Charlie Kray and his twin brothers were once professional boxers. Born in London’s East End they knew they’d have to fight to make their name. In 1951 they all appeared on the same bill at the Royal Albert Hall. Underworld: The Krays, BBC 1994
From early childhood the identical twins were bound by bitter rivalry and fierce devotion. ibid.
They bought their mum a local pub – The Carpenter’s Arms. ibid.
The Krays worked hard to appear as local boys made good. But they were murderers and extortionists. They made sure cameras were on hand to help them gloss over the dark side of their activities. ibid.
From the front room of the two-up two-down they ran a criminal empire. ibid.
Protection was one of the firm’s main sources of income. ibid.
In the sixties crime was tinged with glamour. ibid.
Most of the Richardsons were either under sedation or under arrest. ibid.
The media loves the Krays. They’ve made more money selling their story from prison than they ever did as gangstas. ibid.
Frank the Mad Axeman Mitchell became the Kray’s next problem. ibid.
Frank Mitchell’s body has never been found, and no-one convicted of his murder. ibid.
This tremendous power to terrify was the Twins’ greatest weapon. ibid.
In the warped world of the Twins their next victim Jack the Hat McVitie caused his own death. ibid.
But the Kray Twins could actually reach you, find you, almost anywhere, no matter where you where, even though they were both inside. I’ll always remember one Sunday morning, I was having a bit of emergency dental treatment at a hospital in Portsmouth. I’d just sat back in the dentist’s chair. He was just about to stick the needle in my gum. When I heard a phone ring outside. The receptionist knocked on the door, stuck her head round the door and said, ‘There’s a phone call for Mr Dinenage.’ The dentist was horrified. He said, ‘What!’ He said, ‘Who is it?’ She said, ‘It’s someone called Reggie Kray.’ ‘God,’ said the dentist, ‘you’d better answer it.’ The Krays by Fred Dinenage, 2010
Frances committed suicide overdosing on barbiturates only two years after she married Reg. Rumours still persist about her death, and some people don’t think it was even suicide. It was another extraordinary chapter in the life of the Twins. ibid.
There’s a paradox about East End gangstas that’s always puzzled me. On the one hand they were boys who loved their mum and went to Church, but on the other, they were vicious gangstas who destroyed families. ibid.
The Kray Twins weren’t the only duo ruling London’s underworld. A rival gang, the Richardsons, Charlie and Eddie, were based south of the river. The Kray Twins told me they [Richardsons] had a reputation so fierce it earned them respect from the hardest of criminals. They became famous for their brutal torture techniques. ibid.
McAvoy – an armed robber who applied his trade in the shadow of legendary villains like Freddie Foreman. Now he was ready to write his own story in the chapter of London’s underworld. November 26th 1983 McAvoy and a gang of six robbers head for a lucrative target, Brink’s-Mat – a storage facility for money and precious metals near Heathrow Airport ... No combination. No cash. Then the gang made an amazing discovery ... It was an incredible stroke of good luck. The gold had been packed for shipment to a customer. The gang had stumbled across 7,000 gold bars – over three tons ready for delivery. The haul is worth a staggering £100 million in today’s money. It was the biggest gold bullion robbery in British history. McAvoy had pulled off the crime of the century. But the gold was about to give his gang more trouble than it was worth ... Some of the proceeds of the gold were invested in property, including the rebuilding of the docklands, part of the original heartland of organised crime in London. But as the money from the robbery spread out, police began to close in. Detectives discovered Brink’s-Mat guard Anthony Black had a sister who lived with a well-known bank robber, Brian Robinson. ibid.
By the dawn of the new millennium, the era of London’s infamous gangstas was over. ibid.
The Richardson gang ... Were they businessmen, torturers or gentlemen gangstas? The Richardsons by Fred Dinenage, 2012
For years the press labelled them the torture gang. ibid.
