As a solicitor and a fence in the 1920s, Charles Sharman had long had a foot on both sides of the law – but becoming the alleged head of an international crime gang proved a step too far for the septuagenarian, writes James Morton

Unlike their American counterparts, English solicitors have rarely headed international gangs of thieves, but one exception was the 75-year-old West Ham solicitor Charles Sharman.

When, around the end of the 19th century, police courts sprang up around London, they also spawned a sort of second-class solicitor, neither quite as trustworthy nor quite as well regarded as his colleagues.


‘“A Police Court solicitor” being used to denote advocates of a less exalted type,’ wrote Sir Travers Humphreys, the High Court judge, a trifle snobbishly.


One man not tarnished with those words was Sharman, who earned Humphreys’ sincere respect, striking him as one of the few natural lawyers he had encountered.


Sharman had a large practice and a variety of well-connected associates. He had acted for most East London villains of the time, and in 1922 he appeared for the 20-year-old Frederick Bywaters in the celebrated Bywaters and Thompson murder case.


So it was with something approaching horror that Humphreys, briefed by the Director of Public Prosecutions, learned that his old court adversary was charged with receiving a share certificate stolen from a Post Office mail-bag and with the forgery of a cheque stolen from the same bag. To his further amazement, he discovered that this kindly and courteous old man had for many years been suspected of heading a gang of international thieves specialising in stealing mail-bags.


In around 1922, a mail-bag was stolen on a train somewhere between Liverpool and London. Some of the contents were then cashed in Antwerp and Brussels by an elderly gentleman giving the name of Johnson but who had been identified by a bank clerk as Sharman.


Given Sharman’s reputation, the matter was left on the file, despite the fact that a month later another mail-bag went missing on the Birmingham to London run. This time a transfer of £900 Quebec railway stock went with it, only to end up with Sharman, who was now interviewed. He explained that a poor man had picked it up in the street and brought it to his office. It was the sort of standard Quarter Sessions defence, but the Director of Public Prosecutions thought there was not sufficient evidence to prefer a charge.


In 1924, a mail-bag went missing between Bristol and Paddington. One of the stolen letters contained a £50 Mexican oil share, then sold by someone closely resembling Sharman in Manchester. He provided an alibi that he was home all day. However, he failed to convince the police that nine people were wrong when they identified him that summer as selling war bonds in Canada, which had been stolen from the same bag.


He appeared at the Old Bailey before Mr Justice Salter on 25 June 1925, charged with conspiracy to steal and receive mail-bags. Defended by Sir Henry Curtis Bennett KC, his mitigation was that he had fallen into the hands of thieves who had been blackmailing him.


Mr Justice Salter would have little of this: ‘So far as you are concerned, this is a most scandalous offence... I am satisfied that you, as an experienced solicitor of the High Court of Justice, have made yourself an associate of a gang of very daring and very dangerous thieves – mail-bag robbers. They required a man of your standing and knowledge of business to dispose of the booty for them. I hear that you have been blackmailed. Thieves often blackmail one another. If you were a younger man, I would have sent you to penal servitude for seven years.’


Sharman received three years penal servitude, which in the 1920s meant Dartmoor, where the conditions were dreadful. Apart from the diet, the walls of the prison, built for prisoners from the Napoleonic wars, ran with water. It was not a situation in which any man – let alone a 75-year-old – would wish to find himself. Yet, against the odds, Sharman survived the sentence, dying in 1933.


His ornate will left gifts to various members of the judiciary. However, if Sharman had indeed been the head of a successful gang, he had either squandered or hidden his assets. His estate was worth £2,568 9s 3d.


In fact, Sharman had deceived many people for years on end. He had begun his career in Chelmsford as a clerk to a solicitor. It had been an unfortunate start because this bible-quoter had been involved with a young woman and had been railroaded from the town. Sharman later obtained articles, and in 1888 was acquitted of misappropriation of funds, but was suspended by the Law Society for two years.


About the same time, he was made bankrupt and was not discharged until 1901. Sharman had begun fencing in a small way, taking articles from those whom he had successfully defended or their friends and, it was said, enriching himself in the winding-up of estates in lunacy.


Just which was the international gang into whose clutches he claimed to have fallen is not known, but he certainly acted for the Sabinis and their allies, then in control of the London underworld. Traditionally, the early 20th century Sabinis are thought of as mere racecourse hooligans and club-owners but there was a good deal more to them than that. It is not impossible that Sharman was more than simply their solicitor.


James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist