London's Gangs at War

by Dick Kirby

  Williams told me, ‘I turned to look at him as he sat on the cell’s wooden bench, nursing an injury to his nose. He looked very small and not at all dangerous, more a case deserving of a little TLC. However, I was not inclined to provide it!’

  Cyril George Green had first met Charlie Richardson when he had been released from prison in May 1964. By the time he gave evidence at Clerkenwell he was again in trouble, on remand on a charge of fraud, although the prosecution told the magistrate that at the appropriate time the charge would be dropped.

  Green stated that he had gone to Charlie Richardson’s office with Johnnie Bradbury; they had brought with them a bottle of whisky. Richardson was questioning Lucien Harris, from whom he wished to discover the whereabouts of Jack Duval, evidently without success. The whisky was poured over Harris, he was punched, stripped naked and then wired up to the generator. One of the men turned the handle of the box, causing Harris to scream, and he vomited; this treatment continued for about an hour.

  This should have been a salutary lesson to Green regarding the type of people he was consorting with, but having received ‘a final warning’ from Charlie Richardson in respect of some misused cheques, he was set about by George Cornell in Richardson’s office after he told him the police had been contacted. Cornell tipped him upside down on a chair and hit him across the head with a pair of pliers – ‘Then he started hitting me with chairs and ashtrays, kicking me and punching me.’

  ‘He’s not here to defend himself!’ shouted a woman in the public gallery, as indeed he wasn’t. There was uproar in the courtroom and not for the first or the last time the magistrate ordered the court to be cleared.

  Resuming his testimony, Green told the court that Cornell got on the telephone to Jean Goodman, telling him to ‘send Roy round’.

  Roy Hall had arrived carrying a pot of tea. ‘Cornell said, “Give him a cup of tea”,’ said Green. ‘I had it poured over my head; it was boiling hot tea. Hall made me sit in the corner with my hands on the floor and made me keep my eyes open. Then he kicked me about the body. He kept punching me. Hall made me take my shoes and socks off, then they tried to break my toes. They couldn’t do it properly, so used pliers. The middle toes of my left foot were broken.’

  *

  The day’s proceedings were concluded when Moody was charged with causing grievous bodily harm to a police sergeant the previous Saturday. ‘My client was in fact violently attacked by the police’, stated Moody’s counsel, adding, ‘He was hit on the head with a truncheon.’

  Moody, who had in fact head-butted the officer, was quite aggrieved. ‘I was bleeding from my head in the cells for an hour’, he screamed from the dock. ‘I had to have stitches’ – but nobody (least of all the police) seemed interested in this latest miscarriage of justice because the press reporters were now under attack.

  ‘You’ve applied for it, mate, and you’ll get it’, illogically shouted a supporter, and a woman tried to grab hold of another reporter; yet another was smuggled out of court by the police.

  By Saturday, 10 September, further charges were preferred. Charlie Richardson, Jean Goodman and Brian Morse were charged with making false statements to procure passports and associated offences, whilst Richardson, Goodman and Derek Mottram were charged with possessing dangerous drugs. Mottram alone was charged with possession of ten forged $100 United States Federal Reserve notes, while Roy Hall was charged with possession of a stolen pistol and five rounds of ammunition and associated firearms offences.

  Now it was the turn of Benjamin Coulston – who since 1958 had acquired eight convictions for dishonesty – in the witness box. Coulston was suspected of swindling Richardson out of a consignment of cigarettes valued at £600; this had been more than sufficient to have him brought to the scrap metal headquarters, threatened with a gun, stripped and then punched repeatedly in the face by Frankie Fraser. He was immersed in a bath full of water until the blood was washed off, before being returned to the office for round two.

  Fraser now tried to extract some of Coulston’s teeth with pliers – Coulston said that most of one of his teeth was removed and the rest of it came out in his hand – before an electric fire was moved up and down on his naked body. He gave evidence that all the toes on his right foot were smashed, as was his left big toe.

  Next, members of the gang stubbed out their cigarettes on his body. When his arms and legs were bound with rope, his head was covered in a tarpaulin and he heard ‘weights’ and ‘Vauxhall Bridge’ mentioned, then was put into a van and driven away, he fainted.

