by Ronald Kray
There were nine of us in the dock and Melford Stevenson started that nonsense about us wearing numbered cards around our necks. I soon told him to fuck off. The court was packed every day. In his book, My Manor, Charlie Richardson spoke sneeringly about ‘the little grey people’ who queued up to get into the court when he and his gang faced their torture trial charges. But ours was a more star-studded affair. We had plenty of star names watching us in court, including Charlton Heston. And tickets for the trial were changing hands for big money on the black market. Touts were even outside the Old Bailey buying and flogging tickets. But as the trial went on I realized we were in deep trouble.
One by one, trusted members of our Firm took their place in the witness box. I’ll never forget Dickson and what he said. But it was when I saw the barmaid from the Beggar’s that I knew it was all over. The barmaid, who they called Mrs X, was taken through her evidence by Kenneth Jones, QC. He got her to tell the jury how she was working in the Blind Beggar on the night Cornell was shot - and how she had witnessed the murder. Then came her big moment. Would she, asked Mr Jones, look around the court and point to the man she had seen shoot Cornell? Straight away she pointed at me.
‘Number one, over there. Ronald Kray,’ she said. As clear as that. And this was the woman who had failed to pick me out, face to face, in an identification parade. Shortly after, she picked out Ian Barrie as the man who was with me.
Nipper Read said later: ‘It was at this moment I believed justice was going to be done.’ I didn’t feel they played fair, using the barmaid the way they did. But I never felt violent or angry towards her. Funnily enough, I felt a bit sorry for her.
Later I had to give evidence. Read wrote about that: ‘As he climbed the steps of the witness box, the jury had an even closer look at him. They must have noticed that he looked bigger than he did when he was seated in the dock. And they probably felt, as most people did, that he carried an air of menace with him.’
Mr Platts-Mills questioned me about the Cornell killing which, of course, I denied. I also told him the truth: a few days before Cornell was murdered, I had sent a box of chocolates to his son, who was in hospital.
After that it was just a succession of traitors, grasses and liars. I had studied the jury and I knew there was no chance we would get a result. They had been hand-picked. And not by us.
Finally, after thirty-eight days, the twelve members of the jury retired to consider their verdict. We went down to the cells to wait. We had lived well during the trial, we had eaten and drunk well, and fresh clothing had been brought to us every day, but we knew that all that was going to change. We were tense, we weren’t scared, we were just tense. After seven hours we were told they were ready.
We were brought up one by one for sentencing. I was the first. The judge, Melford Stevenson, was wearing scarlet robes, and he had a black cap on the bench alongside him - the same black cap, I thought, which would have once been used to sentence men to death. He looked at me and said: ‘I am not going to waste words on you. In my view society has earned a rest from your activities.’ He repeated the charges against me. And the verdicts. Guilty, of course. Then he sentenced me to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure for ‘a minimum of thirty years’. It took sixteen minutes. In the time it would take to drink a nice glass of gin and tonic, he had thrown away the rest of my active life. It was gone. It was a fucking outrage.
Reg got thirty years minimum for the killing of McVitie; Charlie got ten years for allegedly disposing of McVitie’s body. The judge said to him: ‘It may well be that you are not an active member of the Firm, but I am satisfied that you were an active helper in the dreadful enterprise of concealing the traces of the murder that your brothers committed.’
Tony and Chris Lambrianou got fifteen years; Ron Bender got twenty years; Connie Whitehead got seven years. Freddie Foreman, who was never a member of our Firm, got ten years for being an accessory to the McVitie killing; and Albert Donaghue got two years. Donaghue got away lightly after pleading guilty to being an accessory but, then, he had given the police a lot of help.
On Tuesday, 4 March, the thirty-ninth day of the trial, Anthony Barry was acquitted and discharged. Nipper Read’s other informers, including Ronnie Hart, got away without being charged. Melford Stevenson then said: ‘The debt the public owes to Superintendent Read and his officers cannot be overstated, and can never be discharged.’
