Kray twins

Early life

Military service

Criminal careers

Nightclub owners

Celebrity status

They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging sixties. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world... and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable...

Lord Boothby and Tom Driberg

The Krays also came to public attention in July 1964 when an exposé in the tabloid newspaper Sunday Mirror insinuated that Ronnie had conceived a sexual relationship with Lord Boothby, a Conservative politician, at a time when sex between men was still a criminal offence in the U.K. Although no names were printed in the piece, the twins threatened the journalists involved, and Boothby threatened to sue the newspaper with the help of Labour Party leader Harold Wilson's solicitor Arnold Goodman. In the face of this, the newspaper backed down, sacking its editor, printing an apology and paying Boothby £40,000 in an out-of-court settlement. Because of this, other newspapers were unwilling to expose the Krays' connections and criminal activities. Much later, Channel 4 established the truth of the allegations and released a documentary on the subject called The Gangster and the Pervert Peer.
The police investigated the Krays on several occasions, but the brothers' reputation for violence made witnesses afraid to testify. There was also a problem for both main political parties. The Conservative Party was unwilling to press the police to end the Krays' power for fear that the Boothby connection would again be publicised, and the Labour Party, in power from October 1964, but with a wafer-thin majority in the House of Commons and the prospect of another General Election needing to be called in the very near future, did not want Driberg's connections to Ronnie Kray to get into the public realm.

George Cornell

Ronnie Kray shot and killed George Cornell, a member of the Richardson Gang, at the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel on 9 March 1966. The day before, there had been a shoot-out at Mr. Smith's, a nightclub in Catford, involving the Richardson gang and Richard Hart, an associate of the Krays, who was shot dead. This public shoot-out led to the arrest of nearly all the Richardson gang. Cornell, by chance, was not present at the club during the shoot-out and was not arrested. After visiting the hospital to check up on his friends, he randomly chose to visit the Blind Beggar pub, only a mile away from where the Krays lived.
Ronnie was drinking in another pub when he learned of Cornell's whereabouts. He went there with his driver "Scotch Jack" John Dickson and his assistant Ian Barrie. Ronnie went into the pub with Barrie, walked straight to Cornell and shot him in the head in public view. Barrie, confused by what happened, fired five shots in the air warning the public not to report what had happened to the police. Just before he was shot, Cornell remarked, "Well, look who's here." He died at 3:00am in hospital.
Ronnie Kray was already suffering from paranoid schizophrenia at the time of the killing.
According to some sources, Ronnie killed Cornell because Cornell referred to him as a "fat poof" during a confrontation between the Krays and the Richardson gang at the Astor Club on Christmas Day 1965.
Richardson gang member "Mad" Frankie Fraser was tried for the murder of Richard Hart at Mr. Smith's, but was found not guilty. Richardson gang member Ray "the Belgian" Cullinane testified that he saw Cornell kicking Hart. Witnesses would not co-operate with the police in the murder case due to intimidation, and the trial ended inconclusively without pointing to any suspect in particular.

Frank Mitchell

On 12 December 1966, the Krays helped Frank Mitchell, "the Mad Axeman", to escape from Dartmoor Prison. Ronnie had befriended Mitchell while they served time together in Wandsworth Prison. Mitchell felt that the authorities should review his case for parole, so Ronnie thought that he would be doing him a favour by getting him out of Dartmoor, highlighting his case in the media and forcing the authorities to act.
Once Mitchell was out of Dartmoor, the Krays held him at a friend's flat in Barking Road, East Ham. He was a large man with a mental disorder, and he was difficult to control. He disappeared, but the Krays were acquitted of his murder. Freddie Foreman, a friend of the Krays, claimed in his autobiography Respect that he shot Mitchell dead as a favour to the twins and disposed of his body at sea.

