drugs again

Well, as some people still like to go on about drugs not being harmful, causing untold misery, destroying families and communities, causing an escalation in crime, and pushers and suppliers growing rich on the addicts, and those need a "buzz", what are these people about?  Back in the "hippie" days, they may have been about "turning people on", but things drastically changed as professional criminals saw what money was being made, and decided to get in fast.  Because the lifeblood of criminals is MONEY!!  My belief is that many of these wankers back then came from middle-class or well-off families.  The Police have always been a bane to the middle classes.  This stretches back many years, as middle classes resented being stopped by Police, particularly in their cars, as they obviously believed that they were above them, given their social status.  Working class people may resent a lot of Police, due to various reasons, but they accept that they have a job to do. 

    I see these middle-classes thinking that the job of the Police is to keep the lower classes in order;  that they should not be bothered, because they are far "better" people.  To me, men like Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, were just desperate to get young people to like them.  To appear to be "hip"  All this bollocks about "turn on, tune in, drop out!"  Oh wow, why can`t people just drop some acid and "open their minds?"  Why not ask Syd Barrett?  He went overboard "expanding" his mind and went do-lally.  How about Peter Green?  Somebody spiked his drink with LSD and as a result has been in and out of mental hospitals for forty years.  A lad I went to school with, was ingesting LSD whilst at school, and since he left school, he has never been right in the head.  Everybody has always regarded him since as a nutcase.  His behaviour can be very bizarre.  At the time he was taking it, the drugs would have been manufactured by Richard Kemp.  The chemist who grew rich on his product but fucknuts actually believe he did no wrong and should not have been arrested and prosecuted.  One fucknut stated that the Police should be made to apologise(!) to him.  OH yes, everybody else involved in drugs can be arrested and jailed, but Kemp and his associates should apparently be above the law!

     Martyn Pritchard, the undercover cop who initially kicked off, wrote abook about his work.  Some reviews were, in my view, typical old hippie shit.  "Anachcronistic and hilarious" stated one.  Undercover work was in it`s early days, and there was a lot of hard work in getting both the Home Office and the Police hierarchy to change their outlook on the drugs scene.  All I read in these reviews was that wankers resented pushers et al, being brought to book.  It does not seem to matter that the drugs these people buy, sell, distribute are ILLEGAL!!!  They are therefore subject to the LAW!!!!

Drugs

Now that one of the people sent down for the Operation Julie case, has now written his "Memoirs" thirty three years after the event, it must make you wonder if he is short of a bob or two.  Of course there was the obligatory recommendation from drug smuggler Howard Marks, stating what a great read it was.  Of course he would. It`s about drugs.  The field that Marks, for the last number of years, has marketed himself as "Mr Nice".  Is Marks actually so nice?  I wonder if he would have smuggled drugs through a country like Malaysia, with it`s draconian approach to captured drug smugglers.  A couple of brits went to the noose in the eighties.  Nevermind, if good old Howard would have, would he have handled the contraband personally, or would he have put a dupe in his place?  No doubt he would have been convinced with titbits such as "You won`t get caught" or "They won`t hang you"  If this scenario was ever, or potentially true, this most definitely would not make him "Mr Nice"


    There are a couple of books out about the Operation Julie.  Two are by former Police Officers involved in the case, Martyn Pritchard, the undercover man, and Dick Lee, the man who lead the investigation.  Both are dismissed by reviewers as being purely from a Law & Order point of view.  Mind you, these reviewers spoke a load of the hippie bollocks that still permeates.  It does not matter that what they did was highly illegal, very profitable for them, and at the end of the day, it seems that they can commit the crime but cry and moan about the sentence.  Personally, I believe all drug pushers should be put against a wall and shot.


     I feel that the image that is attempted to be portrayed is that all young people, hippies, were all "peace and Love".  Of course they would not turn violent towards people opposed to the their drug pushing.  How silly.  It`s all beads and fancy clothes!  Here`s something, way back in the late 60`s early 70`s, Eric Claptons` pusher would no longer sell him cocaine.  He has to buy heroin as well.  Yeah, all real peace and love, man!

