I agreed to book the rooms, although, once again, I wondered why he did not pick up the phone and do it himself. Also, I said I’d pop in for a quick drink early in the evening.
By now, I told the court, I’d decided to confess to Jack that I was not really a drug dealer, and that it had all been a con to get money out of him. Although Ronnie had yet to get any money, he was, as far as I understood, going to own up and get out of the relationship himself that night. I did pop in for a drink, as arranged, and stayed just fifteen minutes.
What happened after I left, and what I said on the phone the next morning, would not do me any favours.
I had listened in some awe to Kelsey-Fry’s questioning for several days. An urbane, courteous gentleman – in his late thirties, I guess – he had an enviable courtroom presence, with an eloquence other barristers, I’m sure, would kill for. In cross-examination he would not be taking prisoners. I’d have no easy tennis match with him; he was bound to have some aces up his sleeve.
He was particularly keen to know about my relationship with Ronnie Field. How long had I known him? How often did we see each other? Was he a close friend? I told him what I felt was the truth: that Ron was someone I’d seen only occasionally, perhaps three or four times in the past couple of years or so.
With barely concealed delight, Kelsey-Fry asked me to look at BT bills, listing the number of calls in and out on the phone at Judy’s house in Sanderstead. I was amazed to be told that, between 23 November and 2 June, I had spoken with Ronnie Field more than fifty times.
‘Quite a lot for someone you did not know all that well and hardly ever saw, wouldn’t you say, Mr Kray?’
I just shook my head disbelievingly. I was genuinely shocked. Worse was to follow, however. Reminding me I claimed to have told Field and Gould about The Mermaid after bumping into them in Croydon, Kelsey-Fry told the jury that BT’s records showed that I spoke to Field the day before the show. And on the Sunday itself.
I didn’t know what to say. What I did know was that it did not look good to the jury.
Kelsey-Fry reminded me that I had denied knowing Bob Gould, then invited me and the jury to turn to a transcription of a conversation with Jack, Brian and Field in The Linden Hall Hotel.
He read out:
Brian: ‘Well…we’re not going to be introducing you to somebody else. We’d rather just…’
Field: ‘You won’t see no one else.’
Kray: ‘No one else.’
Kelsey-Fry seemed to think it was a significant conversation.
My pal Steve Grant was the person on whom Kelsey-Fry placed most importance, however. Steve had gone to The Selsdon Park Hotel with a 6ft 3in. car dealer, named Warren, on Thursday 25 July, and met Jack and Brian, with Field and Gould.
I said I knew two men had gone to the hotel, but understood they were friends of Ronnie. He told me he had phoned them, asking to borrow some money.
Kelsey-Fry produced the phone records again and asked me whose number I had called a couple of minutes after Jack told me about the problem at the hotel.
It was Steve’s.
He also inferred that because I’d responded to Jack’s comment about ‘the muppet…off his face’ by saying: ‘What, the big guy?’, this indicated that I knew it was Warren.
And that, in turn, proved I must have known all about that meeting.
I left the witness box and walked, as elegantly as I could, across the courtroom to the dock, mentally drained. What would the jury have made of that? I wondered. I felt an urge to look at them, to try to see the answer in their eyes, but resisted it. I was on a loser, wasn’t I? If I smiled, they might think I was confident at having conned them; if I merely stared, would they think I was trying to intimidate them? And, anyway, even if I did look, and detected they believed all I said, what would that prove? My voice on the tapes was going to decide my fate.
That night in my cell I played it all back in my mind. To be truthful, I wasn’t happy with the way it had gone: I didn’t think I’d done myself justice at all. I’d been given the chance to address the jury, tell them about the real me. I’d even worked out a little speech, explaining exactly how the unjust McVitie sentence had destroyed my life; how I’d always suffered because of the crimes of my brothers; how Gary’s death had shattered me, causing me not to think clearly. I’d had the chance to tell those twelve jurors what an idiot I’d been – and, crucially more important, why. But I’d blown it. Goldberg had done his best with his questioning, but I hadn’t picked up his lead, hadn’t let the jury see the real Charlie Kray at all. And then, of course, there was Kelsey-Fry, with all those damn – and damning – questions. I’d been made to look a plonker all right. But it was my answers to those questions that had done it.
