TURBULENCE IN THE UNDERWORLD
A Statement by Frankie Fraser
Thank you to all those people who have contacted me and asked for my opinion on the arrest of the highly self-hyped DAVE COURTNEY.
Most of you have expressed disgust at the charge he faces and if the allegations are true, all respected members of the underworld will share your disgust.
However, at this stage they are only allegations and we all know that under English law, and all democratic law, a man is innocent until proven guilty.
For those of you who do not know the circumstances Dave Courtney was stopped on the M6 motorway by members of the powerful CIB3 squad at Scotland Yard and charged with supplying false information on alleged drug dealers.
In other words they are saying that Dave Courtney is a professional grass.
According to the prosecution, a Simon A James who is locked into a bitter custody action with his wife over their 18 months old son, is said to have paid private investigator John Rees £6,000 for his help in arranging, with a serving police officer, to setup the estranged wife of James on drug charges.
The object of this conspiracy, according to the prosecution, was to make Mrs. James appear to be an unfit mother and force the courts to deny her custody of her son.
This is a despicable charge, if it is true, and would make any self respecting person violently sick.
I know, or know of, every respected villain in the underworld and I can honestly say that I do not know of one who would be involved in such a contemptible crime. If there was one he would not be respected and would be made an outcast.
In fact, the 'chaps' always get very angry with those involved in 'fit-ups' and to try and ensnare, as the police allege, an innocent mother has to be one of the worst - if not the worst.
Horseferry Road Magistrates have remanded James and Rees
in custody, and Dave Courtney was granted
£50,000 bail. A decision on whether to grant bail to
the two policemen was deferred.
Most of the calls to me complained that only the mid-week edition of the South London Press carried the story and that it was ignored by the national press.
This is not the first time that there appears to be censorship on an important story by the national press and this is a serious, and worrying, trend.
People demand of newspapers the truth and to have the guts to tell the truth no matter what pressures are placed on them. Any editor, or journalist, who shirks this responsibility is a disgrace to his profession and should be hounded out of the business.
I will keep you up-to-date with the inside information on the Dave Courtney case and that is one of the blessings of the Internet.
If there had been web sites in the 60's and we could have rebutted the lies, Charlie Richardson would never have been sentenced to 25 years for the media labeled 'Torture Trial' and Eddie and me would not have got 10 years each.
Today we don't have to rely upon newspapers but that still does not diminish their responsibility to their readers-and to themselves.
Frankie Fraser