Jack "the Hat" McVitie

The Krays' criminal activities remained hidden behind both their celebrity status and seemingly legitimate businesses. Reggie was allegedly encouraged by his brother in October 1967, four months after the suicide of his wife, Frances, to kill Jack "the Hat" McVitie, a minor member of the Kray gang who had failed to fulfil a £1,000 contract, £500 of which had been paid to him in advance, to kill their financial advisor, Leslie Payne. McVitie was lured to a basement flat in Evering Road, Stoke Newington on the pretence of a party. Upon entering the premises, he saw Ronnie Kray seated in the front room. Ronnie approached, letting loose a barrage of verbal abuse and cutting McVitie below his eye with a piece of broken glass. It is believed that an argument then broke out between the twins and McVitie. As the argument got more heated, Reggie Kray pointed a handgun at McVitie's head and pulled the trigger twice, but the gun failed to discharge.
McVitie was then held in a bear hug by the twins' cousin, Ronnie Hart, and Reggie Kray was handed a carving knife. He then stabbed McVitie in the face and stomach, driving the blade into his neck while twisting the knife, not stopping even as McVitie lay on the floor dying. Reggie had committed a very public murder, against someone who many members of the Firm felt did not deserve to die. In an interview in 2000, shortly after Reggie's death, Freddie Foreman revealed that McVitie had a reputation for leaving carnage behind him due to his habitual consumption of drugs and heavy drinking, and his having threatened to harm the twins and their family.
Tony and Chris Lambrianou and Ronnie Bender helped clear up the evidence of this crime, and attempted to assist in the disposal of the body. With McVitie's body being too big to fit in the boot of the car, the body was wrapped in an eiderdown and put in the back seat of a car. Tony Lambrianou drove the car with the body and Chris Lambrianou and Bender followed behind. Crossing the Blackwall tunnel, Chris lost Tony's car, and spent up to fifteen minutes looking around Rotherhithe area. They eventually found Tony, outside St Mary's Church, where he had run out of fuel with McVitie's body still inside the car. With no alternative but to dump the corpse in the churchyard, and attempt to plant a gang south of the River Thames, the body was left in the car and the three gangsters returned home. Bender then went on to phone Charlie Kray informing them that it had been dealt with. However, upon finding out where they had left McVitie's corpse, the twins were livid and desperately phoned Foreman, who was then running a pub in Southwark, to see if he could dispose of the body. With dawn breaking, Foreman found the car, broke into it and drove the body to Newhaven where, with the help of a trawlerman, the body was bound with chicken wire and dumped in the English Channel.
This event started turning many people against the Krays, and some were prepared to testify to Scotland Yard as to what had happened, fearing that what happened to McVitie could easily happen to them.

Arrest and trial

of Scotland Yard was promoted to the Murder Squad and his first assignment was to bring down the Kray twins. It was not his first involvement with them. During the first half of 1964, Read had been investigating their activities, but publicity and official denials of Ron's relationship with Boothby made the evidence that he collected useless. Read went after the twins with renewed activity in 1967, but frequently came up against the East End "wall of silence" which discouraged anyone from providing information to the police.
Nevertheless, by the end of 1967 Read had built up enough evidence against the Krays. Witness statements incriminated them, as did other evidence, but none made a convincing case on any one charge.
Early in 1968, the Krays employed Alan Bruce Cooper who sent Paul Elvey to Glasgow to buy explosives for a car bomb. Elvey was the radio engineer who put Radio Sutch on the air in 1964, later renamed Radio City. After police detained him in Scotland, he confessed to being involved in three murder attempts. The evidence was weakened by Cooper, who claimed that he was an agent for the US Treasury Department investigating links between the American Mafia and the Kray gang. The botched murders were his attempt to put the blame on the Krays. Cooper was being employed as a source by one of Read's superior officers, and Read tried using him as a trap for the Krays, but they avoided him.

