Then, in November, four days before the trial of Witney and Duddy began, a gypsy farm labourer – twenty-one-year-old John Cunningham – was prowling at night in Thorley Wood armed with a catapult and looking for small game. His eye was caught by a light from a tent buried in the undergrowth and fallen autumn leaves. A tin can rattled; the occupant was having a meal. Cunningham returned to the family caravan and mentioned his discovery to his father, who was incurious and dismissive. But on Saturday, a policeman making enquiries about thefts in the area chanced to visit the Cunningham caravan and heard about the stranger in the wood. He determined to investigate. With another policeman, he set out for the wood that afternoon.
After some difficulty they found the hide-away. There was no one inside. But it was admirably situated and constructed, its carefully built framework of boughs and branches being covered with tarpaulin and plastic sheeting painted green and brown. Branches screened it all around; a hand-made chimney poked out of the roof, connected within to an iron stove; kindling cut to size was stacked in a box; a camp bed, sleeping bags, blankets, a primus stove, a cache of food tins, two transistor radios, a fishing rod, and all the necessary equipment for cooking and washing completed the homely scene; two suits and some shirts were neatly folded away.
The policemen watched and waited all day and night, but the tent’s occupant failed to appear.
Fingerprints in the hide-away were taken by the Hertfordshire police and identified the occupant as Harry Roberts, and Scotland Yard was at once informed.
DCS Chitty received the news in the Old Bailey on the first day of the Witney–Duddy trial. That night, Thorley Wood was silently surrounded by well over a hundred policemen. At dawn on Tuesday, they moved in.
Harry Roberts was found just before noon on the edge of neighbouring Nathan’s Wood. PS Smith and PS Thorne were poking around bales of straw piled up in a disused hangar. Smith noticed a jar of methylated spirits. Pulling apart the bales behind the jar, he unearthed a primus stove and a torch. Heaving aside another bale he saw a sleeping bag. He prodded it with a rifle. At one end, Roberts’s bearded face emerged: he had been asleep. He said: ‘Don’t shoot. You won’t get any trouble from me. I’ve had enough. I’m glad you caught me.’ A loaded Luger lay inside the sleeping bag, the one used to kill Head and Wombwell. But this time he let it lie.
News of his capture reached DCS Chitty, the police and the press in the Old Bailey as they listened to Mrs Perry’s evidence. Some left the court at once. But nothing was said officially before the court adjourned for lunch and for the day.
Chitty saw Roberts that afternoon in Bishop’s Stortford police station. Roberts denied killing PC Fox but made a statement admitting everything else. A large crowd had gathered outside Shepherd’s Bush police station when he was taken there that night. His mother saw him for ten minutes. At first she failed to recognise him, with his ginger beard and long hair. He looked thin and tired, she thought. She wept and he hugged her. She asked him if the police had harmed him, and he said: ‘No, they’ve been the essence of kindness.’
On Wednesday, 16 November, Harry Roberts made brief appearances at West London magistrate’s court and at the Old Bailey, where it was decided that he should be tried with Witney and Duddy. A new date was set for that trial.
It began at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, 6 December 1966. Witney and Duddy, represented respectively by Mr WM Hudson and Mr James Comyn, QC, pleaded not guilty to all the indictments against them. Roberts, defended by Mr James Burge, QC, pleaded guilty to the murders of DS Head and DC Wombwell and not guilty to the murder of PC Fox. He admitted the other charges – of being an accessory to the murder of PC Fox, and to possessing firearms. The Crown was led by the Solicitor-General, Sir Dingle Foot, QC. The judge was Mr Justice Glyn Jones.
All three accused were found guilty of murder and of possessing firearms. The judge said: ‘You have been justly convicted of what is perhaps the most heinous crime to have been committed in this country for a generation or more … Lest any Home Secretary in the future should be minded to consider your release on licence I have to make a recommendation. My recommendation is that you should not be released on licence, any of the three of you, for a period of thirty years, to begin from today’s date.’
Roberts and Witney appealed, but their applications were dismissed.
John Cunningham, the gypsy, was given £300, part of the £1,000 reward offered for information leading to Roberts’s capture. Mrs Wombwell, Mrs Fox and the mother of DS Head each received £26,250, three-eighths of the £210,000 that was raised for and given to the dead policemen’s families. The rest of the money was put into a trust fund for the children.
