James William Humphreys (7 January 1930 – September 2003) was an English businessman and criminal who owned a chain of adult book shops and strip clubs in London in the 1960s and 1970s. He was able to run his business through the payment of large bribes to serving police officers, particularly those from the Obscene Publications Branch (OPB) of the Metropolitan Police. His diaries—which detailed meetings he had held with police officers, the venues of the meetings and the amounts of bribes paid—provided evidence for the investigation by anti-corruption officers of the Metropolitan Police.

Humphreys became involved in petty crime early in life, and was first arrested at the age of 15. The severity of his crimes increased over time and, in March 1958, he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment after using explosives to open a safe and steal £8,260 in money and postal orders. On his release he opened a strip club in Soho, the centre of London's sex industry. As Humphreys expanded his business and moved into other areas of the sex industry—sex shops and book shops selling obscene material—he had to bribe an increasing number of officers to be able to operate.

In January 1972 Humphreys and his wife, Rusty, took Ken Drury—the head of the Flying Squad—and his wife on holiday to Cyprus and Beirut. Journalists from The Sunday People found out about the trip, and published details on its front page, along with allegations about the bribery from Humphreys and other pornographers. Drury was suspended from duty, and soon afterwards the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Robert Mark, began an anti-corruption purge in the force. Humphreys was arrested for assaulting his wife's former lover and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. In an attempt to have his conviction overturned or the sentence reduced, he gave a copy of his diaries to the anti-corruption police and was interviewed about the payments to the OPB. Thirteen members of the OPB were imprisoned for corruption.

Humphreys was released from prison early after assisting the police. He left the UK and set up an illegal amphetamine factory in Ireland, fleeing the country shortly before the premises were raided by the Gardaí. He travelled to the US and invested in a drugs-smuggling operation, but was cheated of his investment. In the 1990s he and his wife were living in London and were arrested for running at least three brothels in Marylebone and Marble Arch. He was sentenced to twelve months in prison; his wife was gaoled for eight months. The character Benny Barrett, played by Malcolm McDowell in the 1996 BBC television series Our Friends in the North, was based on Humphreys.

Biography Early life; beginnings of criminal career James William Humphreys was born in Bermondsey, South London, on 7 January 1930. He left school at age 14 and began a career of criminality; while still a teenager he became friends with Frankie Fraser, the London gangland enforcer. When he was 15 Humphreys was arrested for housebreaking and theft, and was fined £5. Seven months later he was sent to an approved school for stealing a car. He was released the following year, but was sent back in October 1947 for a series of offences. In 1948 Humphreys was sentenced to three years in Rochester Borstal for theft; he was released in February 1950. Nine months later he was sent to prison for a year for aiding and abetting other criminals, and released in June 1951.

In July 1951 Humphreys married June Driscoll. His crimes became more serious and the sentences increased as he got older. In 1952 he was arrested for handling stolen goods and resisted—assaulting the police in the process. That October he was sentenced at the Old Bailey to 21 months in Wormwood Scrubs; he was released in December 1953. After being arrested for loitering with intent to steal cars, he was given a conditional discharge of a year in November 1954. He broke the discharge the following July when he was caught stealing clothes. He was sent to prison for two years and three months and was released in February 1957. Soon afterwards he broke into a sub-post office and blew open a safe to steal £8,260 of money and postal orders; in March 1958 he was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. After serving four and a half years in Dartmoor Prison, he was released in October 1962.

Strip club and sex shop owner On his release from Dartmoor Humphreys changed direction professionally and opened a strip club in Old Compton Street, Soho, which was frequented by fellow criminals. Soho was the area of London that, with a proliferation of sex shops and sex workers, was the centre of the city's sexual economy. Humphreys rekindled a relationship with a former girlfriend, June Packard, who had renamed herself Rusty Gaynor: Rusty after the colour of her hair, Gaynor after the actress Mitzi Gaynor. She had previously worked as a barmaid and model, but was employed as a stripper by the time she and Humphreys resumed their relationship. The couple married in May 1963.

To keep the club free of harassment from the police, Humphreys had to pay protection money to Detective Sergeant Harold "Tanky" Challenor. When the demands for payments continued after Humphreys moved his club to nearby Macclesfield Street, he made a complaint to Scotland Yard; after a short investigation, Challenor was cleared. The club proved financially successful, so he and Rusty took a lease on 5 Walker's Court, Soho, and opened the Queen's Club, a strip bar opposite the Raymond Revuebar. For those who could not get into the Revuebar, Queen's was the alternative, and the club flourished. Rusty performed in three acts per day. The proceeds of the club enabled Humphreys to buy a 14-bedroom farmhouse in Newenden, Kent, a flat in Dean Street, near the club, a holiday apartment in Ibiza and a Rolls-Royce. The Queen's Club later moved to the junction of Berwick Street and D'Arblay Street, where it became more popular than in its previous location; Humphreys retained the property in Walker's Court as an office.