The Riots

Here we are again, thirty years on and a fresh outbreak of social unrest, or to put it straight, rioting. Once a wave of violence and lawlessness breaks out, there are always the retards ready to heap the blame on anything except the fact that is simply an excuse to reek havoc.  It is particularly galling to listen to the professional apologists offering the usual diet of bollocks, "The disenfranchised, the marginalised."  These braindead dickheads do not have the guts to say what it is, pure and simple.  Obviously to afraid to upset these "sensitive, outcast" troublemakers.  The call has been for troops to be put on the streets.  The last time that this occured was just after the First World War. in 1919.  This was the Police Strike in Liverpool.  As most police went on strike, violence and looting was rampant.  The Government sent in 2,500 soldiers to aid the Police that refused to strike.  Also, as a protective measure for the docks, a capital ship, the Battleship HMS Valiant, with it`s two destroyer escort, was moored in the River Mersey.  Tanks were also deployed as a deterrent.  Not much chance of that these days.    Must not upset the apologists.

Villain to pay

Jailed villain Johnny Daniels has been ordered to pay £479,000 as part of a seizure of illicit assets that have been accrued by Daniels.  Daniels went down over his arranging the raid on a house that led to a man`s brutal murder.  The fact that Daniels went through £680,000 in four years in a local casino, shows that he had his fingers in numerous pies, and was a successful villain.  He faces a further three and a half years inside if he does not pay up within six months.  He is currently serving thirteen years.  


    Stories are rife about what he was involved in, and the stories are probably true, and it shows that when it comes to out and out villains, he puts in the shade those who trade on reputations for petty crime and street brawling.

Tony Lundy

Writers are divided over this former detective.  Was he a great cop or was he bent as a boomerang?  Lundy effectively used the criminal supergrass to bring to book dozens and dozens of villains.  Certain people were dismayed at what Lundy was achieving and the methods he was using, but one point that journalist Martin Short made, and has been ignored by Lundy`s detractors, is that nine out of every ten villains he put away, put their hands up to the crimes alleged.  This involved the use of villains such as Billy Amies, Maxie Piggott, David Smith, and others.  


    What brought him down was two villains in particular, Billy Young and Francis Attard.  It seems that one of them, Young, had a champion in journalist Andrew Jennings, whom wrote a book making serious allegations against Lundy, but Lundy did not respond with legal action.  Obviously, the feeling was that shit stuck.  Martin Short defended Lundy,stating that due to his rank, Lundy was in the Superintendants Association, which was not as financially equipped to support Lundy in a costly libel action.  Short also wrote in his book about Lundy, a scathing atack on the allegations by Jennings in his book.  He also stated to Lundy, thaty if he did unearth positive proof of his corruption, he would publish it without hesitation.  This appears not to have happened, even now, all these years later.


    Another point about Lundy was his use of a big time informant named Roy Garner, who eventually went to prison for twenty two years for, I believe, drugs.  Lundy did speak up for him, but then again, he would because he was a top flight informant.  Jennings claimed that Garner was the "Top Villain" in London, which Short savaged.  Jennings also claimed that Garner had a licence to rob. My belief is that what brought Lundy down, was being too successful and this dredged up resentment and jealousy amongst his colleagues.  It beggars belief what police officers will do to each other, when they are supposed to be on the side of Law and Order.

Spilsbury - Myth or Legend?

Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the famous pathologist has been the subject of a few books, in the main, complementing the man`s reputation, though one did not.  The pro-Spilsbury crowd, include one written about 1951, which just stops short of declaring Spilsbury to be a god, the man whom is still the final word on pathology.  It seems great to say that defence lawyers withered when questioning him in court, but it would seem that they simply would not dare state that this "God" was in any way mistaken.  I also believe that judges would not have allowed that to happen.  He was an out-and-out self-promoter, and was so arrogant as to dismiss anything that did not agree with his diagnosis.  He was right, and right all the time.  Other well-known pathologists such as Smith, Bronte, Grace, Gardner, etc, were obviously not as brilliant as he!


    Barrister Andrew Rose wrote an alternative view on Spilsbury entitled "Lethal Witness", highlighting a number of cases in which Spilsbury`s opinions went unchallenged, simply because he said so.  One man, hanged on Spilsbury`s evidence, stated that he was a victim of "Spilsburyism", because he was so revered.  Yet, it seems that Spilsbury relied more on his word and the manner he presented everything, than irrefutable medical proof.  This is so in line with the great advocate, Sir Edward Marshall Hall, who relied on flamboyance and theatrics rather than legal brains.  One of his most famous cases was that of Hawley Crippen.  Medical knowledge now, has proved that the skin sample he stated was an operational scar, was not, and the skin belonged to a man, not a woman.  I wonder if the Spilsbury fan club will put these in their books.  One positive development from this man, is that he put forensic work to the fore and is regarded as the father of CSI.

