacked her husband. Since there was no evidence of identification against Fraser, Mr E.C. Jones, counsel for the prosecution, did not ask for Fraser to be committed for trial; the case against him was discharged.

  Frett and Rosa were committed to the Old Bailey and stood trial before Mr Justice Donovan. In the witness box Carter described the attack but stated that he did not know either of the two men and, furthermore, would not swear that either of them had attacked him.

  The judge asked him, ‘Tell the jury frankly, has something happened since the identification parade to make you not want to give evidence against them?’

  Carter replied, ‘Nothing has happened at all.’

  And when Carter’s wife said that she had picked out two men on the identification parade who looked like her husband’s attackers but she did not know for sure, it was the perfect opportunity for that exquisitely bent brief, Patrick Marrinan to bellow, ‘Are you prepared to swear positively that either of the defendants was present at the attack?’

  Tina Carter duly answered, ‘No’.

  Another witness equally unable to identify any of the gang was Leslie Henry Benson, into whose house Carter had fled, followed by his attackers.

  Frett denied any involvement in the attack, stated he knew neither Jack Spot nor Billy Hill and stated, ‘There’s a big feud going on in South London between Carter and the Brindles. Carter comes from the racing family.’ Rosa similarly denied attacking Carter, saying that he was in Brighton at the time.

  Summing up for the prosecution, Reggie Seaton told the jury, ‘Carter now says neither of these men attacked him. You might ask yourselves if perhaps something has happened to make him a little reticent about identification.’

  Patrick Marrinan must have felt that, with victory almost in his grasp, he could afford to be generous, because he told the jury, ‘It could be said if gangs could go about cutting people up and then by some means of another their victim, after first identifying his assailants quite positively, could be given to entertain doubts in the witness box, then a very ugly situation was developing and it could lead not merely to a breakdown of the criminal law but to all law.’

  Weasel words indeed. But in his summing up the judge had this to say:

  It may well appear to you now that there is a great deal more to this case than Carter’s uncertainty in the witness box. If gangs can cut people up and then, by some means or other, their victims – after first positively identifying them at an identity parade – are given to entertaining doubts in the witness box, then a very ugly situation is developing; and it would lead, not merely to the breakdown of criminal law, but all law.

  Nevertheless, within an hour, the jury returned guilty verdicts in respect of both men and heard something of their backgrounds. Each had eight previous convictions. Frett and another man had been in a car in Chiswick and when another motorist remonstrated with them he was slashed across the face with a razor; in November 1950 at the Old Bailey Frett was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Eighteen months prior to Frett’s conviction, Rosa had appeared at the same court. He had found a man in bed with his (Rosa’s) wife, and had slashed him across the face and body with an open razor; he had collected three years’ corrective training.

  Passing sentence, Mr Justice Donovan told them, ‘I have not the least doubt that there are other and very wicked persons behind you but the tools of those persons must realize that if discovery follows, punishment will be condign.’

  And this charmless pair went down for seven years apiece. Fraser, of course, was one of those ‘very wicked persons’ and felt able to later brag about his part in the attack, in print. No prosecution followed.

  It is possible that following Rosa’s and Frett’s release each refused to go anywhere without the other, in case they missed out on the opportunity of simultaneously disfiguring one of their victims. It is also a possibility that from the confines of their cells they might have wanted to send Fraser a postcard saying, ‘We had a slashing time – wish you were here.’

  In fact, there was no need for a postcard, because he had already arrived, just five days previously.

  CHAPTER 10

  A Revenge Attack

  Billy Hill and Albert Dimes were furious that Fraser and Warren had been sent down for seven years on 15 June 1956 for the attack on Spot and they decided upon a very foolish reprisal – to frame Jack Spot for an assault at a time when they had no idea of his whereabouts. For all they knew, at the time of the intended attack Spot could have been taking tea with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police – an unlikely scenario, I admit, but it shows the absurdity of the plan, not one that one would normally associate with a person of Hill’s intelligence and strategic ability. In fact, the foolishness went further than that: the newspapers had reported that Spot and his wife had been receiving police protection and it was quite possible that Spot would thus have a very effective alibi at the time of any alleged attack. But if Spot could be framed, the advantage to Hill would be enormous. At this time, Blythe and Rossi were safely tucked away in Eire and the ‘Ginger’ Dennis arrest was still one month away; they, plus any of the other gang involved, might or might not be arrested. If, however, they were, it would be extremely helpful for Spot to be in custody on a serious charge; what would his credibility be worth then, whether he gave evidence against them or not? And how would this affect Rita’s testimony? Not only was she already a discredited witness, due to her involvement with the Revd Andrews’ conspiracy, but the fact that her husband was no longer around to protect her might well result in her refusing to give evidence against anybody else arrested for the attack.