  He later recovered consciousness in the office, surrounded by the sniggering gang, who asked if he was all right. Richardson told him that he had discovered that someone else had stolen the consignment and laughingly apologized.

  At hospital a fractured skull was diagnosed, and Coulston’s wounds required twenty stitches. Recompense in the sum of £30 was pushed under his pillow by the Richardsons’ father.

  Eddie Richardson decided to conduct his own defence, when Coulston denied that he was a police informant. When Richardson asked permission to see his wife, the magistrate, Geraint Rees, told him, ‘Subject to the regulations, you may’; but McArthur, concerned at any possible delay to the prison van convoy, told the magistrate that there would be an opportunity for her to visit her husband whilst he was on remand.

  ‘Isn’t the law that a man is innocent until he’s proved guilty?’ shouted Richardson, telling the magistrate, ‘I wish you’d keep an open mind. It’s an unsavoury sight looking at these other people.’ He was probably referring to the other people present during visiting times at Brixton Prison rather than his co-defendants; but whatever the case, he was ordered to keep quiet.

  Just before Christmas, William Stayton had the charges against him dismissed, as did Charlie Richardson and Roy Hall in respect of the allegations of actual bodily harm and demanding money with menaces regarding Christopher Glinski, the magistrate, Geraint Rees, declaring there was no case to answer.

  Police Constable Kenneth ‘Taff’ Rees had had the unenviable task of guarding Frankie Fraser at Lewisham Hospital whilst he was recovering from his bullet wound. They played draughts, discussed the virtues of the Saab motor car (with which Fraser seemed obsessed) and said nothing about the case. Some time later, Rees had been attached to Traffic Patrol and now formed part of the escort group to court.

  ‘Following the gates being closed at Bow Street, the prisoners were let out of the van’, he told me. As Fraser emerged, he shouted, ‘Hello, Taff – how ya doing?’ and, as Rees told me, ‘I nearly dropped my Woodbine!’ He received a tap on the shoulder – ‘Come inside!’ – from a couple of grim-faced ’tecs who demanded to know the reason for this apparent chumminess. It was easily explained, and as a bonus, Rees later married the staff nurse whom he had met at Lewisham Hospital.

  Between 24 and 27 January 1967 legal submissions were heard, and then the defendants were committed to the Old Bailey to stand trial on a variety of charges. All were remanded in custody with the exception of Jean Goodman, who had previously been granted bail in her own recognizance of £2,000 with two sureties in similar amounts. They faced a total of forty charges, committal proceedings had lasted 71 days and 250 witnesses had been called.

  It was now time for the police to assemble their witnesses and ensure that the case for the prosecution was as watertight as possible, whilst some of the defendants ensured that the skulduggery which had already commenced continued with breathtaking impudence – as will be seen later.

  *

  The ‘Torture Trial’ commenced on 4 April 1967, and many of the defendants were upset when they realized that Mr Justice Lawton would be their judge. At fifty-six years of age, Lawton was a rather controversial figure. He had been selected as the parliamentary candidate for Hammersmith North for the British Union of Fascists during the 1930s, at which time he also converted to Roman Catholicism; he was later invalided out of the Rifle Brigade during the Second World War. A brisk, no-nonsense
character, he was known for making comments in court which would send present-day adherents of political correctness into a swoon, for example when he spoke about the difficulties arising from dealing with ‘gyppos and tinkers who invade a farmer’s land’.

  After hearing legal submissions, Brodie had been a productsions, indictments were served and the number of charges for the first trial was reduced to twenty-two, a jury was selected and the next day, Sebag Shaw QC for the prosecution, outlined the case to the court. At the time of the trial, sixty-five-year-old Shaw was serving as Honorary Recorder of Ipswich and he was also a formidable prosecutor; he wasted no time on niceties, telling the jury, ‘This present case is not about dishonesty and fraud; it is about violence and threats of violence. Not, let me say, casual acts of violence committed in sudden anger but vicious and brutal violence, systematically inflicted, deliberately and cold-bloodedly and with utter and callous ruthlessness.’

