Mad Frank and Sons by David Fraser

Author:David Fraser [Fraser, David, Fraser, Patrick and Marsh, Beezy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

CHAPTER 16

BRITAIN’S MOST WANTED

It was the year in which England won the World Cup, hemlines were short, hair was long and the clubbing scene in Swinging London reached its zenith.

For Frank Fraser, 1966 should have been a boom time. Instead, a fight in a nightclub – a chance fracas fuelled by drink – led to the downfall of not one, but two criminal empires. Much has been made of the end of the Kray twins’ East End network of terror but without events involving Frank Fraser and Eddie Richardson at a little-known nightclub in Catford, their reign might have gone on for many years longer.

Frank was always very respectful to the legend that built up around the Kray twins in later years, not least because he became very close to them in prison. They were united by virtue of the fact that they were all social pariahs. But Frank was also a man who wanted to set the record straight and, privately, he would confess that back in their heyday, the Krays were ‘little more than thieves ponces, just like their father’. He said: ‘I’m proud to say I knew them because I liked them and they were good to my sister, Eva, but really, they were not people I would be seriously threatened by. They talked about being poor and how it made them tough. Seeing the Kray twins and the way they grew up made it look to me like their lives, even back then, were the lap of luxury compared to mine.’

It wasn’t Frank’s style to want to ‘big up’ his role in gangland – bearing the name Frank Fraser was enough – but he was always clear on one thing: he never saw the Kray twins as a threat. Frank was in a different league to the Krays. He knew it and they knew it. Eddie Richardson was a very dangerous man but if he had been on his own, they might have chanced having a pop at him. His close association with Frank, however, made him untouchable.

That didn’t stop them wanting a slice of the action in the West End and tensions between the Krays and Frank and the Richardsons had been simmering for some time before they boiled over into fatal aggression. With Billy Hill taking a back seat, the Krays were coming into their own as nightclub bosses and enjoyed parties with a starry clientele, including Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey and Judy Garland. They also posed for photographer David Bailey, cementing their reputation as Sixties’ icons. But they wanted more than just celebrity friends and public acclaim; they were jealous of the success of Atlantic Machines, particularly because of some nice little earners Frank and Eddie had picked up on the side. Once again, Frank’s contacts with the criminal underworld had proved crucial.

This time the tip had come from old-time crook Jack ‘Ruby’ Sparks, who was one of Frank’s all-time favourite thieves because he had not only pulled off a major jewellery heist

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