The Last Word by Eddie Richardson

Author:Eddie Richardson [Richardson, Eddie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-07-17T07:00:00+00:00

THE LAST WORD

informer anyway, why else did he tell the cops? Alfie Berman was in the dock with us, but when it came to it he turned Queen’s Evidence, and confirmed everything Taggart said about Charlie. Berman had already been shifted to a different prison, so we guessed something was going on. It was a blow having him turn against Charlie.

He wasn’t the only one of Charlie’s mates who were charged with us who did that. Jimmy Kensit, the father of the actress Patsy Kensit, was up with us at the committal, and he got shifted to a cushier prison, which meant the cops had got into him. He made a statement against Charlie, in return for which charges against him were dropped. Kensit was one of Charlie’s men, and a pickpocket by trade. I am always very suspicious of pickpockets: they can only operate by bunging the police, otherwise they’d be nicked every time they went out. The police give them a sort of ‘licence’ to operate, and that means they are always close to the cops.

George Green, Bennie Coulston and Norman Bickers were the three witnesses who weren’t Duval’s men. Green was running a long firm round the corner from Charlie’s offices, and Charlie had dealings with him. On the charge that I assaulted him, I got a not guilty, and I was never charged with anything to do with Bickers, a villain who Charlie gave a job running one of the long firms.

I never thought anyone would believe the rubbish that came out of the mouth of Bennie Coulston. I was expecting the judge to overrule and strike out a lot of what he said, but Lord Justice Lawton was only too keen to help tidy things up and build the strongest possible case against us. Coulston’s evidence was so outrageous that you might have been forgiven for thinking he was trying to help us, knowing none of it was really admissible. But the judge allowed it to stand.

Coulston was different from Duval and all the other fraud lot. He was a lower-bred bloke from round Lambeth way, small with dark

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