Some people are defined by what they endure. Joan Hannington is one of them. Born in 1957 to an Irish working-class family and raised as one of six in London’s East End, she went from a brutally difficult childhood to becoming, by her own account, one of the most audacious jewel thieves Britain has ever seen. The woman they called “the Godmother” of London’s criminal underworld didn’t start out chasing diamonds for thrills. She was chasing a way out.
She was married to Boisie Hannington, an expert in antiques and a member of the criminal elite, for eleven years, and has two children. Today, she lives quietly on the south coast with her two dogs, a far cry from the glamorous criminal lifestyle that once defined her existence.
Her 2002 memoir, I Am What I Am: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Jewel Thief, was reissued in 2024 as Joan: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Diamond Thief and became a Sunday Times bestseller. It also inspired the 2024 ITV miniseries Joan, with Sophie Turner playing the title role.
Early Life
Joan Hannington, born with the maiden name O’Leary, came into the world in 1957 in London. She was the youngest of six children in a household shaped by poverty, Irish Catholic roots, and a father who made home feel anything but safe.
Her father, Richard O’Leary, a former boxing promoter, subjected the family to severe physical and psychological abuse. Joan has described him attempting to drown her and her siblings in a bath and psychologically tormenting them throughout their childhood. It was the kind of upbringing that leaves marks you carry forever.
But even in the darkness, there was one small spark. At four years old, she recalled being gifted a glass-stone bracelet by an aunt that emulated the appearance of diamonds, and it changed everything. “For the first time in my life I had something beautiful that was all mine,” Hannington told The Sun. “That night, I dreamed of having money and diamonds.”
When Hannington was 13, she ran away from home and her five siblings, allegedly escaping her physically abusive father. She left school with no qualifications and no clear path forward, only the survival instincts she’d spent years building.
Career
The First Theft
Joan’s criminal career didn’t begin with a grand plan. It began with desperation. She wound up getting married to convicted armed robber Ray Pavey, and the two had a daughter, Debbie. Pavey and Hannington eventually split, as Pavey was allegedly growing more abusive, but their daughter was sent to foster care.
Wanting to turn things around and win Debbie back, Joan applied for a job at a high-class jeweler in London’s West End, lying about her minor criminal history to land the job. It seemed like a fresh start. Then one afternoon, everything changed.
She discovered an open safe outside of CCTV range and impulsively swallowed a handful of loose diamonds. As she wrote in her memoir: “My heart galloping, I grabbed a handful of diamonds off each tray and swallowed them. I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d swallowed about £800,000 of stones.”
Her method was unflinching. After swallowing the diamonds, she would wait for them to pass through her system, then use an olive oil laxative before sterilising the recovered stones in a bowl of gin. As she famously put it in her memoir, “Best bank in the world is your tummy. Best safety-deposit box invented.” She still suffers from ulcers to this day.
Building an Empire with Boisie
Joan’s ambitions grew considerably once she met Ronald Thomas Hannington, known as Boisie, an antiques dealer and skilled thief who was 17 years her senior. Ronald taught Hannington to differentiate fakes and authentic antiques at auctions, and filled her council flat with prized oil paintings and luxurious chaise longues.
Together, they were formidable. Joan would often visit jewellery shops and ask to look at diamond rings, before getting a cheap replica made based on memory, returning to the shop counter, faking a sneeze and switching the real jewels for a fake duplicate. When she wasn’t swapping gems, she was swallowing them. Upon release from prison, Hannington astonishingly bagged another job at a jewellery shop where she consumed another 20 diamond rings and £400,000 worth of bracelets.
Their lifestyle matched their ambitions. They wore furs, drove luxury cars, stayed at The Ritz, and flew first-class. Joan claimed to have owned 2,000 pairs of shoes and 11 fur coats. Their council flat, purchased for £27,110, reportedly contained approximately £1 million worth of stolen goods. Several million passed through their hands across their time together.
“The Godmother”
Joan earned her nickname as the most notorious female figure operating among London’s male-dominated crime syndicates of the 1980s, an underworld that included the Kray twins, the Arif family, and the Clerkenwell Crime Syndicate. She was never caught for the diamond thefts themselves. Even when she was arrested in 1980 aged 24, it wasn’t for her diamond-fuelled escapades, but for being in possession of a stolen cheque book. Sentenced to 30 months in Holloway Prison, she quickly married Boisie at Acton Register Office before going inside.
Going Straight
The birth of their son Benny in 1987 began Joan’s shift away from crime. The decisive break came in 1990, when Boisie was killed in an explosion while allegedly attempting to set fire to a building for insurance fraud. Heartbroken and alone, Joan decided enough was enough.