I stretched out on my metal bed and looked at Gary’s photo on the wall and thought, yet again, what a blessing it was that my poor boy wasn’t around to see his old man humbled and humiliated the way I’d been that day. ‘Well, Gal,’ I said. ‘What do you think? I let myself down in there, didn’t I? I had so much to say and I didn’t say it, did I?’
It’s difficult to explain, but I’d found it hard appearing as the pathetic human being Goldberg had described. Yes, I knew I was. And, yes, I knew it was crucial to my case that the jury saw me as someone incapable of masterminding a drug deal. But I’ve always been proud and dignified, and I suppose my pride kicked in when I stood before the jury. It’s stupid, I know, particularly when my liberty – indeed, the rest of my life – was at stake, but I found it impossible to let those people see a broken man, getting through the last years of his life on handouts. Perhaps, I should have put on an act, maybe shed a few tears at my desperation. But that was against my nature: I’ve always tried to be straightforward and genuine and, in that box, I honestly thought that simply telling the truth about myself would see me through. Why, oh, why hadn’t I just talked to those jurors the way I’d talked to Dave Courtney on remand? Opened up and bared my soul and let them see precisely how the stigma of the Kray name had destroyed my life. Who knows, I might have managed it if The Mermaid hadn’t been mentioned. That had really done me in.
That magical day in June had been just like the old days when me and the twins put on charity events in the East End. The day had been about Gary and those caring nurses at St Christopher’s. It was all about raising money for the hospice, not about putting people together for a drug deal: the only drug I’d have had on my mind that day was the morphine those girls had given Gary to ease his pain. I told the court I wouldn’t insult Gary’s memory by talking about drugs on such an occasion. And I meant it.
I was so proud to be doing something to repay St Christopher’s, to thank them for making my son’s last days bearable. I told everyone I knew about the show. People close to me knew how much I loved Gary, and the theatre was packed.
Whatever was raised during that emotional evening, I would loved to have been in the position to give more to St Christopher’s. I’d willingly have nipped to the bank and increased our donation to a nice ten grand – or even more – but, as I’d made clear on the tapes, I didn’t have two pennies to rub together. In fact, apart from the proceeds from the Kray movie, I never had a lot of money after my arrest. It always made me laugh that people thought the twins salted a fortune away when the writing was on the wall. What rubbish! They did earn a lot, it’s true, but certainly not a fortune. And what money they did get, they spent – or, in Ronnie’s case, gave away.
If there was a lot stashed away, do you think I’d have had to rely on the fifty quid Mum gave me when I came out of nick? Do you think we’d have allowed her to move back into a council house and do, not one, but two, jobs to make ends meet? If there’d been bundles of money around you can bet your boots that the woman all three of us adored would have lived like a queen. Because that’s what she deserved. Neither Ronnie, Reggie nor I can speak too highly of our mum. In the face of the worst publicity imaginable – nationwide shame, in fact – she never lost faith in us. And only tw
ice in the nightmare that followed our arrests did she allow us to witness the anguish that was tearing her apart.
The first time was in 1968, when the three of us were in Brixton, awaiting trial. A bloke told a newspaper he’d overheard someone saying that the twins were arranging for Princess Margaret’s son, Lord Linley, to be kidnapped and held until we were released. The twins were slaughtered. And our mild-mannered mum, who rarely raised her voice, went spare. She wrote to the Queen, saying that the story was a load of rubbish, that never in a million years would the twins dream of involving a child in any sort of trouble, let alone a royal one. The newspaper printed the story as though it were true and Mum was horrified that millions of people might believe it.
The other time she cracked in front of us was when she came to the cells below the Old Bailey after our sentences. We were allowed to talk to her, one at a time, through a glass wall, and it broke Mum’s heart. She kept sobbing, saying over and over: ‘That’s it. That’s the end of the story. Thirty years. I can’t believe it.’
