Archive for the ‘True crime’ Category
Friday, September 30th, 2011
The racist murder of Antiguan carpenter Kelso Cochrane on 17 May 1959 is the centre-point of this book, but it spins off in a lot of other directions. No one was ever convicted for the butchery but Olden makes a strong circumstantial case that a painter and decorator called Pat Digby wielded the knife that killed Cochrane. Digby denied that he was the culprit, and had he not died from a heart attack four years ago, then stringent British libel laws would have forced Olden’s book to take a very different shape to the one it has now. There is no smoking gun in this case, although this book suggests Digby’s bloody knife may still lie hidden under some Notting Hill floorboards. Olden’s text is in part a narrative of his attempts to identify the killer, and the naming of Digby represents its climax.
Murder In Notting Hill is much more than simply a true crime book, it is also a social history. There are uplifting paragraphs about the struggles of those who in the 1950s were newly arrived in London from the West Indies, and far less edifying passages about racist teenage gangs and organised fascist activists. Over the years it has been claimed by some commentators that either Oswald Mosley’s Union Movement or Colin Jordan’s White Defence League had a hand in Cochrane’s murder. Olden is dismissive of this idea and if his identification of Digby as the killer is correct, then he is almost certainly right on this score. The lives of all Notting Hill residents are portrayed as pretty grim in this paperback, so Olden hits on the fascist ideologues and a toff copper – Superintendent Ian Forbes-Leith (“The Governor in the Bowler”) – as figures from whom he can wring a little humour. Describing a fascist meeting in defence of a gang of teddy boys imprisoned for a series of extremely vicious racist attacks the year before Cochrane’s murder, Olden writes:
At a meeting at Oxford Gardens School, just off Ladbroke Grove, the campaign to free the nine young men was growing. A tall thin Welshman – rarely seen out of the same jacket and trousers – held aloft a newspaper with their grinning portraits. “Thugs. That’s what they were called,” he said. This was outrageous. “These,” he shouted, “are some of the finest faces you could wish to see in Britain.” He vowed they “must not be forgotten as they lie in prison during the best years of their lives.”… The speaker was Jeffrey Hamm. He was 43-years old, had lived in Notting Hill for the past six years and was Secretary of a far-right political party called the Union Movement.
There are laughs to be had from filthy fascists who always dress in the same clothes, and such amusements very effectively lighten the mood and prevent the reader getting bogged down in Olden’s serious and at times very depressing subject matter. Occasionally the jokes are recycled, such as the chapter heading “One Foot In The Grove”, which will be familiar to those who have read Tom Vague on Notting Hill (and I wouldn’t be surprised if Vague had filched this one-liner from an earlier source). For those that aren’t acquainted with west London and/or English idioms, The Grove refers to the area around Ladbroke Grove in Notting Hill, and Olden’s chapter heading is a play on the hackneyed phrase ‘one foot in the grave’. That said, ultimately Murder In Notting Hill makes for compelling reading because Olden deftly and very confidently walks us through his own investigation into Cochrane’s murder – as well as the failed police enquiry. The book works on one level as a whodunit, although obviously there is far more to it than that.
Murder In Notting Hill explores the long lasting detrimental effects of Cochrane’s murder on both the victim’s family and the killer (assuming, of course, Digby was the thug responsible for this repugnant act). It is also a timely reminder that neither institutional racism, police corruption, nor the old bill being in the pockets of the media, are anything new in London. Like the majority of historical works I read, Murder In Notting Hill relies a little too heavily on an established history to provide a backdrop to the main story. Olden writes well about the working class (both black and white) of Notting Hill but omits to deal with the hipsters who by the late-fifties were also an established part of the area. For example, Terry Taylor and his circle go unmentioned, despite the fact that Taylor provided the inspiration for the first person narrator of Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes.
Moving on, the dry as dust far-Right splinter groups Olden disinters are old news to anyone who is au fait with the history of post-war British fascism. Less well documented – and completely passed over by Olden – is the Spartacan movement, which was organised by a group of right-wingers associated with the angry young man literary scene; they lived together at 25 Chepstow Road in Notting Hill from the mid to the late-fifties. The Spartacans appear to have had close links to Oswald Mosley and his Union Movement. They are viciously satirised by Bernard Kops in his 1958 novel Awake For Mourning. Obviously only so much material can be included in any one book, but I was nonetheless disappointed that in sketching the backdrop to his story, Olden – like the overwhelming majority of writers working today – stuck to such a well-beaten historical track.
No author or book is perfect, and despite some slight and inevitable imperfections, Murder In Notting Hill is an impressive piece of historical detective work. That said, one of Olden’s footnotes really pissed me off:
Among the speakers at Kelso’s graveside was the Notting Hill hustler Michael de Freitas, who later re-styled himself into the revolutionary Michael X, aka Michael Abdul Malik, Britain’s supposed answer to Malcolm X. De Freitas finished up more like Charles Manson, his life spiralling into megalomania and murder in his native Trinidad, where he went to the gallows in 1975.
For all his faults – and clearly de Freitas had many – to compare him to Charles Manson is deeply obnoxious. De Freitas may have engaged in criminal behaviour but he was not a deranged maniac. Anyone who looks dispassionately at the de Freitas trial will see that it was a miscarriage of justice and he should not have been hanged on the basis of the ‘evidence’ presented in court. De Freitas may or may not have been guilty as charged, but he was not a complete nutjob like Manson.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1950s, Absolute Beginners, angry young man, Awake For Mourning, bent cops, Bernard Kops, Charles Manson, Chepstow Road, Colin Jordan, Colin MacInnes, Ian Forbes-Leith, institutional racism, Jeffrey Hamm, Kelso Cochrane, Ladbroke Grove, Mark Olden, Michael Abdul Malik, Michael de Freitas, Michael X, Murder In Notting Hill, Notting Hill, Oswald Mosley, Pat Digby, Pentonville Prison, police corruption, Spartacans, Terry Taylor, The Grove, Tom Vague, Union Movement, White Defence League, Zero Books
Posted in books, politics, True crime | 20 Comments »
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
Over the past year I’ve devoted a number of blogs to my first cousin once removed Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones. Having talked to various people about Ray and located assorted print references to him made after he’d retired from being the greatest cat burglar in the world, I thought it was time to dig back into the past. Old newspaper reports of Ray’s court appearances verify much of what he had to say about his life, clarify various matters, and show that more recent accounts of his famous jail break have been distorted by those retelling the tale. Doing a quick search through national newspapers, I found no reports of Ray’s boxing career, and the earliest press coverage I could locate was dated 8 March 1940. The Daily Mirror put things this way:
“Thief Celebrated With 21 Suits
“A man living on the proceeds of house breaking once had so much money that he bought 21 suits and had £50 in his pockets. And for two years his fists kept him free.
