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  As Exley staggered out Reg and I wondered what else the police had got up their sleeves. We’ve got to admit it, it was a masterstroke. Into court came the barmaid from the Blind Beggar pub, the one who’d been on duty the night I shot George Cornell. She looked as scared as a rabbit but, amazingly, Nipper Read had used one of his smooth-talking deputies (we later learned it was a copper called Mooney) to talk her into giving evidence. We knew straightaway that this was our first really big mistake. We knew at the time that the barmaid could identify both Ian Barrie and me as having been in the Blind Beggar that night. But we’d relied on that old East End wall of silence, that code of conduct which says you never grass to the law.

  We had sent a message to the barmaid – via the manager of the Blind Beggar – to keep her mouth shut. But that’s all we’d done. We hadn’t been to see her personally, we hadn’t made any threats to her or attempted any physical harm on her or her family, because that simply wasn’t our style. It was a big mistake – we’d been too soft with a potentially key witness.

  The moment the blonde barmaid began to give evidence against us a smile appeared on Nipper Read’s face, a gleam of triumph. He knew he’d got us bang to rights.

  I was crazy with anger. I realized how we’d been stitched up. Reggie and I were like two men trying to stop a dam breaking. And yet at the end of the day, if you really analyse it, we were done for by an ex-boxer with a dodgy ticker and a brainless barmaid who fell for a copper’s charm. After that, it was going to be downhill all the way.

  We were taken back to Brixton while plans were made for our full trial at the Old Bailey, which didn’t in fact start until the following January. Those next five months, before our trial, were full of despair, frustration and anger. We couldn’t get out, we couldn’t get at the people who were destroying us, and the word came back, day after day, that our business empire was collapsing. Suddenly, for the first time, people thought we were going to go down – and for a long time. We knew it too, and as our trial approached we decided we would go down with dignity and style.

  Even at the Old Bailey we were big box office. Tickets for the public gallery were selling at £5 a head on the black market – a lot of money in January 1969, especially for something which was supposed to be free.

  There were many celebrities in the audience, including, on several days, the actor Charlton Heston. We had many letters and good-luck telegrams from people in show business, including one from Judy Garland. In fact I told the judge at one stage, ‘If I wasn’t here now I’d probably be having a drink with Judy Garland.’ The press and the public loved that.

  We behaved like gentlemen all the way through the trial, even though we had to listen to our former friends telling lies about us, and even though the judge, Melford Stevenson, tried to treat us like cattle. He wanted to make us wear numbers in court, so that we could be referred to as a number and not by our proper names. He was trying to strip away our last bit of dignity, our last bit of individuality. When they tried to put my number on me in the rooms below the court on the first day of the trial, I went wild. I told them I would kill them if they tried to put the number on me. I told them I would not go into the dock with a number on. And I sent a message to the judge on a slip of paper. It said simply: ‘Get stuffed.’ Melford Stevenson realized that he’d got a potential riot on his hands, so he backed down on the numbers idea and we were addressed by our proper names.

  Only twice in court, during the thirty-nine days that the trial lasted, did we lose our cool. I lost my temper when the prosecuting counsel was describing how the police had confiscated our grandparents’ pension books. I called the prosecuting counsel a ‘fat slob’. I don’t regret that – I think it was fair comment.

  Reggie got upset when they started talking in great detail about the funeral of Frances and the circumstances of her death. He shouted out, ‘The police are scum.’

  We kept our dignity and our integrity. We could have named so many names in our trial – other villains, show business celebrities who’d done naughty things, even politicians and one or two churchmen. All these people were terrified we would name them – the media, of course, were hoping that we would – but we didn’t. We never informed on anyone. We believe that two wrongs do not make a right. We believe we are better off than the rats who deserted our ship. They may have their freedom, but we have our self-respect. We still have our dignity – they have none.

  We had two good men defending us, John Platts Mills QC and Paul Wrightson QC, both of whom became friends, but they faced an impossible task. The trial was wearing on both of us and every night we would be taken, shattered, back to our cells at Brixton. But every morning we would shave and shower, wash our hair, and put on our best blue suits and white shirts, and come back for more. The screws treated us OK, the police treated us OK, although they went completely over the top in their security arrangements. I suppose they were afraid attempts would be made to free us, but there was no one left who could have helped us escape.

  Just three men remained loyal to us to the end and we shall be eternally grateful to them. Ian Barrie refused to say a word about us. He got twenty years for his part in the killing of George Cornell. Twenty years of hell in Durham gaol, yet he never complained once. Our brother Charlie got ten years for being an accessory to the murder of Jack McVitie, even though he was at home in bed at the time. They did him for helping to dispose of McVitie’s body, even though McVitie’s body was never found. But Charlie was a Kray, so he had to be put away. Then there was Freddie Foreman, who wasn’t even a member of our firm. He was a close friend of Charlie’s and they tied him in with Charlie on the disposal of McVitie’s body. Freddie got ten years for that.

  These were the men who stood by us. Not many, considering the small fortunes we’d paid out over the years to others and the way we’d looked after them and their families when they were inside. That was the hardest lesson of all for Reggie and me – that, for most people, loyalty is a dirty word.

