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Shootout at Mr. Smiths

Murder and mayhem in South London when two criminal gangs clashed
By David Cocksedge

DURING THE LATE 1950's a number of powerful criminal gangs in London began to specialize in extortion. The targets were prosperous and respectable social clubs, and the gangsters offered them 'protection' from violence, in return for a large weekly fee, sometimes as much as £500, a huge sum in those days. The 'protection racket' had been copied from the USA, where it had been successful until the FBI cracked down and jailed many famous gangsters engaged in this bullying practice.

The London gangs prospered mainly in the East and West End areas of London and in the South, where the infamous Richardson brothers held sway. Such was the violence used that most club owners were too frightened to resist. The Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie, operated in East London, an area they called their 'manor', and they resented intrusions by any rival gangs into their territory. Retribution was swift if an intruder strayed into their manor without showing the proper tokens of respect. The punishment was a savage beating and a slash across the face with a razor blade, marking the victim for life. This crude rule of fear allowed the gang leaders to retain power and to sell their protection to prospering local businesses. It was in this climate of fear and intimidation that two rival gangs clashed in a gunfight in Southeast London in 1966.

Mr Smith's club in Catford, which included a gambling casino, opened in a blaze of local publicity in August 1965. Lush and lavishly furnished in the style of a family-type club popular in the north of England, it quickly became popular after the actress Diana Dors attended the official opening, at which champagne flowed freely.

Bosses of the Richardson gang soon noted this thriving business in their manor, and took action. In February 1966 two well-dressed men entered the premises. The management was too innocent to recognize them. One was Edward Richardson, who described himself as a company director with interests ranging from scrap metal to fruit machines. His companion was the notorious 'Mad Frankie' Fraser, a cockney thug who habitually wore a cut-throat razor in the breast pocket of his expensive suit. Shortly after serving three years for stealing a lorry load of cigarettes, he had attacked Jack 'Spot' Corner, a famous London gangster. Corner's wounds required 78 stitches and Fraser went back to prison for another seven years. He had twice been certified insane and had been in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.

The two men politely ordered drinks and asked to see the manager. Richardson told him, "You have a very successful club here and it would be a pity if the wrong people came in. There would be fighting, people would get hurt and the club would be ruined; perhaps even closed down by the local council. We suggest that you employ us to keep these unruly types in order." The message was unmistakable. The club's managing director traveled down from Manchester to talk with Richardson the next day. The Richardson gang was then asked to 'hire' suitable protectors for Mr. Smith's Club.

The atmosphere from then on was oddly quiet and uneasy as the club went about its nightly activities. There were rumors that a rival gang was prepared to challenge the fearsome Richardsons for the protection of the premises. Things came to a head in the early hours of 8 March 1966 when the management suggested to several customers that it might be wise for them to go to their homes. Many did and several members of staff were sent home also. Over twenty men had drifted into the club and formed themselves into two groups, one opposite the other. Nothing was said but the atmosphere was bristling with hostility. The scene was set for a showdown between two rival gangs of London's criminal underworld, one seeking to take over from the Richardsons the prize of protecting Mr. Smiths.

At 2.55 am Edward Richardson leapt from his chair and shouted that there would be no more drinks served without his permission. The silence was broken with curses and insults as the two mobs surged into battle. One terrified customer ran for the door, quickly followed by the rest of the staff. As the outer doors banged shut, gun shots crashed out, followed by the roar of a sawn-off shotgun. Some of the men inside fell, cursing and writhing in pain, whilst the luckier ones continued to fight, swinging at each other with clubs and knives.

