by James Morton
What actually happened to Mitchell’s body? The suggestions have been both numerous and varied, and it is a question of ‘take your pick.’ On 11 August 1967 a letter in block capitals was sent to the Daily Mirror: ‘FRANK MITCHEL (sic) WAS MURDERED LAST SATURDAY NIGHT HIS BODY WAS THROWN IN THE THAMES AT WAPPING.’ Years later Freddie Foreman, appearing on television, said it had been dropped in the English Channel but, according to Donoghue, Foreman told him they had had to keep the body for some five days before it was burned because the man who owned the furnace had visitors over Christmas. Another member of the Kray team told fraudster and gold smuggler Paul Elvey it had gone into a scrap incinerator where ‘all the bones and even the tooth fillings go to ashes’.146
It was amazing the conspirators held together for so long. But then again, there was no one from Mitchells’ family demanding an inquiry into his disappearance.
Reg and Ron Kray, Our Story, p. 78.
Nat. Arch. MEPO 3/3140.
The Earl of Mountbatten, Report of the Inquiry into Prison Escapes and Security, 1966, para. 155.
In Born Fighter Reg Kray says it was Alf Donoghue and a Joe Williams who went to collect him, p. 110. Quite why this is so is difficult to understand. It can hardly be to protect Teddy Smith who had disappeared over twenty years earlier. In Our Story the men are Donoghue and Smith.
Leonard Read, Nipper, The Man who nicked the Krays, p. 314.
Nat. Arch. Crim 1/4903.
Conversation with JM, 14 January 2015.
Nat. Arch. MEPO 2/10680.
MEPO 2/10680.
Freddie Foreman and Tony Lambrianou, Getting it Straight, p. 77.
ibid.
Conversations with the author. For other accounts of Gerard see Marilyn Wisbey, Gangster’s Moll, and Freddie Foreman’s Respect which has a long account of Gerard’s brutal treatment of his dog.
Nat. Arch. J 82/1335.
Conversation with JM.
Nat. Arch. Crim 1/4903.
Nat. Arch. MEPO 2/11386.
Chapter 11
The Killing of Jack
‘The Hat’ McVitie
The 6’2” 16-stone Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie is often derisively described as a small-time thief whose one great talent was the ability to walk on his hands, but that does him an injustice. In his day he had been a good robber and, said Freddie Foreman, ‘He was a frightening bastard’.147
After he received seven years at Cambridgeshire Quarter Sessions for unlawful possession of explosives and possessing a flick knife, in December 1959 he narrowly escaped a flogging after a fight with a prison officer in Exeter prison.
Frank Fraser remembered the fight as a fair one, after McVitie objected to being stopped on the exercise yard and told to keep his distance from the pair walking in front:
‘The prisoners made a circle so the other prison officers couldn’t interfere. It was a fair fight and McVitie knocked him out… McVitie’s in real trouble and we asked him what he wanted to happen next. He said he didn’t want anyone to be in trouble for him: he would just go in but would we see they didn’t give him a belting, meaning let the authorities know it was a fair fight and he’s gone in quietly.’148
In fact McVitie was given a beating, and as a result Fraser and the ill-fated Jimmy Andrews attacked Governor Rundle-Harris and another officer in a workshop. The trio were brought up before the visiting magistrates and McVitie was sentenced to 15 strokes of the birch, Andrews to 12 and Fraser to the maximum of 18. It was then Billy Hill’s tame MP Mark Hewitson intervened and raised the matter in the House of Commons, describing some prison officers as ‘hoodlum warders’ with a ‘Belsen mentality’.149 The Home Secretary was required to confirm the birching before it was carried out, and because Fraser had twice been declared insane he declined to do so. It was a question of ‘flog all, flog none’ and as a result he also refused to confirm the birching for Andrews and McVitie.
This decision not to flog them was not well received by Rolf Dudley-Williams, the kindly MP for Exeter, who in reply to Hewitson said in the House of Commons:
‘I very much regret that Fraser was not thrashed, but that was the responsibility of my right Honourable Friend the Home Secretary who, I am sure, weighed the situation very carefully before making his decision.’