Conviction and imprisonment

Eventually, Scotland Yard decided to arrest the Krays on the evidence already collected, in the hope that other witnesses would be forthcoming once the Krays were in custody. On 8 May 1968, the Krays and 15 other members of the Firm were arrested. Exceptional circumstances were put in place so as to stop any possible co-operation between any of the accused. Nipper Read then secretly interviewed each of the arrested, and offered each member of the Firm a deal if they testified against the others. Whilst in prison, the Krays had come up with a plan, which included having Scotch Jack Dickson to confess to the murder of Cornell, Ronnie Hart to take the McVitie murder and Albert Donoghue to stand for Mitchell.
Donoghue told the twins directly that he wasn't prepared to be cajoled into pleading guilty, to the anger of the twins. He then informed Read via his mother that he was ready to cooperate. Read set up another secret interview, and Donoghue was the first to tell the police everything that he knew.
Ronnie Hart had initially not been arrested, and was not a name initially sought after by the police. With Donoghue's testimony, Hart was hunted down, found and arrested. Offering the same terms as the others arrested, Hart then told Read everything that had happened during McVitie's murder, although he did not know anything about what happened to the body. This was the first time that the police knew exactly who was involved, and offered them a solid case to prosecute the twins for McVitie's murder.
Although Read knew for certain that Ronnie Kray had murdered George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub no one had been prepared to testify against the twins out of fear. Upon finding out the twins intended to cajole him, 'Scotch Jack' Dickson also turned in everything he knew about Cornell's murder. Although not a witness to the actual murder he was an accessory, having driven Ronnie Kray and Ian Barrie to the pub. The police still needed an actual witness to the murder. They then managed to track down the barmaid who was working in the pub at the time of the murder, gave her a secret identity and she testified to seeing Ronnie kill Cornell.
Frank Mitchell's escape and disappearance were much harder to obtain evidence for, since the majority of those arrested were not involved with his planned escape and disappearance. Read decided to proceed with the case and have a separate trial for Mitchell once the twins had been convicted.
The twins' defence under their counsel John Platts-Mills, QC consisted of flat denials of all charges and discrediting witnesses by pointing out their criminal past. Justice Melford Stevenson said: "In my view, society has earned a rest from your activities." It was the longest murder hearing in history of British criminal justice, during which Justice Melford Stevenson stated of the sentences "which I recommend should not be less than thirty years." In March 1969, both were sentenced to life imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 30 years for the murders of Cornell and McVitie, the longest sentences ever passed at the Old Bailey for murder. Their brother Charlie was imprisoned for ten years for his part in the murders.

Later years

Ronnie and Reggie Kray were allowed, under heavy police guard, to attend the funeral service of their mother Violet on 11 August 1982 following her death from cancer a week earlier. They were not, however, allowed to attend her burial in the Kray family plot at Chingford Mount Cemetery. The funeral was attended by celebrities including Diana Dors and underworld figures known to the Krays. To avoid the publicity that had surrounded their mother's funeral, the twins did not ask for permission to attend their father's funeral in March 1983.
Ronnie Kray was a Category A prisoner, denied almost all liberties and not allowed to mix with other prisoners. He was eventually certified insane, his paranoid schizophrenia being tempered with constant medication; in 1979 he was committed and lived the remainder of his life in Broadmoor Hospital in Crowthorne, Berkshire. Reggie Kray, constantly being refused parole, was locked up in Maidstone Prison for 8 years. In 1997, he was transferred to the Category C Wayland Prison in Norfolk.
In 1985, officials at Broadmoor Hospital discovered a business card of Ronnie's that led to evidence that the twins, from separate institutions, were operating Krayleigh Enterprises together with their older brother Charlie Kray and an accomplice at large. Among their clients was Frank Sinatra, who hired 18 bodyguards from Krayleigh Enterprises on his visit to the 1985 Wimbledon Championships. Documents released under Freedom of Information laws revealed that although officials were concerned about this operation, they believed that there was no legal basis to shut it down.

Personal lives

Ronnie

In his book My Story and a comment to writer Robin McGibbon on The Kray Tapes, Ronnie states: "I'm bisexual, not gay. Bisexual." In the 1960s, he also planned to marry a woman named Monica whom he had dated for nearly three years. He called her "the most beautiful woman he had ever seen." This is mentioned in Reggie's book Born Fighter. Also, extracts are mentioned in Ron's own book My Story and in Kate Kray's books Sorted; Murder, Madness and Marriage, and Free at Last.
Ronnie was arrested before he had the chance to marry Monica, and although she married his ex-boyfriend, 59 letters sent to her between May and December 1968 when he was imprisoned show Ronnie still had feelings for her, and his love for her was very clear. He referred to her as "my little angel" and "my little doll." She also still had feelings for Ronnie. These letters were auctioned in 2010.
A letter Ronnie sent to his mother Violet from prison in 1968 also refers to Monica: "if they let me see Monica and put me with Reg, I could not ask for more." He went on to say, with spelling mistakes, "Monica is the only girl I have liked in my life. She is a luvely little person as you know. When you see her, tell her I am in luve with her more than ever." Ronnie subsequently married twice, marrying Elaine Mildener in 1985 at Broadmoor chapel before the couple divorced in 1989, following which he married Kate Howard, whom he divorced in 1994.
In an interview with author John Pearson, Ronnie indicated he identified with the 19th century soldier Gordon of Khartoum: "Gordon was like me, homosexual, and he met his death like a man. When it's time for me to go, I hope I do the same."

