Service Alert
Website maintenance April 24 10pm ET
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 41 - 60 of 7850 items
By Frank Fraser, James Morton. 2002
Mad Frankie Fraser has become a household name, known to millions as one of London's most notorious gangsters. In Mad…
Frank's London - his fourth book - Frank continues the shocking stories of his life of crime.Frankie Fraser recalls the good and the bad times, brings the criminals of his acquaintance to life, and guides us through the darker streets of London - as only a born Londoner, and true gangster could.The Krays were a product of their age, nurtured by a doting mother and created by their community, the East…
End of London. Their name alone conjures up images of power, violence and greed - and even brother Charlie couldn't steer the twins Ron and Reg clear of murder mayhem as they killed their way to the top of the criminal tree. They lived by their own rules. And they died by them. The three brothers will never be forgotten. They are an indelible part of our history, whether we like it or not. And from media manipulation to control freak paranoia, The Krays were masters of deception. Even at the end Reg Kray was still portraying himself as just an ordinary East Ender - mistreated by the Home Office and the police, misunder-stood and mistakenly labelled `Godfather of Crime' by the media. The Kray Anthology traces their history from childhood and early adolescence to manhood and death. This book explores the brothers' fantasy lives, full as they were of mind games and false memories. Whatever you want to know about the Krays and the real reasons behind their success, you can read it here for the first time. Only now can the truth be revealed - without fear of intimidation, retribution or revenge. The Krays are dead and buried, but the myth lives on.Twins Ron and Reg Kray were without doubt the most powerful, violent and deadly gangsters that London has ever known.…
They ran protection rackets, clubs and casinos, as well as fraudulent 'long firms'. They blackmailed, intimidated and killed - for many years with impunity thanks to their powerful cronies in the Establishment. Working with all five main Mafia families in New York, they were expanding their business worldwide when they were imprisoned for murder in 1968.Featuring revealing new material, The Krays: A Violent Business is the story of their lives - and of the secrets and scandals the British government still doesn't want you to know about.By Colin Fry. 1998
When Ron and Reg Kray were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1968, most people thought that was the last they'd…
hear of two of the most notorious and vicious criminals Britain has ever produced. Instead, the twins and their evil doings have since achieved almost iconic status. Simultaneously, they have become 'Ronnie and Reggie', cuddly Robin Hood characters, little more than a couple of bad lads who loved their mum. The Kray Files is an explosive investigative work which strips away the myths that have grown up around the brothers. It examines why the twins were put away, the true extent of their crimes and the truth about the last 30 years, which Ron and Reg spent at the expense of the country while making a quiet fortune through duplicitous dealings from behind bars. It looks at why their brother Charlie turned to drugs as his only way out of a life of deprivation and misery, and tries to discover the reason why some women have found the Krays fatally attractive. For the first time ever, The Kray Files goes behind the scenes, painting a vivid picture of the brothers' world through psychological profiling, studying the sociology of the East End of London with the help of academics, and investigating the violent legacy the brothers have left behind.By Verna Allette Wilkins. 2001
Stephen Lawrence was a bright, athletic, young man with high hopes for the future. He lived in south-east London with…
his parents, younger brother and younger sister. On 22 April 1993, he was brutally murdered while he was waiting for the bus. He was eighteen years old. He didn't know his killers; his killers didn't know him.This is his story. He will be remembered.This paperback edition revised with added material about the trial, the legacy of Stephen Lawrence and a final note from Doreen Lawrence.By Richard McCann. 2004
One October night in 1975 Richard, aged five, was alone in the house with his three sisters. It was 3am…
and their mother hadn't come home yet. Next morning, the police arrived to take the children away. Their mother had become the first victim of a serial killer soon to become known as the 'Yorkshire Ripper'. Passed from one violent home to another, the children were forgotten by all except the press. As the salacious headlines multiplied, Richard and his sisters were never able to recover from their mother's murder. Whilst Richard tried to handle the terror of his violent upbringing, his sister struggled to deal with memories of sexual abuse. Without love or support they spiralled away from help or happiness. Then one day Richard McCann, having reached suicidal rock bottom, decided no one was going to rescue their lives but him. It was the beginning of an inspirational transformation. Now he is able to tell the story of how the forgotten children of violence suffer, and how they can heal. A heartbreaking, uplifting story of survival and hope.By Richard Gallagher. 2002
