Me and My Brothers

by Kray, Charlie

  ‘Hold up,’ I’d say. ‘Think about what is going to happen.’

  But of course he wouldn’t. ‘I’d rather accept the consequences than have my head blown off,’ he’d say.

  The twins were very disappointed in me for not sharing their views about weapons, and I did not endear myself to them when I put my foot down over a row between two of their Firm – Connie Whitehead and Scotch Jack Dickson. Ronnie had already told them to cool it but Connie and Jack took no notice. Then one night when I went to one of our clubs, The Starlight in Oxford Street, the doorman, Tommy Flanagan, said, ‘I’m glad you’ve come, Charlie. Jack’s inside, waiting for Connie. With a gun. He’s going to do him.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen,’ I assured him.

  Relieved, Tommy said, ‘Tell him, Charlie.’

  When I walked through into the club Ronnie came up, wanting to know why I was there. I told him I’d popped in for a drink, then asked what was going on between Connie and Jack.

  Ronnie said, ‘I could have guessed you’d interfere.’

  I went up to Jack and asked him if he had a gun. He admitted he had. ‘So you’re going to shoot Whitehead.’ I said. ‘You were pals a little while ago. Now you’ve had a row, you want to shoot him.’ I turned to Ronnie. ‘Are you just going to stand there?’

  ‘Let ‘em get on with it,’ Ronnie said. ‘If he wants to shoot him, let him. It’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘You can’t just stand by and watch,’ I told him.

  But Ronnie said, ‘Don’t interfere. Get on with your own business. I couldn’t care less.’

  I turned to Jack again. ‘The only reason you have a gun and you’re standing there like a big guy is because Ronnie is standing with you. You wouldn’t have the bottle on your own.’

  Jack said nothing. Ronnie drew on a cigarette, watching me. We stood there in silence.

  ‘Well, it’s not happening,’ I said finally. ‘I promise you that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ronnie asked.

  ‘If Connie comes down here, I’m taking him away. I won’t let it happen.’

  Ronnie launched a tirade of abuse at me, but I ignored him and I looked at Jack. ‘Give me the gun,’ I said.

  He didn’t want to, but after a few minutes he handed it over.

  ‘Happy now?’ asked Ronnie.

  I continued to ignore him and went upstairs with the gun and told Tommy to dump it.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ Tommy said. He was pleased I’d intervened. No one else would have stood a chance of overruling Ronnie.

  But Ronnie thought I was an idiot.

  For the next five months the East End was alive with rumours: everyone, it seemed, knew who had shot Cornell. People would come up to me and try to pump me, hoping I would confirm what everyone suspected. ‘I hear old Ron had Cornell over, then,’ they’d say. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘News to me,’ I’d reply. ‘Better ask Ron.’

  I was up to my eyes running my theatrical agency, a coat factory and distributing potatoes, and did not see a lot of the twins. When I did see them, neither mentioned the murder. They did not seem the least concerned; it was as if it had never happened. But throughout that spring and summer I was on edge all the time, expecting something to happen – waiting for it, almost.

  In August, it did. Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Butler swooped on a number of East End houses – including the twins’ in Vallance Road – and took in several men he felt might be able to help with his inquiries into the Blind Beggar mystery. Ronnie and Reggie appeared in identity parades at Leyton police station; neither was picked out, but it was clear that if they felt the heat had gone out of the police investigation they were wrong.

  I came up with a suggestion that the twins should leave the country for a while, and for once they took the advice. I insisted that only two people, apart from the three of us, should know where they were going – Mum and the old man. The twins loved that idea, too, and a few days later took a private plane from Lydd in Kent to France, where they picked up a scheduled jet to Tangier. To keep the secrecy watertight, I told them never to phone the house but to dial the number of a public call box in Bethnal Green Road. They agreed to phone every Tuesday and Thursday at 8 P.M.; if the phone was engaged they would keep ringing until I picked it up. For the next month I felt like a spy, slipping out quietly just before eight and waiting for the phone to ring, and of course the twins loved the intrigue.