It was something of a pyrrhic victory. Fraser lost 400 days remission, Andrews 300 and McVitie 200.
After his release in 1965 McVitie held up the Starlight Rooms, a club off Oxford Street, and forced the punters to drop their trousers. The manager Barry Cayman turned to the Twins for help, who approached Freddie Foreman and Mickey Regan to take over the gaming tables there.
But now, full of booze and pills, McVitie was seriously on the slide and was becoming an embarrassment. One evening in a club he became involved in a shouting match with Dorothy Squires over the sexual prowess of her former husband Roger Moore, dropping his trousers to show the candy-striped underwear he favoured. On another night he shot up the Mildmay Tavern because they would not serve him a drink. To compound his misdemeanours he once appeared at a Kray club drunk, wearing Bermuda shorts and carrying a bayonet. Worse, he caused trouble with Ronnie Olliffe in The Log Cabin, the club in Wardour Street which served as a robbers’ employment exchange, in which George Walker, then in between his days as Billy Hill’s minder and stock market entrepreneur, had an interest. He had also shot at Tommy Flanagan in the Regency and even more dangerously he had quarrelled with Freddie Foreman in Foreman’s ritzy 211 club and spieler in Balham.
More seriously, the Twins had a number of grudges against him. He had told a man he thought they were ‘a couple of twits’ and the remark had been reported back to headquarters. Then, depending on who is telling the tale, he had been given £100 or £٥٠٠ or £١,000 to kill their estranged financial adviser Leslie Payne. Half drunk, he had gone to Payne’s house with Billy Exley, who would later give evidence against his former friends and employers. They had arrived only to be told by Mrs Payne that the potential victim was out. McVitie had simply turned away and pocketed the advance fee.
Shortly after, George Dixon, one of the brothers who worked both with and independently of the Twins, and had himself been shot at by Ronnie, tried to persuade McVitie to absent himself from the scene at least for a period, but he would not listen.
Not only did McVitie fail to carry out the contract on Payne, he began to boast how he had scored over the Twins, and drunkenly criticised them in public. While the failure to kill Payne might have been accepted, the boasting and criticism could not. And he was dealing in pep pills with the Twins and talking too much about it in the West End. It was also rumoured he may have been enquiring about Frank Mitchell.
The Twins’ cousin, Ronald Hart, claims McVitie was targeted after tipping off Bobby Cannon, who Reggie had planned to shoot in revenge for an earlier, accidental shooting incident. Later that night a drunken Reggie had said ‘I won’t forget McVitie for that’.150
There was also another longstanding and seriously important issue. Ronnie had been niggling at his twin, telling him that he had killed a man and it was time for Reggie to do the same. According to Hart, Reggie told him he wouldn’t be able to kill someone without a reason. Wally Garelick was one potential target, having sided with Ronnie after he made disparaging remarks about Frances Kray. He had merely suffered minor damage when Reggie, after waiting outside his home one night, shot him in the leg. Now McVitie filled the position of victim admirably.
The evening of Saturday 25 October 1967 started well when members of the Firm went drinking in the Carpenters Arms, then a dingy pub in Cheshire Street near Vallance Road. There are claims that the Krays owned the pub, but it is doubtful whether this is strictly accurate. Certainly they could not have obtained a licence. It is more likely they were leaning on it. Charlie Kray says the Carpenters Arms they owned was paid for by him and was in the Lea Bridge Road. Since Charlie rarely had £2,000 to his name this is also unlikely.
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For once wives and girlfriends were there and among the company were Violet and Charlie Kray Snr, Charlie Jnr and Dolly, Ronnie Hart and his wife Vicki, Ronnie Bender and Lily, known as Bubbles (the former girlfriend of Frankie Shea), Ian Barrie and his girlfriend Pat, known as Pifco because she used to give Ronnie a massage with a Pifco, Connie Whitehead and his wife Pat, Scotch Jack Dickson and his girlfriend Stella, Reggie’s girlfriend Ginger Carole Thompson as well as Geoff Allen and his girlfriend Annie.
