Benny Barratt was a British crime boss who ran a pornography empire from Soho, London during the 1960s and 1970s. He was arrested in 1974 while briefly visiting Soho from his secondary home in Spain, and he was indicted on charges of obscenity, racketeering, corruption, and many other crimes.
Biography[]
Benny Barratt was born in London, England, and he came to be involved in the burgeoning illegal pornography industry during the 1960s. Barratt soon became a powerful crime boss who controlled a ring of underground clubs and shops vending pornographic magazines, films, and even performances; he based his operations out of Soho. Barratt bribed the Metropolitan Police Service commander Harold Chapple and the Dirty Squad leader John Salway to allow him to continue running his businesses, all while dealing with greedy underlings of his. In 1965, he hired recent arrival Geordie Peacock to look after one of his shops for him, and he soon made him one of his top enforcers, giving him a comfortable home and lifestyle. However, he grew infuriated when Peacock was caught having an affair with Barratt's mistress Julia in 1967, and, in 1970, Barratt arranged for Peacock to be arrested after planting large loads of pornographic material at his beach house, where he was staying during a police inquiry into Barratt's relations with the MPS. As the new police commissioner Michael Jellicoe cracked down on his industries in 1974, Barratt moved to a villa in Spain, which did not have an extradition treaty with the United Kingdom, saving him from capture. However, after he temporarily returned to Soho, he was arrested by the police, and the MPS procured tapes detailing his alliance with Chapple and Salway, who were also arrested as a result.
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