  In an effort to show that this was not the case, the defendants were represented by twenty-five barristers, including ten Queen’s Counsels.

  The first witness for the prosecution was the very slippery Jack Duval, who admitted that he was currently serving a three-year sentence imposed on 8 November 1966 for a conspiracy to defraud which involved airline tickets; at the time of being sentenced, he was also serving a twelve-month sentence for making a false declaration to obtain a passport. Born in Russia in 1919, he stated that he had served in the French Foreign Legion for six months before being invalided out and arriving in England in 1947. He had used a number of aliases, including ‘Jack Oliver’, and had been convicted of fraud on a number of occasions.

  Having met Charlie Richardson in 1960, Duval told the court that he had worked for him ordering stocks of nylons on credit in Italy; but after he had experienced what he referred to as ‘a rough time’ abroad he was taken to an office in Camberwell where Eddie Richardson punched him in the face and beat him with golf clubs; when Duval asked why he was subjected to this kind of treatment, he was told, ‘You do as Charlie tells you to do.’ Understandably, he told the jury, ‘I was very frightened and felt bad.’

  Nevertheless, Duval went back to work for Charlie Richardson in a travel agency where, over a period of two to three months, airline tickets were obtained on credit, with none of them being paid for. Later, in Italy, the same scheme was re-enacted and £20– 30,000 was owed. Charlie Richardson arrived in Italy and provided him with a passport in the name of Rumble. He fled Italy to England via Lugano (where he stated he was again attacked by Eddie Richardson) and Brussels, but having reached the UK he received a telephone call from Charlie Richardson, who said, ‘It’s no use hiding yourself in Brighton, Duval. Do you want me to come and fetch you or are you going to come?’

  He did come; and he stated that in September or October 1963 he was beaten, once more with golf clubs, by Eddie Richardson. It seems incredible that Duval continued to work for Charlie Richardson; perhaps it was an indication of the power that Richardson exerted over him or greed on Duval’s part – and maybe a combination of the two. In any case, in the spring of 1964 Richardson sent him to Germany to order textiles, electrical goods and cutlery on credit on behalf of Common Market Merchants, of which Alfred Blore was the manager.

  In June 1964 Duval and Blore were summoned to Richardson’s office in Camberwell where, as soon as they arrived, Charlie Richardson punched Duval in the face; when he recovered consciousness he discovered that Richardson had relieved him of $200, his watch and a ring. Blore – who did not want to continue running the company under Richardson’s orders – was being subjected to the terrifying ordeal of having Richardson throw knives from a canteen of cutlery at him, while shouting, ‘I’m the boss and if I tell you what to do, you’ll do it!’

  ‘What have I done, Charlie?’ cried Blore.

  Duval, rather wisely, told the court, ‘Naturally, I was quiet sitting in my corner’, whilst Blore screamed, ‘Don’t do it to me!’

  Eventually, Richardson told two of his henchmen to go to Blore’s company in Cannon Street, collect the stock and books and make it appear that there had been a break-in. He also directed that Blore, who was covered in blood and crying, be taken to a chemist and ‘fixed up’.

  Mr E.J.P. Cussen for the prosecution asked Duval, ‘Did you go to the doctor or complain to the police?’

  Duval replied, ‘No. A few days later, I flew to Brussels and then lived in Israel, Paris, Germany and Switzerland. I was too frightened to return to London. I did not return to this country until November 1965, when I was arrested in Leeds for passport offences.’

  Cross-examined by Geoffrey Crispin QC for Charlie Richardson, Duval denied that he was the ‘mastermind’ behind the frauds and that he had concocted the story to save his own skin. He did admit that Richardson had paid large sums of money, up to £1,000, to corrupt police officers and that he (Duval) had named half a dozen of them in his statement but denied that he was hoping to get a lot of money by selling his story to the newspapers. ‘I am at present a guest of Her Majesty’, he protested, ‘and cannot indulge in any business activities while I am in prison.’