What drives one person to become obsessed with another - someone they may never even have met? And what happens…
when the obsessions of unbalanced misfits, desperate loners and aggrieved ex-partners spiral out of control? Stalking is on the increase - and it isn't only celebrities who become the targets of irrational individuals. Men and women with everyday jobs who lead ordinary lives can just as easily become someone else's obsession. Each year, hundreds of people fall victim to terrifying harrassment by people they may have never met. Richard Gallagher has researched this disturbing phenomenon to provide a serious investigation into this unsettling but intriguing crime. Featuring interviews with victims, police, psychologists - and those who "stalk stalkers" - he has unearthed accounts of obsession and delusion.By Frank Kane, John Tilsley. 2006
Following the collapse of his business and the loss of his home, Frank Kane made a catastrophic decision. In desperation,…
he agreed to smuggle cocaine out of Venezuela. Almost inevitably, he and his girlfriend, Sam, were caught.The price they paid was a ten-year sentence in the hell of the overcrowded Venezuelan prison system, notorious for corruption and abuse, and rife with weapons and gangs. At one point, Frank was held in the remote El Dorado prison, better known for being the one-time home of Henri Charrière, or Papillon. He witnessed countless murders as gang leaders fought for power, and he had to become as ruthless as his fellow inmates in order to survive. In an attempt to dull the reality of the horrendous conditions, he succumbed to drugs.After enduring years of systematic beatings by the guards and attempts on his life by inmates, Frank suffered more than one breakdown. He lost over four stone and was riddled with disease, but somehow he found the strength within himself to survive and was eventually released in 2004 after serving over seven years of his sentence. During the long walk back from hell, Frank decided to tell his story.When Helen was 20, she met Garry Newlove at a local disco. They married in 1986 and had three daughters.…
On 10 August 2007, Garry was brutally beaten by a gang of youths outside the family home in Warrington. He died two days later. It was an act of violence that shocked the nation and would have a profound impact on the lives of Helen and her children.After the ordeal of a ten-week trial and the murder conviction of three youths, Helen held a press conference, giving a speech that attracted national media attention and propelled her into the role of a campaigner for victims’ rights and against the lawlessness that blights so many of our towns and cities.In 2010, Helen was appointed a seat in the House of Lords among some of the most powerful and influential people in the country. Today, she is Baroness Newlove of Warrington, a tireless campaigner against antisocial behaviour and for the rights of victims and witnesses.In this engaging memoir, Helen recounts how her family was shattered by Garry’s murder and how good unexpectedly came out of evil. Her remarkable story is not one of politics and committees; it is about real people and the impact that crime has on us all.By David Leslie. 2006
Charlie, snow, toot, white: cocaine goes by many different names. But in Glasgow in the early 1980s, they called it…
Happy Dust. At no-holds-barred parties of the glamorous and wealthy, cocaine was the new aphrodisiac. A few lines of Charlie and a humdrum party could become an orgy. Hot from the forests of Colombia, Charlie flooded onto the streets of Glasgow and was passed along the line to the cocktail set, highly paid sports stars and yuppies desperate for kicks and thrills. Behind it all was a man they called the Parachutist. But all too soon, the party was over. People became too greedy and the Parachutist was double-crossed. Some of the gang did shady deals with detectives in hotel rooms; others flew to seek shelter in the sun, their reputations destroyed but not their fortunes. The good times might have been over for the Happy Dust Gang, but their legacy lives on to this day.Crime detection has gone to the dogs and squirrels are being busted for espionage. If you've never wondered about the…