Mrs Dorothy Roberts, Harry Roberts’s mother, went to work in a hotel. She later revealed: ‘When I come home from work I shut myself away and keep myself to myself. Everybody round here knows who I am. It’s not pleasant … I’ve got to go on living for my son’s sake. When everybody else has forgotten him, I’ll still be visiting him. But there doesn’t seem much point in living now, and most nights I cry myself to sleep.’
David Wombwell was, like Harry Roberts, an only child. His grieving mother declared:
I saw Roberts at the trial. I had to go … He was so cocky, so arrogant. I couldn’t understand why he should be there, alive and swaggering, when my boy who was so good was dead. Yet I couldn’t hate him, because it all seemed so unreal … It was all so pointless, so wicked … Everybody wants something for nothing these days it seems. That’s the attitude that breeds the Harry Roberts of this world, and then it’s the honest, hard-working boys like my son who have to die … What was it all for? What’s it all about? Why did it have to happen to him? … Sometimes I feel I shall break, or go out of my mind.
John Duddy died in the hospital of Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight in February 1981, having served half of the recommended thirty years of his life sentence, to which the automatic one-third remission did not apply. He was fifty-two.
John Witney was released on licence in 1991 and died in 1999.
No one in the twentieth century had ever served a full thirty-year prison sentence. But Harry Roberts, forty-two years after the Massacre of Braybrook Street, has now (in 2008) been in prison since December 1966.
Over the years he made several attempts to escape. However, in 2001 he was moved to an open prison. Parole was denied, as he had allegedly been involved in drug-dealing in prison. In 2005, he appealed against parole being refused, and in September 2006 he applied for a judicial review over the apparent delays by the Parole Board in granting him parole. In December 2006, parole was again refused. But on 29 June 2007 he was given leave to seek a High Court review over his failed parole bids. In July 2008, Harry Roberts was 72.
50
REGGIE AND RONNIE KRAY
THE MURDERS OF GEORGE CORNELL AND JACK MCVITIE, 1966–7
The trial of the Kray brothers and eight other men at the Old Bailey in 1969 was at that time the longest and most expensive criminal trial in British history. It was also unique in that the main defendants, both charged with murder, were thirty-five-year-old identical twins, although by then their varying lifestyles and their divergent mental and emotional problems had subtly altered their appearance. If ever two men were fated to follow a violent life of crime it was these two, doomed by their nature and their circumstances, and bound by the very fact of being identical twins to imitate and protect each other and finally to share in each other’s ruin.
They were born on 24 October 1933 in Hoxton, in the East End of London. their father was Charles Kray, aged twenty-six, an itinerant dealer in old clothes, silver and gold. Their mother, Violet, aged twenty-one, called the first child Reginald and the second, who arrived an hour later, Ronald. The Krays already had another son, six-year-old Charles, a placid, pleasant child. The twins were different. Said their mother: ‘They was so lovely when they was born, so small and dark, just like two little black-haired dolls.’
Their Romany ancestry sho
wed more than the Jewish and Irish blood in them. Ronnie nearly died when they both got measles and diphtheria. After that he was moody and slower than Reggie, who was more of an easy-going charmer.
In 1939, the family moved to 178 Vallance Road in Bethnal Green, then an East End ghetto and a hot-bed of boxers, gamblers, hard drinkers and assorted villains. Half of it was destroyed in the Second World War, but the Kray twins survived, constantly fighting each other and other boys. They were little demons and were known as the Terrible Twins – though they were polite and considerate to their elders; although inseparable, they never stopped vying with each other all the time. ‘Even as a kid,’ said Reggie, ‘if I was challenged to a fight and I backed down, Ronnie would know. He’d be a sort of conscience, and I’d find it hard to face him afterwards.’
Other boys thought them weird. They had no interest in girls and fought with a cold fury, piling into enemy gangs with coshes, bicycle chains and broken bottles. And Ronnie used a sheath knife. ‘You’re a born devil, Ronnie,’ said his Aunt Rose, adding that his eyebrows, meeting in the middle, meant he was born to hang. This, of course, also applied to Reggie.
