The council house mum who became UK’s biggest diamond thief – and hid £800k worth of gems in a biscuit tin
WITH ITV drama Joan airing in September, starring Sophie Turner, Fabulous investigates the shocking true-crime story of Joan Hannington and her rise to the top of London’s criminal underworld.
Joan Hannington looked down at the velvet-lined tray in front of her. The diamonds on it glinted under the fluorescent lighting. She glanced around quickly.
No one was watching. On impulse, the 24-year-old made a decision that would change the course of her life.
Joan grabbed several of the gems, stuffed them in her mouth, then swallowed. “It seemed the simplest way to hide them,” she has said. “Then, 12 hours later, once nature had taken its course, I sterilised the gems in a bowl of gin.”
It was 1979, in the days before widespread CCTV coverage and computer inventories, and the diamonds were never missed.
Joan had only been working at the London jewellery store for a few weeks and had neglected to tell her employer that she had just been convicted of stealing a car and given a two-year probation order.
She estimated the diamond haul was worth around £10,000, and she slowly sold some of the stones through dodgy jewellery dealers.
The impulsive heist set Joan on a path that led to her becoming, by her own admission, “Britain’s most notorious jewel thief”.
Throughout the ’80s, she lived a life of glamour and luxury, punctuated briefly by a spell in jail. She went to the hairdresser every day to have her distinctive white-blonde bob finessed and her nails manicured.
She drove a Ferrari and a Jaguar, her wardrobe was full of designer clothes, and she was weighed down with diamonds and Cartier jewellery.
At one stage, she owned 11 fur coats and 2,000 pairs of shoes. “I would say in the morning: ‘Let’s go to New York!’ By lunchtime, we would be sitting in first-class seats, sipping champagne, with £20,000 cash lining our pockets,” she said.
‘The decision to steal her first stash of gems was borne out of desperation’
Joan’s incredible life has now been turned into the six-part ITV drama Joan, starring Game Of Thrones’ Sophie Turner, 28, who’s “thrilled” to be playing the part.
The two women formed a close friendship when Joan met the actress on the London set of the drama last September, along with her co-star Frank Dillane, who plays Joan’s husband Benny Boisie.
“She is one of the most notorious figures in the criminal underworld of London,” said Sophie. “I’m so excited to be bringing Joan Hannington’s fascinating life story to screen.”
The series, set to air in September, coincides with the release of Joan’s updated memoir, Joan: The True Story Of How I Became Britain’s Most Notorious Diamond Thief, published by Ebury.
But while Joan’s high-octane life as one of the most powerful criminals was full of excitement and excess, she was also haunted by tragedy, and the decision to steal her first stash of gems was borne out of desperation.
Her childhood was spent in abject poverty. Born in Acton, west London, in 1957, Joan was the youngest of six children to Irish parents Richard and Josephine O’Leary.
I would say in the morning: ‘Let’s go to New York!’ By lunchtime, we would be sitting in first-class seats, sipping champagne, with £20,000 cash lining our pockets
Joan Hannington
She explained in an interview how her father regularly tortured her and her siblings: “My sisters and I would be in the bath on a Saturday night and he would hold our heads down under the water until we nearly drowned.
“He used to beat me up on an almost weekly basis. I’d be stripped nude and beaten with a wet dishcloth or hit across the shins with a cricket bat – it was horrendous.”
Joan ran away from home aged 13, and four years later, in 1974, she married her first husband, convicted armed robber Ray Pavey, then 27.
She was 17 and eight weeks pregnant with their daughter Debbie at the time.
The volatile marriage did not last, though, and by the time Debbie was four years old, the pair had separated.
Joan tried to make ends meet by taking on live-in bar work, but the struggle became too much, and rather than ask her parents or her ex for help, she turned to social services.
It was a move she came to bitterly regret, as Debbie was then taken into care.
At first, Debbie was fostered nearby and Joan had regular visits. Then she was placed with a wealthy family in Hastings, while Joan lived in Brighton, where she continued to struggle financially.
One night, penniless and desperate to see her daughter, she stole a car to drive to her.
She was caught and remanded in HM Prison Holloway, before being given a two-year probation order.
It was enough to convince the authorities that she was an unfit mother, and Joan was given a heartbreaking choice – Debbie could either stay permanently with her well-off foster parents, or Joan could sign her over to her own parents.
She chose the former. Devastated, Joan vowed to turn her life around, taking the job in the jewellery store, where she found herself in front of a tray of loose diamonds.
“I just saw those diamonds, and I saw a flat and some money and getting Debbie back. And then, after a while, when it became obvious I wasn’t going to get her back, I just thought: ‘F**k it, I’m going to have a brilliant life then,’” she recalled.
