by James Morton
‘Now, my task at this stage of the case is to direct you as to the law – and that won’t take me more than a very few minutes because the law applicable to this case is very simple – to analyse the issues in the case and to comment on the evidence. I can analyse the issue in this case in one sentence. “Do you believe Donoghue?” Because if you don’t there is no case against Reginald Kray or Frederick Foreman on the charge of murder. That’s all this case is about. But it has taken six and a half days of oratory to get to that very simple issue.’34
During the remainder of the summing up he did what he could to blow holes in the defence cases but, when on 16 May after a six-hour retirement the jury finally returned, everyone was acquitted except Reggie Kray, who was convicted of aiding Mitchell’s escape. He received a concurrent five-year sentence. ‘God bless you, members of the jury,’ he said as he left the dock. The unfortunate Garelick, who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy at the beginning of the case, received 18 months. Much later Read thought that the prosecution would have been better to have considered Manny Fryde’s plea-bargain offer more carefully and dropped the charges against Charlie Kray.
Enough was now enough. There was no real point in prosecuting the Krays yet again on the fraud and other charges. Sufficient time and money had already been spent. Even if they were found guilty, the sentences on the Twins would have been meaningless. On 25 May 1969 the remaining Long Firm fraud charges were dropped and many of the fringe defendants who had been in custody were released or given short sentences. Among them was Joseph Kaufman who was sentenced to 15 months for his part in the stolen bonds case, meaning he would be released in six weeks’ time.
The defence cost of the trials had been £152,771, which in today’s terms roughly equates to £2,370,000.
After the sentences came the splits in the ranks. Realisation set in among the lower orders that they had been induced into throwing away what were possibly good defences through misguided loyalty and, in some cases, fear. On 7 March 1969 Haeems and Fryde filed the initial notices of appeal and were told the perfected grounds of appeal had to be filed by 2 June. Principally the grounds were that Stevenson should have split the indictment so that the Cornell and McVitie murders were tried separately. The Twins also argued that the defence run by Tony Barry had unfairly prejudiced them.
But soon there were applications to change solicitors. The first signs of trouble came on 28 April when a handwritten notice came from Chris Lambrianou saying he wanted to change his solicitor to the highly talented and thoroughly dishonest Bryan J.C. Gammon, writing:
‘I have no faith or trust in Sampsons and I feel they will not let me put my case properly to the appeal court as they stopped me doing so at the trial.’35
His application was followed the next day by one from his brother, and on 5 May the legal aid orders were amended. Now it was a question of ‘Your Lordships, please let me into another lifeboat’, a far cry from Tony Lambrianou’s later autobiography in which he styled himself the ‘former Kray Boss’ and enjoyed a successful media career on the back of the Twins.
On 12 May Whitehead wrote asking to be allowed to change solicitors and the same day John ‘Ian’ Barrie joined the defectors and asked to have his case transferred to Claude Hornby & Cox. Bender’s sister then wrote to the court saying she had been to see Rudolph Lyons, who had advised her to stick with Sampsons. She had no quarrel with him but had no confidence in Fryde. The family had also received threats about what might happen if they strayed from the fold and in turn Whitehead repeated his pre-trial claim that he and his family were at risk.
The Lambrianous’ new defence was that like Anthony Barry, they had been terrified of the Krays and had been pressured into tailoring their defence to fit that of the brothers.
Tony Lambrianou set the tone. Ground 2 of his Appeal read:
‘That his defence was not presented by his solicitors as a result of pressure being exercised upon their clerk Ralph Hyams [sic] by Charles Kray, Reginald Kray and Ronald Kray.’
Now he wanted to call Detective Inspector Frank Cater and the two boys, Terence and Trevor, who had been at the party when McVitie was killed, to give evidence on his behalf. He also wanted to give new evidence in line with an attached statement.
