She was the woman Brian had gone home with in the early hours. What he did not know was that she had made a statement to my solicitor eight months before, in which she claimed she had had sex with Brian that Thursday night, and a further sexual encounter with him at The Swallow Hotel on 27 July.
When Brian gave evidence at the voire dire he denied he had sex with Michelle, and claimed her arrival at The Swallow Hotel was a ‘complete surprise’ to him. I was elated, because Michelle was a believable witness and if her evidence didn’t brand Brian a liar, then testimony from the staff at The Swallow Hotel would. That night, I went back to my prison cell, convinced that Brian would be discredited in the eyes of the judge and that he would rule his evidence inadmissible in front of the jury.
Once again, I was totally wrong.
When the judge made his ruling at the end of the voire dire, he said he was ‘unsure’ of what had happened between Michelle and Brian; that, even if he felt he was lying, he would not exclude his evidence, because the relationship was unrelated to the conversations between me and the undercover police. He went on to rule that all taped and untaped conversations were admissible and that, indeed, the whole prosecution, as presented at the voire dire, would go before the jury.
If Mr Goldberg was disappointed, I was mortified. The judge, I felt, had trumped our best card.
Before falling asleep that night, however, I consoled myself that everything would be different in front of a jury. Twelve ordinary men and women could not fail to be impressed by Michelle’s honesty and see through Brian’s lies.
The following Wednesday morning, 14 May, the twelve who were to decide my fate were sworn in: seven women and five men. As each stepped forward to take the oath, mid-morning sunshine brightened the modern courtroom. The silence was deafening. Sitting in the dock in my navy-blue suit, light-blue shirt and dark tie, I clenched my fists at my sides and looked at each person closely, trying to read them. What backgrounds did they come from? What were their beliefs? Were they intelligent people, able to take in and understand a trial likely to last six weeks? Were they capable of judging me on the evidence? Or would they prejudge me on my name alone?
Of course, it was impossible to know, but all those thoughts raced through my mind in the fifteen minutes or so it took to swear them all in. They were the people, chosen at random, to decide whether I would walk out a free man or be locked away. All I could ask for, that dramatic morning, was that they were honest citizens who would take their roles seriously. And that they would believe my version of what happened the previous summer. Not the prosecution’s.
As Mr Kelsey-Fry rose to outline the prosecution case, I glanced up at the public gallery to my right. Judy was not allowed to attend because she was due to be a witness, but I expected certain friends there that first day. There were none. The gallery was deserted, except for Robin and a woman who had become fascinated with the Krays’ exploits after reading Me and My Brothers. How times change! When Ronnie, Reggie and me went on trial at the Old Bailey in 1969, queues for the gallery formed two hours before the court opened.
Nothing Mr Kelsey-Fry said that first morning shocked me. I’d been warned to expect the worst and I was long enough in the tooth to know that the prosecution would paint a black picture.
There were two sides to my character, he said. One was an affable, slightly down-at-heel, but popular, character. The other was a man prepared to be involved in the drugs trade, a man who said he would never physically handle drugs, but who pulled both ends of a deal together.
I was pleased to hear Mr Kelsey-Fry tell the jury, up front, not to let my name influence them, even though the fact that I was the Kray twins’ brother may explain some of the facts of the case. ‘No man is his brother’s keeper,’ he said. ‘Whatever his brothers may or may not have done thirty years ago cannot, in any way, adversely reflect on this defendant. Their actions can’t help you determine this man’s innocence or guilt on these charges.’
I steeled myself not to glance at the jury for their reaction. It was vital that they separated me from the twins. I stared straight ahead. I knew Mr Goldberg would have a lot to say on that subject. All I could do now was sit there and listen to how me and the other two were arrested; how Jack and his pals were not all they were supposed to be.
