London's Gangs at War

by Dick Kirby

  Charlie – who held all coppers, bent or straight in the greatest contempt – did his best to ingratiate himself with the law; Eddie did not. By now, Eddie had married and moved into a house in Sidcup Road, Eltham, and it was there that Keith ‘Chalky’ White, a very new young copper at Eltham police station, was told by his sergeant – obviously to test his subordinate’s mettle – to serve a summons on Eddie for running a red light. Having no idea who he was dealing with, White drove up on his Velocette motor cycle and when he told Eddie’s wife the nature of his business, she shouted, ‘Eddie, there’s a young copper at the door who wants to serve a summons on you.’

  The reply came, ‘Tell him to fuck off!’

  White responded that he would not leave until the summons was served, and this brought Eddie to the door saying, ‘It’ll take more than you, you cunt, now fuck off!’

  White then told him that there was a radio on his motor cycle and if necessary he could call up 21,000 more coppers. This made Eddie laugh; he accepted the summons and then told the young copper once more to ‘Fuck off!’

  Back at the police station, White was asked if he’d served the summons.

  ‘No trouble’, was his reply. ‘He was as good as gold!’

  Eddie had branched out once more; he and Frankie Fraser, now released from his seven-year sentence for slashing Jack Spot, with the assistance of £5,000 courtesy of Billy Hill, set up a wholesale business in one-armed bandits, which they leased to club owners for a percentage of the takings and the tacit acceptance of protection.

  Anybody who upset the Richardsons was subjected to a mock trial with Charlie Richardson as judge. The victims were punched, kicked, stripped, humiliated and jeered at by the gang. Toes were broken, one victim was knifed through the foot and yet another was nailed up under floorboards, made to eat excrement and then sodomized. And yet, amidst this degradation there was occasionally black gallows humour. Much later in court, when a witness gave evidence of his appalling mistreatment, one of the barristers told him, ‘You are, thankfully, one of the few witnesses for the Crown not to claim you had electrodes attached to your genitals.’

  ‘Oh, but they did use electricity on my testicles’, was the reply. ‘I didn’t mention it because I thought they were trying to revive me!’

  Matters came to a head in July 1965. Perhaps Charlie Richardson thought that James Taggart was, as he suggested, a police informer, or he owed Richardson £1,200, or perhaps these were just excuses for a session of exemplary depravity. Taggart was seen by a fellow gang member Alfred Berman in Richardson’s office – naked, tied to a chair, in a pool of blood and with blood splattering the walls. He was hardly recognizable as a human being: his head, eyes and ears were all swollen and his body had been battered. Richardson was out of control, shouting, screaming and punching and kicking Taggart, whilst Fraser was hitting him with a pair of pliers.

  After that terrifying encounter with Charlie Richardson and his cohorts Taggart, frightened of another, went to the police. And not the Metropolitan Police, either; he believed that the Richardsons had so many corrupt officers on their payroll that he drove to the headquarters of Hertfordshire Constabulary at Welwyn Garden City. The man he wanted to speak to was the assistant chief constable and the head of No 5 Regional Crime Squad; his name was Gerald McArthur.

  *

  Gerald Elwyn McArthur was then forty-nine years of age. Leaving his home town of Newport, Monmouthshire at the age of nineteen, he joined the Metropolitan Police in 1935 and became a member of the CID in 1939. Within two years he had volunteered for service with the wartime RAF; four years later, he was demobilized with the rank of flight lieutenant and resumed service with the Metropolitan Police. Promotions came in jumps of four years; by the time he transferred to the Hertfordshire Constabulary on 30 April 1964, he had achieved the rank of detective superintendent, taken a decisive part in the Great Train Robbery investigation and collected a mixed bag of commendations from the commissioner. He was a tremendous all-round detective – he had been congratulated for arresting receivers and shopbreakers, an armed criminal and gangs of crooks variously described as ‘active’ and ‘violent’; when the Fraud Squad opened its doors in 1946, he had been snapped up. Those who committed offences of false pretences and fraudulent conversion or who conspired to defraud were also mopped up by McArthur. There was no aspect of criminal investigation in which he flagged, he was hugely admired by his contemporaries and there was one other crucial facet to his character: Taggart had gone to him because he knew that McArthur was a completely straight copper. It was a prudent move.

