London's Gangs at War

by Dick Kirby

  Later, I was out in a Squad car when I had a radio message to go to the Old Bailey. On arrival I was met in the foyer and ushered straight into the witness box where I was questioned about this matter. Ben had been in the witness box and had been challenged over this one matter, which they said he had not admitted. He protested that he had and that I had even cautioned him. Clearly I confirmed this and deflated the defence’s case. It was later ascertained that my statement had been in one of the bundles and that the defence barrister had missed it.

  Next was the turn of Derek John Lucien Harris, who told the court of an encounter with Charlie Richardson when he had gone to collect money owing to him. But Richardson now wanted to trace Jack Duval and told Harris that he had been seen in Duval’s company the previous evening. This is what Harris told the jury:

  I told him I did not know and Mr Richardson said, ‘I believe you do.’ He went on, ‘I like you, Lucien, and I don’t want to hurt you.’ A man named Lawrence Bradbury then punched me five or six times in the stomach, and Charles Richardson threatened me with a knife and kicked me in the wrist, smashing my watch. Roy Hall then brought a portable, hand-operated electric generator into the room, similar to the type used to test sparking plugs. Someone came in with a parcel of scampi and everyone began eating. After he had finished, Mr Charles Richardson screwed his thumbs into my eyes. It was very painful and I could not see for some moments. On Mr Richardson’s instructions, my shoes were removed and my toes were wired up to the generator. Mr Hall turned the handle and the shock caused me to jump out of my chair and I fell to the floor. After that, I was stripped except for my shirt and the shock treatment was repeated. As I rolled on the floor, Mr Richardson said the generator wasn’t working very well and orange squash was poured over my feet. Then I was bound and gagged and given further electric shocks to various parts of my body. Finally, Mr Richardson said I was to be taken to the marshes where I gathered I would be killed and dumped, under a pile of refuse. While I was dressing, Mr Richardson pinned my left foot to the floor with a knife. Then his attitude changed and he became very friendly. He apologised and said evidently he had made a mistake and I did not know where Jack Duval was. He then gave me £150. Altogether, I was detained for six hours.

  Asked why this matter was not reported to the police, Harris replied, ‘I had reason to believe that certain police officers were connected with Charles Richardson.’

  The other victims gave their evidence and then, on 25 April 1967, after legal submissions had been made, Jean Goodman was acquitted on the directions of the judge on charges of grievous bodily harm or actual bodily harm in respect of Cyril George Green. She was released on bail, pending her trial on a separate indictment in respect of charges of conspiracy to cheat and defraud.

  One week later, the judge directed the jury to acquit Charlie and Eddie Richardson of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to Jack Duval between 1 and 31 December 1962 and between 1 September and 31 October 1963 and also, in respect of Charlie Richardson only, inflicting grievous bodily harm on Alfred Blore.

  Now it was the turn of the defence, and when Charlie Richardson gave evidence, any allegation of violence, he said – save for one occasion when he had punched Jack Duval on the nose, in retaliation for being hit with a cup – was a lie, a conspiracy by ‘a lot of clever fraudsmen putting these allegations and getting out of their own frauds by blaming me for these incidents’.

  In fact, he said, both Duval and Wajcenberg had stolen £32,000 out of Common Market Merchants Ltd., a company in which he had invested £5,000.

  The knife-throwing incident with Blore? ‘It’s lies. It sounds like something out of a James Bond book . . . I don’t know about any injury to Blore and I’ve never struck him.’

  And Wajcenberg’s ill-treatment? ‘All lies’.

  The blood on the floor of the office? ‘It must have got there when an employee went to get the first-aid box.’

  As for Harris’s graphic account of his ill-treatment, well, ‘I went to the office in the evening, I could see Harris’s tie was askew and I could see he had had a fight with Bradbury’ (who of course was in prison in South Africa and would not be returning for the trial). ‘I thought Harris knew where Duval was. There was an atmosphere and I managed to smooth it over.’

  Describing 90 per cent of Harris’ testimony as ‘perjured evidence’, Richardson went on to say, ‘As far as I’m concerned, no attack did take place on Harris’; he went on to say he had never possessed an electric generator and knew no one who had.

