Unit 5: Connections and Gang Evidence

GANGS:

Gang-related organised crime in the United Kingdom is concentrated around the cities of London, Manchester and Liverpool and regionally across the West Midlands region, south coast and northern England, according to the Serious Organised Crime Agency. With regards to street gangs the cities identified as having the most serious gang problems, which also accounted for 65% of firearm homicides in England and Wales, were London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. Glasgow in Scotland also has a historical gang culture with the city having 6 tines as many teenage gangs as London, which has ten times to population, per capital.

Top Ten Criminal Gangs:

1. The Thompson Gang - The Thompson gang ruled Glasgow for three decades from the 70's to the 90's. Their 'Godfather' Arthur Thompson, began his criminal empire as a council estate money lender. Those who failed to pay their debts were crucified by being nailed to doors and furniture. Protection rackets and forays into the drug trade soon followed. Although a feared man of violence, there were rivals out for Thompson's blood. In 1966 he escaped death when a bomb exploded under his car, but his mother-in-law was killed. The next week he spotted two rival gangsters he suspected of the bomb attack and forced their van off the road with his car. Their van hit a lamp post, killing both men. In 1991 Thompson's son, Arthur Jr, known as 'Fatboy' was shot dead outside their home. A rival gangland figure, Paul Ferris was arrested for the shooting. On the day of Fatboy's funeral the bodies two of Ferris's friends, Robert Glover and Joe "Bananas" Hanlon were found dumped on the route of the funeral procession. Both had been shot in the head and up the anus.

2.  The Medellin Cartel - By 1980, the cocaine smuggled out of Columbia had overtaken coffee as the country's number one expert. The illegal trade was controlled by a ruthless collection of gangsters, armed with military weapons, based in Columbia's second largest city - Medellin. At it's height, The Medellin Cartel was shipping fifteen tons of cocaine per day (worth around $60 million), around the world. The gang, led by Juan Pablo Escobar and 'Uncle' Joe Ochoa were ruthless in eliminating anyone who tried to stop them. They assassinated more than 30 leading judges, police officers and politicians who opposed them. They even killed 110 innocents when they bombed a plane in an attempt to murder presidential candidate Cesar Trujillo. He was not on the flight. In the end, with the backing of undercover US Special Forces, the Columbian Government cracked down on the cartel. Escobar and Ochoa were hunted down and killed by police. The Cartel's grip was broken.

3. The Manson Family - Charismatic by psychotic hippie Charles Manson gathered a group male and female followers around him in California in 1969. He called them the Manson Family. He had studied the occult and convinced his followers of his Helter Skelter theory, that a coming race war would end the world. In August 1969, he led his heavily armed followers to a ranch near Los Angeles. There they found actress Sharon Tate, who was married to a film director Roman Polanski, who was in England on business. Tate, who was eight months pregnant, was with three friend, Jay Sebring, Wojciech Frykowski and Abigail Folger. Manson and his followers massacred them all in an orgy of stabbing and shooting. The next day Manson and his 'disciples' murdered another couple, Rosemary Leno La Bianca in their LA home. Police found Manson had used his victims' blood to scrawl the words 'helter skelter' on the door of a fridge. Denied parole for the twelfth time in April 2012, he will remain in a Californian State Prison until he is at least 92 years old.

4. The Kray Brothers - Boxing twin Ronald 'Ronnie' and Reginald 'Reggie' Kray led a criminal gang that ruled the East End of London by fear in the 50's and 60's. Despite being involved in armed robberies, arson, protection rackets and violent assaults - that included torture and murder - through their status as nightclub owners, the twins mixed with the likes of Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra and Diana Dors to become celebrities in their own right. Beneath all the glamour of the swinging sixties, there lurked a cold brutality. Ronnie Kray shot and killed rival George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel in March 1966. Then, in late 1967, the gang lured minor associate Jack 'the hat' McVitie to a basement flat in Stoke Newington, where Reggie tried to shoot him. The gun failed to discharge, so while Ronnie held McVitie in a bear hug, Reggie was handed a carving knife with which he stabbed McVitie repeatedly in the face, stomach and neck. In 1969 the Kray brothers were both sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-prole period of 30 years for the murders of Cornell and McVitie - the longest sentences ever passed at the Old Bailey for murder. Bisexual Ronnie, who was thought to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia, died in Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne in 1995. In August 2000, at 67 years of age, Reggie was released from Norfolk's Wayland Prison on compassionate grounds as he was suffering from inoperable bladder cancer. He died in his sleep on October 1st 2000.

Research found on: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/top-ten-criminal-gangs-812916

Macbeth Ideas:

Jennah: Political take on Macbeth in an alternate United Kingdom. Killing of an important monarch such as the Queen or someone in line for the throne like Prince Charles etc.

Charlotte: Harsh lighting changes, witches are gypsies, territory aggravation, physical theatre witches with traditional elements but also having modern physical theatre elements. Fast transitions, fast music into fast transitions.

Megan: Nightclub rivalry owners, creature based forest, mystical ideas, linked with witches with voodoo dolls for the characters etc. Witches being a bigger role in the play - constantly involved, controlling lights in the audience, carrying torches, shadow projection.

Oversized Puppets.