Camberwell, South London: Charlie was born in 1934 followed by younger siblings Eddie, Alan and Elaine. Much of their childhood was spent in the Second World War. ibid.
Charlie’s scrap metal empire was born. ibid.
On the other side of the River the Kray Twins were developing their own reputation for business. ibid.
By 1965 the Richardsons were at their peak. ibid.
Ten thousand miles away Charlie got to know the South African secret society The Broederbond; a member asked him to tap the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s phone. Charlie was perfectly placed to do this with a cleaning company he owned which was employed at Number Ten. ibid.
Both Eddie Richardson and Frankie Fraser had been shot, and rival Dickie Hart shot dead. ibid.
The next night Richardson associate George Cornell was shot by Ronnie Kray in The Blind Beggar pub. ibid.
1966 World Cup Final day: Charlie was arrested in a dawn raid along with a number of his associates. ibid.
The press dubbed it the Torture Trial. ibid.
Charlie ... was sentenced to twenty-five years imprisonment. ibid.
He was deemed to be a threat to national security. ibid.
Charlie was released on 24th August 1984 after serving 18 years. ibid.
The once close brothers have gone their separate ways. ibid.
The press created their own celebrity gangstas. ibid.
Charlie and his associates are the last of a generation. ibid.
The Krays’ violence went beyond mere intimidation. In 1966 at The Blind Beggar pub Ronnie shot dead rival gangster George Cornell. One year later the brothers used the pretence of a party to lure one of the own firm – Jack the Hat McVitie – into a basement flat where Reggie fatally stabbed him in the face, neck and stomach with a carving knife. Crimes that Shocked Britain
The world’s biggest ever diamond heist. On display at the de Beers exhibition was the world famous Millennium Star diamond, a 203-carat stone said to be unrivalled in its purity. Crimes that Shocked Britain
It was a disaster that stunned the nation. Within two minutes one hundred and fifty excited party goers had been pitched into the black icy waters of the Thames. How fifty-one people could be killed in the middle of the nation’s capital on a calm summer’s evening mystified relatives and survivors. Crimes that Shook Britain s5e5: The Marchioness Disaster
Internal organs and hands had been removed from the deceased without relatives’ permission. ibid.
There was no mayday signal given, and none of the crew of The Bowbelle deployed life-rafts despite being aware of people in the water. ibid.
On March 5th 1969 identical twins Reggie and Ronnie Kray were sent to prison for a minimum of thirty years. The Twins will always be remembered as Britain’s most notorious gangsters. During the sixties they built a criminal empire of fraud, gambling, protection and extortion. They punched and slashed their way to the top of the criminal pile. Cutting Edge: Reggie Kray, Channel 4 2000
Reggie is still in prison after thirty-one years. Should we let him out? Why are we keeping him in prison? ibid.
In 1963 a set of photographs recorded some most unusual friendships. They featured the most popular peer of the day and the man who would become Britain’s most notorious gangster. There was a third man also a gangster and the lover of a senior Labour MP. And a fourth man – a cat burglar and lover to the peer. Krays: Lords of the Underworld, Channel 4 1997
The scandal which got away, and of the love that in 1964 dared not speak its name. The peer in the photographs was Robert Boothby. ibid.
Boothby’s most enduring heterosexual affair which lasted over three decades was with Lady Dorothy Macmillan, the wife of his Conservative colleague Harold Macmillan. ibid.
Holt became a frequent visitor to Boothby’s flat. ibid.
In early 1963 Holt introduced him [Boothby] to a man called Ronnie Kray. ibid.
The next year the Tories were hit by another scandal which threatened to rival Profumo: on 12th July 1964 the Sunday Mirror printed a story about a homosexual relationship between a prominent Conservative peer and a leading London thug. ibid.
They dominated the East End – their manor as they liked to call it. ibid.
In addition to his bouts of madness and violence Ronnie Kray was a self-proclaimed homosexual. Something of a novelty on the macho London crime scene. ibid.