Reggie

Reggie married Frances Shea in 1965; she died by suicide two years later. Reggie married Roberta Jones, whom he met while still in prison. She was helping to publicise a film he was making about Ronnie, who had died in hospital two years earlier.

Controversies

There was a long-running campaign, with some minor celebrity support, to have the twins released from prison, but successive Home Secretaries vetoed the idea, largely on the grounds that both Krays' prison records were marred by violence toward other inmates. The campaign gathered momentum after the release of a film based on their lives called The Krays. Produced by Ray Burdis, it starred Spandau Ballet brothers Martin and Gary Kemp, who played the roles of Reggie and Ronnie respectively. Ronnie, Reggie and Charlie Kray received £255,000 for the film.
Reggie wrote: "I seem to have walked a double path most of my life. Perhaps an extra step in one of those directions might have seen me celebrated rather than notorious." Others point to Reggie's violent prison record when he was being detained separately from Ronnie and argue that in reality, the twins' temperaments were little different.
Reggie's marriage to Frances Shea in 1965 lasted eight months when she left, although the marriage was never formally dissolved. An inquest came to the conclusion that she committed suicide, but in 2002 an ex-lover of Reggie Kray's came forward to allege that Frances was murdered by a jealous Ronnie. Bradley Allardyce spent 3 years in Maidstone Prison with Reggie and explained, "I was sitting in my cell with Reg and it was one of those nights where we turned the lights down low and put some nice music on and sometimes he would reminisce. He would get really deep and open up to me. He suddenly broke down and said 'I'm going to tell you something I've only ever told two people and something I've carried around with me' – something that had been a black hole since the day he found out. He put his head on my shoulder and told me Ronnie killed Frances. He told Reggie what he had done two days after."
A British television documentary, The Gangster and the Pervert Peer, claimed that Ronnie Kray was a rapist of men. The programme also detailed his relationship with Conservative peer Bob Boothby as well as an ongoing Daily Mirror investigation into Lord Boothby's dealings with the Kray brothers.

Deaths

Ronnie died on 17 March 1995 at the age of 61 at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, Berkshire. He had suffered a heart attack at Broadmoor Hospital two days earlier. Reggie was allowed out of prison in handcuffs to attend the funeral.
During his incarceration, Reggie Kray became a born-again Christian. He was freed from Wayland on 26 August 2000 on compassionate grounds, on the direction of Home Secretary Jack Straw, following the diagnosis of cancer. He had been diagnosed with bladder cancer earlier that year, and the illness had been declared as terminal. The final weeks of his life were spent with his wife of three years, Roberta, in a suite at the Townhouse Hotel at Norwich, after he left the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital on 22 September 2000. On 1 October 2000, Reggie died in his sleep. Ten days later, he was buried beside his brother Ronnie in Chingford Mount Cemetery. During the funeral, crowds of thousands lined up to applaud. Some showed signs of relief from his threats, while others wept at the loss of a patron who had protected them from police harassment and prevented social crimes like child abuse and rape. The Kray twins commanded both fear and admiration from the residents.
Ronnie and Reggie's older brother Charlie Kray was released from prison in 1975 after serving seven years for his role in their gangland crimes, but was sentenced again in 1997 for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine in an undercover drugs sting. He died in prison of natural causes on 4 April 2000, aged 73.

In popular culture

The Kray twins have seeded an extensive bibliography leading to many autobiographical accounts, biographical reconstructions, commentaries, analysis, fiction and speculation.