In it he dealt with what he now said his relationship with the Twins had been. And a very different one it was:
‘I have never belonged to the Kray Firm. I met them at the same time as my brother Christopher and only really started to see much of them about eight weeks prior to the murder of McVitie; this was primarily because I was also a member of the Regency Club and also drank in the same Public House. I personally was never asked to do anything by them but I knew only too well of their reputation.’
Chris Lambrianou more or less followed his brother’s statement. He had met the Kray brothers casually in 1963 but it was not until August 1967 that he had had a drink with them. Hart had taken him to the Carpenters Arms and they had told him that if he took gamblers to their club at the Grand Hotel, Leicester, they would give him a commission. ‘I was aware of who they were and the power they held; I was at no time a member of their Firm’.
Whitehead claimed that Carol Skinner, whose evidence was crucial against him, should have been treated as an accomplice. Bender, who had called an alibi in the trial, now amended it, saying that while the first part of his evidence had been true and he had been at the greyhounds with Bubbles Shea, he had in fact been to the party where he had been shocked to see the killing but powerless to prevent it.
It was never going to be a change of tactics which was likely to find favour with the Court of Appeal. The judgment on the application for leave to appeal was given on 22 July 1969.36
The Lord Chief Justice quickly dismissed the indictment and prejudice arguments. Another ground for appeal was that Melford Stevenson had not put the defence side of the case properly. This too received short shrift:
‘When the defence call evidence, a failure to put the case derived from that defence will almost always be fatal to the conviction but it is well established that the judge need not repeat all the argument of counsel and, when no evidence is called, the defence necessarily consists of argument.’
Then Lord Justice Fenton Atkinson poured scorn on the Lambrianou brothers’ volte face, as he dismissed their appeals:
‘We perjured ourselves at the trial again and again. Those witnesses whom our counsel attacked so vigorously told the truth. We did take McVitie to the party. We were there when he was murdered. We did clear up afterwards, indeed we took the body away in McVitie’s car and disposed of it south of the river. No doubt we were accessories after the fact but we were not charged with that offence. We had no idea in advance what was going to happen. We wished to tell the truth about this matter at our trial but such threats were made against us and such strong pressure was brought to bear upon us by the Kray twins that we realised if we wished to remain alive we had to toe the Kray line.’
There were also appeals against their sentences and these met with no more success. Mr Justice James, giving the decision of the court, had this to say:
‘Above all, this case tells a deplorable story of the activities of a gang in which the accessories sought to cover up the vicious and brutal conduct of the gang leaders. When such cases are brought to justice it is not sufficient to pass exemplary sentences on the leaders alone. It is equally necessary for the Court to show that a grave view will be taken of the activities of the lesser fry, and the more responsible the part played by an accessory the heavier the sentence he can expect.’
Fat Wally Garelick, who had helped in the Mitchell escape, thought his fifteen-month sentence too long when compared with that of Donoghue. He was not a hardened criminal and had no previous convictions, whereas Donoghue had several. That argument was soon disposed of. There might have been special considerations in Donoghue’s case and he might have been lucky to have rece
ived only two years, but 18 months was not a day too long for those helping prisoners to escape.
The Court then certified a point of law of general public importance in the cases of Ronald Kray and Bender, but refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords. In turn their Lordships declined to hear the case.
People, 23 March 1969.
Nat. Arch CRIM 1/1400.
Nat. Arch. Crim. 1/5350.
Nat. Arch. MEPO 2/4588.
Reg Kray, Born Fighter, p.111.
Nat. Arch. J 82/1338.
Nat Arch, J 82/1312.
Nat. Arch. J 82/1312.
Chapter 16
Charlie Kray – Inside and Out
In the autumn of 1969, following an article published the previous year in Vogue, Charlie Kray saw damages for libel winking at him and was tempted to sue. As a first step he wrote to the Home Office asking for permission to issue writs.
The offending words in Vogue had come from the unflattering remarks:
‘I’ve been to Vallance Road to Mother Kray’s house once. All the doors have lace done up in pink bows like a gypsy caravan which makes me think they have gypsy blood. Nightclub wallpaper, velvet stripes and stars on the ceiling. Everything’s spotless. Mother Kray spends her time polishing keyholes. The Krays, like a lot of cruel people, have a streak of sentimentality.’