  These were serious allegations, albeit from a man who was not only used to lying habitually to further his illicit, fraudulent transactions but was currently serving a prison sentence. But were they true? When Sebag Shaw had concluded his opening statement for the Crown, he told the court that when Eddie Richardson was arrested and charged he had stated, ‘You are undermining the whole structure of British justice by bringing these charges against me when you know full well I am innocent.’

  Shaw countered this by saying to the jury, ‘You will give that speech all the weight you think fit but we all know that British justice is safe in this court. If half the evidence for the prosecution is substantially accurate, you may think that the charges are amply justified and proved.’

  Therefore it would be a matter for the jury, who featured in the next of several hiccups which this trial would experience.

  *

  It was at this time that an attempt was made to discredit the police. Misinformation had been given to the Daily Mirror which made front page news. The newspaper reported: ‘Last night some detectives slept at the homes of the jurors they guarded, and when that was not convenient, they waited outside their houses in their cars.’

  This allegation was introduced to the court proceedings by Mr T.Williams QC on behalf of the bruised and battered James Moody. There was a good reason for it, since it featured in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice at the commencement of the trial in which Moody featured prominently – but more of that later.

  It was a serious attack on the credibility of the prosecution; when Mr Justice Lawton ordered jury protection, he had made it quite clear that there should be no personal contact between police officers and the jurors whom they were guarding. It was important enough for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Sir Norman Skelhorn KBE, QC, to attend court in person, as did Gerald McArthur, who told the judge that he had instructed his officers that in no circumstances were they to enter the jury members’ homes, ‘not even if some were offered a cup of tea’.

  Mr Justice Lawton dealt with the matter in a simple, straightforward manner. Addressing the jury, he asked, ‘Did any officer sleep in your homes during the night?’ When the jury unanimously chorused, ‘No’, the judge remarked, ‘No more need be said.’

  *

  The next witness was Bernard Wajcenberg, another fraudster who had had dubious business dealings with Charlie Richardson and Johnnie Longman. He described going to Richardson’s office to be paid at the conclusion of a business transaction but said that Richardson had turned on him, saying, ‘There is nothing due to you. You owe the firm £5,000’, and adding, ‘You’ll have to pay up or you know what will happen if you don’t.’

  Telling Wajcenberg that unless he paid he would not get out of the office alive, Richardson grabbed him by the lapels, saying, ‘When I go berserk, you know what happens’; he the
n opened a cupboard which contained knives, choppers and a shotgun. When Wajcenberg tried to protest that he did not owe any money, Richardson retorted, ‘You ratted on me and spoke to a police officer and you must pay . . . you have rich friends.’

  Wajcenberg did have rich friends and he borrowed £1,500 each from two of them which was handed over, since he had no doubt that he would be beaten up – or worse – if he defaulted. It was not just that he had had the lapels of his jacket seized and been shown a cupboard full of weaponry; he told the court that on a previous occasion he had seen Jack Duval brought in to Richardson’s office: ‘He was bleeding from the nose, his eyes had been blackened and his shirt was bloodstained. It moved me. I did not know what this sort of thing was. Business is business but violence is something different. I was paralysed; I could not speak any more.’

  But even more chilling was Wajcenberg’s description of how Richardson spoke to Duval, in the manner of an exasperated parent to a recalcitrant child: ‘Why can’t you be a good boy? Why do you misbehave? Must you put people behind prison bars?’

  In the meantime, John Simmonds had been promoted and was back on the Flying Squad. He had not been required to give evidence in chief since his statement of arrest had been accepted. But he was twice called to the Old Bailey to clear up matters that had arisen and he described what happened:

  Firstly, when I was protecting Ben [Wajcenberg] we were driving to Fashion Street one morning when he suddenly said, ‘Oh my God, I forgot to tell McArthur about a specific criminal activity!’ At the time, the DPP had given immunity to witnesses on the basis that they were completely honest and admitted all criminal matters they had committed. Ben went on to tell me of a matter that escaped his mind. I realized the importance of what he was saying so I stopped the car, cautioned him and recorded the details in my pocket book and got him to sign it. Once we arrived at Fashion Street I telephoned Mr Mac and gave him the details and subsequently made a full statement.