In 1950, a sixteen-year-old Hackney boy called Harvey was found badly beaten up by fists, boots and bicycle chains. There were witnesses, but when the twins were put on trial at the Old Bailey – their first appearance there – the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.
They bought their first revolver when they were sixteen. In 1951, aged seventeen, they became professional boxers – lightweights. Reggie was the better boxer, Ronnie the slogger. They always won. On 11 December 1951, Reggie, Ronnie and Charlie all appeared in a boxing contest at the Albert Hall. Charlie lost; Ronnie was disqualified; Reggie won.
Sometimes they hit their father, especially when he had drunk too much. He began to avoid them. They loved their mother and she them. ‘I used to worry about the twins … I wasn’t their mother for nothing,’ she later declared. ‘But if they was involved in any trouble I didn’t want to know. It only upset me … Both of them was good boys at heart.’
Called up for National Service, they reported to the Waterloo Building in the Tower of London on 2 March 1952, and having decided they didn’t care for the Royal Fusiliers or the army, they walked right out, after dotting a corporal on the jaw. ‘We’re off home to see our mum,’ remarked Ronnie. The next day, they were picked up by the police.
For the next two years they were either on the run, in jail, in guard-room cells or military prisons. On the run and in jail, they learned many lessons from minor criminals. From the army, they learned about weapons, discipline and power – the power of propaganda and of fear. United they could get away with nearly anything, behave as badly as they liked and make nonsense of society’s conventions. Once they assaulted a policeman sent to arrest them. It was Christmas and they were reluctant to spend it in a barracks. ‘Kray Brothers Beat Up PC’ read a headline in a local paper, accompanied by a photo of them. They spent a month in Wormwood Scrubs Prison. All this merely added to their status and their self-esteem.
On one occasion, while awaiting court-martial in a Canterbury guard room, they went crazy, screaming abuse, refusing to eat, setting fire to their bedding and their uniforms, wrecking what they could and escaping again. The army could have thrown the book at them, but at their trial on 11 June 1953 they were charged only with striking an NCO, going AWOL, and with conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to nine months in custody.
These were spent in Shepton Mallet military prison, where they made contact with incipient and actual criminals and prepared for a life of crime to achieve their vision of the good life:wealth, property, cars, power and fame. Ronnie’s heroes were TE Lawrence, General Wingate and Al Capone. He wanted to be famous as well as feared.
The twins acquired a billiard hall in Mile End, which became their HQ and centre for the advising and aid of petty criminals. They started a protection business and waged war on other gangs. Within six months of being dismissed from the army, Ronnie was known as the Colonel. The twins’ organisation became known as the Firm, and their mother’s home Fort Vallance.
By 1956, aged twenty-two, their control over thieves, clubs, pubs and businesses had spread over Hackney, Stepney, Bow and Shoreditch. They ruled through fear and thrived on danger. But they still lived with their mother, Violet, in Vallance Road, which now contained an armoury of assorted guns and knives. Ronnie dressed like a gangster and had his own barber. But at night he slept with the light on and a gun under his pillow.
One day, he shot a young docker in the leg. The docker was a member of a rival gang and had threatened a car-site owner favoured by the Krays. Money changed hands, threats or promises were made, and the docker, in hospital, found he couldn’t quite remember how or where the accident happened. Although he picked out Ronnie in an identity parade, the police had no option but to let him go when Ronnie said: ‘I’m not Ronnie Kray. I’m Reggie Kray. I wasn’t nowhere near where this bloke was shot.’ Reggie was, however, furious with Ronnie. ‘You must be raving mad!’ he shouted. ‘You shoot a man, and leave me to clear it up!’ Retorted Ronnie: ‘All you’re fit for is clearing up! You couldn’t shoot a man if you tried.’
In the summer of 1956, two business friends of the Krays, club owners, were beaten up by the Watney Street gang. A punitive raid was made by the Firm on a pub where the gang was thought to be. As the Firm’s large cars arrived at the entrance the gang escaped out the back. But a boy who happened to remain behind was seized, slashed and stabbed with a bayonet. He was also kicked unconscious. This time the victim couldn’t be fixed, and at the Old Bailey, on 5 November 1956, Ronnie Kray, now aged twenty-three, was sentenced to three years for causing grievous bodily harm to Terence Martin of Stepney. Nothing was proved against Reggie, however.