Kray was most upset about his mother being described as ‘cruel’.
The Home Office was wary. The European Commission, it noted, had been taking ‘great interest in our control over prisoners’ access to solicitors and the courts’. The Commission wanted a statement of criteria by which applications were dealt with. If the Home Office refused Kray permission to sue, that would no doubt cause adverse publicity. Since the time limit to bring proceedings over the Vogue article was running out, they were hoping the problem would just go away. A first step, however, would be to allow Kray to obtain counsel’s opinion on the merits of the case.
On hand to help him was solicitor Alan Lorenz, and he instructed the charming and extremely dubious barrister Ronald Shulman to give written advice on the prospects of success of the action. Shulman and Lorenz turned up more or less unannounced at Chelmsford prison where they were admitted on a ‘sight and sound’ visit, meaning it had to be in the presence and hearing of a prison officer. Afterwards Shulman wrote an opinion in Kray’s favour. Perhaps the kindest thing which could be said of it was that it was not the strongest of opinions and seemed to ignore the decision that a convicted person was stuck with his conviction and could not use a libel action to reopen his case. The Home Office thought it could refuse Kray’s petition on its merits and indeed, as they had hoped, the matter lapsed.
Shortly after, Charlie Kray instructed the struck-off solicitor Ellis Lincoln, then working as a managing clerk, to see if there was any evidence available that would discredit Ronnie Hart and his story which had convicted him. In turn Lincoln instructed an inquiry agent, Derek Higgins, to investigate and at first it seemed that some progress had been made.
Higgins telephoned Hart on 16 September 1970 and asked to meet him at the Golden Arrow Bar at Victoria Station. They met around 4 p.m. and Higgins said Lincoln wanted to meet Hart at his offices and drove him there in a Rover. Higgins asked Hart if McVitie was dead, because there was a rumour that he was still alive. Lincoln told him, ‘If you could find someone respectable who will alibi Charlie, it would be guaranteed safety from the Firm.’ The next day Hart duly reported this to Inspector George Clarkeson at Scotland Yard.
When Lincoln submitted the petition to the Home Office, there was the alibi, already given before the trial but never called, that Charlie and Dolly Kray were at a caravan site at Steeple in Essex on the night of the murder. He was sure that Rose Clara Clark, who ran the site, would remember him being there. She did not. She agreed the party would have been on 28 October but as she had not attended it she could not say whether he had been there.
Charlie’s son Gary was now roped in to say he would have known if there had been a call to his father on the night of the McVitie murder. The police were not impressed. Why, they wondered, had Gary not been called at the Old Bailey in his father’s defence, and why had Charlie not called his alibi some years earlier?
When he was next seen by the police, Hart was soon returned to the fold. On 3 March 1971 Ronnie Hart, terrified of the Krays and believing himself to be a marked man, told Det. Ch. Supt. Terry O’Connell:
‘If I make a statement to Lincoln, Quirke or Higgins it is only because I have got to pretend that I am helping them, otherwise I am a dead man. In this statement of 16 September 1969 I told a lot of lies because I know Lincoln is close to the Firm. He is well known as a bent brief, and I was frightened to upset him because I knew he is close to the Firm and I know what the Firm would do to me.’
The Home Office took no further action and the file was duly closed, only to be brought out of storage when Henry Botton, who had been in Mr Smith’s Club the night Dickie Hart was killed, was himself murdered.