Young Guns

The changing tide of the criminal world is now so different from a couple of decades ago.  The bulk of credit card fraud is committed by East Europeans, most prostitution is controlled by Albanians, heroin big boys are the Turks, so the British are not in control like they used to be.  Now the streets are being taken over by young, armed street gangs, who have no fear for the law or other criminals.  If there is any bother, they simply just shoot the problem.  The "Old School" criminals are out in the cold and have to rely on memories of the past, and how "great it was back then."  It seems that these shores are moving closer to a British "Wild West."


    These young guns are now taking over in cities and towns, even in supposedly quiet ones, although in the new book "Young Guns" it mentions two areas in Bradford, Manningham and Holmewood.  There has been far more gun incidents in the area surrounding where I live, than in Holmewood.  None of these bucks are going take older criminals seriously, whatsoever.  They are done and spent, in their view, relying on old reputations to keep them up.

Liverpool Again

Talking to my brother-in-law, and the casual mention of a former car salesman brought some very interesting stories.  It started when I recalled being in a BMW with **** ****** and feeling like Steve Martin in the film with John Candy.  Martin told some tales about Mr ******.  He is doing a stretch in jail over money scams involving cars.  Apparently he owed a lot of money to a well known and notorious family from Liverpool.  A lad walked into his office, asked for their money, and when told he did not have it, the lad stabbed him, with the warning the next would be fatal.  His youngest brother is also in jail, and the other brother has supposedly done a runner, after having his front door blown apart with a shotgun.  The central character, years back, crossed up a notorious mob from Manchester and received a tap on the head with a shovel, for his troubles.  This tale was related to me by a man I worked for, for a good number of years, and had dealings with this Manchester crowd.

Delusional fool

Well, what can we say about that "hero" of the Underworld, Dave "The dodgy one" Courtney?  He is facing having "Camelot" his end terrace "Castle" repossessed, and is pleading on his facebook page for donations.  He has had an offer from writer Bernard O`Mahoney, which could halt his financial problems, but this presents a huge problem.  He has to stop spouting bullshit, which of course, his troglodyte fan club laps up, and tell THE TRUTH!  Oh dear.  What is this delusional retard going to do?  The offer of £25,000 is so Courtney can give all the details of his alleged court appearance for murder, in which our hero was acquitted.  Naturally, this very generous offer has been rebuffed with all manner of excuses, because the simple truth is, this king of the bullshitters, cannot substantiate his claims.  He relies on the "If I say it happened, then it is true" line of crap, that he specialises in.  Of course, the Police are behind this wicked conspiracy to destroy him because they have never been able to convict him.  Yes, the binman is the real Teflon Don!"  Despite all the crap he spouts, there are many who believe every word that dribbles from his mouth.  Who could forget his heroic deeds of spraying water over pensioners at bus stops?  One day, the mentally retarded just might wake up and see him and people like him, for what they really are.

Liverpool

I remember newspaper reports from the late seventies about Underworld violence from Liverpool.  One was about an axe gang rampage around the city, late one night and a number of people were attacked in their homes.  It was alleged that many of this gang were doormen at the She Club, a notorious nightclub.  I have heard some tales about this club, and the extremely violent methods used to control the door.  The gang in question were acquitted, after the main prosecution witness refused to give evidence and so was jailed for contempt.


    Shortly after this, a big murder trial started.  Joe Keatley was facing murder charges arising out of the death of Eddie Palmer, a very notorious thug and gang leader.  Palmer was the leader of the "Stanley Boys" a notorious mob well-known for carving up their victims with stanley knives.  The gang comprised of two families, the Campbells & the Fitzgibbons`.  Joe Keatley was convicted of manslaughter and received three years.  My mate Steve, a scouser from the Dingle area of Liverpool, said that his dad stated that Palmer was marked down for murder fifteen years before his death, due to his propensity for mindless violence.  Palmer was declared to have been the most feared man in the city.  Former villain Charlie Siega also told of how he nearly killed Palmer, due to his bullying of a young girl.  These stories are just the tip of the iceberg, as most do not make the national papers.  You would need to do an extensive scan of the archives of the Liverpool Echo.