With his dangerous brother in Wandsworth Prison, Reggie now took the lead and much improved the Firm’s business operations. He opened a club in Bow Road, the Double R. A club owned by Terence Martin’s family in Poplar was destroyed by fire. The Double R prospered, being a success both with villains and celebrities. The twins’ older and married brother, Charlie, became involved. The Krays bought a car site, another club in Stratford, and set up an illegal gambling club beside Bow police station.
Meanwhile, in Wandsworth, Ronnie made friends with a mild-mannered but psychopathic giant called Frank Mitchell, known as the ‘Mad Axeman’. While in Wandsworth, Ronnie read books, and didn’t cause any trouble. But then he was moved to Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight. Isolated from his contacts and his family he lost touch with reality, becoming obsessed with Reggie’s successes and his own apparent failure. He became silent and refused to eat, as he had done in the army, certain that everyone was his enemy and out to get him. For a time the only thing that reassured him was his reflection in a mirror. Then one night he went berserk and was transferred to Winchester prison.
The MO there said Ronnie had prison psychosis. Heavily sedated, he appeared to recover. Then, one day, Reggie wrote saying that their Aunt Rose had died. The following day Ronnie Kray was certified as insane. He was twenty-four.
On 20 February 1958, he was transferred to an asylum in Surrey, Long Grove Hospital, suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He soon responded to the drugs he was given and was about to be sent back to prison – the doctors had concluded that he was now ‘quiet, cooperative, and mentally sub-normal’ – when Reggie arranged his escape. He swapped places with his twin during Sunday visiting hours.
Ronnie was hidden away in a four-berth caravan in Suffolk to begin with, making secret and sensational appearances at old haunts in London. But his mental imbalance remained, and despite all the family’s attempts to cure him, with the help of psychiatrists,
Ronnie’s condition worsened. One night he tried to kill himself. His family were forced to accept the unimaginable – they informed Scotland Yard of his whereabouts.
He was picked up and taken back to L
ong Grove, before being returned to Wandsworth Prison. Still prone to violence and delusions, he was nonetheless released in the spring of 1958, a changed man indeed. No longer the image of Reggie, his face and figure had thickened; he looked brutish. The picture, it was said, of a homicidal psychopath.
The twins still lived in Vallance Road with their mother. They had fearful rows. Reggie guiltily modified his pursuits and ambitions to fall more in line with Ronnie’s, whose aggression now began to imperil the Firm’s business. ‘He’s ruining us,’ said Reggie. ‘I know we ought to drop him. But how can I? He’s my brother and he’s mad!’
East End violence increased; gang fights became bigger and more bloody. In February 1960, Reggie was accidentally caught backing up a demand for protection money and sentenced to eighteen months in Wandsworth Prison. Now Ronnie was on his own.
The Double R began to lose money. then Ronnie met Peter Rachman. Rachman’s empire had been threatened by the frequent beating up of his rent collectors, and so he arranged to pay off the Krays by giving them a fashionable night club in Knightsbridge, Esmeralda’s Barn, which later became a discothèque. Freed from East End opinion, Ronnie now openly paraded his homosexuality with a fast turnover of teenage boys. His contacts with like-minded persons – politicians, businessmen, actors, academics, DJs and clerics – proliferated. ‘I’m not a poof,’ he said once reprovingly, adding proudly, ‘I’m homosexual.’ He despised pansies as much as he despised women. He liked his men, and boys, to be manly.
Reggie came out of prison when he was twenty-seven, and somewhat surprisingly fell in love with a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, Frances Shea, the sister – and, significantly, a look-alike – of Frankie, a Hoxton boy whom Ronnie had admired and had perhaps desired, if not more. Reggie put Frances on a pedestal. Ronnie vilified them both. there was a row and Ronnie walked out of Esmeralda’s Barn and the West End, back to the East End, to a flat in Cedra Court, Walthamstow, where parties at which he and his boys were the centre of attraction were very well attended.
Murder of the Black Museum 1875-1975: The Dark Secrets Behind a Hundred Years of the Most Notorious Crimes in England Page 53