Film

• The Krays, film biopic starring Spandau Ballet's Gary Kemp as Ronnie and Martin Kemp as Reggie, respectively depicting Forties and Fifties criminality with verisimilitude.
• The Rise of the Krays a low budget film starring Simon Cotton as Ronnie and Kevin Leslie as Reggie
• Legend, a biopic starring Tom Hardy as both Ronnie and Reggie
• The Fall of the Krays a low budget sequel to the earlier 2015 film, again starring Simon Cotton as Ronnie and Kevin Leslie as Reggie

In addition to films explicitly about the twins, James Fox met Ronnie whilst the twins were held at HM Prison Brixton as part of his research for his role in the 1970 film Performance, and Richard Burton visited Ronnie at Broadmoor as part of his preparation for his role as a violent gangster in the 1971 film Villain.

Literature

• Biography
• Biography
• autobiography
• autobiography
• autobiography
• Autobiography of Reggie Kray
• autobiography of the Kray twins

  Music

• Ronnie Kray is mentioned in the Blur song "Charmless Man", in the line: "I think he'd like to have been Ronnie Kray".
• Ray Davies repeats the line "...and don't forget the Kray twins" in his song "London", later adding, "very dangerous people those Kray twins".
• The former singer of the Smiths and solo artist Morrissey mentions each Kray brother by name in his song "The Last of the Famous International Playboys" saying, "Reggie Kray do you know my name?" and "Ronnie Kray do you know my face?". It was reported that Morrissey sent a wreath to Reggie Kray's funeral in 2000.
• Renegade Soundwave released their first single, "Kray Twins", in 1986. They also recorded a video for the song. Lyrics reference the Blind Beggar pub.
• The Libertines song "Up the Bracket" references the Kray twins as "two shadow men on the Vallance Road."
• Lethal Bizzle mentions the Kray twins in his song London in the line "I'm a London boy like the Kray, Kray Kray" after which he repeats "Ronnie, Reggie" twice.
• Reggie Kray is mentioned in the Idles song "Colossus" in the last line: "I'm like Reggie Kray"
• Reggie Kray is mentioned in the Rock*A*Teens song "Betwixt or Between," from the 2000 album Sweet Bird of Youth, in the line "Kiss like Marvin Gaye, kill like Reggie Kray."

  Television

• The television drama series Whitechapel includes a three episode mini-series which was first aired 11 October 2010. In this series twin brothers were portrayed as the alleged biological sons of Ronnie Kray.
• Monty Python's Flying Circus parodied the brothers as the ridiculously violent gangsters Doug and Dinsdale Piranha, and chronicled their arrest at the hands of Police Superintendent/amateur actor Harry "Snapper" Organs.
• The Kray twins were one of the subjects of the fourth episode of the UK version of the TV show Drunk History.
• The Kray twins were one of the subjects of the third episode of the documentary Gangsters:Faces of the Underworld
• The Kray twins were mentioned in The Inbetweeners episode, Camping Trip, when Jay Cartwright lies about how his dad can not pick them up, as he is playing a private poker tournament with the Krays and Danny Dyer
• The Kray twins were mentioned by Jeremy Clarkson in The Grand Tour season 2, episode 6 in reference to owning a Jaguar 420G similar to the one Richard Hammond was driving in the episode's Colorado adventure. It was also mentioned that they were the reason the Italian mafia were prevented from establishing a foothold in London in the 1960s.
• Alexei Sayle plays twin gangsters modeled on the Kray twins in The Comic Strip Presents... episode "Didn't You Kill My Brother?". The cover of the song named after the episode features Sayle posing as the twins. Sayle also played a Kray twin in an Alexei Sayle's Stuff sketch.
• Portrayed as young children in the comedy Goodnight Sweetheart.
• In the British soap opera Eastenders, Grant Mitchell describes local crime boss Johnny Allen as being "on Ronnie and Reggie mode".

  Theatre

Warped by Martin Malcolm directed by Russell Lucas opened at VAULT Festival in 2019. The play tells the story of two young men who idolise the Krays.
Two plays were produced in the 1970s that were based on thinly-veiled versions of the Krays:

• Alpha Alpha, by Howard Barker in 1972
• England England, a musical by Snoo Wilson with music by Kevin Coyne and directed by Dusty Hughes in 1977, starring Bob Hoskins and Brian Hall in the lead roles.

  Art

• Cornelia Parker at Fifth Street Gallery, London, photos depicting violent undertones of East End London during the Funeral of Reggie Kray. Demonstrating the fascination of newspaper photographers of his responsibility for his criminal actions.