    The regional TV programme, Granada Reports, did a special on the Underworld in Liverpool.  An interview with Chief Constable Ken Oxford, in which he declared that nearly fifty pubs and clubs were used as a front by twelve crime families operating throughout the city.  It spoke with one of the victims of the axe gang, an interview with a tough club doorman and the run-ins with Palmer and his gang, protection rackets, and the violence that went with it.  Also spoken to was club owner Peter Stockley, who described how he just managed to avoid an assassination attempt.  Shortly after, his club was burned down.

The cult of celebrity

This is a phenomenon that has taken off in the last ten years, as people will do anything to achieve their fifteen minutes of fame.  What about the son of a legendary footballer having a reality show to see if he can go fifty days without having sex!  What a concept!!  He only becomes a "celebrity" due to his father.  What about a load of garbage about the brother of a soap star.  He had problems with dealing with being the brother of Eastenders star Leslie Grantham, alias "Dirty Den".  Oh the poor bastard was having a hard time because bruv was a TV star.  When author Derek Lister told me he was thinking of doing a second book of "Bradford`s Own", the hero of Bradford asked me, "Am I going to be in it?"  Yeah, right.  A true star and celebrity.


    Then we come to the warped and twisted minds of countless thousands who "mourned" the self-inflicted death of double murderer Raoul Moat.  The sick spectacle of people going on pilgrimages to the spot where he topped himself, even to the extent of taking their children with them, and preaching to them what a real "hero" he was.  Of course the fact that he brutally murdered his former girlfriend and the new man in her life, and almost slain a policeman who simply was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was of no consequence.  This gave rise to a wave of female misogyny  unseen or unheard of.  Warped women telling their offspring that this woman deserved to die, due to "what she did to their hero".  It is surprising to just what depths the human element can sink.  It seems that to fill their empty lives, they have to resort to acts that display what we can expect from their children.  Sick, isn`t it?

Who was Mick "The entire Manchester Underworld" Tainey?

Yes!  Just who was this alleged "Big time Gangster" that nobody seems to have heard of?  A man constantly boasted that he was "well known throughout Manchester," yet the ONLY person he mentioned was Mick Tainey.  The ONLY one.  So it is not a fantastic leap of the imagination to come up with a title as I have.  This is a man that crime authors have seemingly overlooked, even documentary makers.  Writers have wasted their time going on about Bobby McDermott, the "King of the barrowboys" and a top class fence who attained huge stature in the city.  Even the Richardsons admired him, allegedly.  Then there was Bobby Critchley, the man who had a bulletproof car.  What about Jock McGrath, the former heavyweight boxer?  A very tough man.  Also, there was Owen Ratcliffe, the club owner who threatened Billy Hill if he tried to get a hold in Manchester.  What about the time the "heroes" to the mentally deranged, the Krays, tried to get a toe in.  He went looking for them, on his own.  No minders/bodyguards.  Apparently, he feared no man.  Of course, we cannot forget the Quality Street Gang.  All this is long before the "Gunchester" tag.  But for some reason, the name of Tainey just does not appear.


    When the documentary about the Manchester Underworld was shown on TV, it featured the QSG, The Crazy Face Gang(Armed blaggers), The Doddies & the Goochies & the Cheetham Hillbillies.  No mention of this man "With his own criminal organisation".  What a missed opportunity!  The only information I have come up with so far, is an area of Manchester that there are some Taineys, but nothing at all about this big villain.  Later on, there came the Noonans and Chris Little.  Always some other names.
    

What constitutes a hardman?

This is a question that has raged on for generations about so-called tough guys.  This is so much more these, as the glut of "hardman" books have died the death with publishers.  Some people like Bernard O`Mahoney, a man intensely disliked by the London crowd, due to his so-called "grassing", is trying to put some truthful product on the market.   He is a man who tells it as it is and does not spout the usual bullshit about loyalty and honour.