Initially things went well, with Reggie in good humour. Then about 10 p.m. Ronnie telephoned his brother at the pub and, according to Ronnie Hart, Reggie’s mood changed and he began drinking one gin after another. People began to drift away but then, on the spur of the moment, Reggie decided to have a party at Blonde Carol Skinner’s basement flat at 71 Evering Road, Stoke Newington. Carol was a mother of two who had been a hairdresser’s model before meeting the Krays in 1965 and began working at the Starlight. At first they asked permission to use her flat and then just took it over. She would come home and find dozens of empty glasses and overflowing ashtrays.
She and her boyfriend George Plummer, who worked in the Green Dragon club, were ordered out. They and the other wives and girlfriends either went home or across the road to Jenny King (a pseudonym), a friend of Carol, who some years later told me:
‘The Krays could order her about because she was going with a man Georgie Plummer, he’s long dead, who worked in a spieler they either owned or had an interest in. I had worked behind the bar in it and they were always in and out. They just said to Georgie, ‘We’re going to have a party down your girlfriend’s house’ and that was it. Georgie was a very nice, timid man; he wasn’t going to stand up to them.’151
Meanwhile Reggie went to the Regency to see if he could find McVitie. There he told Tony Barry, the owner, that he wanted McVitie fetched in because he was going to do him in. Barry told him he was not in the club and anyway would Kray do him a favour and not kill McVitie on the premises. Kray gave Barry an automatic pistol before going back to Evering Road.
As the night wore on the Twins, Ronnie Bender, Chris and Tony Lambrianou, their friends the Mills brothers from Notting Hill, Connie Whitehead, Ronnie Hart, and Terence and Trevor, two young friends of Ronnie Kray, were in the basement flat idly watching boxing on the television, with the boys dancing to a record player. Reggie then announced he was going to kill McVitie. The Lambrianou brothers were sent to find the erring man – who was by now drinking in the Regency – and bring him to the flat. Hart was told to go and tell Barry to bring the gun left with him. Barry’s participation would ensure he kept his mouth shut.
Barry brought the gun and some more drink and left as soon as he possibly could. Reggie told the two youths to begin making a noise, singing and dancing when McVitie arrived. Hart was told to go upstairs and keep watch from the window and let him know when McVitie appeared, so the record player could be turned up. McVitie arrived with the Lambrianous in high good humour. He rushed into the room clapping his hands, shouting, ‘Where’s all the birds? Where’s all the drink?’
According to Hart, almost immediately Reggie pulled the gun to shoot him, but it failed to fire and McVitie managed to trap his arm. Hart told the youths to get out of the room. Reggie then freed his arm and shot at McVitie again, and once more the gun failed to fire. Ronnie then told McVitie to sit down, relax and tell him about the row he had had with Freddie Foreman at the 211 club. Ronnie Bender was fiddling with the gun, and Reggie took it from him and tried to shoot McVitie again. The Hat made a break for the door but Ronnie stopped him, saying, ‘Come on, Jack. Be a man.’ McVitie replied, ‘Yes, I’ll be a man, but I don’t want to die like one’. He made a dash for the window, smashing the glass with his shoulder. Reggie took a knife from Bender; Ronnie Hart held McVitie in a bear hug and Reggie stabbed him in the face. McVitie began to plead, calling, ‘Don’t. Stop, please,’ while Ronnie urged his brother on, ‘Do him Reg. Kill him, Reg.’ Reggie then stabbed him half a dozen times in the stomach and McVitie slumped to the floor. Bender put his head on McVitie’s chest and said, ‘He’s dead’. On the stairs outside, Chrissie Lambrianou, who had left the room at the start of the trouble, began to cry.
Later Bender described the killing:
‘It was terrible. Savagery at its utmost. Reggie was foaming at the mouth like a raging bull. Have you ever seen a bull’s eyes before the toreador finishes him off? He was like that. Absolutely gone. Blood was everywhere.’152
In his book Escape from the Kray Madness, Chris Lambrianou explained he had been upset when Reggie had produced a gun and had left the room. Ronnie then told Connie Whitehead to take him home. He had found two guns there and had returned to the party to protect his younger brother against what he felt would be an aggressive McVitie. When he returned to Evering Road the only person there was Ronnie Bender. Within minutes Tony returned and together they cleaned up the flat. The three of them later wrapped McVitie’s body in an eiderdown and Tony drove it to South London in McVitie’s car. Even after their years in prison the brothers could not agree about what had happened. Tony claimed he sent Chrissie away to get a gun and when he returned, Jack was dying. The Krays and Hart then left, leaving the Lambrianous, Whitehead and Bender to deal with the housekeeping.