  The effect on the East End was startling: the twins’ friends were very curious, but not as much as the police were. Soon, rumours started flying around, including one that the twins had been murdered. When I told them, they roared. It wasn’t easy keeping the secret for four weeks but somehow we managed it. And it was worth it. It gave the police something to think about and, as far as the twins’ so-called friends were concerned, the rumours proved something I’d always suspected: that they couldn’t stop bragging that they knew everything about the twins when, in fact, they knew absolutely nothing.

  When the twins were due to return, I decided to see how fast the truth travelled by telling just one person where they’d really been. It was all over the East End in minutes.

  When they finally arrived home, tanned and rested, Ronnie and Reggie took a great delight in the fuss their sudden absence had caused. A lot of people were glad to see them back, but in Tangier many – chiefly hotel waiters and taxi drivers – had been sorry to see them go.

  Ronald Kray was the biggest tipper the city had ever seen.

  With the law still buzzing on the Cornell mystery, Ronnie and some pals started spending their evenings at the Baker’s Arms, a quiet pub a couple of miles away in Northiam Street, Hackney. One summer night Detective Sergeant Leonard Townsend from Hackney police station walked into the saloon bar with a colleague called Barker. Ronnie and most of his friends walked out.

  Townsend looked at one who stayed behind. ‘They have got to drink somewhere,’ he said. ‘And they might as well use this pub. If you see the Kray twins tell them if they want to play ball with us, we’ll play ball with them.’

  When Ronnie heard this he went spare, but he agreed to meet Townsend in the pub the following night.

  They went into a private room at the back of the pub and Townsend quickly came to the point. ‘I know you like it here because it’s nice and quiet. But if you want to be left alone it’s going to cost you a little bit of rent. There are two of us in it – a pony a week each.’

  Inwardly Ronnie was boiling. Fifty quid a week to be allowed to drink in a pub! He felt like laying Townsend out on the spot, but he controlled himself – he had had an idea. He asked for a day to talk it over with Reggie and agreed to meet Townsend in the pub again the next night.

  When Townsend left, Ronnie told the licensee, Eric Marshall, who exploded. ‘I’m going to Scotland Yard,’ he said. ‘I’m a straight man. You’ve done nothing. You and your mates spend your money here. You’re always treating the old people. The police are driving you away. I’m not having it.’

  Ronnie quietened him down. They needed proof, he said, and he knew how to get it. He would meet the greedy copper the next night, as arranged, but this time the conversation would be taped.

  When Ronnie asked my opinion of the plan I said it sounded a good idea because it would put a stop to the police corruption we knew had been going on for years. It would do the public good to learn that while the Kray twins had been accused of demanding money from people, the police had been demanding it off them. But I knew Ronnie well and suspected he wouldn’t follow it through all the way. ‘You’ll get them nicked all right,’ I told him. ‘But when it comes to court, you won’t give evidence.’

  ‘Oh, yes I will,’ Ronnie said. ‘They asked for this trouble. And I’m going to give it to them.’

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t bother wasting your time. You should go through with it, but you won’t.’

  I suppose Ronnie really believed he would. But I knew him better than he knew himself.


  Before the meeting Ronnie contacted a private detective friend who set up two tape recorders in the room – one in an empty tin, the other strapped to Ronnie’s chest under his shirt. The trap worked like a dream: Ronnie got Townsend to spill out all the incriminating evidence of corruption, then he took the recording to a solicitor who went to Scotland Yard.

  Four days later Eric Marshall kept a rendezvous with Townsend carrying ten £5 notes, the numbers of which had been listed by a Scotland Yard Detective Chief Inspector. Townsend got into Mr Marshall’s car at the Triangle, Mare Street, Hackney, and a microphone hidden under the front seat recorded the conversation as the money was handed over. The hard part of the plan was over: the greedy cop had taken the bribe. But sadly, the watching police made a mess of the next part of the plan. Over-zealous C11 men blew their cover too soon and Townsend made a run for it, throwing the incriminating packet into the road. He was caught after a mild chase, but not with the evidence on him. As it turned out, it didn’t matter; the tape recordings were enough to convince the police Townsend was guilty of corruption and he was duly charged.

  All that was needed now was for Ronnie to make a statement and go to court and Townsend would be kicked out of the force, possibly jailed.