  So the risk
s were great but so were the potential profits; all that remained was to find a person to be slashed – willingly – and who was able to stand up in court, point to Jack Spot and say, ‘That’s the man who cut me.’ Where could such a person be found?

  Enter Victor ‘Scarface Jock’ Russo, a diminutive Glaswegian hardman, then thirty-eight years of age. With twenty-four convictions to his name, nine of them for violence, he had himself been the subject of vicious attacks. Shot and knifed twice, he had also suffered a broken jaw, leg, arm and shoulder and was the possessor of several feet of scar tissue around his face and body.

  On the day after Fraser’s conviction, Russo was in Frith Street, Soho, when he saw Hill, Dimes, Anthony John ‘Johnny’ Rice aka Ricco, and Franny Daniels – and Hill suggested that for ‘a monkey’ (£500) plus all the expenses incurred for the resultant plastic surgery, Russo should submit to being cut and then blame Spot for it. Russo initially told Hill the plan could not possibly work but eventually agreed to participate. Hill handed over the £500, Russo promptly returned to Glasgow and telephoned Hill, saying, ‘Thanks for the monkey, you dirty rat. If you ever come to Glasgow, we’ll send your body back in a sack!’ And although this was completely out of character for Hill, he did absolutely nothing about it.

  Quite apart from Hill’s cock-eyed scheme to frame Spot, why he should have picked on Russo as the victim and co-conspirator was odd, to say the very least. True, they had known each other since 1940, but not as good friends, and although Russo and Dimes were cousins they were certainly not close family. Russo claimed, for some obscure reason, to have loosed off a shot at Hill in a nightclub in 1942. He had teamed up with Spot at the end of the war, when Spot was testing out the club scene in Manchester, where on a couple of occasions Spot had helped Russo financially. And there had been a confrontation in a club between Russo and Hill’s brother Archie, who together with old-time villain John ‘Dodger’ Mullins had unwisely mocked Russo, interrupting his courtship of a certain ‘Manchester Maisie’. Russo then followed them into the club’s lavatory and cut them both severely. When a quartet of Hill’s followers subsequently cornered Russo, he had taken the wise precaution of arming himself with a carving knife, and the would-be cutters fled in disarray from the tiny but terrifying ‘Scarface Jock’.

  Perhaps Hill thought that with so much damage inflicted upon his body Russo wouldn’t mind another stripe or two; but whatever the case, Hill now had to find someone else dim-witted enough to allow himself to be embroiled in such a crazy scheme as well as getting disfigured. Russo was out of the running, at any rate for now.

  Thomas Joseph ‘Big Tommy’ Falco seemed to fit the bill admirably. He had been regarded as a ‘strong-arm man’ in the Hill camp and he had great difficulty in reading and writing. He had also been named by Jack Spot as one of his attackers, as had Johnnie Rice, a six-feet-four former boxer and physical training instructor. Both had been questioned by the police regarding their involvement in the attack but both had been released through lack of evidence.

  But the story they now told the police was this: as they were leaving the Astor Club in Lansdowne Row, Berkeley Square at between 2.10 and 2.15 on the morning of 20 June, they turned into Fitzmaurice Place, where Falco was approached by Spot who slashed him in the left arm, saying, ‘This is one for Albert.’

  Rice’s recollection was slightly different; the words he heard were, ‘This one is for Albert Dimes.’

  However, both men were in no doubt whatsoever that their attacker was Jack Spot, who ran off up the street towards Berkeley Square, where they heard a car start. Falco was taken to St George’s Hospital, where Dr Ewen Crichton Bramwell examined the footlong wound on Falco’s arm, concluded that it had been caused by a sharp instrument arched in a downward movement and inserted forty-seven stitches. Had the wound been caused by an open razor, tied back by string and discovered three hours later in Fitzmaurice Place? It could have been, because Eric Dermot Sweet, the principal scientific officer at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory was able to say he found traces of blood on it.

  So that was the story that Falco and Rice told the police – but not until nearly eleven hours after the alleged attack.

  Detective Chief Inspector Jack Mannings from West End Central police station who was in his twenty-fifth year of service took up the investigation. He was a tough detective who had served for four and a half years with the Flying Squad; amongst the fifteen commendations bestowed on him by the commissioner was one, together with a £2 award, for arresting a suspected person who had assaulted him armed with an imitation firearm. With him was Detective Inspector John Du Rose, a leonine-looking, cheroot-smoking, forty-five-year-old detective who had arrived at West End Central just two weeks previously.