“The police stated this at the Old Bailey yesterday when Raymond Jones, 23, described as a labourer of King Edward Walk, Lambeth, London, was sentenced to two years imprisonments for causing grievous bodily harm to a constable who tried to arrest him at the Marble Arch in December 1937, and for attempted theft from a car.
“He was arrested in Lambeth last month.
“A detective said Jones admitted assaulting numerous police officers to escape arrest in the last two years and he had been living on the proceeds of house breaking.”
There was an equally biased report in The Times also of 8 March 1940:
“Caught After Two Years. Labourer’s Savage Attack On Policeman.
“After being at liberty for over two years a man who twice escaped from police in 1937, on both occasions leaving a police officer unconscious on the ground and was not recaptured until early this year at Lambeth Walk, appeared in the dock at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
“He is Raymond Jones, 23, a labourer of King Edward Walk, and he was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for causing grievous bodily harm to one of the two constables, and attempted theft from a motor-car.
“Detective Hope said the prisoner admitted assaulting several police officers in order to escape arrest in the past two years. He had been living on the proceeds of house-breaking. On one occasion he had so much money he bought 21 suits and had £50 in his pocket.
“Judge Beazley, in sentencing Jones, said he had been guilty of a savage attack.”
On the basis of these reports, the press should be in the dock, charged with spreading unctuous bullshit. As I hope I’ve made clear in my earlier blogs, Ray was not guilty, he was fitted-up. The papers, taking their cue from the Old Bill and a slimeball judge report him as being guilty of numerous assaults on cops, but he was found guilty on just one count! And in this instance, he acted in self-defence after being violently assaulted by a bully dressed in blue.
Ray’s 1952 appearance at the Old Bailey was also widely covered by the press under headlines such as Alleged Complicity In Fur Coats Theft (Times April 25 1952), £4000 Fur’s Theft, Six And A Half Year Sentence (Times 24 June 1952), and Police Kept Watch From ‘Q Van’ He Says (Daily Mirror 21 June 1952). This need not detain us, although the swiping of guests’ coats during a swanky New Year party thrown by Colonel Martin Charteris for his upper-class chums is an amusing tale; and it is also worth noting that in his evidence Ray mentioned a feud between his family and notorious 1950s gangster Billy Hill and that to defend his brother who’d been stabbed, Ray punched out the Mister Big of the London crime world. But let’s move on to Ray’s famous jail break. The Times of 18 October 1958 described it thus:
“Two Escape At Pentonville. Others Fail In Attempt.
“Five men took part in an escape attempt from Pentonville Prison last light. Three were recaptured, but two others got away. They were the first men to break out of the prison since it was reopened in 1946. A full scale search of the area was carried out.
“The men who got out of the prison were Raymond Jones, aged 42, serving 8 years preventative detention, who Scotland Yard said might be violent, and John Rider, aged 28, serving 5 years imprisonment.
“The escape was made during the period given over to evening classes. Jones and Rider found ladders being used during the repair of the prison roof, and took them to scale the 20ft wall of the prison.
“Once on top of the wall, they jumped into an alley that skirts the side of the prison and one turned left, the other right… Tracker dogs, police cars, wardens, uniformed and plain clothes police with torches toured streets around Caledonian Road.”
The Daily Mirror (18 October 1958) used Gaol Break 2 Men Hunted as its headline, and this front page story contained the following information not provided by The Times: “Two of the other three men perched on the top of the wall then dropped back into the goal yard. The third fell and was injured.” Rider enjoyed just 24 hours freedom, as The Times reported on 20 October 1958:
“John Rider aged 34, one of two men who escaped from Pentonville Prison, London, on Friday night, was recaptured on Saturday while he was asleep on a sofa in an unoccupied home at Antler Hill, Chingford, Essex.
“The search continues for the other prisoner Raymond Jones aged 42, who was serving a sentence of eight years preventative detention. Scotland Yard issued a warning he might be violent.”
The idea that Ray was potentially violent was just a cop smear designed to justify the filth’s 1940 fit-up; Ray never carried weapons, although he would defend himself with his fists if attacked. Ray also knew how to run and hide, having spent the whole of 1938 and 1939 on his toes… When he was finally recaptured The Daily Express (24 November 1960) put the story on the front page and reported it this way:
“Two-Year Escaper Caught
“Pentonville’s record escaper, Raymond Jones, was recaptured in Staines, Middlesex, last night.
He went ‘over the wall’ two years ago – the longest time a fugitive has been on the run from the jail.
“A tip-off at lunch-time sent the police to Staines. They waited six hours to seize him at a house.
“Jones, a 42 year old Welshman, was serving eight years preventative detention.”
So there you have it, plenty of contemporary documentation to confirm just why Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones is a legend! And this is also why as recently as November this year Wales On Sunday devoted yet another page to this famous criminal, the closest thing the 20th century ever produced to a new Robin Hood!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Antler Hill, Billy Hill, Caledonian Road, car theft, Central Criminal Court, central London, Chingford, Colonel Charteris, Colonel Martin Charteris, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Detective Donald Hope, Detective Hope, Donald Hope, Essex, fit-up, GBH, goal break, goal escape, jail break, jail escape, John Rider, John Ryder, Johnny Rider, Johnny Ryder, Judge Beazley, King Edward Walk, Laambeth Walk, Lambeth, London, Marble Arch, Martin Charteris, Middlesex, Old Bailey, over the wall, Pentonville Prison, Q Van, Ray Jones, Ray The Cat Jones, Raymond Jones, Robin Hood, south London, Staines, The Times, Wales, Wales On Sunday
Posted in True crime | 74 Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
Way back in February I posted a couple of blogs about Iain Sinclair’s book Hackney, That Rose Red Empire. What I didn’t realise back then, or even earlier when I’d given Sinclair a few pointers as regards research on this book, was that Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones was a long time Hackney character who during the 1990s featured regularly in The Hackney Gazette. Since Ray doesn’t appear in Sinclair’s book, I guess this proves that neither of us read the Hackney press with any diligence….
Ray lived for many years at Flat 9, St Andrews House, Cranwich Road, Stamford Hill, London N16 5JB. His long term press spokesman Michael Morgan has also been based in Hackney for many years, and when I met up with the latter man last week he told me that towards the end of his life Ray had used an otherwise empty flat belonging to a mutual friend in Colvestone Crescent, Dalston. This is why press reports about Ray often said he lived in Dalston, although he also kept his council flat in Stamford Hill until his death in 2001.
Among the press clippings Morgan gave me when I met him was the following headlined “Burglar Ray’s dying wish is in the posters’ from The Hackney Gazette of 20 August 1998:
“A cat burglar who robbed the rich and famous for more than 40 years, has been caught putting up his own ‘Wanted’ posters.
“Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones, who lives in Colvestone Crescent, Dalston, has started sticking up the posters in Hackney, with a photo of him behind bars and details of his life story.
“The 82 year-old who is suffering from lung cancer, says it is his last chance to tell his story. ” ‘For years high-ranking police officers have stopped publishers printing my story because it would expose past corruption and victimisation,’ says Ray.
” ‘They know I’m about to die and they hope the truth will go with me. Well damn them, this story is coming out,’ he adds defiantly.
“Although now a frail old man, the crafty crook stole an estimated career haul of £60 million of jewels and valuables – despite spending 33 years in jail.
” ‘Most of them were for crimes I didn’t do and honest policemen have admitted that,’ says Ray. ‘I’m not looking for forgiveness. I was a criminal. I just want the people around me know what happened.’ ”
Two years before this, in an edition of 25 April 1996, The Hackney Gazette had carried the headline ‘Cat’s Campaign for recognition’ and beneath it the following story:
“The once-athletic burglar Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones has staged a one-man protest claiming that the police have tried to cover up his involvement in a gems burglary from a movie star.
“Standing next to a huge placard cataloguing his alleged part in the theft of jewels from Sophia Loren, 80-year-old Ray distributed 500 leaflets at Ridley Road market, Dalston, last Friday to passers-by.
“Ray who lives in Stamford Hill claims that he and an accomplice paid for information from two senior police officers that helped them steal the Italian actress’s gems when she was staying in London in the 1960s.
” ‘They are afraid of being exposed,’ said Ray, who confessed to the crime four years ago, but has not been arrested for it. He claimed that all attempts to reveal his role in the heist have been suppressed, including deals to publish his life story.”
When I met Michael Morgan in his Hackney flat, he told me that he’d lost many of the papers and press clippings relating to Ray, but he gave me photocopies of everything he still had. Michael spoke passionately about Ray and his decade-long friendship with him. Ray had clearly been a charismatic figure who made a lasting impression on those he met.
After I visited him, Michael Morgan sent me the following statement about Ray Jones:
“For people who read news on Raymond Jones in the Hackney & national newspapers, Raymond for many years wanted his life story published, the news in 1992 about the burglary of Sophia Loren from May 1960, caused a great deal of public interest, of course those unique court trials were the real reason why Raymond’s life story was stopped by the powers that be. If the trials from the 1930s 40s & 50s had come into the public domain, people reading about these trials would have been very shocked to think that things like this could happen in crown courts. In 1994 the Mail on Sunday newspaper promised Raymond if he was arrested for the burglary of Sophia Loren they would do a large news story on him a reporter & photographer came out to Borehamwood Police Station and spent six hours there before Raymond was arrested. The story was shelved, why? The Sun newspaper on another occasion spent a day and a half with Raymond in Wales. The story was shelved, why? How sad they could do this to a very ill man, as Raymond was. Two major book publishers promised to publish Raymond Jones’s life story but shelved the plans, why? One of the editors talked to Raymond one day and said, I am sorry, we can’t publish your story we have been stopped and I can’t say more than that.
“Is this democracy? God help us all.
“A very big thank you to Welsh newspapers, The Western Mail and sister paper Wales on Sunday and The Hackney Gazette in London, for their kindness over a very long time and the very many stories that was published in these papers to get Raymond Jones’s life story into the public domain.
“If Raymond’s life story had been published, I am sure the public would have taken Raymond to their heart and would have looked on Raymond, not as a jewel thief but a martyr.
“Raymond Jones passed away on 4th February 2001.”
Thus while I was able to help Iain Sinclair out with his Hackney research into the Mole Man and other matters, I clearly let the side down by not knowing enough about the colorful life of my distant relative Raymond Jones. When Sinclair was working on his Hackney book, I knew my mother‘s cousin was a jewel thief but I didn’t know he had personal connections to Hackney going back to the 1950s and possibly much earlier… So in as far as Iain Sinclair might be criticised for his lack of local knowledge on this score, I too should bear some of the blame…
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Borehamwood, Borehamwood Police Station, Colvestone Crescent, Cranwich Road, Dalston, Hackney, Hackney Gazette, Iain Sin, Mail on Sunday, Michael Morgan, Ray Jones, Ray The Cat, Ray The Cat Jones, Raymond Jones, Ridley Road, Ridley Road market, Sophia Loren, St Andrews House, Stamford Hill, That Rose Red Empire, The Mole Man, The Sun, The Western Mail, Wales On Sunday
Posted in books, deep topology aka psychogeography, True crime | 25 Comments »
Monday, December 7th, 2009
The oldest of suppressed traditions
In a world dominated by illusion, it comes as no surprise that censorship should be popularly misperceived as a form of social repression. The contradictions which support such an inversion are manifest in every area of daily life; they constitute the apparent “reality” of our “time”. Despite the fact that it has been demonstrated time and again that consciousness is an effect of a closed system of exclusive focus, of censorship, “literate” consensus maintains that censorship and silence are the negation of consciousness. It is clear that Power has a vested interest in maintaining a monopoly on censorship. The “concept of freedom” is an unreachable, collapsing, absolute. All experience becomes equal when exchanged via Capital; with class “privilege” determining how much of this worthless “equality” each person is entitled to.
The negative and its use
Anything can be censored for any reason; start by censoring this text. The censors of the “left”, “right” and “centre”, all do their collective part; despite the fact that they imagine themselves to be motivated by the very beliefs we will ultimately negate.
From originality to ontology: the decline of the text
The possibilities for communal transformation of this world lie in disconnection from imposed notions of progress and democracy. Plagiarism is the “beginning”, the negative point of a culture which finds its justification in the “unique”. Censorship supersedes plagiarism as an “intelligent” negation of “originality” because it suppresses not only (“original”) production, but also reproduction (plagiarism, appropriation &c.) which revalue the “original” and maintain its circulation in “reality”. Censorship is to the present what plagiarism was to history.
The healing power of doubt
Revolutionary propaganda sets itself the task of discrediting all received ideas without offering a single “alternative” thought with which they might be replaced. Kill your desires and live! Erase, destroy and make useless all recorded information. Physically and otherwise attempt to suppress all expression in art, politics, history &c. Resist culture and all other forms of institutional identity. Suppress, by refusing to participate in, interpersonal and mass social relationships. As you see fit, smash the “imagination”, “schizophrenia”, “death”, “sexuality”, “values”, “time” and all other forms of seduction and abstraction. Experimentally break down the frames of reference by which you organise non-valued perceptions into valued entities: i.e. objects, ideas, means of self-perception &c.