We all did our best to comfort her; told her not to worry, we’d be released on appeal. But we knew it wasn’t true, and she wasn’t fooled. ‘How can I not worry?’ she said, through her tears. ‘It’s the end of your lives.’
In those emotional moments, I’m sure Ronnie and Reggie came the nearest to feeling regret – if not remorse – for the murders that brought them to justice and broke the heart of the woman they worshipped. For they, like me, held her in such high esteem that they couldn’t bear the thought of hurting her.
If I was disappointed with my performance in the witness box, my solicitor, Ralph Haeems, was livid. Why hadn’t I said all that we, and Jonathan Goldberg, had agreed beforehand, he wanted to know? Why hadn’t I seized the chance to try to save myself? I looked at him and shook my head, sadly. ‘I honestly don’t know, Ralph,’ I said. ‘I was overwhelmed, I guess. And embarrassed.’
‘I don’t know why you didn’t just tell the jury everything you’ve been telling Dave on remand.’ Ralph knew all about Dave Courtney, had represented him on a number of fit-up charges and got him off on every one.
I just shook my head, not sure what to say. The truth was that baring one’s soul to a friend you’ve been cooped up with for many months was a lot easier than doing so in a packed courtroom. Ralph thought for a few moments, then said: ‘I wonder if Dave will go in the box for you. Say everything about you that you didn’t.’
‘It’s worth a try,’ I said.
‘It will be tough for you, Charlie,’ Ralph said. ‘He’ll have to say a lot of things you won’t want to hear.’
I forced a smile. ‘It can’t be any worse than what Mr Goldberg has said already.’
‘I’ll make contact and ask him,’ Ralph said. ‘He may not want to put himself in the frame again, having been released.’
And he may not want to be associated with a Kray trial after the aggravation Ronnie’s funeral caused him, I thought. But it was worth a try because Dave was one of those super-confident guys who would say what he wanted to say, and wouldn’t be fazed by the solemnity of the court, a biased judge or a tricky barrister. After all, he’d had plenty of experience!
I was fairly sure Dave wouldn’t let me down – and he didn’t. But, before he went into the witness box, close on twenty friends and acquaintances of mine were preparing to do so, too, either to speak about my character, or confirm or refute allegations by the prosecution, particularly about my Gary’s funeral and the two parties in Birmingham.
Nothing could have prepared me for the bumpy roller-coaster ride of emotions as these people went into the witness box to tell why their own impression of me backed up the sad, pathetic picture painted by Mr Goldberg. Their evidence took five days, and in that time I learnt a lot about myself. I learnt that for all my carefree bonhomie and good-natured charming bullshit over the years, I had not fooled anyone. All those who came forward so loyally in my hour of desperate need had always seen through me, seen the hapless dreamer I really was. And what touched me deeply, reduced me to tears at times, was that they did not care a jot. They liked me – loved me, perhaps – for myself, not for what I pretended to be. That’s why they were there, telling the truth, no matter how painful I might find it, to convince the jury I was not the despicable person they might think I was.
With all the frightening hype surrounding my appearance in the dock the jury could be excused for thinking they might be murdered in their beds, Mr Goldberg had said. They needed guarding round the clock, because I was, supposedly, so dangerous I’d been locked up in the country’s highest security prison.
But those lovely people who knew me told a different story and, no matter what happened, I’d never forget them. Diana, as elegant as ever, whose flattering description prompted Goldberg to say: ‘Many distinguished men have not had a testimonial like that’; Billy Murray, the Canning Town kid, now a famous actor, who did not forget his past; Albert Chapman, the Brummie with a big heart; Flanagan, the Cockney sister I never had; my ghostwriter Robin McGibbon, Steve Wraith, my young friend from Newcastle, Father Christopher Bedford, who had conducted Ronnie’s funeral, and, of course, John Corbett, whose support had never wavered.
‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser also spoke, but, like Goldberg’s junior counsel, David Martin-Sperry, I felt it was a mistake to call him. Frank had got carried away with the fame of writing a couple of books and, I’m sure, went into the witness box as much for himself as me. He showed off too much for my liking, and was stupidly cheeky to the judge, which I didn’t think went down well with the jury.