  Surprise! Surprise! Ronnie said he couldn’t, and wouldn’t do it.

  I tried to reason with him. I told him he had gone through all the aggravation so far and it would be easy to follow it through. When Ronnie still refused I said he owed it to other victims of police corruption to try to end it once and for all. No joy there, either. Finally, I told him straight out that he would be totally in the wrong if he turned his back on the case: not only would a bent copper go free on his money-grabbing way but Ronnie would have wasted everyone’s time: his own, Eric Marshall’s and God knows how many police.

  I may as well have been talking to a brick wall. Ronnie said he would never go into a witness box to put somebody away, no matter who they were. Yes, Townsend was a bad copper, but giving evidence against him would make them as bad as each other, Ronnie argued. It was a strange, maddening philosophy and I tried my damnedest to change Ronnie’s mind. I should have saved my breath, for when a summons arrived in December ordering Ronnie to attend Old Street Court in North London as a witness, he promptly went into hiding. The case opened, but without Ronnie there it could not get very far and, not surprisingly, Townsend was remanded on bail.

  We found Ronnie a flat in Kensington, near Olympia. He took a few chances to come to Vallance Road to see Mum, but generally he stayed in that flat. The police did not make a huge effort to find him and whenever I got the chance I told them they didn’t want to. The absence of a key witness was a good excuse for their man to get off, wasn’t it? With the case unlikely to be heard for a few months, Ronnie prepared himself, somewhat reluctantly, for a Christmas away from the family.

  The case against Townsend started at the Old Bailey in April 1967. He was accused of trying to obtain £50 from Ronnie as an inducement to show favour and of corruptly accepting £50 through Eric Marshall for showing favour to Ronnie.

  The jury was out nearly eight hours, but could not agree and a new trial began two months later. The tape recordings were present, but Ronnie wasn’t; he was still holed up in Kensington. It didn’t matter. Again, the jury could not agree and Mr Justice Waller ordered the detective to be found not guilty and discharged. Town-send was dumbfounded – he knew how lucky he was – but one person who probably was not surprised by the verdict was the prosecution’s own counsel, a barrister named John Mathew. As prosecuting counsel his job was to prove Townsend guilty. For some inexplicable reason, however, he gave the jury the impression the twins were on trial. In his opening speech, he said: ‘It may well be that some of you have heard of two persons known as the Kray brothers, Ronald and Reginald Kray. They are notorious characters. They are persons of the worst possible character. They have convictions between them for violence, blackmail and bribery. Their activities were always of interest to the police.’

  Mr Mathew, one might be interested to learn, was prosecution counsel when the twins were cleared of demanding money from Hew McCowan two years before!

  The day after Townsend walked free Ronnie came out of hiding, pale and wan from his self-imposed imprisonment. As we were leaving an outfitter’s in Bethnal Green Road next to the police station two policemen saw us. ‘All right, Ron?’ one of them called out casually, as though Ronnie was a dear friend he saw every day.

  ‘I’m all right now,’ Ronnie replied. ‘Do you want me?’

  The policeman said, ‘No. We heard you were in Tangier. You don’t look very tanned.’

  ‘No,’ Ronnie said. ‘I’ve been here all the time.’

  The policemen laughed and walked on. We got in the car and drove to Vallance Road.

  That ended one dramatic episode in Ronnie’s life. But another was already hitting the headlines and it was to end at the Old Bailey with Ronnie facing a charge of murder. It was The Strange Case of Frank Mitchell, a giant whose brutality had earned him the nickname ‘Mad Axeman’.

  Mitchell stood over six feet, had enormous muscles and was immensely strong. Yet he was shy and inarticulate, with the mentality of a child. He had had a sketchy education at a school for the sub-normal and turned to crime early in life, quickly progressing from remand homes to Borstal, then to prison. He was four years older than the twins and had spent most of his life in one institution or another.

  Reggie met him in Wandsworth Jail in 1960 while serving eighteen months for demanding money from Podro the Pole. Almost from the moment they came into contact Reggie felt compassion for the gentle giant. Mitchell was constantly being beaten up by sadistic prison officers, but he never complained and always came back for more, fighting his persecutors with the power and strength of a bull. At the same time, though, he responded readily to a kind word or gentle gesture, and when Reggie went out of his way to make his life more tolerable, Mitchell developed a bizarre sort of hero-worship for him.