An end to social relations
“Self-destruction” is a semantic swindle. The moralism against suicide is reactionary resistance to change. Only total opposition, both theoretical and practical (i.e. silence), is irrecuperable. Anything else must necessarily appear absolutist and contradictory.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1960s, 557087 Seattle, 60s, Alex Trocchi, Alexander Trocchi, APG, Art and Culture, Artists Placement Group, Arts Journal, Barry Flanagan, beat generation, Better Books, black beauties, black bombers, Bluecoat Gallery, Bow Street Magistrates Court, cannabis, central London, charge, Clement Greenberg, conceptual art, Destruction In Art Symposium, Destruction in Art: Destroy to Create, Diamond & Co., drug smuggling, Durophet, Finch College, Finch College Museum of Art, Fluxus, forgery, Francis Morland, heroin, Jeff Sawtell, Jeffrey Sawtell, John Latham, John Lennon, John Perreault, junkies, Liverpool, London, LSD, Lucy Lippard, MOMA, Morning Star, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York City, New York Museum of Modern Art, Norwich, Norwich School of Art, Number 7, NYC, Paula Cooper Gallery, pot, purple hearts, Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Sheila Malcham, Simon Ford, sixties, Soho, St. Martin's School of Art, Still and Chew, The Art Forum, UK, USA, weed, Yoko Ono
Posted in art criticism, counterculture, True crime | 26 Comments »
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
I finally caught up with one time Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones press spokesman Michael Morgan at his Hackney flat yesterday. We spent much of the day going over Ray’s life-story, and Michael also kindly presented me with a bundle of press clippings and other material he’d photocopied for me.
Among the many impressive cuttings Michael Morgan gave me is one entitled ‘The Night I Stole Liz’s Jewels In The Gresham’ (from the Irish tabloid The Sunday World, 23 November 1997):
“One of the world’s oldest jewel thieves has spilled the beans on how he amassed a £5 million fortune by robbing top showbiz stars as revenge for his brother’s tragic death in a World War II bombing raid. And legendary burglar Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones says one of his most memorable jobs was when he broke into a Dublin hotel room and stole jewels belonging to superstar Elizabeth Taylor…
“…Ray told the Sunday World: ‘Way back in 1940 I was due to fight for the World Middleweight Championship… I was real good and I had boxed and beaten the legendary Fred(die) Mills and now I was in with a chance of a World Crown. But I was involved in a melee in London and was charged with hitting a copper. I found out later that the copper was himself a middleweight boxer. They framed me to get me out of the way. I got six years for the assault.’
“His brother, who lived in the family home in Gwent, South Wales, came to visit Ray in Pentonville prison in North London. But he was tragically killed in the first bombing of London by the Nazis at the end of 1940…. Said Ray: ‘I got on my knees in my prison cell. I vowed I would hit back at society and the judiciary for taking the things I cared most about in life away from me. When I got out, I said to myself, I would become the greatest cat burglar in the world. That was my mission in life… I would only hit rich people. They were the cream of the crop and had everything they wanted. I had been robbed of my life. I had to hit back.’ ”
My chat with Michael Morgan, other papers he gave me and one of my previous blogs about Ray The Cat, can fill in a few details here. Jones had moved to London around 1936 to further his boxing career and had settled in Maida Vale. One Sunday morning in 1937 he went for a stroll with a friend and they were stopped by the Old Bill under the notorious SUS law (this allowed the cops to stop, search -and even arrest – anyone on the suspicion they were going to commit a crime; the law was finally abolished after the Scarman enquiry highlighted the role its use played in the 1981 Brixton riots). Metropolitan police boxing champion PC Spratt told Ray he was being arrested for SUS, and when Jones protested he hadn’t done anything, this bully-boy cop grabbed Jones by the collar and punched him in the face. Ray fell back against the wall, sprang up and with a well-placed punch KOed the violent thug who was attacking him.
The knock-out blow delivered against the best fighter in the Met was a clear-cut case of self-defence, but Ray and his friend understood the necessity of being on their toes, and the cops didn’t catch up with Jones for three years. When they did, the crown used Ray’s sporting nickname of ‘Slasher Davies’ to falsely paint him as a violent thug involved in razor attacks on innocent members of the public; when in reality the moniker was derived from his punching prowess in the boxing ring. As a result, Jones did a six year stretch for an assault perpetrated not by him, but against him!
Jones insisted that he was innocent of both this and the alleged crimes (thefts of coal, shoes and a bottle of milk) that led to the spell he spent in Reform School as a boy. However, Ray was guilty of the robberies for which he was sent down at the Old Bailey in 1952, since he’d decided to hit back against the rich who were ruining society and making life a misery for poor families like his own, by stealing from aristocrats and showbiz stars. Unfortunately, despite Ray’s guilt in this instance, there were to be more fit-ups. The outline for the official biography of Ray’s life (the book was never written) includes the following: “Within eight days of leaving prison he was arrested for living on the immoral earnings of prostitution. Despite the fact that he had only been out of prison a week, and that the woman concerned was not a prostitute he was sentenced to a further 6 months. Ray says that years later the officer who had arrested him, admitted that he had been framed on directions from someone in Scotland Yard.”
Another frame-up took place in 1957, the filth used a nark to lure Jones to a London cul-de-sac in which they’d parked a a stolen car and then arrested him for the theft. This led to Ray’s famous escape from Pentonville in October 1958, when using ladders left by a work gang doing repairs to the prison, he and Johnny Rider got onto the roof and then down the walls. When Ray fell and injured himself, Rider attempted to carry him but Jones insisted his friend run on because it was important at least one of them got away; sadly Rider was recaptured very shortly afterwards. Jones managed to crawl to safety and eventually asked a couple of men, one of whom was an ex-con, for help in return for money. They drove him to a pub run by one of his cousins (one of the sons of his west London based gangster uncle Dennis ‘Dinny’ Callaghan), who gave him the keys to a flat where he could clean himself up and rest. Unfortunately the landlord was inspecting the property when Jones arrived and told him to go away, since he didn’t want someone covered in blood going into his building. Ray then directed the men aiding his escape to the home of a fence called Benny Selby, who paid them £50 and helped him clean up.
Eventually Ray found a flat to stay in, and his wife Anne who worked at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital For Children in Hackney Road, persuaded a doctor she knew there to attend to her husband’s injuries. Once he’d healed up, Jones went back to his chosen profession of robbing the rich. While Ray was on the run, Peter Scott approached him and said he’d been given inside information on a big job by a couple of bent coppers. Scott needed a skilled accomplice to rob Sophia Loren (who was making The Millionairess in England) of her jewels; once these had been flogged the detectives who’d put them up for the theft would be paid off with £6000.