Sadly for Nipper, not all of his colleagues felt the same way. In his autobiography he wrote:
As the success of the operation became more apparent, feeling on the fifth floor changed to positive resentment that it was unable to share the story. This was not unusual.
The same thing had happened in the Richardson case when every effort had been made to steer the limelight away from Gerry McArthur, the real author of its success. It was apparent that success in a major investigation such as his and mine is not the best way to further a career. As I learned, it can be distinctly detrimental.
Nipper should have thought about that before he started. But it still wasn’t over for us. Three of us, me, Reg, and Freddie Foreman, had to face a new trial in the case of Frank Mitchell. We had a new judge, Mr Justice Lawton, and a new jury. It was a pointless and costly exercise. At the end of it all, after another twenty days, I was found not guilty of the murder of Mitchell. Reg got five years, to run concurrently with his life sentence for murder for freeing Frank from Dartmoor, and another nine months, also to run concurrently, for harbouring him. Freddie Foreman, whom the prosecution claimed had actually shot Frank Mitchell dead, was found not guilty. And rightly so.
By 25 May it was all over. It had taken two trials lasting sixty-three days, plus the huge costs of the investigation, the protection of the witnesses and the jury, hundreds of policemen and some of the best legal brains in the country just to put a handful of villains behind bars. Two of them, me and Reg, for at least thirty years. And others, like Ian Barrie - who had never killed anyone - for the best part of their active lives. What Melford Stevenson did was inhuman. And I am not the only person to think so. Shortly after the trial, Professor Leon Radzinwicz, Britain’s leading authority at that time on long-term prison sentences, wrote in the Sunday Times: ‘Society owes long-term prisoners something more than death in small doses.’
And Lord Soper, the Methodist leader, said: ‘Thirty years is more horrible than hanging. The procedure of putting the Krays away and allowing them to rot is a more horrible fate than the quickness of a rope.’ He added: ‘Long-term prison sentences are an admission of failure. There has to be a ray of hope left for every man, whatever he has done.’
Una Padel, of the Prison Reform Trust, said: ‘It was the high emotion surrounding the Kray case that led to such a harsh sentence.’
On Wednesday, 28 May, three days after the end of the trial, they began to disperse us. They sent us to prisons around the country because Read thought it was ‘vital for security reasons’ that we were split up. Me and Charlie went to Durham, but were separated the moment we got there, Reg went to Parkhurst, Freddie Foreman went to Leicester, Connie Whitehead went to Hull, and so on.
There were appeals on behalf of all defendants. They were heard in the High Court in the Strand in July 1969, but they got nowhere. The real battle for us was now just beginning. The battle to survive in the prison system. The police were happy, they had finally put away the Kray twins. As Nipper Read said, the moment the verdicts were announced at the original trial: ‘I didn’t look up … I was afraid that people would see the tears in my eyes.’
But was it just Read and the police who brought us down? Not according to a book called The Evil Firm: The Rise and Fall of the Brothers Kray, which was published shortly after the end of the trial. It was written by three Daily Mirror journalists, Brian McConnell, Tom Tullett and Edward Vale. This was not a pro-Kray book, it was very anti us. But the book shows that me and Reg were sunk not just by the traitors in our own Firm, but also by the Inland Revenue, who had been cal
led in by someone close to the top of the Labour government of the day. That someone was probably the Home Secretary, James Callaghan, who was later to become prime minister. Questions had been asked about us in the House of Common, and the government were sensitive about suggestions that the police could not control us.
Brian McConnell, who was tracking our activities for the Daily Mirror, claims he was summoned to a secret government office in Shepherd’s Bush, five miles from the centre of London, and told by a Special Inspector of the Inland Revenue that he must reveal all he knew about us - or else. And that his conversation with the agent was covered under the Offical Secrets Act.