  He demonstrated this in a spectacular way that endeared him to Reggie and, with tragic irony, prompted a chain of events that would lead to him being murdered in the most violent way.

  Reggie had just three weeks of his sentence to go when some officers started winding him up, tried to light his notoriously short fuse. It was not difficult. From the moment he had gone into prison he seemed to be the target for officers’ bullying and he had never taken it lying down; this occasion was no exception. He was just about to retaliate when Mitchell roared from his cell, ‘Leave the bastards to me, Reg. You’ve only got three weeks. They’re only trying to keep you in here.’

  For some reason it did the trick and made Reggie see the sense in swallowing it. He didn’t lose any remission and left the jail three weeks later. But he never forgot Big Frank and ensured, through various means, that he never went short of comforts. Some time later, Reggie got a chance to prove his friendship in a more profound way. Mitchell was accused of stabbing another prisoner with a knife, and Reggie arranged for him to be defended at Marylebone Magistrates’ Court by a brilliant young barrister named Nemone Lethbridge.

  Thanks to her superb defence Mitchell was acquitted on a charge of causing grievous bodily harm. He returned to Wandsworth, but was later transferred to Her Majesty’s Prison, Princeton, Devon, a massive, dark, forbidding Dickensian building more commonly known as Dartmoor. And although he often worked outside the prison he wanted nothing more than to be free permanently. Reggie had been doing his best to get his case investigated by persuading influential friends to write to the Home Office. But no hope was on the horizon.

  Then, one wintry afternoon – while Ronnie was playing Puccini in his Kensington hideaway – Scotch Jack Dickson went to Reggie with a story that Mitchell was threatening to kill one of the prison officers to draw attention to his case. Reggie thought about it carefully, then made one of his swift decisions. He gave Dickson a couple of hundred quid and told him to get Mitchell out of jai
l for Christmas.

  Dickson enlisted the help of a couple of mates – Albert Donaghue and a former boxer named Bill Exley – and planned the escape. It was surprisingly easy: on the morning of 12 December the three of them turned up in a car at a pre-arranged spot and Mitchell, who had slipped away from a group building fences on a military range, was waiting for them. Later that day, radio and TV news reports informed the nation that helicopters and commandos were scouring the moors for ‘Mad Axeman’ Frank Mitchell. But by then the subject of their search was tucking into a fry-up at a council flat in Barking.

  As Londoners packed the shops in the frenetic pre-Christmas shopping build-up, two of the most infamous men in Britain sat it out quietly in their comfortable ‘prisons’ on opposite sides of the city: Ronnie in upper-crust Kensington in West London, Mitchell on the outskirts of the more modest East End.

  I was a virtual ‘prisoner’, too. I’d developed a throat infection, which confined me to bed at the time of Mitchell’s escape and for some days afterwards. I could not get involved in the big man’s problems, even if I’d wanted to. For no sooner had I recovered than I had to get busy, tending to Ronnie’s needs. I felt like someone from MI5 again when I went over to Kensington to see him: just in case I was being followed, I jumped on and off buses, in and out of taxis and sometimes walked round in circles just to shrug off would-be pursuers. With Ronnie wanted by every policeman in London I couldn’t be too careful. It was a bit of a drag sometimes, having to go through all that fuss, but I didn’t mind. I couldn’t expect Reggie to spend a lot of time with Ronnie: he was having great problems with his in-laws over Frances who, sadly, was suffering from depression.

  I quickly discovered that Mitchell had had no intention of killing anyone: Dickson, Donaghue and Exley had dreamt it all up as some sort of exciting escapade. To them, minding a dangerous man on the run was a huge joke. But, tragically, the joke misfired. An attractive nightclub hostess, Lisa Prescott, was hired to satisfy Mitchell’s sexual urges, but the poor man – unworldly and naive as they come – mistook her professional competence for true affection and fell in love with her. Then he got hold of Exley’s gun and suddenly what had been a manageable, if troublesome, situation was out of control. Something had to be done.