One of the other outlets on Walker's Court was an adult shop run by Bernie Silver, an established pornographer and racketeer. In the early 1960s, while it was legal to sell softcore pornography, selling more explicit work was illegal. There was no licence needed from the police or local authority. Although there had only been five sex shops in Soho in 1955, that number grew markedly during the 1960s. The professor of law Colin Manchester considers the rise was because of the permissive society and the more lenient Obscene Publications Act 1959, which was less restrictive than its predecessor. Silver and Humphreys began a professional relationship; Silver thought Humphreys and his wife would be a profitable investment for the future, Humphreys thought Silver could provide access and protection. Both judgements proved sound. The journalist Neil Root writes that the two men "tolerated each other, perhaps became friendly for a time", but were wary of one another.

In 1964 one of Humphreys's clubs was a target for arson; after renovation Humphreys fitted it and all his commercial properties with steel shutters. It was suspected that the South London criminal organisation the Richardson Gang were behind the attack in an attempt to move their extortion business into Soho, but this was never proven. Humphreys appeared at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in July 1966, charged with allowing "unlicensed public music and dancing (striptease)" three times that year; he was fined £450.

In 1969 Humphreys used his police contacts against Murray Goldstein, the owner of Maxim's strip club in Frith Street, in an attempt to seize control of the outlet. It was not the last time that Humphreys acted as a paid informant to the police; Root writes that "it can be said with certainty that Humphreys was a police informer, as has been the underworld view since the 1970s". That same year Humphreys and his wife tried to open a sex shop, but were told by police if they did so, they would face police interference and raids. Silver arranged for himself, Humphreys and Rusty to dine with Commander Wally Virgo, head of the Metropolitan Police's Serious Crime Squad. Humphreys was told that Detective Chief Superintendent Bill Moody, the head of the Metropolitan Police's Obscene Publications Branch (OPB), had blocked the opening. Soon afterwards Silver invited Humphreys to a lunch with Moody at which Moody said that Humphreys could open the shop if he paid £4,000 up front, a half share of the takings and £100 a week to the OPB. Humphreys and Silver shared the remaining 50 per cent of the profits from the outlet. Virgo was given £1,000 for the initial introduction and subsequent payments of £2,000 a week and a £2,000 bonus at Christmas.

Over the next three years Humphreys opened between six and ten other sex shops. The first three—opened on Lisle Street, Windmill Street and Newport Street—cost Humphreys and Silver £6,000 in payments to Moody. Between 1969 and 1972 Humphreys made £216,000 profit from his shops.

Silver taught Humphreys about bribing police officers and gave him the advice "Get them when they're young", as they would then remain amenable when older. The police were paid on a sliding scale, depending on rank: £5 for a constable, £10 for a sergeant and up to £2,000 a month for the senior officers. Humphreys would invite members of the OPB to dinner at some of London's top restaurants—Quo Vadis, SPQR, Le Caprice and the Savoy Hotel—where he would pay for the meal and give each of them a "goodwill payment"; when asked how he knew whether a policeman was amenable to taking bribes, he answered "I've never known one that isn't." This would include taking out entire police departments: on one occasion Silver, Humphreys and their wives entertained the Flying Squad, paying for the meal at which the senior magistrate in London was also a guest. Often Humphreys would entertain and bribe different policemen three times a day: lunch, dinner and nightclubs, and often the bribes were not money, but cars or jewellery for police officers' wives. The head of the Flying Squad, Ken Drury, dined with Humphreys so often, the officers under his command noticed how much weight he was putting on; Humphreys bought him an exercise bicycle and a rowing machine to help him keep his weight down.

The bribes paid to the OPB ensured that anyone trying to open a rival sex shop would be repeatedly raided until they gave up their business. When police had to raid the shops owned by Humphreys or Silver—or any of the other pornographers who bribed the police—the owners received a coded telephone message first, often WHSmith or Ryman, to signify that the sex shops had to be as legitimate as a high street newsagent and stationers. What the police officers did not know was that for each lunch, dinner or meeting he had with them, Humphreys kept a diary listing those present, the venue and the amount of bribe he paid; these were often for smaller amounts of £50–£100, and were in addition to the regular fees paid to keep the shops and clubs running.

Sunday People investigation

In January 1972 Drury, Humphreys and their wives travelled to Cyprus and Beirut for a fortnight's holiday. Drury signed into the hotel in Famagusta under his own name, with his police rank, and gave his address as Scotland Yard. News of the trip was soon leaked to journalists from The Sunday People. This was either by Joey Pyle, a gangland figure angry at having been charged with firearms offences, or a member of the Flying Squad who saw a postcard Drury had sent to his colleagues in London.