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London’s Notorious Kray Twins

While it could be said that England is notorious for some of the worst murderers in history, it could hardly be recognised as a country famous for its gangsters. Mainland Europe and north and south America are far better known for organised crime, through the Mafia and the drug cartels. Yet it was in London’s East End that arguably two of the most recognised gangsters in history created a crime empire they called ‘the Firm’, which is still operating to this day. It began back in the days when armed robberies, arson, standover, torture, protection and assault with extreme violence were the bread and butter of organised crime, long before drugs became the underworld’s currency. It was the time of the Kray twins.

Identical twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray were born in London’s working-class East End on 24 October 1933, to a mum who adored them all their lives. They would develop into a formidable yet unusual duo – one a paranoid schizophrenic and the other a violent homosexual. Their brother Charlie Jr, six years older, was named after their rag-and-bone-man father, whom they seldom saw as he was on the run from the army after deserting in 1939. Influenced by their boxing grandfather Jimmy ‘Cannonball’ Lee, in their early teens the twins took up boxing and became very good at it.

The increasingly violent twins made their first appearance at the Old Bailey in 1950, where a case of assault was dismissed for lack of evidence. And in keeping with the family tradition, when they were drafted into the military service in 1952, they repeatedly deserted and bashed the civilian police officers sent to arrest them. After numerous periods in military custody they were dishonourably discharged and embarked on their real career as gangsters.

Tall with broad shoulders and rugged good looks, and always immaculately groomed in suits and ties, the twins recruited other thugs and began their takeover of the business houses in the East End. Brawls broke out in the pubs and clubs that didn’t pay protection money. Worse still, a mysterious fire could burn the place to the ground. Everyone paid.

Their expanding empire of violence became known as the Firm and Ronnie and Reggie became the Lords of the Firm. By 1960 it ran teams of successful armed robbers, hijackers and firebugs for profit, and their thriving protection racket affected the entire neighbourhood. But their livelihood wasn’t without its occupational hazards. On 5 November 1956, Ronnie was jailed for three years for assault. While in prison he refused to eat, shaved only one side of his face and suffered wild mood swings, sitting still for hours before erupting into a violent frenzy. He was diagnosed as a criminally insane paranoid schizophrenic and after his release his violence increased. In February 1960, Reggie was imprisoned for 18 months for protection-related threats.

In 1961, slumlord Peter Rachman, who had been paying the Krays exorbitant protection money for his many rundown tenements that were leased out as brothels, decided it was better to get rid of the Krays in one deal instead of paying them forever, so he gave them the Esmeralda’s Barn nightclub and gambling casino in Knightsbridge. The Krays paid Lord Effingham, the sixth Earl of Effingham, to greet people at the door and give the club the style that Londoners loved.

It worked and soon the twins found themselves entertaining Diana Dors, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, politicians and knights of the realm, which gave the Krays a veneer of respectability. In doing so they became celebrities in their own right, being photographed by David Bailey and interviewed on television.

While Reggie found himself in bed with Barbara Windsor, the famous actress from Eastenders, his gay brother Ronnie wound up on the front pages of the Sunday Mirror accused of having a sexual relationship with one of the club’s regulars, Lord Bob Boothby, a UK Conservative politician, whom he had met through the many gay parties that they both attended.

Although no names were printed, Lord Boothby threatened to sue and the newspaper backed down, sacked its editor, apologised, and paid Boothby £40,000 in an out of court settlement. As a result, other newspapers were less willing to uncover the Krays’ connections and criminal activities and they lived a charmed existence as respected club owners. But it wouldn’t last.

On 9 March 1966, Ronnie Kray shot and killed George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel Road in front of a packed bar. Cornell had made the mistake of calling Ronnie a ‘fat poof’ in a nightclub months earlier. Police questioned every­one in the bar but such was the reputation of the Krays that no one saw a thing. The killing only enhanced the stranglehold the Kray twins had on crime in London’s East End.

In October 1967, Reggie was encouraged by his brother to kill Jack ‘the Hat’ McVitie, a minor member of the Kray gang who had failed to fulfil a £1500 murder contract paid to him in advance by the Krays. McVitie was lured to a basement flat in Newington and as he entered, Reggie Kray, in front of four witnesses, pointed a handgun at his head and pulled the trigger twice, but the gun failed to discharge. Ronnie Kray then held McVitie while Reggie stabbed him in the face, stomach and neck until McVitie lay on the floor dying. McVitie’s body was never recovered.

A year later in May 1968, Reggie, Ronnie and 15 senior aides of the Firm were arrested and charged with a huge variety of offences, including the murders of George Cornell and Jack the Hat. Once the Firm was behind bars, witnesses to both murders came forward and the fate of the Kray twins was sealed. The Krays were convicted of murder and the 14 others were sent to prison on lesser charges. Condemned from the bench of the Old Bailey as ‘criminals of the worst possible kind’, the twins were sentenced to life imprisonment, with the then record of 30 years in custody before they could apply for parole. Their brother Charlie got 10 years for being an accessory to murder. Their mum, of course, said her boys would never do such things and were at home with her when the offences took place. The only time the twins would ever see the outside of prison again was to go to her funeral in August 1982.

In jail Ronnie was again certified insane and lived the remainder of his life in Broadmoor psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane, with the likes of Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper. He died on 17 March 1995 of a massive heart attack, aged 61. His funeral on 29 March 1995 was a huge event, with the coffin paraded through the streets of the East End in a glass hearse drawn by six black horses, and thousands of mourners and curious bystanders lining the streets. Getting sicker by the day, Reggie kept himself in the public eye, giving television and radio interviews from jail. He was released from prison on compassionate grounds in August 2000, a few weeks before his death from terminal bladder cancer.

Such is the legend of the Kray twins that over the years they have appeared or been referred to in at least six movies, a dozen books have been written about them, they have numerous mentions in songs and countless mentions in English TV series such as Eastenders, Walking the Dead and Whitechapel 11.