new direction of 'intelligence-led policing' in our society, now is the time to start. It was a chance encounter with a police sniffer-dog that drew criminal lawyer Amber Marks into the hidden world of the science of smell and its law-enforcement applications. Soon she stumbled into a wonderland of contemporary surveillance, where the spying skills of bees, dolphins and a myriad other critters were being harnessed to build a 'secure world' of bio-intelligence. From the businesses, scientists and military departments developing new smell-based surveillance technologies, to good old-fashioned police dogs, Amber discovered a secret world of security forces, where animals and scent are as important as intelligence agents and CCTV.Part polemical exploration of our burgeoning surveillance society, part humorous memoir, this intriguing book will capture your imagination and get you wondering: just who stands to benefit from all this 'security'?By David Leslie. 2010
Convicted murderer Billy Ferris has endured more than three decades behind bars in many of Britain's prisons. In The Hate…
Factory, he candidly documents his experiences in jail with some of the UK's most notorious criminals.Jailed for life in 1977 for a crime of passion, Ferris experienced betrayal and treachery on the inside. He unexpectedly formed friendships that led to his being labelled a 'bombers' crony' and found love while on the run after a dramatic escape. He vividly describes the cruelty, savagery and degradation that go hand in hand with prison life and details the nightmare that was Wormwood Scrubs, the prison he christened 'the Hate Factory'. He relays what happened when his cell was used as a courtroom for an IRA punishment trial and how he hatched a plan to assassinate the son of a legendary underworld godfather and plotted to murder an informer.Over the 30 years during which Ferris has been imprisoned, his fellow inmates have included some of the UK's 'most wanted' from London underworld enforcer 'Mad' Frankie Fraser to Archie Hall, the serial killer dubbed 'the Monster Butler'.By Martin King, Martin Knight, Phil Sparrowhawk. 2003
Grass is the incredible story of Phil Sparrowhawk, a working-class boy with gambling in his blood. Like most punters, he…
enjoyed an incredible run of luck, but finally rolled the dice once too often.Before he had come of age, Phil had accumulated a small fortune from street trading. He then staked his entire capital on Njinsky in the 1970 Derby - and won. With his now large capital base, he launched a business importing clothes. Enter Howard Marks (aka Mr Nice), who was enthused by Phil's Far East connections and introduced him to the far more lucrative world of the 'movement of beneficial herbs' - or drug smuggling, as it is known to the authorities. Phil struck out on his own and from his new base in Thailand became involved in many large-scale cannabis deals, whilst at the same time developing highly successful legitimate businesses. Read of his encounters with Greenpeace, Mother Teresa, gangsters and leading politicians, Lord Moynihan, religious cults, former pop singers and many other diverse characters as his life became more and more surreal. The winning streak came to an end in 1988 when the US Drug Enforcement Agency closed in. Phil's £30m fortune was promptly confiscated and he spent the next four years in two of Thailand's most notorious jails before being extradited to the US, where he served further time in a series of penitentiaries. Grass details the life of an ordinary young man with a taste for adventure, who ended up on the most extraordinary journey. Sit back, take a deep breath and enjoy.By Colin MacFarlane. 2011
Enid Blyton wrote about the Famous Five - wholesome kids who were always up to some adventure or other -…
but during the 1960s Glasgow boy Colin MacFarlane had his own gang: the Incredible Gorbals Diehards. These were young boys trying to survive in one of the world's toughest areas, the infamous slums of Glasgow.During the gang's daily adventures, they came across a plethora of undesirable characters, including foul-mouthed drunks, thieves, razor-flicking gang members, con men, fly men and street brawlers. Through it all, MacFarlane and his band of brothers retained their sense of humour while roaming the filthy, stench-ridden Gorbals backstreets.In the third volume of his acclaimed memoirs, bestselling author Colin MacFarlane reveals what it was like to grow up on the streets of the Gorbals during this period. Be prepared to be shocked and entertained at the adventures of the gang that called themselves the Incredible Gorbals Diehards.By David Leslie. 2009
For almost four decades, Margaret 'Mags' McGraw was a keeper of secrets. Her husband, Tam, the notorious 'Licensee', amassed a…
fortune by leading a safe-cracking gang before masterminding a spectacular £50-million drugs racket.Mags was a devotee of Tarot cards and fortune telling, so when Tam and his associates wondered whether luck would be with them, it was to her that they turned. But Mags discovered that the cards warned of much more than years in prison cells: they predicted death. She learned that her own husband was also doomed to a fate that was unexpected by everyone but her: Tam died in the arms of the wife he called his 'rock' while her secret lover frantically tried to save him.In The Gangster's Wife, Mags reveals her gripping life story, from being a London clippie through often hilarious days running an ice-cream van during the infamous Glasgow Ice Cream Wars to managing a notorious bar, being agony aunt to the toughest criminals around, hiding a secret love and sharing a life with The Licensee.By James Morton. 2001
