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[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
It is said that in the face of the threat from the common enemy, people work together, but as Wartime Crime showed there was an added suffering to the air raids, devastated homes, absent and lost loved ones. Amid the chaos and upheaval of the war, looters, thieves and conmen were taking full advantage, their activity often ignored, forgotten or simply hushed up. Under cover of the blitz's whirlwind of death, murder also became easier. Crime rose by 57% from 1939 to 1945.
One ex-safecracker says: 'During the blitz the roads were littered with stuff from all the different shops. People would just pick stuff off the street.' Sometimes thieves even stole from corpses.
There was also a sea change in society. Families broke up, men were in the services and women worked, giving them new-found economic power. Juvenile delinquency increased.
In Soho vice started to take hold. There was a 'live now, for tomorrow we may die' attitude. Illegal drinking, gambling, strip clubs became a breeding ground for criminal behaviour.
As infamous gangster Frankie Fraser sums up: 'The war years were the best years of my life. Paradise. I'll never forgive Hitler for losing the war.'
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