The raid took place in May 1960, with the bumbling Scott acting as look-out and Ray breaking into Loren’s bedroom to steal the diamonds. The haul was sold to a fence for £44,000, with Scott and Jones netting nearly £19,000 each (slightly less because of expenses on top of the bung to the filth). Scott visited Jones immediately after paying off the bent coppers at a White City Stadium dog race, claiming that they’d read in the papers the stolen jewels were worth £185,000 and they wanted another £6000 for putting up the job. Ray thought Scott was trying to con him out of three grand and refused to give him any cash.
After he was recaptured in October 1960, Ray suspected that Scott may have given the cops the information that enabled them to track him down; the look-out was pissed off that Jones hadn’t coughed-up the extra money he later discovered the bent detectives had indeed demanded. Despite his suspicions on this score, when Ray decided to go public about having done the Sophia Loren job in the early 1990s, he warned Scott he was going to do so. At the time Scott begged Jones not to mention his name, and Ray respected his wishes although he harboured serious doubts about the integrity of this ‘man’.
Ray’s 2 years and 28 days on the run from Pentonville apparently earned him a place in The Guinness Book of Records. Michael Morgan also told me that Ray’s younger daughter Anne-Marie Jones was both conceived and born while he was on the lam; her older sibling Beryl was born before the 1957 fit-up. Thanks to Michael Morgan I also have yet more tales to tell about Ray The Cat, but they won’t all fit into one blog…. So the further adventures of this 20th century Robin Hood will have to wait for now! But before going, I would like to emphasise the injustice of the fit-ups Ray suffered: he claimed that 17 of the 33 years he spent in jail were for crimes of which he was innocent…
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Anne Jones, Anne-Marie Jones, Benny Selby, bent cops, Beryl Jones, boxing, Brixton riots, burglary, central London, Dai Jones, David Jones, Dennis Callaghan, Dennis Dinny Callaghan, Dinny Callaghan, Dublin, east London, Elizabeth Taylor, fit-ups, Freddie Mills, Hackeny Road, Hackney, John Rider, Johnny Rider, London, Maida Vale, Michael Morgan, north London, Old Bailey, PC Spratt, Pentonville Prison, Peter Scott, Queen Elizabeth Hospital For Children, Ray Jones, Ray The Cat, Ray The Cat Jones, Raymond Jones, Scotland Yard, Slasher Davies, Sophia Loren, south Wales, SUS law, The Millionairess, The Sunday World, west London, White City, White City Stadium
Posted in True crime | 15 Comments »
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
A few days ago I got an email from Michael Morgan, who’d acted as press agent for Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones (the greatest burglar ever and one of my mother’s cousins to boot): “I wonder if you could find time and get in touch with me regarding a story about ‘Ray the Cat’ in Wales on Sunday on 1st November?” I replied: “I have to go into The City on Friday, if you’re still based around Dalston maybe we could meet at the The Masque Haunt (the Wetherspoons on the corner of Old Street and Bunhill Row) at 3pm on Friday? If this isn’t good let me know another day or time that is… And if you’re not in Dalston any more let me know…” Since I’d not heard back, and I felt like heading home to The Island (Isle of Dogs E14 that is, not Long Island) when I’d finished my editorial tasks on the Semina fiction series in the Book Works office, I called Michael Morgan on his mobile. Unfortunately all I got was an answer service, so I left message saying I’d head to the Masque Haunt anyway in the hope that he was there.
I arrived bang on time and had the joy of going around all the solitary afternoon drinkers (about a dozen) asking if they were Michael Morgan. None of them were, but I got asked plenty of questions by a couple of drinkers who seemed a bit bored. Is he a relative? Why don’t you know what he looks like? Why do you want to find him? Where’s he from? Is he thin and tall? So as a psychogeographical exercise in the classic ‘letterist’ style, this non-meeting sparked off many conversations and was very revealing of the ambiance of that particular bar (progressively proletarian, during the daytime anyway, and far more so than when I used to drink there a decade ago)… but I’m still curious to know what there is to discuss about the recent Wales On Sunday article. The piece by Nathan Bevan merely repeats in Michael Morgan’s words a story I’d blogged way back in June using a rare example of Ray The Cat’s own writing.
The long and the short of it is that Ray was always insistent he became a major league burglar to avenge himself against the cops, who’d fitted him up and in the process inadvertently caused the death of his brother. It’s nice to see information about my most famous criminal relative becoming more widely known, since Wales On Sunday clearly reaches a few people who don’t regularly check this blog, but what really interests me is putting fresh information about Ray The Cat into the public domain. This was, of course, one of the things that really pleased me about my last Ray Jones blog, I was making available a story that as far as I knew was not until then a matter of public record. And it is, of course, particularly important that this tale of a fit-up becomes as well known as Ray’s legendary jewel thefts and prison escapes.
Hopefully I will manage to meet up with Michael Morgan soon, and get some new stories. But if you have any tales about Ray ‘The Cat’ Jones, please post them in the comments below or email them to me via my website contact form. Only by stories about Ray being collected and disseminated can his legend live on!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Book Works, Bunhill Row, central London, City of London, Dalston, east London, Isle of Dogs, letterism, lettrisme, London, Michael Morgan, Nathan Bevan, Old Street, possible appointment, psychogeography, Ray Jones, Ray The Cat, Ray The Cat Jones, Raymond Jones, Semina, The Masque Haunt, Wales On Sunday, Wetherspoons
Posted in deep topology aka psychogeography, True crime | 24 Comments »
Thursday, July 16th, 2009
After the mass protests last week and demands for the resignation of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) political gangster Narendra Modi, I’ve been checking out the follow-up reporting. The demonstrations were a spontaneous outpouring after more than a hundred people died from drinking toxic bootlegged alcohol in India; many more were poisoned. Modi is a hardline Hindu nationalist whose fundamentalist political positions have exacerbated Hindu-Muslim discord in Gujarat, the only part of India where there is an outright ban on alcohol. It should go without saying that Modi’s inflammatory policies play a significant role in contributing to social misery in Gujarat. Prohibition of drugs and alcohol doesn’t work, and the criminalisation of either is an authoritarian insanity.
Over the past couple of days news about Modi was mainly focused on matters other than toxic alcohol. For instance, former Gujarat chief minister Suresh Mehta’s insistence that Modi should be cross-examined by the GT Nanavati Commission of Inquiry over his role in the post-Godhra riots of 2002. In an article for Akhbar (#3, July 20o2) entitled Ethnic Cleansing In Gujarat, Tanika Sarkar addressed these horrors, and responsibility for them must ultimately rest in part at Modi’s feet: “Communalism Combat published a comprehensive report of the situation in April (2002). According to its estimate, based on painstaking research, the death toll is at least 2000, economic losses among Muslims amount to Rs. 3500 crores, and more than 270 mosques and dargahs have been reduced to rubble. Of course, the death toll is necessarily underrated, since very large numbers of corpses were burnt to ashes after the killings. After April, moreover, there have been many more flare-ups, more of destruction and terror. What is going on there, judging from the nature of selected targets of violence, is clearly a process of ethnic cleansing, an elimination of the cultural, economic and demographic presence of the Muslim.”
