The Maltese gang who terrified UK city and murdered women in cold blood

Violet Doris Driver, known as “Black Rita”, was shot dead in her Soho flat in September 1947 by a man who escaped calmly into the crowds. Her killing mattered because police suspected it was a gangland murder linked to control of Soho’s vice trade, though the article presents the motive as a theory rather than an established fact.

Rita, 33, also known as Rita Green or Rita Bennett, was shot three times with a .45 handgun; cash and jewellery were left untouched. A contemporary tabloid claimed she had been killed for passing information to French visitors and that the gunman was paid £200, but this account is unverified. The article also says the same assassin was suspected of killing singer and dancer Margaret Cook, 26, outside a Carnaby Street club in November 1946.