James Alfred Moody (27 February 1941 – 1 June 1993) was an English gangster and hitman whose career spanned more than four decades and included run-ins with

Jack Spot Jack "Spot" Comer (12 April 1912 – 12 March 1996) was an English gangster. Early life Born Jacob Colmore in Mile End, London, the youngest of four children, Comer's father was a Jewish tailor's machinist who, to escape anti-Semitic pogroms, ...

, Billy Hill, "Mad"

Frankie Fraser Frank Davidson Fraser (13 December 1923 – 26 November 2014), better known as "Mad" Frankie Fraser, was an English gangster who spent 42 years in prison for numerous violent offences.

, the

Krays Ronald Kray (24 October 193317 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 19331 October 2000) were identical twin brothers, gangsters and convicted criminals. They were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London, Engl ...

, the Richardsons and the

Provisional IRA The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...

. Described by police detectives as "extremely professional" and "extremely intimidating", Moody's speciality was robbing armoured trucks and he used a chainsaw to saw through the side of security vehicles. Moody was born to a mother who was a wartime evacuee from

Camberwell Camberwell () is a district of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast of Charing Cross. Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This e ...

, London. His father was killed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

after his ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat. Moody was an enforcer for the Richardsons and did freelance "work" for the Krays. He was considered by many of his peers to be "the hardest man in London". In the 1970s, he joined a team of criminals to form the Chainsaw Gang who went on to become that decade's most successful group of armed robbers. Moody was convicted, along with his brother Richard, of

manslaughter Manslaughter is a common law legal term for homicide considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is sometimes said to have first been made by the ancient Athenian lawmaker Draco in the 7th cen ...

in 1967 for the killing of William Day, a young merchant navy steward. He was released in 1972, but sent in 1979 on remand to Brixton Prison to await trial for armed robbery. His cellmate was

member

Gerard Tuite Gerard Tuite (born 1955) was a senior member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Upon his escape from Brixton prison during the 1981 Irish hunger strike#1980, hunger strike in the winter of 1980, he was declared "Britain's most wanted man". ...

. The two men and fellow-robber Stan Thompson escaped Brixton Prison on 16 December 1980, which put them to the top of

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

's most wanted list. It was alleged that Moody had been paid £10,000 by the IRA to help get Tuite out of prison. Fleeing to Northern Ireland, Moody worked with the

. It was there that Moody coined the expression of "awarding someone an OBE" ("one behind the ear" - a shot in the head), a play on an OBE Award. The expression was reportedly used by killers in Belfast for the next decade or so. Tuite was later arrested in Dublin. Still on the run, Moody returned to London in the late 1980s where he was now known as "Mick the Irishman". Now he was also wanted by the

Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC)Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the Royal ...

and the British security services. He was shot dead on 1 June 1993 in the Royal Hotel (now Royal Inn on the Park) in Hackney, East London by an unknown assailant, who was described as being in his late forties and wearing a leather bomber jacket. The assailant fled in a stolen

Ford Fiesta The Ford Fiesta is a supermini car marketed by Ford since 1976 over seven generations. Over the years, the Fiesta has mainly been developed and manufactured by Ford's European operations, and has been positioned below the Escort (later the ...

. Following his death, Moody was linked to multiple unsolved murders including that of gangster David Brindle in August 1991, of businessman Terry Gooderham and his girlfriend Maxine Arnold in Epping Forest, and that of a couple, the Dixons, walking the

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

coast in June 1989 who were thought to have inadvertently unearthed a cache of

weapons. There was speculation that he was involved in the murder of car dealer Nick Whiting, found in Rainham, Essex, in 1990. However,

-based serial killer and rapist John Cooper was found guilty of the murder of the Dixons in May 2011. The police were unable to establish what Moody had been doing since his return to England, nor who had arranged a council flat for him. His flat was only traced three weeks after his death, by which time it had been completely emptied.

References

Sources

*Clarkson, Wensley, ''Moody''. Mainstream Publishing. London; * {{DEFAULTSORT:Moody, Jimmy 1941 births 1993 deaths Criminals from London Deaths by firearm in England English gangsters English people convicted of manslaughter English prisoners and detainees English murder victims Murdered British gangsters People from Looe People murdered by British organized crime Prisoners and detainees of England and Wales