  We both appeared in the dock and we both denied everything. It made no difference. I went down for murdering George Cornell and being an accessory in the McVitie killing. Reg went down for murdering McVitie and being an accessory in the Cornell killing. The fact that he never knew it was going to happen, wasn’t there and didn’t hear about it until afterwards didn’t seem to come into it!

  The jury took six hours and fifty-four minutes to decide our guilt. The verdict was announced just after seven o’ clock – at six minutes past seven, to be precise – on 8 March 1969. That was the moment the judge, Melford Stevenson, had been waiting for. The moment he would go down in history as the man who put the Kray twins away for thirty years apiece.

  The way the Krays were treated pleased many people. But there were some who were concerned about this type of punishment. In the Sunday Times of 6 March 1969, Professor Leon Radzinwicz – Britain’s leading authority at the time on long-term offenders – wrote: ‘Society owes long-term prisoners something more than death in small doses.’ And Lord Soper, the Methodist leader, said: ‘Thirty years is more horrible than hanging. The procedure of putting them away and allowing them to rot is a more horrible fate than the quickness of the rope.’ He added: ‘Long-term prison sentences are an admission of failure. There has to be a ray of hope left for every man – whatever he has done.’

  Lord Soper was right. He was right that allowing people to rot away is horrible. Both of us, I think – and we have never revealed this before – both of us, given the choice, would have preferred to hang. There has to be a ray of hope left.

  The injustice of our sentences is easy to see. Dennis Nilsen killed sixteen young men – but he got a shorter sentence than us. George Stephenson burned five people to death in a house in the New Forest – but he got a shorter sentence than us. The Ealing rapists, Martin Macall and Christopher Byrne, got just ten years and eight years respectively. And the spy, Anthony Blunt – the biggest traitor of all – got precisely nothing. He wasn’t even arreste
d. Yet how many lives was he responsible for?

  The Prison Reform Trust’s Una Padel was quoted recently as saying, ‘It was the high emotion surrounding the Kray case that led to such a harsh sentence.’

  I can still, as I sit here in my room in Broadmoor, recall our feelings after our trial was over and we were taken back to Brixton, before being shipped out to the prisons where we would begin our sentences. We were both shattered, absolutely shocked by what we had heard. We knew we would go down, knew we would get long sentences – but thirty years? We both managed to put on a brave, defiant face to the world. But once the screws had locked me up that night I don’t mind admitting I was really upset. I couldn’t see how I was going to get through the next thirty years. I said my prayers for the first time in a long time, I asked for Reg and me to be forgiven for the things we had done wrong. I couldn’t face the thought of suicide, so I asked God if he would take my life, let me die, not put me through thirty years of hell. But, it’s clear to me now, he couldn’t have been listening.

  8

  THE WOMEN WE LOVED

  REG: ON FRANCES

  I’ve only ever loved – and I mean really loved – two women in my whole life. And I’ve lost them both. One was my mother and the other was my wife Frances. Ironically, it was Frances who died first. So I’ll write about her first.

  I met her in 1962 when Ron and I were really on the way to the top, to big success. We were already well known and well respected in the East End. I’d heard about Frances quite a bit, but I’d never actually met her. She was the sister of an old friend of mine called Frank Shea. One night I popped round to see Frank at the Shea family home in Ormsby Street, Bethnal Green. As chance, or fate, would have it, Frank wasn’t there, but Frances was.

  She opened the door and I found myself staring at the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen in my life. She had start-ling red hair and brown eyes, and the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen, and a gentle, sweet smile. I was lost for words. For once in my life I didn’t know what to say. I fell in love with her from the first moment I saw her. She was just eighteen years old.

  We just stood there looking at each other. It felt like hours, although it was probably for no more than a few seconds. Finally, I said, ‘Is Frank in?’ I always was one for the quick, snappy line!

  She said no, he wasn’t there, but would I like to leave a message.

  Suddenly I found myself blurting out, just like some teenage kid, ‘Can I see you again? Can I take you out?’

  She asked me where I wanted to take her.

  I said, ‘I don’t know. Out for a ride in my car, anything.’

  She nodded her head and said yes. And that was how it started – my love affair with Frances Shea.

  I wasn’t a kid. I was a fully grown man. And I was getting used to being in charge, with Ron, of some of the toughest characters in London town. Yet, in front of this slip of a girl, I was completely tongue-tied!

  Until then I had not had a lot of experience with girls. Sure, I’d been out with a few on one-night stands, but in those days, the early sixties, young girls weren’t like they are now. Nowadays, it seems to me from what I read in the papers and see on TV, you’d be lucky to find a virgin left in this country over the age of eighteen. But in those days it was different. Even if you were a fast-climbing young villain with money in your pockets, it still made no difference – nice girls still behaved in a decent fashion. Of course, even then you could always find scrubbers who would drop their pants at the flash of a fiver, but I’ve always hated cheap women and I’ve always hated the thought of catching something like VD. Now, of course, because moral standards are so low, everyone seems in danger of dying from Aids.

