George “G” Williams
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During the 1990’s and early 2000’s, George “G” Williams carried out a murderous vendetta against Suge Knight and his Death Row Records.
Richardson Gang
"You didn't mess about with them"
By the 1960’s, organized crime in London had passed to a new generation after the retirement of leading gangsters such as Jack Comer and Billy Hill, who had orchestrated criminal activity in the city since the 1920’s. In the East End of London, the Kray Twins came to prominence as one of the leading firms, while their rivals in South London, the brutal Richardson Gang, dominated with fear and violence.
Scrap metal dealers from Camberwell, the Richardson brothers were involved in many lucrative criminal enterprises, which led them into direct competition with the infamous twins, Ronnie and Reggie Kray. Animosity between the two sides eventually erupted into a bloody turf war, which saw the arrest and conviction of Richardson Gang members, and revealed the full horror of their reign during the ‘torture trial’.
(This case file was originally posted as a True Crime Short on April 04, 2024)
The Richardson Gang of South London
Growing up in Camberwell, South London, Charlie and Eddie Richardson soon turned to a life of crime after their father deserted the family. Charlie was the eldest of three boys, and he and his younger brother Edward, known as “Eddie,” were close to their mother, who ran a sweetshop in South-East London.
Their father was a prize fighter and feckless rang-and-bone man who abandoned the family, leaving them penniless. The brothers were known as “wild and tough,” who liked to box and cause trouble. They inevitably soon became involved in the darker side of London, becoming infamous members of the criminal fraternity.
They were known for their violent and intimidating methods, with Eddie Richardson in particular becoming known for his capacity for fighting with fists and weapons, while his brother Charlie was described as “vicious, sadistic and a disgrace to civilisation”. The brothers soon formed an organized gang, and began committing a number of crimes, such as smuggling, hijacking, extortion, robbery, assault and prostitution.
After Charlie Richardson became acquainted with professional swindler Jack Duval, his eyes were opened to the possibilities of more ambition and profitable enterprises. He set-up a series of ‘long firms,’ or businesses that appeared legitimate, but were established purely to buy valuable goods on credit, with zero intention of repayment.
The money made from these crimes was invested in other ventures such as illegal gambling, and Eddie Richardson operated lucrative fruit machines out of several South London pubs. The younger Richardson brother would occasionally approach a pub landlord with the ‘suggestion’ that they should buy one of his slot devices. A refusal always earned the hapless publican a beating.
Usually those proprietors who refused to have the Richardsons machines in their establishment were visited by members of the brothers gang, who smashed windows and caused damage until the owner agreed to their demands. The Richardson’s had surrounded themselves with a gang of ruthless young men to act as muscle and who carried out their violent orders.
Some of their most effective enforcers were young men who were known for their fighting prowess, such as George Cornell and his friend “Mad” Frankie Fraser, who would both become extensively involved in the Richardson Gang’s many crimes. Cornell had previously joined up with the Krays, but soon switched sides, becoming one of the Richardson brother most trusted associates.
Charlie Richardson, who was considered the leader of the gang, invested heavily in scrap metal, and many of the brothers businesses were fronts for their underworld activities. They soon became involved in narcotics, racketeering, money laundering, loan sharking, bribery, counterfeiting, gun-running, murder and contract killings.
The territory they oversaw, known as their “manor,” stretched from the South London scrap yards to West End clubs, and involved mining interests in South Africa. Their powerbase lay south of the river, in the offices of Peckford Scrap Metal Ltd of New Church Road, also in Camberwell, where they held court with their associates.
The Richardson Gang made thousands from protection rackets by intimidating shop owners, pubs, clubs and other businesses into paying for protection against acts of vandalism, crimes that were often perpetrated by the Richardson’s themselves in order to enforce their demands and spread fear among the shopkeepers and small business owners.
