Effectively, he had traded one prison cell for another. He was unwilling to give himself up and return to prison, and was not allowed to leave the flat in case he was recognised. Owing to his physical strength and short temper, he was difficult to control. Mitchell soon became a problem for the Krays. (At the age of 9 he stole a bicycle from another child, for which he was taken before a juvenile court and put on probation.) “Because really he was just a big bicycle thief. And they told him: No, you can’t go there we’re taking you to Barking. “The most horrible part about it was that I think it was Albert Donoghue who said that, as they came over Bow bridge, Frank said: Oh, I’d like to go down there.
“This,” I said, “is Brown Bread Fred in the back of a van?” Micky told me: “It was mad the way the whole thing went and he got shot in the end in the way that he did. A large manhunt ensued, with 200 policemen, 100 Royal Marines and a Royal Air Force helicopter searching the moors. Mitchell’s escape made national news, led to a political storm over the lax security around a man described in the press as ‘Britain’s most violent convict’, and was debated in the house of Commons. It was over five hours before Mitchell was reported missing. His request was granted, he walked over to a quiet road where a getaway car containing associates of the Krays – Albert Donoghue, ‘Mad’ Teddy Smith and Billy Exley – was waiting for him, and they drove to London, where the Krays put him up in a flat in Barking, East Ham. On 12 December 1966, while with a small work party on the moors, Mitchell asked the sole guard for permission to feed some nearby Dartmoor ponies. Teddy Smith in the 1960s: a man in the car at Dartmoor But all they did was say to someone: Can you just go down and pick Frank up – and he just walked out, got in the car and came to London.” Micky told me: “The big story is that The Twins ‘sprung’ Frank Mitchell from Dartmoor. Reg Kray recalled that he was reluctant, but finally reasoned that “if nothing else, it would stick two fingers up to the law”. Ron was keen on breaking Mitchell out of prison, thinking it would help him to publicise his grievance and earn a release date, as well as enhance the Krays’ standing in the underworld.
During Mitchell’s trial for attempted murder, Ron hired a lawyer for him and paid for him to have a new suit fitted. Mitchell had befriended Ronnie Kray when they served a sentence together at Wandsworth Prison in the 1950s. Four years later, Mitchell was aggrieved that he had still not received one. The governor of the prison promised Mitchell that if he stayed out of trouble he would recommend to the Home Office that he be given a release date. On one occasion he caught a taxi to Okehampton to buy a budgerigar. Mitchell was permitted to roam the moors and feed the wild ponies and even visited nearby pubs. He kept budgerigars and was transferred to the honour party, a small group of trustee inmates who were allowed to work outside the prison walls with minimal supervision. Mitchell was sent to Dartmoor prison in 1962 and, whilst there, his behaviour improved. In October 1958 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for robbery with violence.ĭartmoor Prison – it’s a long way to the nearest public house But after he called Frank ‘The Mad Axeman’ it was a case of: Frank Mitchell is a friend of ours. “And, after that, it was Keep away from Tom Bryant. After that incident with the axe, Tom Bryant nicknamed Frank ‘The Mad Axeman’. “There was a feller called Tom Bryant who used to come in the Double-R Club (which the Kray Twins owned). But he didn’t want to go back to Broadmoor.
What happened was he broke into a cottage and there were a couple of old people in there and he picked up an axe and said: Now, behave yourself.” Micky told me: “He was in Broadmoor first off and he escaped – I don’t know how.