  Having taken the two men to West End Central and obtained statements from them, Mannings spoke to Spot, asking him about his movements during the previous day and night. Spot replied that he had been watching the races at Ascot on the television all afternoon and then, during the evening, had gone out to get some sandwiches for himself and his wife. After they had eaten they had gone to bed and remained in the flat until he left at 12.40 pm on 20 June.

  No one had seen Spot leave the block of flats. Police Constable 314 ‘D’ George Howlett (later Commander Howlett OBE, OStJ, QPM) was one of the officers posted on night duty to Cabbell Street for, as he told me over sixty years later, ‘the purpose of safeguarding him [Spot] in view of the fights and disputes involving other so-called gangsters, primarily Billy Hill. My recollection is that I was alone, that it was in the summer and a very warm night . . . I can see myself there, now, patrolling in the street only; I did not go into Hyde Park Mansions.’

  There was no reason for Howlett to have gone into Hyde Park Mansions; his brief was to keep gangsters out of the block of flats, not try and catch Spot leaving the premises – besides, there were porters in attendance. But neither the porters, PC Howlett nor any of his contemporaries (who included random CID officers) saw Spot leave Hyde Park Mansions during that or any other night, for the simple reason that he did not. In fact, the only time PC Howlett saw Spot was very shortly afterwards, when he was languishing in the cells at Paddington Green police station.

  The next stop, the following day, was Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, where the magistrate, Mr R.H. Blundell, signed two arrest warrants. One was for Jack Spot, the other on description, presumably for the driver of Spot’s getaway car; certainly, according to Falco and Rice, there was nobody else present at the assault.

  Mannings then drove to Hyde Park Mansions, where he spoke to Rita Comer; Spot was not there. In fact, he had gone to see Detective Inspector Fred Cornish at Paddington Green police station in connection with a completely different matter. It was there that Mannings caught up with him and said, ‘At 2.10 am on June 20, Tommy Falco was slashed across the arm at Fitzmaurice Place. This afternoon, he went with Johnny Rice to Bow Street Court and obtained a warrant for your arrest.’

  He then read the warrant out to Spot, who replied, accurately, ‘I’m innocent. This is a frame-up.’ Spot was then driven to West End Central and en route he told the officers, ‘This is a diabolical liberty. I’ll get ten years for nothing.’ Upon being formally charged at 4.43 pm, he replied, ‘Not guilty. It’s a deliberate frame-up.’

  Kept in custody overnight, Spot appeared at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court on 22 June and before going into the dock he told Du Rose, ‘You see what they do for me? I should have named the twenty of them. I could have done.’

  With Rita Comer sitting in the public gallery, Spot’s solicitor, Ellis Lincoln, made a very good try for bail. Mannings agreed that Spot had gone to Paddington Green of his own volition in respect of another matter, but when he was asked, ‘Do you know the position of Mrs Comer with regard to herself and threats which have been made against her?’ Manning replied, ‘No’.

  ‘Do you know Mrs Comer has been threatened?’ asked Lincoln.

  Mannings replied, ‘She has told me so.’
<
br />   ‘I take it one of the reasons you are opposing bail is that he will not appear in court?’

  ‘There is always a possibility that a man may abscond on such a serious charge.’

  Not having got much change from Mannings, Lincoln now called Cornish, hoping for a little compassion. Cornish told the court that he had been shown letters by Mrs Comer which had threatened her and that she had also received threatening telephone calls. Lincoln stated that she had been in great fear, living alone in the flat with her two children, and asked, if it were possible, should Spot be granted bail, for police to be on special duty at the flat whilst he was there. In that way, said Lincoln, Spot could still attend the hospital where his injuries were still being treated.

  Cornish cautiously replied, ‘This might be possible, with the consent of my superior officer’, but Mr Blundell, the same magistrate who had issued the warrant, was having none of it, and Spot was remanded in custody for a week.

  When he reappeared on 29 June before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate, Sir Laurence Dunne, it was for the purpose of committing him to the Old Bailey for trial.

  Mr E.C. Jones for the prosecution outlined the case to the court, stating that when Spot was seen by the police he had made a statement saying that he was nowhere near the scene of the crime.

  Falco was called and stated that he and Rice had gone to the Astor Club at midnight and had left at about 2.15 am. ‘Rice said he would drive me home,’ he said, ‘but as he lives a long way away, I said I would go home by cab and we parted at the top of the steps into Curzon Street As I went to turn right, this man Jack Spot – I know him as Jack Spot – came from the right. I don’t know where he came from, but he said, “This is one for Albert” and I saw something, bright. I felt blood and gripped hold of my arm, where it was cut. I turned away and the next moment, I saw Johnny Rice coming to help me.’