‘Jack was an undercover police officer,’ said Mr Kelsey-Fry. ‘As you will know…it is a legitimate weapon in their battle against serious crime for the police to attempt to infiltrate the underworld, posing as part of that world to attempt to expose criminals. And when they are successful…it is no defence for those caught to say, “If I’d known they were police I wouldn’t have supplied them with drugs.”’
I shook my head. No defence! I believed I was enticed into a crime that night in The Elbow Room. All the talk I gave Jack on the tape the following morning was rubbish. If he hadn’t followed it up with a phone call the next week, we’d never have seen each other again, I’m sure of that. As it was Kelsey-Fry spelled out the financial aspects of the cocaine deal and the reporters rushed for their calculators and worked out that five kilos of cocaine every two weeks over two years, at £31,500 per kilo, had a street value of £39 million. My whack, they reckoned, was £8 million. Predictably, the next day’s papers, under headlines like: ‘CHARLIE KRAY OFFERED COPS £39M COCAINE’, had me as the mastermind of a deal that would make me a multimillionaire.
If it had not been my neck on the block, I’d have laughed. How ridiculous!
For the next two days, barristers on both sides, the jury, me and even the judge, put on headphones to listen to the tape recordings on which me and Ronnie Field had allegedly incriminated ourselves. When I’d read the hundreds of pages of transcripts while on remand, I could not believe them. Jack and his pals had seemed so genuine it made me sick to realize they were phoney and had been secretly and deviously taping us all along. Now that I was going to have to listen to everything – all the drinking and laughter and joking – I felt worse. I’d been duped.
The first tape was recorded in The Wake Green Lodge when Deano gave Patsy his birthday present, but the prosecution wanted the jury to know only about the next morning when Jack brought up the subject of Amsterdam again.
‘I got let down badly…my guy got taken out,’ I heard Jack say.
‘Did you really?’ I said. ‘And you’re looking for some more, or you wanna buy some more?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’m looking for some more.’
‘You’re looking for some to buy?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I’ll tell you, a mate of mine might be home this weekend. I know someone who’s got five hundred.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Five hundred. And the paperwork. In and it’s paid for. It’s there.’
‘Yeah?’
‘So they’re very good and they want the transport. I’ll get that anyway. I’ve got the transport.’
I went on, ‘My people just go, do it…a lot is happening at the moment, but once something happens, I’ll let you know.’
Jack said, ‘Sweet,’ then added: ‘I do “charlie” and I do the smoke.’
‘It’s gonna be another, I think, three or four weeks. Regular, regular, regular, a lot of it, you know what I mean?’
‘Are you in a position to talk a price, or will I have to talk to him?’
I said, ‘Well, we’ll wait till we know.’
‘Okay.’
Later on the tape, Jack asks about the ‘charlie’, and I’m heard saying, ‘If anything happens, oh that, that won’t be for I think another three or four weeks. Then, when it starts, it will be regular all the time.’
A minute or so later, Deano is driving me from The Wake Green Lodge to the coach station. I’m heard giving Jack my phone number and arranging to see him when he comes to London. Then I say, ‘I’m just waiting now. But that other thing will be…home grown, a lot of it. It’ll be good, I’ll tell you, and that should be regular.’
I took off my headphones and
glanced at the jury. From my point of view, what we had all heard sounded awful. What were they thinking? I tried to push negative thoughts out of my mind. I had my answers to everything said on those tapes. When it was my turn to speak, they would hear why I said what I did.
The prosecution then covered my meeting with Jack and Ken at The Selsdon Park Hotel on 23 May, and I’m heard saying, ‘…it’s a bit embarrassing to fucking go and admit it, like, when I was up there last time, but what’s happened, you know, I lost about fucking a hundred grand on a deal.’
Jack said, ‘No, I didn’t know.’
‘Well, I did, and, er, it put me on the floor, ‘cos I got money coming to me, but it don’t come in, ‘till, like certain times.’
‘Yeah?’