  No, Frances was very much an old-fashioned, decent sort of girl, and that was the way I liked it. Contrary to popular belief, our mum had brought Ron and me up with a strong sense of moral values. Ron couldn’t help the fact that the way his body was made meant that he would be more attracted to young men than young women. It wasn’t his fault. But even so he was never promiscuous. He always had one friend at a time and would stick with that person. He never put it about all over the place like they do nowadays. We had certain standards. And although I had been out with a few girls casually and knew what sex was all about, I knew straightaway that Frances was going to be different.

  This wasn’t going to be a one-night stand or just a few casual dates. Not as far as I was concerned. This was something more serious. I’ve never known anything like it. From the moment I met Frances I couldn’t concentrate on my work, nothing seemed important any more except being with her. If you’ve ever been in love you will know what I mean.

  On our first date I took her to the Double R Club, which we owned. Normally, I would sit with the customers and chat and drink. But on this particular night, the night of our first date, we just sat there and listened to the juke box. We had only two drinks all evening. We were totally oblivious to everyone else. It was beautiful. I remember she said to me, ‘Some time ago I came by this club with my girlfriends and we peeked in through the door. Then a man came out and we all ran away.’

  That summed her up really. She was just a kid. She was eighteen, but a very young and pure and innocent eighteen. She had the body of a woman, but the sweet mind of a child. In many ways she was still a child and I treated her like a little princess. I suppose in some ways I must have seemed quite old to her.

  I would see Frances nearly every night, then, after I had dropped her off back at her house, I would go on to work in the clubs or on a tour round our spielers, whatever needed doing that particular night.

  We used to go to pubs and have a gin and tonic together. I would give the barman a ten pound note and then, with the change he had given me, Frances and I would play a game. I would ask her for the East End slang names for each of the coins. For example, a half-crown (2s 6d) was a ‘tosheroon’, 5s was a ‘caser’, a ten shilling note – half a quid – was a ‘cow’s calf’, a five pound note was a ‘jack’, and so on. There were many more names. Every time Frances remembered the name correctly I’d chuck the money in her handbag. Sometimes she would win up to £25 a night. It was a simple, little game but we’d play it often and she really enjoyed it.

  She brought a wonderful sort of simplicity into my life. But she wasn’t simple. In fact, when I got to know her, I realized she was a deep person, a complex girl. And this is another side of her character that writers have never revealed. For example, we used to talk a lot about the future. We would sit in my car, late at night, and on more than one occasion she said to me, ‘I don’t think I will ever be old – I know I will never reach old age.’ She had this feeling, this premonition, that she would die soon after she was twenty-one. She would get quite distraught when she talked about it. I used to try to pacify her, tell her that it wouldn’t happen, that she wouldn’t die young. As it happened, I was wrong – Frances died when she was twenty-three, in the most awful and tragic circumstances.

  Sometimes, in my car, she would stare at the stars shining above the streets of the East End, and she would say, ‘I know if I get to Heaven there will be a big black horse up there, waiting for me.’ She was crazy about horses – perhaps due to her Irish ancestry.

  Once I bought her an imitation gold ring from a market trader called Red Face Tommy. It was just a simple little gift – but you would have thought I had bought her the Crown Jewels. She really treasured that ring and couldn’t bear to take it off her finger. It only cost a few quid, but to her it was priceless. It became a sort of engagement ring.

  But Frances’s mind, I believe, was put into a state of turmoil by her parents. She was so lovely, so innocent, that they couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, of letting her go. I can understand that, but what I couldn’t understand was their hostility towards me. I would never have taken their daughter away from them completely. I would always have shared her. She could have spent as much time as she wanted with them and I would never have objected. I wanted to
be part of a big secure family. But they didn’t like me and they didn’t like the thought of Frances leaving home and getting married. So they did everything they possibly could to break us up. They put her in a very difficult and confusing position – she was in love with me and yet she also had love and respect for them. She didn’t know what to do to make everyone happy. She was so happy with me and we’d have lovely evenings together, then she’d go home and her parents would go on at her for going out with a gangster.

  These days, of course, Frances would simply have left home and moved in with me. But it wasn’t like that then. We are talking about a time when kids, especially young girls, had to show respect to their parents.

  I was never welcome at their house, almost from the word go. But Frances was always welcomed at Vallance Road. My mother loved her and once Frances said to me, ‘I get on better with your mum than I do with my own mum.’

  I suppose her parents weren’t happy because of the kind of work I did and the sort of people I mixed with – but I always tried to keep Frances away from that side of things. It’s true I took Frances to several functions at our clubs when we had stars appearing there, but she enjoyed going to things like that. In any case, her dad worked in one of our clubs for a time – he was happy to take our money, it seems, but not happy for his daughter to mix with the bloke who was making it.

  The problems really began to get worse when I took her away on holiday to Milan – just the two of us. That was in 1963. We had a great time in that beautiful city. We went to La Scala to see Madam Butterfly. It was wonderful and when we got back to London we went to the Green Gate pub, in Bethnal Green Road, with its rowdy music, to compare it with the music we had heard in Italy. The comparison was interesting, to say the least.