However the enquiry agent Derek Higgins, along with 60-year-old clerk Alexander Thompson and journalist Kenneth Prater, paid a price for his investigations when they were charged with conspiracy to defeat the course of public justice between 2 and 12 December 1969 in attempting to persuade Ronnie Hart by threats and inducements to change his statements over the McVitie murder. They were committed for trial in January 1970 but the charges were dropped the following May. If, said John Leonard for the Crown, they had merely been trying to discover whether Hart had lied at the Kray trial, there would have been no offence and given that they were of good character it would have been extremely difficult for the Crown to prove otherwise. The Crown would have had to show that they had believed Hart’s evidence at the Kray trial and were now trying to persuade him to make a false statement. However, the Common Sergeant said he thought that Higgins and Thompson had brought things on themselves and ordered Thompson to contribute up to £2,000 towards his legal aid costs and Higgins, who thought the adverse publicity had cost him £5,000 of business, £500.
At the time of Thompson’s arrest his employer Brendan Quirke wrote to the President of the Law Society:
‘It is a sorry day when the managing clerk of a responsible firm of solicitors who was acting properly, regularly and in consultation with counsel can be arrested and thrown into prison and detained for fourteen hours.’37
In February 1970 Ellis Lincoln was discharged from bankruptcy but in May the next year failed in his application to be restored to the Rolls of Solicitors. His request to the Home Office for permission to visit Charlie was granted, but the prison governor was advised Lincoln was well known to the authorities and not to be trusted. The meeting was to be ‘within sight and sound’. It must have been difficult for the authorities to work out who Charlie’s solicitor actually was, because meanwhile Ralph Haeems had visited him in Chelmsford to talk about the article in the Daily Mirror, ‘New Evidence in the McVitie Case’, and Hart’s statement and retraction. Their meeting was again within sight and sound of Prison Officer R.W. Horne, who duly reported back to the Governor, who in turn sent his notes to the Home Office. Haeems was now confident that there would have to be a Commission of Inquiry. Charlie’s wife Dolly (now Grey) had contacted Tom Sargent of Justice, the organisation involved generally in penal reform but specifically in cases of potential wrongful conviction. Haeems told Charlie, ‘He’ll [the Home Secretary] have to do something about it now. This thing will cause a hell of a stink’.38 But he and it never did.
In 1973, this time through little fault of his own, Charlie Kray became involved in one of the more sensational murder trials of the decade when George Ince, later convicted of a major bullion robbery, was accused of the murder of Muriel Patience in a bungled robbery known as The Barn Murder in November 1972. Again the judge was Melford Stevenson, whose acidity had not sweetened over the years. The evidence against him rested solely on identificat
ion by Muriel’s daughter Beverley, and Stevenson seemed set on obtaining a conviction.
Ince had first met Charlie’s wife Dolly towards the end of the 1950s either in the Double R or at one of the many parties thrown by the Kray Twins. By the mid-1960s Ince had fallen in love with Dolly and was a regular visitor to her flat in Poplar from 1968 once the three Kray brothers were in custody. While arguing with Charlie, Dolly would tell him that Nancy, their daughter, was in fact Ince’s and although she later denied it, it was something that Charlie appears to have accepted as true.39 Charlie Kray in his book Me and my Brothers says, ‘Deep down I knew Nancy was not my child’, ‘Even though I knew Nancy was not my child I still wanted to see her’ and ‘…I’d thought the world of her. Even though she was another man’s child.’ Charlie was indeed enormously proud of her, producing photographs of her at every possible opportunity.
When an informer implicated him in the Barn murder, George Ince believed he could prove his innocence and went to see Ralph Haeems, who took him to the police. Dolly Kray gave Haeems a statement providing an alibi for the night of the murder, but Ince never expected he would need to produce it.
The trial opened at Chelmsford Crown Court on 2 May 1973 and it did not go well for Ince. On the fifth day, with Ince convinced he was going to be convicted by Stevenson without need of the jury, he said he wanted a different judge. Stevenson told him he was not going to get one and Ince said he wanted to go down to the cells. Stevenson refused him permission and Ince yelled that he was ‘biased, rude, everything’. Stevenson told the warders to ‘keep him there’.
Over the weekend Ince’s family sent a telegram to the Lord Chancellor asking for Stevenson to be replaced. The request was refused. Ince sacked his counsel and refused to take any further part in the trial, sitting with his back to the judge. The jury disagreed and a retrial was ordered.