‘But, yesterday, things came together, like, didn’t have to, some people and, er, things they came together. I set it up.’
‘Yeah?’
‘And this was…the awkward thing.’
‘Uh, uh.’
‘But I’ve put fucking five grand up yesterday. And that was it as far as I’m concerned.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Until I get this, mind you. It’s only gonna take a couple of fucking weeks, it’ll be done, but, and it’s knocked me bandy.’
‘Yeah,’ Jack is heard to say.
‘But there you go, you have to do these things if you’re going to get anywhere. You know you gotta do something about it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So, fucking, if it comes, that’s why I lost all that money. It’s so good and if it comes, like well, it will now, it will happen, so outstanding, so like now, it’ll be done, it’s, if it does and it goes steady and fucking.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Like you had a chance with this…’
‘Yeah?’
‘It’s the other gear, obviously, you know.’
‘Which?’ Jack is heard to ask. ‘The smaller gear?’
‘No, the other.’
‘“Charlie”?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘We’ll know more. It’s going to be a lot and it’s going to be regular…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Be the right price as well.’
‘Yeah? What are they talking about?’
‘’Cos I don’t want to meet…’
‘Obviously.’
‘I don’t never get near it, and they all know it.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I put people together and do this and running about. I ain’t…I said it won’t be my partner, it’s me fucking make a big business out of it. It wouldn’t be true and my brother, it’ll affect him in the nick…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Right, I’ve done it all, I’ve committed all these things in my life, so I now have to take, steady on, you know, ‘cos I’ve too many eyes on me.’
I have to admit I squirmed when I heard myself, not so much what I was saying, although that was bad enough, but the swearing. Anyone who knows me is aware that I never use foul language. I can’t understand it. I must have been drunk.
We talk about the signed football Jack has brought for John Corbett’s charity evening, then I’m heard saying that we’ll go to The Blue Orchid, in Purley.
The next morning, Jack rang me, and I’m heard saying, ‘Went for a little drink, didn’t we? My pal, Steve, wasn’t there, he had to go do something. But we had a good night anyway.’
Kelsey-Fry seemed to place a lot of significance on Steve. I would learn why later.
The next stage in the scenario was The Mermaid Theatre variety show, on 2 June, which Jack invited himself to when he stayed at The Selsdon Park Hotel. There were a few hundred people from all walks of life at The Mermaid and I introduced many to Jack and Ken. The only two the prosecution wanted the jury to know about, however, were Ronnie Field and Bobby Gould. Jack claimed I took him into a corridor to introduce him to them, and we talked about drugs.
Three weeks later, Ronnie and I were royally entertained, no expense spared, at the fabulous Linden Hall Hotel, just outside Newcastle, and this is where Jack came on strong. The morning after a heavy drinking night before, he invited us into his hotel room and quickly got down to business. It was all recorded.
He started off, ‘Well, the reason we’re here, I suppose, is the “charlie”…we want to do the business with that…we want to know how much regular and, obviously, how much, you know.’
A few seconds later, I was heard to say, ‘At the moment we’re guessing, but we know it’s gonna, it’ll be all right, it’s just we ain’t got it. I mean, we know it will be all right.’
Ronnie said, ‘…it’s like good, like good gear. We know we can come to an agreement on the price.’
After a brief discussion on price and delivery, I’m then heard speaking in a low voice, ‘I’m not exaggerating, but if you had a ton tomorrow, we’ve got people who’ve got the readies immediately.’
Brian replied, ‘Well…we’re not going to be introducing to somebody else. We’d rather just…’
Ronnie broke in, ‘You won’t see no one else.’
And I said, ‘No one else? Only Bob. You know he’s working now. That’s it.’
Ronnie repeated, ‘You won’t see no one else.’
‘No one else,’ I echoed.
Seconds later, I was heard saying, ‘What we’re talking about now, we got people that do hundreds a week…now he can do, he can do, forty a week…easy.’
