Frankie Fraser
Frank Davidson Fraser (13 December 1923 – 26 November 2014), better known as "Mad" Frankie Fraser, was a diminutive English gangster who spent 42 years in prison for numerous violent offences. Early life Frank Davidson Fraser was born on Cornwall Road in Waterloo, London, the youngest of five children of a partly American Indian seaman and an Irish-Norwegian washerwoman. He grew up in poverty in a Roman Catholic household, where he learned to recite prayers in Latin. At the age of five, he moved with his family to a flat on Walworth Road, Elephant and Castle. Although his parents were not criminals, Fraser turned to crime aged 10 with his sister Eva, to whom he was close. He was a deserter during the Second World War, escaping from his barracks on several occasions. It was during the war that he first became involved in serious crime, with the blackout and rationing, combined with the lack of professional policemen due to conscription, providing ample opportunities for criminal activities such as stealing from houses while the occupants were in air-raid shelters. In 1941, Fraser was sent to borstal for breaking into a Waterloo hosiery store, then given a 15-month prison sentence at