Vernon Richards (born Vero Benvenuto Costantino Recchioni, 19 July 1915 – 10 December 2001) was an Anglo-Italian anarchist, editor, author, engineer, photographer, and companion of Marie-Louise Berneri.

Richards and Berneri were joined in Freedom Press by a group of regular contributors including John Hewetson, Tony Gibson, Philip Sansom, George Woodcock and Colin Ward.

[5] Richards was born in 1915 in Soho, London to the Italian militant anarchist railway worker Emidio Recchioni and his wife Costanza (née Benericetti) where they ran a popular delicatessen, King Bomba.

[7][8] From December 1936 Richards began work on a new anarchist newspaper in London, Spain and the World, reporting on the Spanish Civil War.

[9] On 26 April 1945 as an editor of War Commentary Richards was sentenced to nine months in prison along with two contributors, John Hewetson and Philip Sansom, for conspiring to cause disaffection among members of the armed forces under Defence Regulation 39a.

[5][4] At this time a split had formed within Freedom Press between anarcho-syndicalists with ties to the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and anarcho-communists associated with Richards and Berneri who aligned more with Errico Malatesta's critique of revolutionary trade unionism.

[2][6] In a Guardian obituary Colin Ward, who had worked with Richards for decades, described him as a "ruthless exploiter of others" and a "manipulator" with a noted tendency to lose friends.