While many lawyers are honest, for Gangland figures, the best lawyer is often corrupt – a ‘shyster’ – who will…
act as a go between with the police, provide false alibis, bribe and intimidate witnesses, jurors and judges and occasionally organise robberies and burglaries. Sometimes these lawyers even kill or may be killed themselves.Gangland: The Lawyers brings us such lawyers as Frank Ragan, who acted for three mob leaders, and James Sawyer, the barrister and forger involved in the first Great train Robbery. From the amazing story of Gambino crime boss John Gotti (the ‘Teflon Don’) and his attorney Bruce Cutler, to the American judge Joseph Peel, who had his co-judge killed, James Morton presents a worldwide history of these shady individuals and their seedy but compelling stories.By Graham Johnson. 2013
'The young bloods did not care whether they killed criminals or civilians . . .’ The Cartel is Britain’s biggest…
drugs gang, a global corporation employing thousands of criminals and flooding Britain with cocaine and heroin. Yet the established order is under threat: street gangs are overwhelming the old-school Cartel godfathers with a campaign of violence, intimidation and mayhem, heralding a series of events that has had devastating consequences for the whole of society. In Young Blood, the explosive follow-up to The Cartel, bestselling true-crime author Graham Johnson reveals how the brutal assassination of drug baron Colin ‘King Cocaine’ Smith in 2007 by a group of young bucks triggered the rise of the foot soldier, and exposes the bitter struggle that has spread throughout Europe as various factions battle to seize control of the most lucrative crime syndicate in British history.By Bernard O'Mahoney, Steven Ellis. 2009
Two films and numerous books have attempted to tell the shocking story of two of Britain's most ruthless gangs. For…
20 years, the Essex Boys firm and their successors, the New Generation, controlled a lucrative drugs empire in Essex and throughout the south east of England by using intimidation, gratuitous violence and murder. Rampaging through the streets and clubland, they destroyed anything and anybody that dared to get in their way. Eventually torn apart by greed and paranoia, the gang members became victims of their own vile trade and hate-filled actions. Pat Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe were all blasted repeatedly with a shotgun as they sat in their Range Rover down a remote farm track. Dean Boshell was lured to allotments, then beaten and shot execution-style three times through the head. Others, such as Darren Nicholls and Damon Alvin, turned Super Grass and disappeared into the witness protection scheme never to be seen again, while three other men are in prison serving life sentences. Steve `Nipper` Ellis is the last man standing, the only member to have survived the bloody reign of both gangs. In Essex Boy, he tells his shocking story for the first time, and reveals just how close he came to being both murderer and murder victim.By Bernard O'Mahoney. 2011
For more than fifty years, two ruthless gangs have dominated the Tyneside underworld. Initially, the Conroy and the Sayers families…
lived side by side in relative harmony in the West End of Newcastle, but the birth of the drug-fuelled rave culture in the late 1980s changed everything. Drunk on power and with an intense desire to take complete control of the north-east, the families went to war with one another and with anyone else who stood in their way. What followed was an orgy of mindless violence. In Fog on the Tyne, bestselling true-crime author Bernard O'Mahoney explores the origins of this gangland war and reveals for the first time how and why it spiralled out of control, leaving many injured and others dead.By Carol Ann Lee. 2012
In 1955, former nightclub manageress Ruth Ellis shot dead her lover, David Blakely. Following a trial that lasted less than…
two days, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. She became the last woman to be hanged in Britain, and her execution is the most notorious of hangman Albert Pierrepoint's 'duties'. Despite Ruth's infamy, the story of her life has never been fully told. Often wilfully misinterpreted, the reality behind the headlines was buried by an avalanche of hearsay. But now, through new interviews and comprehensive research into previously unpublished sources, Carol Ann Lee examines the facts without agenda or sensation. A portrait of the era and an evocation of 1950s club life in all its seedy glamour, A Fine Day for a Hanging sets Ruth's gripping story firmly in its historical context in order to tell the truth about both her timeless crime and a punishment that was very much of its time.