  McArthur was appalled by what Taggart had to tell him. He made what enquiries he could to corroborate Taggart’s story without arousing suspicion and then just before Christmas 1965 took his information to the Yard. This would not have been to Taggart’s liking, but it was the nature of the beast. McArthur could see the wide-ranging ramifications of such an enquiry. The manpower, the equipment, the costs of such a massive investigation would be enormous; not something that could be borne by just one of the nine Regional Crime Squads or a single constabulary.

  So he conferred with the Assistant Commissioner (Crime), Peter Ewan Brodie OBE, QPM, the CID Commander, John du Rose and the National Regional Crime Squad coordinator, Commander John Bliss, and the investigation commenced at Tintagel House on the Thames Embankment, well away from the Yard. Just twenty detectives, specially selected for their trustworthiness, were involved.

  Gwyn Waters was a detective sergeant (first-class) attached to the Flying Squad – he described McArthur to me as ‘Brilliant. Criminals were terrified of him’ – who had suddenly been called in to see John du Rose. His initial reaction, as he told me, was, ‘What have I done?’ He need not have worried; he was one of the Metropolitan Police officers seconded to the enquiry because his honesty was beyond question.

  Another was John Simmonds, who as a second-class detective sergeant was seconded from the Met to the No 5 Regional Crime Squad at Old Harlow in Essex in September 1965. He told me how, after a couple of months, he was summoned to McArthur’s office – he was known as ‘Mr Mac’ – at Welwyn Garden City:

  No explanation was given, just be there at 10.00 am. Mr Mac welcomed me into his office and then started to go over my police career and postings. He questioned my knowledge of ‘names’ of various villains, and then casually asked me what I knew about the ‘Richardsons’ from South London. I sussed out that this was the purpose of the meeting and was gutted that apart from vaguely knowing their names, they were a team that I knew nothing about. I apologised to Mr Mac saying that my contacts were basically North and North East London and I could not help him. He smiled at me and said that was what he thought but he wanted to make sure. He then swore me to secrecy and told me that he was about to undertake an investigation into the Richardsons and he wanted to build up a small team to investigate their activities. He said there were a number of witnesses who were prepared to assist him but only after the Richardsons were arrested.

  I went with Mr Mac to an address in North London where we spoke to a potential witness. He was a professional man who had become embroiled with the Richardsons; he was extremely nervous and reluctant to talk to us. Mr Mac spent a long time talking to the man before he eventually agreed to make a statement and I wrote it down. The man had a medical background and had been ‘required’ by the Richardsons to treat a victim who had been tortured by them. The victim, according to the witness, had been systematically beaten about the head over a long period of time (some days) with wet knotted towels, the victim’s head was swollen to twice its size but no skin had broken. The witness said that in all his years in medicine he had never seen such an injury and was amazed that the head could swell to the extent that it had. Mr Mac promised him that he would not be called to give evidence unless the Richardsons were in custody.

  Over the next few weeks I met a number of other witnesses all speaking of barbaric acts of torture by the Richardsons while they were terrorized i
nto working criminal scams on behalf of them. Some were just beaten up, others were subjected to a variety of body mutilations, including having electrodes attached to their genitals and finger and toe nails being ripped off with pliers.

  The Richardsons seemed to prey on people who were already acting criminally and were therefore reluctant or unable to go to the police because they would have to implicate themselves. The Richardsons had a good nose for ferreting these people out and once they got their victim they then forced them to continue their criminal activity but took the proceeds from the victim leaving them to face the music when the police eventually caught up with them.

  Sadly, the witnesses also mentioned that there were a number of police officers who were ‘on the books’ of the Richardsons. Hence Mr Mac’s caution in forming his team.

  Du Rose issued the strict instruction that if any member of the team suspected any officer of having corrupt relations with any of the Richardson gang, it was to be reported to him immediately. By the time the enquiry was completed, the squad had swollen to a total of 310 officers.