‘She is one of the most notorious figures in the criminal underworld of London’
Soon after, she met her second husband, Ronald Thomas Hannington, also known as Benny Boisie.
He was 17 years older and lived a double life as an antiques dealer and thief.
The couple met in a London pub when Joan got into a fight with a well-known police informant and Benny stepped in to help her.
Within weeks, he’d moved in with her. He took Joan to auctions and taught her how to spot fake antiques from real ones.
He also helped her continue her efforts to get Debbie back, which were ultimately fruitless, as by that time her daughter was settled and happy with her foster family.
In 1980, aged 24, Joan was arrested for using a stolen chequebook and, while awaiting trial, she married Benny in Acton Register Office. Two weeks later, she was sentenced to 30 months in prison.
After she was released, Joan applied to manage another jewellery store in London, without telling her prospective employer about her criminal convictions.
Her references weren’t checked, and she worked there for several months, swallowing up to 20 diamond rings and switching £400,000 of diamond bracelets for fakes.
Again, without any computer cataloguing, none of the items were ever recorded as missing, and none of her fakes were ever spotted.
After leaving that job, Joan began to develop increasingly elaborate ways to steal gems and went on a crime spree that lasted a decade.
Her technique usually involved swallowing items of jewellery and replacing them with fakes.
She practised producing saliva in her mouth and got so good at it that she was able to swallow several rings at a time.
She wore disguises, used different accents, and travelled to various upmarket jewellery stores adopting different personas.
In her 2002 memoir, I Am What I Am, she explained how she would arrive at a high-end jewellery store in a hired car with a chauffeur, dressed in a fur coat, and ask to look at diamond rings.
After carefully noting the details of the piece she wanted – which was never the most expensive, so as not to arouse suspicion – she explained she was going away to think about it.
Drawing on memory, she’d commission a counterfeiter to make a cheap replica of the piece, before returning to look at the ring again and deftly making the swap, swallowing the real one while feigning a sneeze.
She would then hand the fake one back to the shop assistant, ask to buy it, and leave a deposit on a stolen credit card or with a fake banker’s draft, and explain that she’d be back a few days later to pick it up.
“I would book myself into The Ritz Hotel and make a call to the shop, saying that I had decided to take the ring and would be back later to collect it,” she said in an interview. “I’d then ask them if they had a pearl necklace or something in stock and, if so, could they call me back at the hotel and let me know.
Of course, when they rang back and discovered I was staying at The Ritz they were certain I was the type of person who would have enough money to buy the ring.”
‘I didn’t have to sleep with a man for money – I had my own and bought my own cars and furs’
Joan admits that, at the height of her criminal career, she had more than £800,000 worth of gems buried in a biscuit tin in her garden, although she continued living in her Islington council home, so as not to arouse suspicion. “To be a woman doing that sort of thing in those days wasn’t the norm, but it was an amazing buzz. I didn’t have to sleep with someone for their money. I had my own money, bought my own cars and fur coats,” she said.
But the trinkets and money could never replace the guilt and heartache she felt for having lost Debbie. It took years to come to terms with this and she remained bitter and angry for decades.
After being with Benny for several years, Joan began to think about having another child, and in August 1987, aged 30, she gave birth to her son Ben.
The money never brought me any happiness
Joan Hannington
Tragically, however, a happy ending eluded her. While she loved being a mother, her relationship with her husband began to unravel and they drifted apart.
So when Benny disappeared on a job for several days, it wasn’t out of character – but four days later, Joan discovered he’d died in an accident.
He had been trying to burn down a house for insurance money but caused an explosion that killed him.
Joan was a widow at 33, with a three-year-old son. The tragedy forced her to reassess her life. “The money never brought me any happiness,” Joan said years later. “I just wanted to prove I could raise a good child in a straight world.” And she did.
Joan stepped away from her life of crime, and for the next 20 years, she kept her head down and rebuilt her life.
She shied away from publicity and tried to build a relationship with her daughter Debbie.
After the publication of her 2002 memoir, Joan gave a limited number of interviews, admitting she’d found love again, that Ben was working as a builder, and that she’d met Debbie, but at the time, the relationship was strained.
Then she did what she was always best at – she disappeared into the shadows. It is thought she now lives on the south coast of England with her two dogs.
But with revived interest in her story, she’s recently broken cover, posing for photographs on the set of Joan.
Smiling at the camera, she could be anyone’s mother, sister, or wife. There are no fur coats or diamonds – nothing to identify her shady past.
Only the shock of white-blonde hair hints at her former life as the UK’s most notorious jewel thief.