  Questioned about Bernard Bridges who, it was thought, knew the whereabouts of Jack Duval and who claimed that he was punched, kicked, bound with flex, attached to the generator and given electric shocks which were so severe that, ‘it made me leap into the air’, Richardson’s response was, ‘No, I’ve never had a cross word with him.’

  The appalling treatment of Benjamin Coulston was very quickly dealt with. Not only had he not been a party to Coulston’s torture, the first time Richardson had seen him was ‘when he picked me out as one of the defendants at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court. It was the first time I had seen him in my life.’

  And now there was the matter of James Taggart, whom Richardson denied ill-treating on 15 July 1965. Taggart, said Richardson, had given perjured evidence. He could not possibly have attacked Taggart at the time suggested, because he had picked up his brother Eddie at London Heathrow Airport at 8.45 pm, precisely the time when Taggart had said he was being beaten. Having left the airport at 9.00 pm, they had arrived in Chislehurst at 10.00 pm. Simple. Except that it wasn’t.

  ‘Look at this telegram’, said Sebag Shaw. ‘It bears the date 14 July from Johannesburg and that is the telegram you got, isn’t it?’

  The telegram revealed that Eddie Richardson’s flight would be landing at Heathrow at 10.20 pm. ‘You see the time?’ asked Shaw, and Richardson had to agree that it was 10.20.

  ‘Not 8.45?’

  ‘I could have sworn it was 8.45’, muttered Richardson.

  The master manipulator had been outmanoeuvred by a flimsy piece of paper found by the police during the search of his address.

  That was on the Friday. On the following Monday, two surprise witnesses were called in respect of Charlie Richardson. The first of these was Mrs Elaine Frances Halin, who told the court that she had received a subpoena at about 5.00 pm on Friday and had prepared her statement over the weekend. She stated that during the evening of 15 July Charlie Richardson had taken her to London airport to meet his brother and, having done so, they had taken Eddie Richardson to his home in Chislehurst, after which she and Charlie had returned to her house at Effra Parade, Brixton, with Charlie leaving at about 1.45 am.

  Cross-examined, Mrs Halin was asked if the person serving the subpoena had told her that Richardson had finished his evidence about the night at London Airport, to which she replied, ‘No’. She thought the aircraft had arrived at about 10.30 pm. Had anybody told Mrs Halin that Richardson was charged with ‘a very nasty assault that very night in Rotherhithe New Rd? Again, she replied, ‘No’.

  Had she read anything about the proceedings against Charles Richardson? ‘No’, replied Mrs Halin, telling the court that she had realized only yesterday that a charge against him referred to 15 July.

  ‘You had not the slightest idea you were being called today to provide an alibi for Charles Richardson?’ asked Sebag Shaw, and again the answer was ‘no’.

  The second witness was a man on remand for a matter unconnected with the case who was allowed to write down his name and address. Referred to only as ‘Mr F’, he told the court that he had known James Taggart for ten to twelve years and that recently Taggart had telephoned him and told him that he – Mr F – had offered him £20,000 to change his evidence. This he denied, but the name Charles Richardson had been mentioned, and he added that Taggart had told him, ‘If you did telephone me and offered me this, and told me from whom it came and you have trouble with any business, you can be helped.’


  Pointing out that this matter had not been put to Taggart when he gave evidence, Mr Justice Lawton told the jury that this evidence was not admissible and they should disregard it.

  Eddie Richardson stated he was convicted in the Mr Smith’s affray case because of the allegations made in the present case.

  ‘Are you saying you were unlucky or not guilty?’ asked Sebag Shaw, to which Richardson replied, ‘Not guilty’.

  ‘So the verdict of the jury in that case was not to be trusted? asked Shaw cunningly.

  Richardson cleverly countered with, ‘The jury must have been influenced by the publicity I received in the charges I face now.’

  Charlie Richardson’s alibi for the night of the attack on Taggart had received a nasty dent, but of course he had denied the assault. Fraser would later say that at the time of Taggart’s attack he was in Hove; and the assault would also be denied by Thomas Clark, who despite having numerous convictions for dishonesty ‘did not believe in violence’.