  Many of the victims and witnesses in the investigation were on the wrong side of the law; therefore corroboration was essential. Curiously, one confirmation came from a distance of 5,638 miles away from London.

  On 29 June 1965 a mining prospector named Thomas Holmes Waldeck was shot dead at his home in Melrose, Johannesburg, South Africa. He had been involved in a business deal with Charlie Richardson, who had invested £200,000, and Waldeck had made the mistake of swindling him. Retribution was required, and it came in the form of a Richardson gang member and fellow torturer, Laurence Johnny Bradbury.

  Bradbury was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. But he was reprieved, and when the Yard’s Detective Chief Inspector Arthur Rees flew out to South Africa to interview him, Bradbury started talking. He did so for several weeks, and what he had to say was highly disturbing – and enlightening. It fitted in exactly with what Taggart had said six months earlier.

  But while McArthur’s detectives were cobbling together a blueprint for the Richardsons’ prosecution, something happened which would herald the beginning of the end of their rule and it happened at a venue known as Mr Smith’s Club.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Murder at Mr Smith’s Club

  When in August 1964 Eddie Richardson rammed a broken glass into the face of Peter ‘The Greek’ Joannides, who was managing the gambling tables at the Horseshoe Club in Southport, after he and Frank Fraser had paid the club a visit, he must, like many others of his ilk, have felt as though he was invincible after the local magistrates threw the case out. It was the same old story: witnesses were threatened, bribed and conveniently lost their memories. The deputy head of the Labour Party, George Brown MP (later Lord George-Brown of Jevington PC), together with former wartime SAS soldier, Captain Henry Briton Kerby MP, called upon the Home Secretary, Henry Brooke (later Lord Brooke of Cumnor CH, PC), to hold an investigation into the allegations by police of the intimidation of witnesses. However, Brooke – controversial and hugely ineffective (he had been a fervent supporter of Neville Chamberlain which speaks volumes for his character) – declined; but in any event, those who had changed their stories in court (one witness actually stated that Joannides was the antagonist) were hardly likely to change them back again.

  What Eddie Richardson had done before – and got away with – he obviously felt he could do again. It happened nineteen months later at Mr Smith’s Club – or to give it its proper title, Mr Smith and the Witchdoctor’s Club – in Catford, South London in March 1966.

  ‘It was originally known as the Savoy Ballroom, which was frequented at the weekends by many of the residents of Blackheath Road Section House, so it was always crawling with fit young coppers’, Ron Cork told me. However, matters were about to change.

  The club had been opened six months previously by the film star Diana Dors and initially it was well run, with gambling and a dance floor; when guests were requested to leave at 2.00 am, they did.

  The head of the CID at Catford was the very well informed Detective Superintendent John Cummings; well informed because he had headed the Criminal Intelligence Branch, which had opened its doors six years previously. He had an extensive knowledge of criminals, especially the South London variety, and he still kept in contact with his successors at the Yard; what was more, he had that a move would be made to demand protection money from the club.

  On the evening of 7 March, Richardson came to the club to discuss matters of ‘security’, as he put it. Amongst others who joined his group were Frank Fraser, Ronald Jeffrey, William Stayton, Henry Rawlins and Jimmy Moody.

  Sitting, as it were, on the opposite side of the fence were Richard ‘Dickie’ Hart (who had just been released from a prison sentence), Harry Haward, Henry Botton, Peter Hennessy and William Gardner; the first two were armed, Haward with a sawnoff shotgun, Hart with a .45 Colt automatic.

  During the evening the atmosphere grew more and more tense; more men arrived to take their places with one or other of the opposing teams, until there were approximately sixteen in all.

  Two o’clock came and went; by three o’clock most of the staff had left and then Eddie Richardson told Haward and his team, ‘Right, drink up – that’s your lot.’

  Not unnaturally, Haward disagreed and there was some agitated conversation before Peter Hennessy told Richardson, ‘Ah, fuck you, you cunt. I’m going to help myself’, and reached for a bottle.

  As he did so, Richardson smashed his glass on the table – although a slightly different account was given by Janet Tripp, a croupier at the club. She stated, ‘Richardson stood up and this blond fellow who had been sitting at the other table, swearing, stood up and he hit Eddie Richardson who fell backwards. As he fell, his fist which was holding a glass hit the table and the glass broke.’

  But whatever the sequence of events, a battle royal now commenced; tables were overturned, chairs were thrown, glasses were smashed, Hart loosed off shots from his automatic, hitting Harry Rawlins in his left arm, and Haward was struck on top of his head with ‘a blunt object’.

  Hart dropped his gun and ran out of the club’s rear entrance into Farley Road, closely pursued by Fraser and others. Ronald Jeffrey also arrived in Farley Rd; he collected a blast from a shotgun in his groin. Eddie Richardson, too, was hit by shotgun pellets in his leg and buttocks.

  Stayton, who was found in a garden nearby, said in the second of two differing statements to the police, ‘Hart was the only one with a gun and was the one who started the shooting. Hart shot Fraser in the leg outside the club.’

  Matters were certainly confused; at some stage Henry Botton shouted, ‘You’re fucking mad, Frank!’

  Frank Fraser lay moaning in a front garden, his thigh bone shattered by a bullet. He was found to be lying on top of an automatic pistol, the one used to shoot Richard Hart in the back. As he lay dying, Hart – whose jacket had been pulled down, thereby trapping his arms, before he was shot – had been kicked and a bottle had been smashed into his face.

  Terrified residents telephoned the police to tell them of men fighting in the street and shots being fired. One of them was Andrew Henry Lowe, who was awakened by the sounds of shooting. He looked through his bedroom window and saw about twelve men, two of whom were holding guns. After a shot was discharged, Mr Lowe heard one of the men shout, ‘God, you’ve shot him’. Another dragged an injured man by the arm towards Honley Road, threw him on the ground and, taking a gun from his waistband, pointed it at him. Mr Lowe heard him shout, ‘Let me kill him – let me kill him!’, and an unidentified man called out, ‘Don’t do that – that would be murder.’

  Another resident, Mrs Margaret Beale, said, ‘I was woken by bangs and saw two men dragging a third. One lifted him on to the other and they carried him towards Honley Road A dark-coloured Jaguar car parked in front of my house was driven away. I called the police giving them the number of the car.’

  The car, driven by Moody, cont
ained Richardson and Rawlins, who were taken to Dulwich Hospital, where the resident house surgeon, Dr Colin Alfred Tourle, saw Rawlins, whom he described as being ‘shocked and ill from loss of blood and in danger of dying’. Eddie Richardson was arrested after having given the name ‘George Ward’, and the others followed.

  At Lewisham Hospital the registrar, Dr Michael Cyril Pietroni, saw that Jeffrey had multiple shotgun pellet wounds in his thigh, groin and stomach; Fraser had been shot in the thigh with a larger bullet.

  Richardson, Jeffrey, Haward, Moody, Rawlins and Botton were all charged with causing an affray and appeared at Woolwich Magistrates’ Court; at a later hearing they were, incredibly, released on bail. Hennessy – who might be thought to have been the catalyst for what occurred and who the previous year had been acquitted of murder – was not charged because nobody named him. However, justice, in its roughest form was meted out some time later when he died after receiving multiple stab wounds. Patrick O’Nione (‘a lovely guy’) was acquitted of his murder; in turn O’Nione was shot twice, the second time fatally. Jimmy Davey was arrested for O’Nione’s murder; before he could be charged, he died in police custody.

  Meanwhile, Fraser and later Stayton (who had fled but was arrested on a Fugitive Offenders warrant in Gibraltar) appeared at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court. Both were charged with affray and Fraser was additionally charged with the murder of Dickie Hart. When Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Butler went to Lewisham hospital to interview Fraser, his solicitor, Fellowes, told him to ignore Butler and to put the headphones of his radio on.

  Stayton was committed to be tried with the other six defendants; Fraser was committed for trial at the Old Bailey.

  When charged with the murder, Fraser had replied, ‘I’m completely innocent of this. It’s perfectly ridiculous. I was not at the club. I had no gun. I took no part but I finished up a victim. I do not know who caused my injuries.’