Other news coming in yesterday on Modi included this from The Hindustan Times: “The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea seeking a probe against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for the March 2003 killing of former state home minister Haren Pandya.” There are lots of pressures on Modi, and let’s just hope that one or more of them leads to this murderous creep being forced out of office. Returning to the toxic alcohol scandal, a few days ago much newspaper coverage was devoted to India Inc’s booze baron Vijay Mallya launching ‘a war of words’ against Modi by calling for an end to prohibition in Gujarat. Today, Express India reported that the Opposition Congress were demanding Modi give up his Home portfolio and that Minister of State for Home, Amit Shah, be sacked. I’ve lifted the following from that newspaper’s report:
“Making a startling revelation, the Opposition Congress leader (Shaktisinh Gohil) alleged that ‘notorious bootlegger’ Rasik Sodha Parmar, who is also a BJP councillor in Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, was the main person behind the hooch tragedy in Ahmedabad. Parmar was also the Mahemdabad municipality president between March 2003 and September 2005, and had been detained under PASA and was refused bail by the Gujarat High Court, he said.
“Gohil also alleged that Parmar runs a huge distillery in Bodi Roja area near Mahemdabad, and gives Rs 1.5 lakh every week to the police in hafta. Parmar has employed as many as 14 agents and sub-agents to sell liquor, and Arvind Solanki who died in the Ahmedabad hooch tragedy two days ago was part of Parmar’s network.”
Modi’s response has been covered by the DNA website: “Reacting strongly to the criticism by the Opposition Congress, the Gujarat government… announced that it would amend the existing Prohibition law in the state, making it stricter by introducing capital punishment for guilty… the government said once the new law came into force, the guilty could be awarded even death punishment for hooch-related crimes. The law would also have provision for one-year imprisonment for police officials responsible for hooch crimes or any serious offence related to Prohibition…” So, as usual, it is one law for them – and far harsher laws for us!
On a lighter note, the recent toxic alcohol tragedy reminded me of the cult movie Street Trash. This 1987 horror-comedy was directed by Jim Moro and it details what happens when an unscrupulous New York liquor store owner flogs-off way past its sell-by-date bottles of Viper to derelicts at a dollar a pop. Anyone who drinks the poisoned booze dies in a spectacular shower of gore and melting body parts. Needless to say, one hobo is sitting on a toilet when he imbibes the toxic hooch, and there is even an infamous scene featuring a game of catch with the freshly dismembered dick of a down-and-out. Screenwriter Roy Frumkes has claimed: “I wrote it (Street Trash) to democratically offend every group on the planet, and as a result the youth market embraced it as a renegade work, and it played midnight shows.” Regardless, this flick simultaneously demonstrates via its ‘characterisation’ of bickering runaway brothers Fred and Kevin, that divided we are powerless but united we have a world to win. The working class needs to unite not just in Gujarat but also around the world, so that we can free ourselves not just from super-scum like Modi, but all politicians and bosses.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, Akhbar, Amit Shah, Arvind Solanki, Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP, Bodi Roja, bootlegging, Communalism Combat, ethnic cleansing, Ethnic Cleansing In Gujarat, Express India, Godhra, Godhra riots, GT Nanavati commission, Gujarat, Haren Pandya, Hindustan Times, hooch, India, India Inc, Indian People's Party, Jim Moro, Mahemdabad, Narendra Modi, prohibition, Rasik Sodha Parmar, riots, Roy Frumkes, Shaktisinh Gohil, Street Trash, Suresh Mehta, Tanika Sarkar, toxic alcohol, Vijay Mallya
Posted in film, politics, True crime | 14 Comments »
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
Don’t Call Me A Crook! A Scotsman’s Tale of World Travel, Whisky and Crime by Bob Moore (Dissident Books, New York 2009) is apparently a reprint of a tome first published in 1935 by Hurst & Blackkett of London without the exclamation mark; and the variant subtitle My True Autobiography. When I first read the introduction to this ‘reprint’, I suspected Dissident Books CEO Nicholas Towasser was pulling my leg over the provenance of the text when he wrote: “There mustn’t have been many copies printed (of the original edition), because despite many Web searches, I’ve found no used book dealers selling it. In fact, I’ve located only five owners of the original Hurst & Blackett edition: the New York Public Library; the National Library of Scotland; Cambridge University; Random House (years ago Random House acquired a publisher named Hutchinson, who had earlier merged with Hurst & Blackett); and a woman in Essex, England.”
Towasser’s claims immediately sound suspicious to anyone familiar with the legal deposit system for books in the UK. British publishers are required by law to send free copies of their books to the five legal deposit libraries in the UK (supplying the national library in Dublin is currently optional but many publishers still send them complimentary tomes). Towasser mentions only two of the legal deposit libraries (Edinburgh and Cambridge), and it struck me as unlikely that more than half the legal deposit copies of a book like Moore’s would have disappeared from these orderly and well maintained institutions. My gut feeling was that if the book couldn’t be found in at least the majority of the legal deposit libraries, then the provenance Towasser provided for it in his introduction was at best dubious. I checked at the British Library and found they did in fact have a catalogue entry for the Hurst & Blackkett edition of Don’t Call Me A Crook. Of course, entries can be forged, and even whole books produced with fake publishing histories and then slipped into library collections. However, the most likely explanation seems to be that Towasser isn’t familiar with the UK legal deposit system and therefore didn’t think to check with the relevant libraries (which isn’t difficult, anyone with internet access can consult the British Library catalogue via its online service).
Likewise, when I checked online, I found an entry for the Hurst & Blackkett edition of Moore’s book on both amazon.com and amazon.co.uk, from which one can conclude that at least one used dealer has offered the book for sale via those sites. These amazon entries may have gone up after Towasser wrote his introduction, or he may have missed them. Since I found evidence of further copies and online sales in the first three places I looked, I didn’t pursue the matter. Regardless of whether Don’t Call Me A Crook was first published in 1935 or the ‘original’ edition was faked later (still possible but rather unlikely on the basis of what I’ve found), it is fairly safe to conclude there will probably be entries for further copies of the ’1935′ edition in the legal deposit libraries I haven’t checked, and that a search of online auction sites such as eBay may turn up further evidence of a used trade in the ’1935′ edition.