      The typical tough guy must have the following attributes: He never loses a fight, or if he does lose, it is to some very tough nuts, so as to keep up the illusion.  He hates all bullies, despite the fact that most professional criminals are ruthless bullies themselves!  They never harm any women and children.  Hmmm.  Remember the Pen Club Murder in 1960?  A man called Selwyn Cooney was shot dead.  Jimmy Nash was facing capital murder and the hangman.  The girlfriend of a witness was attacked twice and carved up with razors.  Yet, in their memoirs, have any crims condemned these attacks?  No!  Why should they?  They also never maltreat women.  Yeah, sure they don`t.  They are also the most truthful.  A lie never dribbles from their lips.  Yet, all coppers are compulsive and pathological liars!  They spout the "Honour amongst thieves" bollocks, as they would never contemplate robbing some other tea leaf just to put a little money in their pockets.  Absolute salt of the Earth.  They also operate by some sort of "code".


    Another attribute to these heroes is that they are top men, even if people have not heard of them, and do not even consider saying that they are talking out of their arses and just who are they. Narcissism is not an affliction they suffer from, and they are just honest decent villains.  Jackanory, Jackanory!

Reality

Away from the deluded and the shallow in Ellesmere Port, there are doses of reality that show the true ugliness of crime today.  One case was from 2001/2002.  A gang of drug pushers beat some lad to death, though I cannot remember the full details of the motive behind it.  He was bundled into a boot of a car, driven so far through the Shell Oil Refinery at Stanlow, dragged out, severely beaten, thrown back into the boot.  They then carried on driving through the refinery and turned off a small road that took you into the small village of Ince.  They stopped, dragged him out, battered him some more and then left him in a lay-by.  He staggered to a house, or was found by somebody, bringing an ambulance and the Police.  He died in hospital.  Diligent Police work brought this small gang to justice, though not all were convicted.

    Another case was that of a man used as muscle by a moneylender.  I had heard about this man, though never actually seen him.  It seems that quite a number of people feared him for his violence.  What brought about his downfall was a dispute with his girlfriend, and he stabbed her.  He received fifteen years for attempted murder!  You get the impression that this man would have resorted to knives and other weapons if he had to face a man who could dish some stick out.  Exactly like a man who was called a "top legend" and "proper hardman" by notorious jailbird Michael Peterson or Charles Bronson, as he likes to be called.  This man is in reality a notorious police informer, and the police have gone to great lenghts to protect him.  He has also been subjected to many, many beatings from others, over the years.  This was not due to his role as a grass, it was because he was an out and out troublemaker. I will deal with this man in another post.

People in Fantasyland 2

Continuing on this theme, let us look at other non-entity claims.  There are two brothers in Ellesmere Port, whom have had a reality blackout by believing that they are "gangsters!"  Their father, being equally delusional, did everything he could to try and have people believe his boys were "top villains"  He even went to the extent of writing to their "hero" Reg Kray, whilst he was in Maidstone Prison, proclaiming that his boys were going to be just like he and Ron!  To show how big time they were, they tried a ramraid, in a two door car, that activated some internal barriers in the store, that held the doors shut, trapping them inside, and giving the Police a good laugh.  Their deluded father put large notices over his house claiming that his boys had been fitted up by the horrible Police, and they were innocent victims of corrupt cops.  My father told me that somebody got fed up of this guy and gave him a working over with a golf club.  I wonder if he went crying to the men and women who "fitted up" his boys?

People in Fantasyland

With the current obsession with celebrity at any cost, it is not surprising what lenghts people will go to, to attract attention and a fanclub.  The most obvious person is one Dave Courtney, the man who allegedly "controls" Virgin Books.  This is a comment that has produced howls of laughter from the publishing world.  Yet, there are people that actually believe it!  This is a man who will do anything for publicity.  He charges outrageous amounts of money for his "time" and any trinkets bearing his name.  He also put a video on Youtube showing him in the back of a vehicle with a large waterpistol and showering old people stood at bus stops with water.  What a hero!  Something for the braindead supporters he has to cheer and applaud.  He claims that he was under 24 hour observation by Police for long periods of time.  Well, I suppose his fanclub need to believe in this incredible waste of police time and manpower, investigating the biggest fantasist and bullshit merchant Britain has probably produced.