  So the three alleged perpetrators were denying the offence, it being their word against that of a convicted fraudster. Of course, Taggart had said in evidence that Alfred Berman had tried to intercede on his behalf, but Berman himself was charged right along with the other three, with blackmail and grievous bodily harm, and with actual bodily harm as an alternative. Therefore Berman was hardly likely to back up Taggart’s story – except that he did, and this bombshell burst on the defence case on 15 May 1967.

  *

  Going into the witness box, Berman stated that on the night of the attack Charlie Richardson had asked him to bring some food to his office, which he did. When he arrived, there were Richardson, Fraser and Clark, also a naked man in a chair. He told the court:

  When I first saw him, he looked ghastly. I had another look and then I recognized the man as James Taggart, whom I knew. I had to look twice. His head, ears and eyes were swollen. He had marks all over his body. I nearly fainted. I said to Charles Richardson, ‘Good God, what’s happened? What’s this man done to get like this?’

  Examined by his barrister, Basil Wigoder QC, Berman said that there was ‘blood in front of him, on the floor and on the wall behind’ and that Richardson had told him Taggart was an informer and responsible for taking a man’s liberty away.

  ‘Charles Richardson was shouting and screaming, saying, “he has done terrible things”,’ Berman told the jury, adding, ‘I was in a daze; I didn’t know what I had walked into.’

  Berman was asked, ‘Could you leave the room?’

  He replied, ‘I wanted to but my feet would not let me. Everything was tense. I walked towards the door but Charles Richardson told me to sit down and wait.’

  After about twenty minutes, Frank Prater – a prosecution witness – had arrived.

  ‘Prater went up to Taggart’, said Berman, ‘and shouted at him, “Where’s the money, where’s the money?”’

  Taggart finally agreed to make out cheques totalling £1,200, and Prater and Richardson decided they should be made out to Berman.

  Just to make matters crystal clear, Mr Justice Lawton now stepped in: ‘Your defence can be summarised in a few words: you say you had this misfortune to stumble across the two crimes being committed. One, knocking Taggart about in an unlawful way and the other demanding money from Taggart?’

  ‘Yes’, replied Berman.

  Pushing the point home, the judge continued, ‘You were not there because you wanted to be there or that you were a willing party, but in a way, by chance and your continued presence was not due to a desire to encourage what was going on but was because you did not know how you could get away?’

  And having received such a very helpful lifeline, the only answer Berman could possibly give was, ‘Yes’.

  Frankie Fraser now limped into the witness box with the aid of a stick – it was not needed, except as a prop to try to extract sympathy from the jury – and told the court that he had alibis in respect of the assaults on Coulston and Taggart; and that with the exception of Charlie and Eddie Richardson he knew none of the other defendants in the case.

  Pressing this point, Sebag Shaw asked him, ‘You say you do not know Alfred Berman, one of your co-defendants, and never knew anything about him before this case?’

  Fraser replied, ‘That is so.’

  ‘You have never done him any harm that you know of?’

  ‘No’.

  ‘And yet’, persisted Shaw, ‘right out of the blue, he says you were one of the men in an office in Rotherhithe at the same time as Mr Taggart, and that you were with Charles Richardson and Charles Clark. Do you say that is all nonsense?’

  ‘I’m afraid it is’, replied Fraser, but he did not sound particularly convincing.

  The second time that John Simmonds was called to the Old Bailey related to the arrest of Roy Hall. He explained what had happened:

  Both the Hertfordshire DC and I had been summoned to the Old Bailey in the middle of the day; the DC got there early afternoon and had gone into the witness box. I forget why now but I was not able to get there until the next day. I was to be first witness on, and on my way my car broke down at Finchley. I rang Vic Evans who was now in charge of the witnesses and said I would be late; he said I could not be late. He asked me my location and I told him I was in a call box in Finchley. He told me not to move, and a few moments later a Traffic Patrol car with headlights and bell going pulled up. ‘DS Simmonds?’ shouted the passenger. I nodded, he said, ‘Get in’, and we roared off to the Old Bailey and I had time for coffee!