I’m a huge fan of literary fraud and I always appreciate a good leg-pull. I’d rather like Don’t Call Me A Crook to be con job involving a faked provenance; hi-jinx that would place it on the same level as ‘anti-literary greats’ such as the cod medieval works Thomas Chatterton attributed to Thomas Rowley, James Macpherson’s bogus cycle of Gaelic poetry credited to a non-existent ancient bard called Ossian, and Clifford Irving’s phony ‘autobiography’ of Howard Hughes. For me, more recent incidents of literary fraud, including Laura Albert’s J. T. LeRoy hoax and James Frey passing off works of fiction as memoirs, are considerably less thrilling than chicanery that entails concocting more complex counterfeit attributions for pieces of writing. Sadly, despite Towasser raising my hopes with what I take to be honestly made but improbable claims in his introduction, it does rather look like Don’t Call Me A Crook was first published by Hurst & Blackkett in 1935.
Nonetheless, despite being published as a non-fiction ‘memoir’, Moore’s book resembles a picaresque novel and its literary origins can be traced back to Elizabethan works such as The Unfortunate Traveller by Thomas Nashe and Robert Greene’s cony-catching pamphlets. Moore tells us little about his childhood, his story really begins when he joins the British military underage in the hope of seeing action in World War I. He ended up greasing aeroplanes for the Royal Flying Corps at a base near Boulogne. Moore tells us that after the war he qualified as a mechanical engineer. From that point on he mostly worked on ships, but combined this activity with maintaining hotel lifts and other odd jobs. Moore criss-crossed the Atlantic, spending a lot of time in New York and Chicago, where he combined bouts of employment with opportunist thievery and con-artistry. When he comes into large amounts of money, he inevitably blows it on high-living (with women, boozing and gambling, being his favoured recreational divertissements).
Mirroring Robert Greene’s real and ‘fictionalised’ life, Moore abandons his wife and child and adopts a sardonic attitude towards the world, which he combines with endless serious drinking. Imagine Celine if he’d had a working-class upbringing in Glasgow and no interest in literary posturing. That said, Moore’s anti-semitism and other bigotries are casual, and not ideologically motivated. Moore reflects the prejudices of his time and place without consciously embracing any overt political ideology; this contrasts sharply with the fascist stink that envelopes Celine’s writing. Perhaps Bukowski makes for a better comparison, except Moore is better than Bukowski.
Despite its casual racism, the Chinese setting of Moore’s ‘autobiography’ in its final section makes for very interesting reading. From Shanghai he travels up the Yangtze, where he battles river pirates. This part really rams home the parallels between Moore’s book and The Unfortunate Traveller, or the Life of Jack Wilton (1594) by Thomas Nashe. The narrator of the earlier work, Jack Wilton, relates his adventures as a page during the wars against the French, and subsequent travels in Italy where he serves the Earl of Surrey. Wilton witnesses numerous atrocities, he narrowly escapes both being hanged and cut-up alive as an exercise in anatomy. His tale climaxes by detailing the brutal revenge of one Italian against another. Wilton eventually escapes from the clutches of his foes and returns to England.
Moore’s tale very much mirrors The Unfortunate Traveller; his first ‘foreign’ experiences are in France, but he substitutes the ‘savagery’ of Nashe’s caricatured Italians for an equally stereotypical Orientalism. Moore describes various forms of Chinese ‘cruelty’, ranging from deliberately drawn out public executions down to unnecessarily vicious acts of banditry. He is nearly killed on a number of occasions, is kidnapped by pirates but eventually escapes and returns to Glasgow. Moore and/or his ‘editor’ (perhaps ghost-writer) Pat Spry need not have read Nashe’s text to have been influenced by it. The Unfortunate Traveller is a foundational work of modern English prose, its influence has been widely felt and its structure can be picked up from later tales it influenced.
To me it isn’t important how much of Moore’s book is true, it’s a fast and fun read. My guess is that the book is loosely based on fact but the adventures are exaggerated to maximise their impact. If you like over-cooked and not entirely reliable ‘memoirs’ such as Jungle West 11 by Majbritt Morrison, or even Mr Nice by Howard Marks, then you’ll love Don’t Call Me A Crook too!
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1920s, amazon.co.uk, amazon.com, Atlantic Ocean, Bob Moore, Boulogne, British Library, Cambridge University, Charles Bukowski, Chicago, Clifford Irving, Cony-Catching, Dissident Books, Don't Call Me A Crook, Earl of Surrey, eBay, France, Glasgow, Howard Hughes, Howard Marks, Hurst & Blackkett, Hutchinson, Italy, J. T. LeRoy, James Frey, James Macpherson, Jungle West 11, Laura Albert, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Majbritt Morrison, Mr Nice, National Library of Scotland, New York, New York Public Library, Nicholas Towasser, Orientalism, Ossian, Pat Spry, Random House, roaring twenties, Robert Green, Royal Flying Corps, The Unfortunate Traveller, Thomas Chatterton, Thomas Nashe, Thomas Rowley
Posted in books, True crime | 21 Comments »
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
James Daly is one of the many curious underworld figures who knew my mother Julia Callan-Thompson. It seems my mother first came across Daly when they were both scoring smack at 75a Cambridge Gardens in the early 1970s. The gear sold at this address was supplied by a former jockey of Australian extraction called Larry Benns. He’s been described to me as a hot tempered man suffering from low self-esteem who excelled at pissing off his girlfriends. The scene at 75a was intense, a number of addicts seem to have overdosed there including, it is said, one of Brenda Grevelle’s boyfriends. Benns apparently went on the run while on bail facing drug charges; he is rumoured to have returned to Australia where he died.
Turning our attention to Jim Daly, he was a blonde-haired small-time thief from an Irish family who’d take stolen goods to 75a Cambridge Gardens and exchange them for drugs. The absurd nature of Daly’s criminal life is evident from an escapade in which he played a peripheral role that garnered coverage in The Times under headings such as ‘Man On Firearm Charge’ (5 February 1973), ‘Escape Plot Alleged’ (6 February 1973), ‘Shotgun Court Breaks Up In Disorder’ (6 April 1973) and ‘Escape Bid Was Based On Black Power Type Plot’ (12 June 1973). The gist of the story is that while on remand in Brixton Prison, Daly then aged 24 met a 38 year-old American consultant engineer called Nathan Greenberg who was facing a fire-arms charge and wanted to make an escape bid. With others they cooked up a plan inspired by the antics of the Black Panthers in California, whereby Greenberg’s 19 year-old German girlfriend Erika Pijanka would smuggle guns into the West London Magistrates’ Court during his next hearing and use them to free him.