    What we have not heard about from his mouth or his supporters, has been his bankruptcy case.  Hhhmmm!  Not a pleasant dose of reality for the intellectually challenged.  A man who claims to have committed two murders!!  Strange how the Police have not been beating on his door, wanting to question him about these clearly apalling acts.  Shows how much stock they take on what dribbles from his mouth.  He also claimed he was to be the fourth man in the Range Rover when the other three occupants were slaughtered in a hit.  Others have claimed that they were supposed to have been in that vehicle that night.  Easy to see how a man needing any publicity as oxygen, would jump on any bandwagon.

More from Birkenhead

Birkenhead has long been a rough, tough town.  It`s traditions go way back as a sea town, with the Cammel Lairds shipyard, though this has virtually vanished through decline in shipbuilding.  There was a newspaper report that in around 1950, there was far more attacks on people in the street, in Birkenhead, than anywhere else in the country.  Even in cities like London, Liverpool, or Birmingham and Manchester.


    An attack in a pub did make national headlines in about 1979.  Three men in balaclavas, stormed into a pub in Morton, wielding pickaxe handles and set about crippling two men stood at the bar.  As people fled the packed pub, they started smashing the place up after finishing with the two victims.  It was unknown at the time, what the attack was over.


    My friend Dave told me about a certain pub near the docks.  This was the Dock Hotel.  Yet, throughout Birkenhead it was known as "The Blood Tub" owing to the amount of fights that broke out in there, virtually every night!  Dave knew a barmaid who worked in there for many years, and said that she had to wash her blouses every night, as she always had blood spattered over it.  It seems incredible that it retained a licence for many years.  When anybody wanted to get a taxi to the place, you asked the cabby to take you to "The Blood Tub!"

Names that pop up

When Birkenhead was hit by a heroin epidemic in the mid-eighties, and the subsequent book about the case came out, I worked with a number of guys from Birkenhead. I asked my buddy, Dave, about some of the names that cropped up.  The brains behind it was a Liverpool villain called Peter Burley.  Not exactly a household name, yet his crew of `Head villains created a tidal wave of crime through the area, due to drug addiction.  Birkenhead acquired the tag of "Smack City".  From Woodchurch came Jimmy Miller.  "Well-known for violence on the doors" said Dave.  From the Ford Estate, came hardman Gerry Brown.  "Not heard of him"  The other man was Martin Andrews from Morton.  "Yes, I have heard of him", said Dave, "Involved in various activities, so I`ve heard!"  


    One area that Burley stayed away from was Leasowe.  It seems that the crime family there, rather unexpectedly, wanted nothing to do with drugs.  Burley thought that he could muster up the muscle to take the family out of the frame and move in, but the resulting violence would have brought too much Police activity, so he decided to leave it be.  Dave could not remember the name of this family, but said, "Brian can tell you.  He knows them".  Brian was a doorman and we worked together for some time.  "The Cavanaghs" he told me.  "They use the pub The Oyster Catcher as a base of operations"  There certainly was some heavy villains in Birkenhead.  There was a family that had long sold drugs in Birkenhead, and astonishingly, the grandmother was allegedly involved.


    The Police brought down Burleys` drug empire and from then on, other areas around the country acquired this tag of "Smack City"

Crime in major cities

Did crime exist outside London?  Of course it has, although reading some of the comments by old London criminals, would give the impression that crime can be nothing compared to the capital.  Over the years, the only city to be compared to London has been Glasgow, but in reality some of the major cities have always had a thriving underworld.  Liverpool has become a rival to London, with many criminals making huge fortunes through the drug trade.  Many villains names have entered the public domain, along with numerous criminal families.  Newcastle has come to the fore.  Manchester has become notorious worldwide through the relentless gang wars that left many dead and wounded.  Strangely enough, there seems to be a dearth of information on the crime scene in the Midlands.  Birmingham, despite being the second city, has kept it`s head below the parapet, or that the national media simply was not interested.  Other places hitting the headlines on varying degrees include Bristol, Leeds, Bradford, Sunderland.

The truth game (Continued)

The concept of truth, that little detail that criminals, liars & bullshitters deeply deplore, will never be the norm because the element of fantasy is too much to ignore as it enhances their "reputations!"  Let us start with the claims of Lenny Mclean.  How many people realise that he had only twelve unlicensed fights, and that he lost six of them. In four of them, he was knocked spark out.  Twice by Johnny Waldron, and twice by Cliff Fields.  Of course, when it came to his memoirs, he suffered a very understandable memory loss.  Boxing promoter Frank Warren was related to Mclean, and he stated that Mclean was nothing but a violent bully. 