Witnesses later described it as being 'like a scene from a Western film'. Tables and chairs were overturned and flung in all directions as cordite fumes filled the room. The noise had wakened neighbors, and they left their beds and stood sheltering in doorways as the sounds of battle continued to emanate from Mr. Smiths. When they saw some of the gangsters erupting into the street they slammed their doors, bolted them and drew the curtains. The shooting died away, car engines burst into urgent life, and injured men were bundled inside and driven to nearby Lewisham Hospital. One of these was Edward Richardson, his body peppered with buckshot. The police then arrived in force and found one man dead in the street and another, doubled-up with a broken leg, lying behind a hedge in a front garden. The dead man was Richard Hart (30), a drifter who dabbled in crime and often lived off the rich pickings of the extortion gangs. The wounded man was Frank Fraser. A bullet had broken his right leg and under his body was a handgun, which ballistics experts later determined had been used to kill Hart. Fraser had been dragged to the spot where he was found and an attempt made to hide him so that his gangster pals could later remove him when the heat was off.

In the shambles of what had been a luxury club police found four more men lying wounded by bullets or buckshot. Detective Chief Superintendent John Cummings now took over the case. The famous pathologist Dr James Cameron was called from his Bromley home to examine the battle scene and Hart's body before it was removed to the mortuary. Scotland Yard's ballistics expert John McCafferty joined the investigating team a day later.

Cummings and his men rounded up all the people who had been in the club that night but found none of them willing to talk. Police encountered the same reticence among those that had been injured and were undergoing hospital treatment. Gangsters all over the world, like the Mafia, practice the law of silence ('Omerta') for their own safety. Cummings and his men soon arrested a number of suspects but the exact truth of just how the battle of Catford developed was slow in forming. He consulted McCafferty and together they decided to reconstruct the bloody affray at Mr. Smith's Club.

Detectives interviewed all who had been at the club to find out exactly where they had been sitting or standing when the fighting began. This was no easy task because many of the club's customers did not like being in police investigations as many of them had criminal records themselves. But Cummings and his men succeeded in replacing all the tables and chairs in the exact positions they had occupied on the night of the gangland battle, which local papers had dubbed the "The gunfight at the Catford Corral".

A master plan was then drawn and all the furniture marked with the appropriate names. Then McCafferty made a trajectory chart from the bullet and pellet holes in the walls and furniture, and was able to pinpoint with accuracy the path and spread of the sawn-off .410 shotgun and to work out from which positions a revolver or pistol had been fired. Cummings, Mccafferty and Cameron studied the statements made by all the witnesses and were eventually able to accurately reconstruct the events of 8 March 1966, providing information which was the basis of the evidence used by the Crown at the following trial at London's famous Old Bailey.

The dead man, Richard Hart, was shot in the back and Dr Cameron said that the pistol was held at "near touching range". His jacket had been pulled down over his elbows so that he was rendered powerless to defend himself. The bullet track entered the chest cavity through the ribs and penetrated his left lung. There were also massive bruises all over his body, particularly around the face and head. This was no sudden death incurred during the heat of battle. Hart had been savagely beaten and then cold-bloodedly executed.

Francis Fraser, then aged 42, was charged with the murder. He was eventually found not guilty because no one present that night was prepared to give evidence that they had actually seen the shooting, and no one could say exactly who had fired the fatal shot. The weapon used to kill Hart had been carefully wiped clean of any incriminating fingerprints. (In his memoirs, published in the 1990's Fraser claimed that he had "rubbed out" over a dozen men in contract killings and had never been charged with the murders. He claimed the bodies had been disposed of in concrete or by cutting them up and feeding them to pigs. Three hungry adult pigs will completely consume a human corpse in around forty minutes, say experts in this macabre field. And they will eat everything, including flesh, entrails, bone, teeth, nails and hair).

Following a lengthy trial, William Alfred Haward (24) was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment for affray and malicious wounding and William James Botton (46) to five years for causing an affray. Fraser and Richardson were both sentenced to five years apiece on the same charge. Two other men were found not guilty and discharged.

The infamous shootout at Mr. Smiths in Catford was the beginning of the end for London's protection gangs. Soon after the bloody affair, wholesale gang warfare broke out, triggering a massive police investigation. Many gang bosses and their henchmen stood trial and were sent to prison, including the Kray twins who were found guilty of the murder of Jack ('the hat') McVittie among other crimes. Britain's capital city became a quieter place as organized crime took on a lower profile.

(Research: 'Murder at Mr Smiths' by Tom Tullett, Grafton Books)

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