But, according to Hart, it was all hands to the pump and naturally the Twins turned to their ever-helpful brother Charlie for advice. Bender was told to take the body and dump it over the railway line in Cazenove Road, Stoke Newington. Hart took the Twins to Harry Hopwood’s home in Hackney Road and the Lambrianous were left behind to clean up. When Bender arrived at Hopwood’s, Ronnie was in the bath and Reggie in his underpants. Bender told them he had dumped the body south of the river and now Ronnie called him a ‘dozy bastard’ and said they would have to get in touch with ‘Brown Bread’, a reference to Freddie Foreman. Hopwood also rang Charlie Kray with a cryptic message.
At the time there was a tap on Charlie Kray’s telephone and a call by a man called Ersh was picked up:
E. Tell the feller who rabbits about Ray Moore. With me?
C. Yes.
E. Tell him to come round right away.
C. Where are you?
E. Where I always am. Got it?
C. I see, what’s the time?
E. About three.
C. The fellow there wants to see me?
E. Yes, you know where, don’t you?
C. Yes, cheerio.
Then Dolly Kray rang Tommy Cowley:
D. Sorry to wake you. Do you know Tommy Brown’s number?
C. No, do you?
D. It’s important to the others. Know what I mean the others. Ronnie. Ronnie Bender works behind the bar. Do you know who I mean?
C. Yes.
D. There’s been you know. The fellow with the hat.
C. Yes.
D. They want Tommy Brown’s number.
C. Charlie’s out?
D. Yes.
Meanwhile at they had changed their clothes at Hopwood’s. Hopwood had washed their jewellery and Reggie Kray’s hair because he had a cut hand. By now it was 3 a.m.
Charlie was told he had to go to see Foreman, and Hart that he must take the mini in which he had driven the Twins and get Foreman to hide it in one of his lock-ups. According to Hart he and Charlie drove over to South London, rousing Foreman from his bed in the early hours.
Arrangements were then made to go to Suffolk where the Twins, Carole Thompson, Hart and a boyfriend of Ronnie would stay at The Swan at Lavenham. On the way Ronnie was in fine form, joking that ‘Jack had no heart’ and ‘He lived and died with his hat on’. They stayed in Lavenham for a week and went to the local Hunt Ball the following Saturday, for which Hart had to go to a local tailor to rent a dinner jacket. He at least showed some finer feelings by never again eating a McVitie’s biscuit after Jack’s death. As for Reggie, in a later remark which c
annot have helped his case for parole, he commented, ‘I did not regret it at the time and I don’t regret it now. I have never felt a moment’s remorse’.
In Escape from the Kray Madness, Chris Lambrianou, claiming Charlie Kray and Freddie Foreman were fitted up by the police and Hart over the disposal of McVitie’s body, gives a substantially different version of events. He says that his brother Tony drove McVitie’s body through the Blackwall Tunnel to south London where the car ran out of petrol. Chris and Ronnie Bender followed so they could take Tony back.
There have been many other accounts of the final disposal of the body and theories as to its whereabouts. Nipper Read rather favoured the theory that it had been returned to East London and put in the furnaces of a local swimming baths. Another version is that McVitie was sent to a friendly undertaker and buried in a double coffin. He may have been buried somewhere in the country, possibly, and rather suitably, in Gravesend. The body may have been taken in a car to South London and ended up as an Oxo cube in a scrap yard.
Freddie Foreman, who of all people should know, has been fairly reticent about the funeral arrangements. In his book Respect he says that he was rather aggrieved at being called out in the middle of the night to help clear up this difficult situation. According to him the car which had contained McVitie’s body was sent to a wrecker’s yard and the body itself was tied up with chicken wire and buried at sea away from the fishing lanes. He also maintains that, at the outset, there had been no intention to kill McVitie, but merely to scare him. Then things had got out of hand.