     A man I delivered a parcel to, told me about his wife's ` uncle, a retied cockney living in Spain.  According to, this guy said that Mclean was nothing but a violent bully.  Sounds familiar?  There is a book called "Loadsamoney" about a counterfeiter who told a story to a friend about a tough guy.  It seems that Mclean battered some kid in a pub, and this tough nut went up to Mclean and threatened to give him a smack for what he did to the kid.  Mclean, according to, turned around and walked away without a word.  

    The story that he "fought" the barekuckle champion of the Mafia, has been claimed to be nothing but fiction.  The book "Tarmac Warrior" about an alleged gypsy fighter, has been said to me by a known writer to be nothing but fiction.  He said that the fighter only participated in some sparring with a fighter turned author, and the fighting stories are untrue.  Carlton Leach has apparently admitted that the "torture" scene in his book "Muscle" and the portrayal in the film "Rise of the footsoldier" never happened!  Well, wouldn`t this cast doubt on many things he has claimed to have done?  It puts his every word in doubt.  And, he is far from the only person to have claimed to have been involved in crimes of theft and violence, when they simply have made them up or immersed themselves into others stories.

The other side of the coin

When an awful event occurs, your immediate thoughts are what did the principals characters go through.  When it is a brutal murder, your mind cannot comprehend the sickening brutality that the victim endured.  Yet, it can transpire that the victim was no angel, and falls into the category of "Live by the sword, die by the sword"!


    With one particular victim, I will not believe that the Police did not investigate his background.  What drove the perpetrators to carry out this crime?  What was there in his background that put him in the firing line?  What did he have to hide?  They must have gone out to the streets to question their informers and contacts.  They would have discovered much that would be preferred to be kept out of the media.  Just after it happened, one man said to me, "********(The victim) has been crossing people up for years.  Somebody has decided that enough is enough".  Other sources have said that what they had heard on the grapevine was the man was a drug financier.  Another man told me a tale that showed that the man was nothing more than what was known as a "Thief`s Ponce"!  This was a criminal who stole from other lawbreakers.  Obviously, the man would have very careful about he went up against, as there are plenty of people who would not stand for it.  The tale about robbing off others, stemmed from an old abandoned building that enterprising lads would strip various metals and electrical wire from this building and take it to a metal recycler, for some cash.  One day, a lad and his mate got some metal and wire from this building and were on their way to the scrapyard, when they were stopped by *******, backed up by a couple of men.  They took the waste from them and took it to be weighed in.  He would cross people up even for metals that come to small monetary amounts.  Apparently, he grandly announced that the vacant building was now "His building"!  Talk about delusions of grandeur!  It seems that he could not have robbed sweets from a child without backup.   He was a man with no physical presence.  He needed people behind him  in everything.  One woman who knew him summed him up thus : "He was a horrible bastard"!

Gangland - The TV series

This documentary series shows the complete change to the face of Gangland in the United States.  This series does not bother with the Mafia.  It shows all the different mafias that are now running the streets.  The Russians, Latinos, Bikers, black neighbourhood gangs, prison gangs, skinhead groups, Chinese, Vietnamese, and any other ethnic groups.  Outside the huge corporate crime that La Cosa Nostra was known for, garment, garbage, gambling, loansharking, etc, the bigmoneymaker is drugs,and that is firmly in the hands of the new generation of criminals.  There cannot be the revered "street tax" that was levied on criminals in Chicago and Philadelphia opereating these days as I cannot see a load of young hoodlums handing over lots of cash to Italians, because they have been ordered to.  All I could see would be a mass killing of Italians.  These guys would cut everybody in sight down, even the mob soldiers` families.  Nobody would be off-limits.  It would be open season.

The Black Dahlia

This celebrated unsolved murder, is one of a small number of cases that have attracted amateur sleuths that come forward with plausible and quite often, outrageous claims.  The most celebrated are, of course, Jack The Ripper, The Zodiac, and The Black Dahlia.  