‘I can do forty of this a week,’ Ronnie agreed.
‘What, the blow?’ Jack asked.
‘No,’ Ronnie said. ‘The “charlie”.’
Jack is heard to question whether he should ring me and Ronnie says, ‘Charlie don’t know where these boxes are.’
And I say, ‘…I don’t want to know and he does it, and that’s how we do it all the time.’
Later, on the tape, talking about another meeting at The Selsdon in a few weeks, I say, ‘…‘cos we don’t know when we’ll see Steve. He might say, hold up, it ain’t gonna be here till Monday, then…’
Ronnie describes how the cocaine will be delivered, ‘…it’ll be wrapped. Comes in like a, erm, rubber wrapping, like a bag…vacuum sealed. Then it’s wrapped up in tape and it’s got another bag around the outside of it.’
And I said, ‘Will it be wrapped in, or should it be wrapped the same as our one?’
I would later regret chiming in with that comment.
Over the next two weeks, the tape recordings proved that Jack rang me five times pressing me to ask Ronnie to contact him about the deal. And on the third call, on 2 July, he invited himself – with Brian or Ken – to my seventieth birthday party at The Elbow Room on 11 July.
On the Sunday before the party, Jack phoned me and asked me to call him back because he was in a phone box.
I’m heard asking if Jack had spoken to Ron, then saying, ‘I’ve been told it could be tomorrow or Tuesday.’ I then ask Jack to send me five hundred quid as a loan because I’ve not got enough money to get up to Birmingham for the party. When he hears I’m staying at The Wake Green Lodge Hotel, he says that he and Brian will stay there, too. Then, in a phone call on the Wednesday, Jack asks if Ronnie is going to Birmingham.
‘No,’ I’m heard to say. ‘He can’t ‘cos he’s waiting for something.’
Nine days after the party, Jack rang me again and I’m heard telling him, ‘We’re on the verge, but not there.’
‘Okay, mate,’ he said.
‘You know what I mean?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I spoke to Ron this morning.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You know, ‘cos he rang.’
‘Uh, uh.’
‘And I said, fucking drag, innit.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Waiting. Gets on your nerves, don’t it?’
On Wednesday 24 July, Jack rang Ron, who is heard telling him, ‘You can put your name to how many you want. We got hundred here at the moment.’
‘A hundred?’ Jack asks.
‘Yeah.’
A meeting is then arranged at The Selsdon Park Hotel at 6 P.M. the following night, when Jack will buy five kilograms of cocaine for £157,500.
Four hours later Jack rang me to say he had spoken to ‘our friend’ and would I book two rooms at The Selsdon for the next night.
Mr Kelsey-Fry told the court that I visited the hotel that Thursday evening, but stayed only fifteen minutes or so. During that time, drugs were not mentioned.
Then the jury was told of another recorded phone call Jack made to me on Friday morning. After asking if I had spoken to ‘our friend’, Jack said, ‘There were some problems last night.’
‘Held up was it?’ I asked.
‘Pardon me?’
‘Was it held up?’
‘Yeah, there was a problem with it.’
‘Oh, I see,’ I said.
‘Our friend was going to sort it out for eleven o’clock this morning.’
Jack suggested re-arranging the meeting with Ronnie and Bobby Gould for 6 P.M. that evening at The Swallow Hotel and asked me to contact Ronnie to tell him.
I was heard agreeing to do that.
Then Jack said, ‘Ronnie will tell you, it went a bit fucking horrible last night…there was a couple of clowns came on to the plot.’
At 11.58 A.M. twenty-three minutes after Ronnie had called him, Jack phoned me again to tell me ‘everything’s sorted’, and to ask me if I was going to The Swallow Hotel myself. I said I was not.
The jury then heard this conversation on tape:
Jack: ‘Okay mate, did he tell you about the disaster last night?’
Me: ‘…tell me like, yeah.’
Me and My Brothers Page 34