McConnell wrote in his book: ‘The Krays toiled at various activities but they did not spin their coins to the satisfaction of HM Government. It did not need a crystal ball to see they were under some sort of surveillance.’ He also spoke of the ‘many kinds of investigators engaged on the matters Kray’.
I believe there is clear evidence that there was a massive conspiracy, over many years, and involving many government departments, which had the sole aim of bringing us down. At our trial there were accusations in the press of government and police persecution and corruption. One newspaper spoke of ‘an arch conspirator, a gross perverter of justice with a criminal soul, standing in such a strong position that even the courts are putty in his hands’.
I believe, at the end of the day, the government of England were even more corrupt and evil than they said we were.
CHAPTER FIVE: The Funny Farm
‘The basic secrecy concerning Broadmoor reinforces the public’s fear and ignorance of the place. The public probably has more knowledge of what is on Mars than they have of what Broadmoor is like.’
Department of Health Internal Study
The patients call Broadmoor the ‘funny farm’ because of the weird things that happen here. Sometimes they are amusing, sometimes they are sad. Often they are quite moving. I’ll give you an example. One day I was sitting in a hut in the kitchen gardens with a group of patients. Since I met my wife, Kate, I’ve got interested in gardening. I like working on the plants and vegetables and watching them grow, it relaxes me. Anyway, we were just having a short break from our work, a cup of tea and a smoke. Suddenly, an old man called Chris got on his knees on the stone floor and started to pray. He’s not a religious man, just a sinner and a patient like the rest of us. But he was oblivious to everyone and everything, and it was the most spontaneous act of prayer I’ve ever seen in my life.
That’s the sort of thing you could only see in the funny farm. In the middle of all the hate and sadness, a moment of genuine emotion. You get it all here, you see every kind of man here, every kind of problem. And I’ve seen it all because I’ve been here a long time. They sent me here on 25 July 1979. I cannot forget that date because after the hell I went through at Parkhurst prison I was pleased to get here. It was a good day for me.
It was Nobby Clark who told me that Broadmoor can be heaven or hell, it just depends on you. He told me that in Parkhurst too: he said that if you behave yourself it’s heaven, but if you misbehave they’ll make your life hell. And it’s true. Nobby had a troubled life and he was sent crazy by those bastards at Parkhurst. Finally, he couldn’t take any more. He speared a coloured feller, stabbed him when he was lying in the bath. Did him up good and proper. So they sent him here.
Nobby had long grey hair and a long grey beard and bright twinkling eyes. He eventually died here after a heart attack. But I’ll never forget what he told me about Broadmoor. Because he got it right. Dead right.
I’ve nearly always chosen to play by the rules at Broadmoor and, if it hasn’t always been heaven, well, it hasn’t been hell either. Nowhere near as bad as it would have been if I’d stayed at Parkhurst. That place was a nightmare. When Melford Stevenson sent us down in 1969 I was sent to Durham prison, in the north-east of England. My older brother, Charlie, was sent to the same prison, and so was Ian Barrie, who had been a loyal member of the Firm. We were all kept well apart, though, segregated from the moment we arrived at the jail. Reggie was sent to Parkhurst.
Durham prison is a bastard place and some right bastards worked there. From the word go, certain of the screws [warders] made it very clear they were going to kick the shit out of me every chance they got. Never one on one, of course, no, just a gang of them against me. They saw me as a hard man who had to be broken, not a feller who could be sick in the head with depression, who needed treatment. They had a simple technique and you can see it in any prison anywhere in the world. They torment, harass and wind up a con until he can take no more and retaliates. That then gives them the chance to give the con a good hiding. The punches and kicks and beatings from their clubs are always aimed at the body, never at the face. That way the beating doesn’t show. Then the con is given days or weeks, sometimes months, in the punishment block. Locked up for twenty-three hours a day, every day, in solitary confinement, with no one and nothing for company. If you’re lucky you get an hour’s exercise walking by yourself in a tiny yard. You’re always watched, of course, day and night. And there’s always an electric light burning in your cell. You sleep, because you are bored and depressed; there’s nothing else to do except sleep and think. But they’ll always wake you up, just for the hell of it, and they’ll always try to wind you up, gee you up, whenever they can. It passes the time for the screws.