    This case was very sensational, in that the victim, would-be actress Elizabeth Short was dissected and her body put on display in a residential neighbourhood.  The killer was never apprehended, and over the years, some fanciful theories have surfaced.  One woman claims her father was the killer, and a cop named Steve Hodell claimed that not only was his father the killer, but he was also The Zodiac!  One theory that I do not subscribe to, was that the killer was notorious gangster Bugsy Siegel.  It is claimed that it was done as a message to Los Angeles kingpin, Jack Dragna.  My objection to this theory, is that if Siegel wanted to send a message of any kind to Dragna, the obvious thing to do was kill one of his top men and then dump the body on his front lawn.  An unknown woman, no matter how gruesome the murder, is not going to send a message to a top gangster.

Did that happen?

Did what happen?  Those scare- mongering headlines in the sixties, beloved of the national press, was the supposed breakdown in law and order in seaside resorts.  These family towns being taken over by hordes of mods and their running battles with their mortal enemies, the rockers.  Clacton, Brighton, Margate, Blackpool.  All came under seige.  Well, apart from violence that did erupt in Brighton, all the rest was a gross exaggeration of the facts by the national press.  In most cases, the press wasn`t even there.  Some did admit to "overstating the facts a bit" but at least the new bogeymen were finally in town.  


    This country has not a "Hollister" the town taken over by a huge gang of bikers in 1947, and used as the story in the seminal biker film "The Wild One" with Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin. As an indication of the attitudes of the authorities in this country, the film, made in 1953, was finally allowed to be seen in Britain, in 1967, as a support feature to a Laurence Harvey spy film "A Dandy In Aspic".  Yes, we could have seen hordes of thugs on bikes taking over towns the length and breadth of the land, but the banning of this film certainly nipped that in the bud!  But not to worry, a new phase of teenage life was ready to burst onto the front pages of the press: the arrival of rock n` roll and the Teddy Boys.

The Truth Game Part 2

What is true and what is not?  The exaggeration of events has gone on since time began, and it is done usually for self-promotion.  The memoirs of former criminals is the stand-out in this respect.  Let us go back to an old villain from the East End named Arthur Harding.  His stories generally changed over the years and cannot be classed as a true account of his activities.  We can move onto the truly first big bullshit artist and that was Jack Spot.   This alleged "hero" of the East End came to prominence with the celebrated "Battle of Cable Street" with the Blackshirts of Oswald Mosley.  He bravely led a charge against the ring of personal bodyguards of Mosley, all allegedly huge all-in wrestlers.  Spot battered one nicknamed "Roughneck" with a chair leg that was filled with lead.  All very good, but there is a massive problem here: The "Battle of Cable Street" never took place!  Mosley was advised by the Police not to march and rather than be seen to be in conflict with the Police, he did not march.  Yet, here was Spot trading on a story that was pure fantasy.  And, it was far from the last fairy tale he told.


    The memoir of Spot`s "Man of a thousand cuts" ghostwritten by an American pulp fiction writer under the name of Hank Jansen, was full of "Newcastle Fred", "Edgeware Road Sam" and other various names.  In the final analysis, Spot was nothing but a thug, and liked to use the media, in the same way that Billy Hill had the journalist Duncan Webb eulogising himself.  The huge difference between Hill and Spot was that Hill was a genuinely intelligent and very organised man.  A mastermind.  Something that those "Heroes of the East End" the Krays, never were.  


    A puzzle has been the not very well publicised fact that the Krays never bothered a family from the East End.  The Tibbs family.  Two books, one by former cop Bert Wickstead, the other by Robert Murphy, mention this fact.  It seems that everybody else suffers from amnesia.  The Krays themselves suffered these attacks when it came to them being told to leave Manchester by the cops and their aborted attempt to move into Liverpool.  A cop shoved a gun under Reg Krays` chin and told him in no uncertain terms, never to return there.  A convenient memory loss for these events. What about the alleged beating Ron Kray received from George Cornell?  Surely this would have been a major talking point.  Is this story that should not be told in case it destroys the legend?  Legend?  My arse!


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The truth game

When is a lie, not a lie?  Answer: Depending on who is saying it!  I accept that I am nothing, but I most certainly am NOT an out and out liar and bullshit merchant.  As Canadian crime journalist Yves Lavigne pointed out that there are people who prefer to accept the fabricated rather than face the truth.  It is strange that truth & facts are the mortal enemies of the liar & the bullshit merchant.  Sad isn`t it?