Charlie and Eddie Richardson had many enforcers and associates who worked on their behalf, men such as hitman Jimmy Moody, Johnny Bradbury, getaway driver Bartholomew “Barry” Harris, Alan Rigby, Tommy Clark, Albert Longman and Roy Hall, who operated an electric generator to torture anyone the gang suspected of being an informer.
By the early 1960’s, the Richardson’s ran a string of clubs from the Cavern in Lordship Lane, Dulwich, to the Orange Club in Walworth Road and The Shirley Anne in New Cross. As their criminal empire grew, they began to encroach on the interests and territory of the East London firm overseen by the Kray twins.
When the Richardson’s approached a banker named Alan Cooper in an attempt to extort money, he went to the twins and offered his assistance with the financial side of their organization in exchange for protection against the Krays’ South London rivals. Cooper evidently feared the Richardson brothers and their gang.
This fear was apparently well founded. “You didn’t mess about with them,” said one of their former associates, “or you’d come away a cripple.” On one occasion, Charlie Richardson and “Mad” Frankie Fraser beat a man with their fists, feet and a metal pole. The victim, who owned the gang money, was savagely beaten for nine hours, with the two pausing only to order beer and sandwiches, which were consumed as they continued their assaults on the man.
After the torture was over, the victim, who had been stripped naked and trussed to a chair, was made to clean up the blood-spattered room with his own underpants. The gang became notorious for their brutal methods of dealing with those they suspected of treason, so-much-so that they became known in the British press as the “Torture Gang”. The full horror of their crimes would only become known during the trial in 1967.
“You had the Krays and the Richardsons but I think the Richardsons were more violent than the Krays,” former Detective Superintendent John Cummings said. “The Richardsons were frighteners, really vicious people.” Any members of the gang who found themselves arrested were often released after witnesses to their crimes refused to testify.
At one time, Charlie Richardson was arrested for receiving stolen goods, but was acquitted through lack of evidence and, allegedly, with the help of a large “donation” to the Police Fund. It was later revealed that many officers of the Metropolitan police force had taken bribes from the Richardson Gang and other London gangsters.
During that time Scotland Yard was institutionally corrupt, and Charlie would often boast that that he had a number of coppers in his pocket, and that he would be told immediately when someone had gone to the police and grassed him up. He claimed that within half-an-hour he would known the details of their statements.
The Richardson Gang and the Kray Twins
It was inevitable that the Richardson brothers would come into open conflict with their East London rivals, the Kray Twins. Although neither side sought confrontation and outright violence had yet to occur, it was only a matter of time before animosity developed into arguments and fights, especially when members of their gangs met under the influence of alcohol.
At a Christmas party in 1965, Richardson gang member George Cornell, who had formerly associated with the Krays before defecting to their rivals, was drinking in the Astor Club when he saw Ronnie Kray. Known as unstable, with a propensity for violence, Kray overheard Cornell call him a “fat poof”. A fight ensued, after which bad blood remained between the two men.
Although the Kray twins were known for their fighting prowess, Reggie Kray was the more level-headed of the two, and oversaw the twins business interests. Ronnie, a closet homosexual, was considered by some to be psychopathic, and was known to attack even trusted associates without provocation.
The two sides would often meet in pubs such as The Grave Maurice, where Charlie and Eddie, accompanied by Fraser and Cornell, would attend sit downs with the Kray Twins in an effort to mediate their disputes and talk business. Despite this, hated between the two sides eventually erupted into more dangerous conflict.
Two months after Cornell’s encounter with Ronnie Kray, the feud between the two worsened when they came into conflict at a Catford nightclub. The incident left one man dead, and most of the Richardson Gang arrested, leading to the collapse of the brothers criminal empire and the investigation into their crimes.
Shootout at Mr Smith’s and Death of George Cornell
On the evening March 7, 1966, members of the Richardson Gang were providing security at Mr Smith’s nightclub in Rushey Green, Catford, South East London. In attendance were members of the Hayward gang, as well as Eddie Richardson, Frankie Fraser and George Cornell. An associate of the Krays, Richard “Dickie” Hart was also there, and the two groups were drinking without incident.
