Bobby Critchley

A new book has just come out , the autobiography of Jimmy Donnelly, or Jimmy the Weed, a leading face in the so-called Quality Street Gang.  He mentions Bobby Critchley, who it transpires that he was the big man in Manchester during te 40`s and 50`s.  He also gives mention to many of the faces of Manchester.  Now I know about a man whom information has been very thin on the ground.  I believed his name was Tainey, but in fact it is Tierney.  Mick Tierney was known as "The Terror", lived in Moss Side, and provided protection for some of the shebeens or illegal drinking dens.  This, apparently, was his main source of income.  Makes a nonsense of the talk of a "Criminal Organisation"

    There is no mention of Critchley having a brother.  It alo seems that Tierney was to have ahd a straightener with Jimmy Swords, the pivotal figure in the QSG.  Tierney, it appears, "did not fancy it".

    Let us hope that it promps more books about the other major cities that have their own underworlds, and get away from London.

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.