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She and her husband stole millions of pounds worth of jewellery and lived the high-life until his death in 1990.
Let’s recap what happened on the show and take a look at just how close the ending was to the real story, including what happened to Joan and her daughter.
Joan ending explained — Does Joan Hannington reunite with her daughter?
The final episode is filled with a whole lot of drama. As Joan and Boisie plan a heist in America, Joan is also secretly plotting to get her daughter, Kelly, back. However, things go very, very wrong. Boisie is shot trying to protect Joan and he bleeds out as the rest of the gang deserts them.
She successfully picks up Kelly from school while wearing a disguise, but when Kelly finds Joan’s gun and Joan spirals into grief at Boisie’s death, she realises that Kelly won’t be safe with her. Heartbroken, she drops her off back at the foster home. Ultimately, Joan turns herself into the police having lost both Boisie and Kelly.
The series concludes with a flash forward four years. Joan has been released from prison for “good behaviour” and she reunites with a sinister Albie who tells her to “watch her back.” Could the show be gearing up for a second season? Maybe!
What happened to Joan Hannington?
Fans of Joan are probably wondering just how much of the series is true. Did Boisie really die? Did Joan ever get her daughter back?
Hannington was indeed a real, notorious criminal who lived in London in the ‘80s and was even given the nickname ‘The Godmother’. Born in London in 1957, Joan left home at 13 and eventually married armed robber Ray Pavey (who becomes Gary in the show). After becoming pregnant at 17, Hannington left the abusive Pavey and put her daughter into care. She then met Benny Boisie, an older man who introduced her to the world of crime. The pair married when she was 24. Hannington wound up in prison for 30 months after being found guilty of using a stolen cheque book.
After her stint in prison, Hannington began working at a jewellery store. There, she continued her criminal escapades, swallowed roughly 20 diamond rings and swapping numerous diamond bracelets for fakes. “Best bank in the world is your tummy. Best safety-deposit box invented,” she later wrote in her memoir. She and Boisie stole millions of pounds worth of jewellery and were soon living a high life filled with luxury clothes, cars and holidays.
“My marriage to Benny was supposedly what the ’80s were all about,” Hannington told George V Magazine in a recent interview. “Fast cars, fast living, Michael Jackson at the top of the charts, Dallas and Dynasty on the TV. I loved the glamour of that period.”
She went on, “We had a home that was like a palace to whoever came there. Boisie had every room expertly decorated with Victorian and Edwardian gear, art deco, art nouveau. Our flat only cost £27,110 from the council, yet we had about £1 million of gear in there. We never had a floor safe or an alarm or even a panic button — just grilles on all the doors, window locks and a load of weapons hidden around the flat.”
The pair had a son, Benny, in 1987.
Unlike the ending of the ITV series, Boisie actually died in a fire in 1990 after his plan to set their warehouse alight for an insurance payout went wrong.
Where is Joan Hannington now?
After Boisie’s death, Hannington decided to leave her life of crime in the past — but she didn’t turn herself into the police. Instead, she began a business refurbishing council houses. “The money never brought me any pleasure,” she said. “I decided to go straight. I had more than enough money to last for life.” She published the memoir I Am What I Am in the early 2000s. Hannington now lives on the South coast with her two dogs. Her son, Benny, is now a rapper and Hannington is a grandmother.
What happened to Joan Hannington’s daughter Kelly?
In the show, Joan is briefly reunited with Kelly before she returns her to her foster parents. Although the real life Joan was once arrested for stealing a car to visit her daughter, who is actually called Debbie, she never successfully took her from school. Debbie’s whereabouts and her relationship with Joan are unknown.
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