At some point, more members of the Richardson gang arrived, causing members of the Hayward gang, including Henry Botton, Peter Hennessey and gang leader Billy Hayward to become suspicious. Hayward believed that something might happen owing to his affair with the wife of Roy Porritt, Frank and Eddie’s mechanic.
Hayward sent one of his men out to gather weapons, and by 3:00am, Eddie told Hayward and his gang to “drink up and leave.” Peter Hennessey appeared to take offence at this and called Eddie a “half-baked fucking ponce,” and told him that he could “take you any fucking time you like”. The two men began exchanging blows, and soon others joined in the fighting.
Amidst the fistfights, Dickie Hart was seen to take out a gun and start shooting, while shouting “Somebody’s going to die.” Harry Rawlings, a Richardson gang member was shot by Hart, and began bleeding from his shoulder. Two other Richardson gang members, Jimmy Moody and Ronnie Jeffreys, tried to get Rawlings out of the club, while Fraser tried to calm down Hart.
Gun, bayonets and other weapons were brandished. Fraser was then shot by Billy Gardner, a Hayward gang member. Despite this, he managed to knock the gun from Dickie Hart’s hand and went on to beat him. When Henry Botton saw him kicking Hart in the head, he said “You’re fucking mad, Frank. You’re fucking bonkers.” This was likely when Fraser earned his “Mad” nickname.
It is unclear what happened next, but someone shot Dickie Hart dead as he was making his escape. The scene at Mr Smith’s was described by one gangster present as “like Dodge City,” and saw Eddie Richardson and Frankie Fraser both taken to Lewisham hospital. When they were questioned by police, they denied any knowledge of what happened.
“Shooting, what shooting?,” came the reply. Two days later, retribution for the death of Dickie Hart came in the form of Ronnie Kray, who got word that Richardson gang member George Cornell was sitting in the Blind Beggar pub drinking with friends. Ronnie Kray arrived there with two associates.
When Cornell saw him, he reportedly said either “Well, just look who’s here,” or “Well, look what the dog’s brought in”. These were his last words, before Kray shot him through the head killing him. This was Ronnie Kray’s first murder, and sent a clear message to the Richardson gang, that the Krays and their associates were not to be crossed.
Richardson Gang: Police Investigation
With mounting police pressure on the Richardson’s, and the recent arrests of several members of the gang, victims of their violence finally began to come forward and report their experiences to police. In July 1965, the man who had been beaten by Charlie and Frankie Fraser and made to mop up his own blood with his underpants went to police.
Businessman James Taggart described how he was savagely beaten by Richardson and Fraser because his company owed £1,200 to a gang associate. He said he was taken by the gang to the offices of Peckford Scrap Metal Ltd of New Church Road, in Camberwell, where gang brought anyone the brothers felt had crossed them, and were in need to persuading.
At around the same time, an associate of the Richardson brothers had been arrested in South Africa and charged with the June 1965 murder of a mineral prospector called Thomas Waldeck, who had been shot dead on the doorstep of his Johannesburg home. Lawrence ‘Johnny’ Bradbury, was arrested and confessed to being the getaway driver.
A former barrow boy who and lived in Peckham, South London, Bradbury worked for the Richardsons and it was soon discovered by South African police that the murdered man was the co-owner of a perlite mining company which controlled a claim in the Ghost Mountains of the Transvaal, and his business partner was ‘London scrap dealer’ Charlie Richardson.
It transpired that Waldeck and Richardson had anticipated significant riches from the venture, but as both were shareholders, there had been some friction over voting rights. Facing the death sentence for his part in the murder, Bradbury confessed to the court that Charlie Richardson was, what many already knew in London, a major gangland boss.
Claiming he took part in the crime out of fear for his own life, Bradbury was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment. British detectives flew out to interview Bradbury in May 1966, and he told them he had grown up with Charlie Richardson, something that did no offer him immunity from his brutality.