Thus on 1 February 1973 Pijanka entered the public gallery of the court, pointed a sawn-off shotgun at the magistrate and screamed: “All right, stay where you are!” As a cop wrestled Pijanka to the ground, a single shot went off. The escape bid was foiled without loss of life or serious injury. Greenberg eventually got a seven year sentence for his fire arms offences, and nine months to run concurrently for contempt of court. William White, the man who Daly had allegedly placed Greenberg and Pijanka in touch with to supply the guns for the escape bid, was found not guilty of furnishing the weapons. Daly got an eighteen month suspended sentence for his role in the plot.
Daly evidently spent a lot of time in jail in the 1970s and my mother visited him at least once while he was banged up. Among her extant papers is a letter dated 23 October 1975 on Blenheim Project headed paper and addressed to the “The Officer on the Gate, H. M. Prison, Wormwood Scrubs, Du Cane Road, W6”:
Re: James Daly.
Miss Julia Callan-Thompson is a bona fide Social Worker at the above named Blenheim Project and is the bearer of this letter.
A visit had been arranged for Miss Druecilla Verney, also of the Blenheim Project, to visit the above named at 4.00 this 23rd day of October, and we hope that it will be possible for Miss Callan-Thompson to accompany Miss Verney on this visit. Miss Callan-Thompson is also a member of the S.C.O.D.A. working team.
Yours faithfully,
Kathrine Parker,
Social Worker
The Blenheim Project.
If my mother was ‘a bona fide Social Worker” at the Blenheim Project, this was due to a touch of fraud on her part. I have a copy of a job application she made to the Blehheim Project in the summer of 1975 on which she falsely claimed she attended University College London and gained an upper 2nd philosophy B.A. Hons. in 1963 and an MPhil 1966. In fact, my mother left school at the age of 16 in 1960, and during the period she told the Blenheim Project she’d studied at UCL, she’d been far more gainfully employed as a showgirl and hostess at Murray’s Cabaret Club and Churchill’s in the west end of London. Despite her job as ‘a bona fide Social Worker’ providing my mother with an excellent front when visiting jailed friends, she didn’t like the nine-to-five regime that went with it and soon jacked it in.
As for Jim Daly, I’ve no idea what happened to him. Blog comments from anyone with information about him would be appreciated. I don’t know whether or not William White was a part of the well-known London crime family of that name, it seems possible but is certainly not proven right now; one of Alf White’s sons, known to friends and family as Billy, went by this name.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: 1970s, 70s, Alf White, Australia, Billy White, Black Panthers, black power, Blenheim Project, Brenda Grevelle, California, Cambridge Gardens, Churchill's, Druecilla Verney, Du Cane Road, Erika Pijanka, James Daly, Jim Daly, Julia Callan-Thompson, Kathrine Parker, Larry Benns, London, Murray's Cabaret Club, Nathan Greenberg, seventies, The Times, UCL, University College London, west end, west London, West London Magistrates’ Court, William White, Wormwood Scrubs
Posted in counterculture, Julia Callan-Thompson, True crime | 33 Comments »
Friday, June 12th, 2009
After noticing that Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher is listed on the Wikipedia as a living person, I figured it was worth blogging this scumbag and his boss Detective Chief Inspector Victor Kelaher. I don’t want people to forget that Plicher and Kelaher were worse than slime; and it is still worth pointing out they got away with most of the shit they pulled, so much for so called ‘justice’. According to Wikipedia, Pilcher was born in 1936 and so if he isn’t dead yet, he ought to be very soon. And as far as I’m concerned Pilcher deserves to rot in hell.
After a transfer from the Flying Squad to the Drug Squad in 1967, Norman ‘Nobby’ Pilcher became notorious for the vigour with which he pinned possession of drugs charges on pop stars and hippies, and for the dubious methods employed in his undercover operations, which included paying off informers with drugs. As is evident from reports in the alternative press and various histories of that time, it was widely believed that Pilcher was planting the drugs his victims were convicted of possessing. He was the detective who busted John Lennon and thereby got himself immortalised as ‘semolina pilchards’ in the song I Am The Walrus by The Beatles. Pilcher also took particular delight in hounding Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, and there are those who believe that this was a significant factor leading to the musician’s death.
Pilcher and his boss finally found themselves in hot water in the early-seventies, when they claimed during the drug smuggling trial of Basil Sands that this man – who’d been caught red-handed – was innocent, and had been working with the police. After the judge directed the jury to discount any private belief they might have that Kelaher was at the centre of a drug smuggling ring, since this was something that should be addressed at a subsequent trial, Sands got seven years. Thanks to a convenient nervous complaint ‘requiring’ hospital treatment, Kelaher avoided subsequent problems with the Home Office but three junior officers – Pilcher, Detective Constable Nick Prichard and Detective Constable Nigel Lilley – were belatedly brought to trial in September 1973, convicted of perjury and jailed. Sentencing Nobby Pilcher to a four year stretch, Justice Melford Stevenson told the disgraced detective: “You poisoned the wells of criminal justice and set about it deliberately.”
These cases were of considerable interest to the underground press, and publications such as Oz and Friendz ran stories claiming much of the illegal drug trade in London was controlled by bent cops, that there was an extensive network of police spies to enforce this control, and a subsequent huge cover-up by the authorities to prevent the full extent of the corruption around Kelaher being exposed. Friendz in particular alleged there was a close connection between Kelaher and the US Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). It was claimed a Mr Collins of the BNDD was granted diplomatic immunity and bustled back to the United States because he’d been involved in using US government money to set up drug deals with Kelaher. These allegations shed an interesting light on tales of the US authorities hoping to fit-up the Kray twins by involving them in drug running. Incidentally, Customs & Excise had previously caught Kelaher in the Holland Park flat of a prostitute called Mrs Roberts, the former wife of a drug smuggler he’d nicked (Ghanaian diplomat Kofi Roberts), and at the time Kelaher was bestowing expensive jewelry – including a gold watch – on the woman.
All of this can be found in considerably more detail in The Fall of Scotland Yard by Barry Cox, John Shirley and Martin Short (Penguin 1977) and many other print sources.
And while you’re at it don’t forget to check – www.stewarthomesociety.org – you know it makes (no) sense!
Tags: Barry Cox, BNDD, Brian Jones, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, Detective Chief Inspector Victor Kelaher, Detective Constable Nick Prichard, Detective Constable Nigel Lilley, Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher. Norman Pilcher, Friendz, I Am The Walrus, John Lennon, John Shirley, Justice Melford Stevenson, Kofi Roberts, Kray Twins, Martin Short, Nick Prichard, Nigel Lilley, Nobby Pilcher, Oz, Reggie Kray, Rolling Stones, Ronnie Kray, The Beatles, The Fall of Scotland Yard, Victor Kelaher
Posted in True crime | 21 Comments »