  I was questioned in respect of the arrest. Great emphasis was placed on the fact that we had handcuffed the prisoner and led him out of the house like that, as if it was some heinous crime. I said that the prisoner had been violent and tried to escape and that we had cuffed him for our own safety and I considered it to be justified when we found a loaded hand gun on the premises. To this day I cannot understand why they bothered to call us but I felt they did more harm to their case by doing so.

  The last of the defendants to give evidence was Thomas Charles Clark, who described his twelve convictions – including receiving, possessing electric detonators and storebreaking – before denying any involvement with the torture of Taggart, saying, ‘The press has brought all this out. All this gang talk is a myth.’

  He initially described himself as nothing more than an acquaintance of Charlie Richardson, but cross-examination revealed that whilst he was serving a three-year sentence Richardson had sent money to Clark’s wife which resulted in him writing a letter to Richardson from prison ending with the words, ‘Your pal, forever’.

  ‘Until Mr Berman gave evidence in this court’, asked Sebag Shaw, ‘did you regard him as an enemy or a friend?’

  ‘I feel very sorry for Mr Berman’, replied Clark, adding, ‘He has other charges to face.’

  ‘To put it in everyday language’, interjected the judge, ‘he shopped you in the witness box?’

  ‘Not only me’, replied Clark.

  Sebag Shaw now asked, ‘He had never done anything to you before which was unkind?’

  ‘No, quite the contrary’, replied Clark. ‘And he had never done anything which might suggest that he would play a dirty trick on you?’

  ‘No’.

  ‘And yet he shopped you and Charles Richardson, the man you have described as “your pal, forever”?’

  To this Clark replied, ‘I think he would even shop his own mother if he saw a chance of getting out of the mess he’s in.’

  ‘What about Mr Taggart?’ asked Shaw. ‘You have said although you never knew him and never had any dealings with him, that he has told lies about you. Why should he want to do that?’

  It is one thing for a defendant to issue denials and quite another to make the kind of smart remark which Clark now did: ‘He has told lies but he had his motives. I think he’s a top grass. He’s in trouble over his bankruptcy and so he runs off to Welwyn Garden City to see Uncle Mac.’

  This was a sneering refere
nce to Gerald McArthur, bracketing him with Derek McCulloch OBE, known as Uncle Mac, the muchloved BBC Radio presenter of Children’s Favourites and Children’s Hour. It did not help that McCulloch was in poor health and in fact died within ten days of Clark making his remark, which brought this frosty rebuke from Mr Justice Lawton: ‘Everybody throughout this trial has been at pains to address you and your co-defendants correctly. Do you mind doing the same?’

  This resulted in a fulsome apology from Clark, but in all honesty the defence case was not progressing very well, especially after Berman’s counsel told the court that after his client ‘had left the comparative safety of the dock . . . and said that James Taggart was telling the truth . . . he [Berman] will not be able to walk along any street in this country or anywhere in the world without constantly glancing over his shoulder.’

  Oh, dear. It was what’s known in the trade as a ‘cut-throat defence’.

  *

  The judge took several days to deliver an impeccably fair summing-up, and on 7 June 1967, after a trial which had lasted forty-five days, the jury consisting of eleven men and one woman returned their verdicts after a retirement lasting nine hours and twenty-six minutes.

  Moody was acquitted but still had to face charges of assaulting the police. In the case of Berman, the jury were unable to agree.

  Charlie Richardson was found guilty of nine of the charges against him: assaulting and robbing Duval with violence, demanding £5,000 with menaces from Wajcenberg, assaulting Blore, causing grievous bodily harm to Harris, Bridges, Coulston and Taggart and demanding £1,200 from Taggart. He told the court, ‘I am completely innocent of these charges.’

  Eddie Richardson was found guilty of just two of the charges: actual bodily harm on Duval and inflicting grievous bodily harm on Coulston.

  Longman was found not guilty of demanding with menaces in respect of Wajcenberg, but the judge directed that he remain in custody ‘in respect of other matters’.