He claimed that he was once held over a bar counter by the brothers while another gang member slashed his arm with a broken bottle. When news reached Charlie Richardson, he reacted with bewilderment. “I was amazed at what happened at the trial,” he told one British newspaper.
“Bradbury claimed that I was a London gang boss. The truth is that Tom’s death cost me a lot of money. There is no reason on earth why I should want him killed.” As a result of Bradbury’s claims and the report from victim James Taggart, key members of the Richardson gang were arrested during dawn raids on July 30, 1966.
In what was described as part of one of the most carefully planned operations in police history, the downfall of the Richardson gang and their associates happened on the day of the 1966 World Cup Final. The accused appeared at Bow Street magistrates’ court during a committal hearing, where twenty-five uniformed police officers ringed the dock.
The Richardson Gang and the Torture Trial
As the lurid rumours of the gang’s crimes initially became known to the press, with the Richardson’s were dubbed the “Torture Gang,” the case garnered significant interest from the public. Charlie Richardson, considered the mastermind of Richardson’s criminal empire, was soon being connected to the South African Bureau of State Security, as well as attempt to tap then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s telephone.
The so-called “Torture trial” began at Old Bailey at the beginning of April 1967, with eight members of the gang in the dock, including the two Richardson brothers and Frankie Fraser, who were charged with a variety of crimes such as fraud, extortion, false imprisonment and torture. The court heard harrowing tales from a number of witnesses.
The prosecutor, Sebag Shaw QC, told the jury that the case was “about violence, not sudden violence committed on the spur of the moment but brutal violence, systematically carried out with utter and callous ruthlessness.” As the brutal details of the brothers crimes became known, witnesses and even jury members had to be put under police protection.
The star witness was one of the brothers own henchmen, Johnny Bradbury, the former Richardson member who turned Queen’s Evidence and offered to inform on the gang in exchange for a pardon and immunity. In the witness stand a variety of victims gave terrifying testimony of the gang’s methods.
Bradbury himself told how the gang used a number of torture methods against anyone they believed had betrayed them. They would nail the victims to the floor using 6-inch nails, then a gang member, most often than not “Mad” Frankie Fraser, would pull teeth with pliers or cut off fingers and toes with bolt cutters.
Mock trials were conducted by the gang, with Eddie prosecuting and Charlie “judging,” that would take place at their scrap yard in Camberwell, South London. Victims would be subject to punishments for perceived wrongdoings, which could include whippings, cigarette burning and beatings.
Owing to his affinity for removing teeth, Fraser acquired the nickname “The Dentist,” as a result, and would habitually carry a pair of gold-plated pliers on him. One particularly favourite tool that the brothers used was a former Army field telephone, a device which had its own electrical generator, operated by gang member Roy Hall.
This device was a hand-cranked generator that was originally used for sending out SOS signals from aircraft. Charlie had taken it from a scrapped WWII bomber, and the gang had cut it up at his Camberwell yard in New Church Road. It was used to shock their victims, who were first placed in cold baths to make the shocks stronger, then applied to toes, fingers and even genitals, as Hall frantically cranked the handle.
“They can’t take it anymore. No one can,” Hall later said. “They turn into little kids and ask for ‘Mummy’. It’s something you have to see to know. But they can’t lie to you. Even months later if you go into a pub ‘cos you have to talk to them, they go back into it. They’re broken and it never mends.”
One witness told the court how he had his toes broken with pliers. Afterwards Cyril Green said he could hear the screams of another man being tortured. Another victim, Derek Harris, went on to describe how he had been invited to the Richardson’s Camberwell headquarters and asked about the whereabouts of Jack Duval.
The gang wanted to know where the swindler who set Charlie Richardson on the road to gangland crime had gone. “Charles Richardson came up and stuck a thumb in each of my eyes,” Harris told the court. “… and ordered me to take my shoes and socks off… Leads were attached to my toes and I got some violent shocks.”
