Shirley Pitts

Shirley Sally Pitts, later Shirley Sally Hawkins (24 November 1934 – 16 March 1992), was an English fraudster and thief known as the "queen of shoplifters". and Nell Taylor, an alcoholic. Five children were from her relationship with Chris Hawkins, who ran a fruit-and-vegetable stall in Hoxton market. Hawkins beat her but stopped after a warning from the Kray twins.

She was jailed three times and spent a total of three years in prison. but that her friends insisted was bought. Her remains are interred in a plot near that of her brother Henry. Mourners were driven from her home in Chigwell, Essex, in a fleet of cars that included 15 black Daimlers. She left an estate that was valued for legal purposes at less than £125,000 and was probably much less.

In the last years of her life she began to dictate her reminiscences to Lorraine Gamman. These formed the basis for Gamman's biography of Pitts, titled Gone shopping: The story of Shirley Pitts, Queen of thieves, which was published in 1996 by Signet/Penguin (2nd, Bloomsbury, 2012).