She sold Boisie’s antiques shop and moved to Islington, where she built a legitimate business flipping ex-council houses. It proved genuinely profitable. The property market in London rewarded her instincts, and for a while life was stable again, until a boyfriend she trusted embezzled approximately £1 million from her, a cruel irony for a woman who had made her fortune through theft.
Memoir and TV Adaptation
Joan published her memoir in August 2002 through Headline Books. At one point, Gwyneth Paltrow and Madonna reportedly competed for the film rights, though those Hollywood options lapsed without a production materialising. The book was reissued in September 2024 by Ebury Spotlight under the title Joan: The True Story of How I Became Britain’s Most Notorious Diamond Thief, timed to coincide with the ITV drama premiere, and became a Sunday Times bestseller once more.
The series premiered in the United Kingdom on ITV1 on 29 September 2024, with Sophie Turner playing Joan and Frank Dillane as Boisie. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 81%, with the critic consensus stating that “Sophie Turner shines like a diamond in Joan, a stylish crime drama that pays dividends with its 1980s period detail and feminist edge.”
The real-life Joan served as an advisor on the show, working closely with screenwriter Anna Symon to ensure the series remained true to her life story. She also made a cameo appearance in Episode 3 as a hotel lounge guest, while her son Benny Banks appeared as the bartender in the scene depicting his parents’ first meeting. The series took some creative liberties, renaming Debbie to Kelly and Ray Pavey to Gary, while changing Boisie’s cause of death from an insurance fraud explosion to being shot during a robbery. Despite strong UK ratings, ITV confirmed in early 2025 that Season 2 would not proceed, with Turner’s packed schedule cited as the primary obstacle.
Personal Life
Joan has been married twice. Her first husband, Ray Pavey, was a convicted armed robber whose violence ultimately ended the marriage, with their daughter Debbie placed in foster care. Joan’s entire criminal career was, at its core, an attempt to earn enough to bring Debbie home. She never made contact with Debbie again, and that’s something Sophie Turner held close to her heart when preparing for the role.
Her second marriage, to Ronald “Boisie” Hannington, was the great partnership of her life. They had one son together, Benny, born in 1987, who performs as rapper Benny Banks and continues his music career with singles including “Self Doubt” released in 2025. After Boisie’s death, Joan kept her romantic life largely private, though she has acknowledged one significant later relationship that ended with her losing £1 million to embezzlement. She notes with dry humour that she now knows “what it’s like to be robbed.”
Now Joan lives on England’s South Coast with her two dogs and is a grandmother through Benny’s daughter. At the 2024 series launch, she reflected: “To be sitting here at 68 with my son and my granddaughter, talking about me… I’m not a showbiz person, I’m a very private person and I just find it amazing.”
Net Worth
Joan Hannington’s net worth is estimated at around £3 million, though figures vary across sources and none are independently verified. What’s clear is that millions passed through her hands during the 1980s, between jewel thefts, fraud operations, and the lavish lifestyle she and Boisie maintained together.
After Boisie’s death in 1990, she retired from crime and invested her proceeds into legitimate property ventures, flipping ex-council houses across London. Her income since has included book sales from the 2002 memoir and the 2024 reissue, along with rights from the ITV adaptation. The £1 million embezzlement by a later boyfriend was a significant setback, but her overall financial position has remained comfortable.
She has never expressed regret about how she built her wealth. “I feel no guilt for my crimes,” she has stated plainly. “I saw myself as a businesswoman and mother.” Whether you agree with that framing or not, it’s hard to argue she wasn’t effective at both.
What People Ask About Joan Hannington
Who is Joan Hannington? She’s a British author and former diamond thief, known as “the Godmother” of London’s criminal underworld in the 1980s, whose memoir inspired the 2024 ITV drama Joan starring Sophie Turner.
When was Joan Hannington born? She was born in 1957 in London, of Irish heritage.
How did Joan Hannington steal diamonds? Her signature method was swallowing loose gems from jewelry store safes, then recovering and sterilising them in gin after using an olive oil laxative. She also swapped real stones for cheap replicas, often using disguises and a well-timed fake sneeze to make the switch.
Did Joan Hannington go to prison? She served 30 months in Holloway Prison for possession of a stolen cheque book but was never convicted for any diamond theft.
Who are Joan Hannington’s children? She has two: daughter Debbie, from her first marriage to Ray Pavey, and son Benny (Benny Banks), from her marriage to Boisie Hannington.
What is Joan Hannington’s net worth? Estimates place it around £3 million, built from criminal proceeds, property investments, book sales, and TV adaptation rights.
Where is Joan Hannington now? She lives quietly on England’s South Coast with her two dogs and is a grandmother.