Afterwards, when he was getting dressed, Charlie plunged a knife through his foot and into the floor beneath. When Benjamin Coulston was attacked outside a pub, he was driven by gang members to Camberwell where Charlie placed a gun on a table and ordered him to be stripped. Coulston told how “Mad” Frankie Fraser appeared with a pair of pliers.
“He put them into my mouth and started to try to pull out my teeth,” Coulston said. “He slipped and pulled a lump of my gum out. Then he tried again and pulled part of a top tooth out.” The court was then told how Harris was beaten, after which Richardson held an electric fire against his genitals.
Cigarettes were then stubbed out on his arms and chest before he was wrapped in tarpaulin and “taken for a ride” before being dumped. As the gang released him, Coulston was told by Eddie Richardson that it had all been a misunderstanding, and that they got the wrong man and he was sorry.
Often, while all the horrors of these tortures were being carried out, Charlie would nonchalantly send one of his men out for fish and chips when he got peckish. At the end of the vicious torture sessions, victims were made to clean up their own blood and Charlie Richardson would give them a clean shirt to return home in. This led to the torture sessions being referred to by the gang as “taking a shirt from Charlie”.
The defendants protested their innocence, with Charlie Richardson describing the allegations of torture as “something out of a storybook”. The jury however, who had resisted repeated and determined attempts at intimidation from Richardson associates, found them guilty. Charlie was given twenty-five years, while Eddie got a decade in prison.
Mr Justice Lawton told him, “One is ashamed to think that one lives in a society that contained men like you.” Eddie Richardson had another 15 years added to his current sentence for affray, while Frankie Fraser, who was present and participated in all of the torture sessions, got 10 years, as did the operator of the electrical generation, Roy Hall.
End of the Richardson Gang
During his incarceration, Charlie Richardson maintained that many of the torture stories were myths and had been exaggerated. “If you can find anyone who says they got nailed to the floor by us or got their toes cut off I will give you £10,000 for each one,” he said. That he was “fitted up,” was something Charlie always insisted.
In 1980, he absconded from an open prison and went on the run for a year, and in an effort to publicize his release, even dressed as Santa Claus and gave out presents to children. He even openly drank in pubs on the Old Kent Road with old friends and associates, including bent coppers once on his payroll.
When police attention increased, he fled to Paris, where he gave an interview to a journalist. He was eventually arrested with others in Earl’s Court on suspicion of possession of drugs. When his identity became know, he was returned to prison to complete his original sentence and serve time for the drugs charge.
He was given day released in 1983, so he could spend time with his family, and was finally released in July 1984, becoming a campaigner for young offenders. In 1990, Eddie Richardson received a 35 year sentence after being convicted of involvement in a £70 million cocaine and cannabis heist. His original sentence was reduced and he was released after serving 12 years.
During Eddie’s time in prison the brothers had a falling out after Eddie accused Charlie of fraudulent business deals, and the two would never speak again. Eddie Richardson often spoke about his time as one of the most notorious gang leaders in London and admitted getting pleasure from inflicting pain.
“If I’m perfectly honest, yes, I did,” he told a journalist while publicising his autobiography in 2005. “I won’t say I loved hurting people. It was more about proving my manhood. It does make you feel powerful.” He also spoke about his brother’s temper, adding “I was full of aggression and very quick to get into a fight but it was also over quickly. Charlie liked to stretch things out.”
In September 2012, Charlie Richardson died of peritonitis. A heavy smoker all his life, he had suffered from emphysema for several years. His death was confirmed by his brother Eddie, who said of his older sibling, “I can’t say he was a good father but he was a father,” he said. “He leaves a big family behind him.”
Eddie Richardson spends his time hiring himself out as a £300 lunch date, during which he would tell stories about his time as a leading gangster during London’s underworld heyday. He has admitted that he wouldn’t “want to meet myself now as I was then”. Long gone are the days of the Richardson gang’s reign of terror, which are now but a footnote in the criminal underworld.
Written by Nucleus
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