Joey Pyle: Notorious - The Changing Face of Organised Crime

Product Information

Thomson, Tony (5 October 2003). "Gun crime spreads 'like a cancer' across Britain". The Guardian . Retrieved 15 October 2023. In his late teens, Pyle faced the choice of being a professional boxer – he paid his dues in boxing booths at travelling fairs, and contested over 20 professional fights – or a career criminal. He chose crime. Pyle's father, a thief as well as a sportsman himself, asked him when he was nineteen whether he wanted to be a boxer or a thief. Pyle replied, "Dad, I think I want to be a thief." [12] Criminal career [ edit ] Armed robbery [ edit ] Connett, David (31 October 1992). "Job descriptions that hid brutal life of a criminal". The Independent . Retrieved 10 October 2023. Later, hundreds of mourners made their way to Merton and Sutton Joint Cemetery in Garth Road, where a final ceremony was held in the chapel at the top of the hill.

The long-awaited bout on the unlicensed scene was between Shaw and London enforcer and bouncer Lenny McLean, represented by his second-cousin Frank Warren, and they contested a famous trilogy of matches, with Shaw winning the first on 23 May 1977 after McLean conceded, and losing the second two, both held the following year. [57] Other interests [ edit ] With the encouragement of his parents, both keen fans, Pyle joined the Tiverton and Preedy Athletics and Boxing Club as a boy, where world flyweight champion Terry Allen trained. [5] After the family move to Carshalton, he trained there, and reached the quarter-finals of the All England Championships. [52] Ninety-nine per cent of the people at the Krays' funerals had not met them, but everyone here knew Joey. He connected people up." A police helicopter buzzed in the sky above the cemetery to ironic smiles from the shaven-headed men: the police had always found it hard to get close to Joey.Occasionally, Pyle's wide circle of acquaintances in the criminal underworld and his power within it had deadly consequences. On one occasion in 1976, Pyle was driven by Terry Marsh to the airport to fly to Monte Carlo to watch the Monzón– Valdez fight. While in Monaco he received a message saying that "Mad" Ronnie Fryer had stabbed and killed Marsh following a bust-up in Tooting. The cause of the argument had been Fryer's jealousy that Pyle had asked Marsh to drive to the airport, not him. Several weeks later, Fryer committed suicide in his Brixton Prison cell. [35]

The law caught up with Mr Pyle in 1992, when he was convicted of masterminding a massive drugs ring. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused. One of Pyle's gambling scams was to take high-rollers for week-long trips to a Joe Nesline casino in Yugoslavia, and using a number of means – crooked dice, bringing his people along to pose as gamblers, assuring the gamblers that the dealer would feed them chips – by the end of the week the high-rollers had lost everything. To make things look legitimate, there were plenty of winners at the casino among the British visitors, but they were all employed by Pyle. [25] Underworld fixer [ edit ]Talk among mourners, openly at least, was not of gangland exploits but of his generosity over 20 years to children's charities. Then a lorry drew up and, as rain began to spit on the gathering, the flowers were hammered to the side of its trailer, creating a bright advertising board-style sweep of colour. But it was behind these doors that "Big Joey" Pyle, a major player in the notorious London underworld of the 1960s, had lived until his death a fortnight ago. Pyle was tried at Southwark Crown Court in early 1992, with the jury being given 24-hour protection and an armed guard to court, on the basis of Pyle's extensive connections in the British underworld and his Mafia links. By the time the trial begun, three out of the 12 jurors had been "approached", so Mr Justice Butler, despite being furious with this development, agreed to proceed with nine jurors, saying, "I will not be dictated to by members of the criminal fraternity." [46] When a fourth member of the jury said she had been approached, and that she had told the other jurors, a retrial was held at the Old Bailey. Here the jury were only assigned numbers and hidden from the public gallery, so there was no chance they could be nobbled. Pyle, originally sentenced to fourteen years, was given nine years at his appeal heard at Woolwich Crown Court, and finished his sentence at Coldingley Prison as a Category C prisoner. [44] Mafia connections [ edit ] Pyle released a book of poems and other writings – Like Father Like Son: A Journey of Minds – with his son, Joe Pyle Jr. [58] Pyle ran a film company called "Touchdown", [59] which made a number of films, including a music video by Gary Numan [11] and a documentary about politics in the Seychelles, filmed covertly in the country under the pretext of being a nature film. The film was a vehicle for a former president, James Mancham – at the time in exile in London – to attempt to regain power. [60] Touchdown Films was based in Pinewood Studios, and was where "Lucy" placed the bug that helped in Pyle's conviction on the opium and heroin charge in 1992. [45] Retirement [ edit ]

Bruce Reynolds, the man behind the Great Train Robbery, was there. So too was Charlie Richardson, once the most feared gangster in London. These adverts enable local businesses to get in front of their target audience – the local community.Pyle Sr, Joseph; Pyle Jr, Joseph (2018). Like Father Like Son: A Journey of Minds. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. In the early 1960s, he went on trial for the murder of a nightclub owner but was acquitted at a second trial after the first had collapsed because of the intimidation of jurors. Campbell, Duncan (2019). Underworld: The Definitive History of Britain’s Organised Crime. Random House. What can I say about the man?" said his adopted son, Mitch, clearly moved. "He was a legend. Everybody loved him and he will be very sadly missed."