Eventually, they throw you back into the main prison system and it all starts up again. It’s all done for a purpose, of course. It’s designed to break a con’s body and his spirit, and it’s very effective. Ask the Gestapo and the KGB, they had it down to a fine art. Only the strong survive and, funnily enough, some cons become even stronger because of it. But if you have a physical or mental problem to begin with, you have no chance. I do not say that every screw in every jail in Britain is like this, but I can say that in the three years I was in Durham prison I can only remember one screw with any humanity in him.
That was a senior officer called Chief Bunker. On one occasion, when four or five screws were giving me a good kicking while I lay on the floor trying to curl up and protect my head, I heard him shout out: ‘That’s enough, stop beating him.’ I’ve never forgotten that one single act of decency and even now I still send him a Christmas card every year.
I realize, looking back, that my reputation and the publicity surrounding our case meant that I was bound to be the one the screws were looking for. Make no mistake, I’m not whining. I could take and dish out punishment as much as any other con, and more than most when I was young and fit, but the treatment I was getting was over the top. Our mother could see what had been happening every time she came to visit me at Durham, she could see the cuts and bruises from the beatings, and she could see that mentally I was going to pieces. So she started a campaign to get me moved away from Durham to Parkhurst, where she thought I would get better treatment and where I would also be close to Reggie. She sent a lot of letters to the Home Office, to our MP and to the press.
In 1972 I was finally moved to Parkhurst prison, on the Isle of Wight. I know the island itself is an attractive little place, but the prison is an old and dismal place. Reg hadn’t got on too bad there, but I had a lot of problems right from the start. The screws were nearly as bad as the ones at Durham, and there was also aggravation from some of the other cons. Reg had warned me the screws would try to wind me up. When he first got there one of the screws said to another screw: ‘Did Richardson get his visiting form?’ The other one turned to see if Reg was watching, and said: ‘You mean Eddie? Yes, he did.’ This was a deliberate reference to Eddie Richardson, who was also at Parkhurst. Eddie and his brother Charlie had been the leaders of the gang who were our biggest rivals in London and there had been a lot of talk in the gutter press that the Richardsons were still out to get the Krays, even though we were all behind bars. It wasn’t true, but the screws just wanted to get Reggie wound up, get him agitated, make him more likely to say or do the wrong thing. Then, wallop, i
n they would go and give him a good hiding. It would have suited them, anyway, to get things stirred up between Reg and Eddie, get them at each other’s throat. But Reg was too smart to fall for that one. He knew what they were trying to do and he didn’t bite.
With me, though, it was easier. Because of my mental problems I had always gone off quicker than Reg if anyone upset me or slighted me. The screws knew that and used it. Also, in a big nick like Parkhurst you always have to watch your back, because there’s always other cons who may carry a grudge from something which happened years ago, or young cons who want to make a name for themselves by getting a ‘name’ con like a Kray. That’s one of the reasons Reg has kept himself so fit and hard over the years; he’s had to. And even now he’s getting on a bit it would take a brave con, or a stupid one, to try it on with my brother.
But things really started to go wrong for me at Parkhurst because of an assistant governor. I was very friendly with a particular con, who was a smashing feller. One day he was very upset because his mother had died of cancer. Like a lot of us, he had been very close to his mother and the news had gutted him. I wanted to show my respect to my friend’s mother, so I put in an application to send a wreath to her funeral. When you are a Category A con you have to put in an application for just about everything. You almost have to put in an application to go and have a shit. But I didn’t expect to have any problems over sending some flowers to a funeral.
However, this governor called me to his office and I could tell from the mean look on his face that this wasn’t going to be straightforward, at all. He said to me: ‘Kray, who are these flowers for?’