Dave Courtney, on the other hand, was a real star for me – even though I squirmed with embarrassment when he described me as a desperate pauper, with holes in my shoes, a faded suit and fake watch, capitalizing on the legend of my twin brothers. ‘I’m sorry to burst your bubble, mate,’ he said, looking at me, ‘but none of us have ever bought into what you pretend to be. You’re just a nice, charming old man who really can’t do anything, hasn’t got anything.’ As for masterminding a multi-million-pound drug deal, Dave left the jury with the impression I couldn’t run a bath; and although he didn’t actually use the words, he said I was like a performing seal, entertaining various groups with stories of the twins – in return for drinks – until the novelty wore off and I was passed on to the next group. I was always promising to help people, never ever saying NO, he said.
I was proud of Dave that day: of course my ego took a battering, but what did that matter if it meant the jury saw the real me, and the reason I went along with what Jack and his pals were suggesting?
Dave’s magnetic, cabaret-style evidence was a breath of fresh air in that solemn court, but it had a down side for me and my defence team. The following day, one of the male jurors told a court official that he knew of Dave through a cousin, and wondered if it compromised his role. Much to Goldberg’s annoyance, the judge felt it did, and dismissed him.
Far worse was to follow: I’d always pinned a lot of hope on Ronnie Field giving evidence; he could have answered a lot of questions that would have helped me. But, during the voire dire, he was advised by Judge Carroll to seek counsel’s advice before doing so. The result was that Ronnie refused to speak on my behalf.
Mr Goldberg was furious. He accused the judge of putting pressure on Field and said I could not have a fair trial if I had a reluctant witness. The point of it all was that, by pleading guilty, Ronnie had been promised a more lenient sentence than he would otherwise have got. And, according to Mr Goldberg, the judge was giving a clear message to Ronnie: If you give evidence I don’t like, you’ll get a longer sentence. Mr Goldberg was so angry he actually asked the judge to disqualify himself. Predictably, the judge refused.
If it was a slap in the face for Mr Goldberg, it was a crunching uppercut to me. I wanted the jury to hear what Ronnie had to say in my defence, but we were prohibited from telling them we wished to call him.
If that’s not an injustice, I don’t know what is. But, then,
I had not seen much justice where the name Kray was concerned.
I can’t – and won’t – make excuses for what the twins did to George Cornell and Jack McVitie. But I do want people to know – whether they were around at the time, or have only read about those awful crimes – that we were all victims of parliamentary pressure. Someone high up in the corridors of power had decided that the Kray brothers had become too powerful, too influential, knew too many powerful and influential people, and should be removed from society for a long time. The outcome of the case was worked out before it even got to court; you only have to consider the antagonism and unforgivable bias, and downright bad judgement of the trial judge Melford Stevenson to appreciate that. No matter what was said in the twins’ favour – no matter if they got a glowing testimonial from the Pope! – they were going away for thirty years.
People talk about justice in this country. We hold Britain up as shining example of democracy and fairmindedness, and the symbol of this is there for all to see in the scales of justice above the Old Bailey. How damned hypocritical! Ronnie got thirty years for murdering a gangster, who had threatened to kill him, yet some monster who starves and tortures a child to death gets away with a third of that. Reggie got thirty years for killing a despicable, woman-beating thug, yet an evil terrorist warrants the same sentence for killing and maiming innocent men, women and children in the name of politics and religion. Where is the democracy and fairmindedness in that?
Chapter Twenty-six
Kelsey-Fry was due to begin his closing speech on Thursday 12 June, but was ill. I wasn’t happy about him doing a demolition job on me on such a notorious day as Friday the thirteenth, but I saw the positive side: the nearer Mr Goldberg’s closing speech was to the judge’s summing up the better. If Kelsey-Fry finished his on Friday, that would leave the weekend for the jury to forget a lot of what he said, leaving Mr Goldberg to close only one day before the judge’s summing up.
Me and My Brothers Page 37