On March 5th 1969 identical twins Reginald & Ronald Kray were sentenced to Life imprisonment. They were 35 years old. Flesh & Blood: The Story of the Krays, 1991
Since their early twenties the Krays had been building up a criminal empire in the East End of London. ibid.
The streets of the East End were increasingly coming under the control of two gang leaders – Billy Hill and Jack Spot. ibid.
Their [Krays] gang was now known as The Firm. ibid.
The Krays’ network of clubs, fraud and protection was now a substantial concern. ibid.
In 1964 Ronnie Kray finally became headline news: his name was linked with Lord Boothby in a homosexual scandal that was set to rock the nation. ibid.
They were all-powerful in the East End; they were celebrities in the West End. ibid.
The Firm wanted Frank Mitchell, the Mad Axeman. In 1967 they arranged his escape from Dartmoor Prison. ibid.
In June 1967 Frances killed herself with an overdose of tablets. ibid.
It was to become the longest and most expensive trial in British legal history. ibid.
But the men standing behind Judy Garland are not rising young stars. They were gangstas. The Kray Twins Ronnie and Reggie ran protection rackets in London’s East End. The Krays loved publicity. They dressed to impress. Thanks to press and the TV they rapidly became household names. But the Krays had rivals. The Richardson brothers. Unlike the Krays, Eddie and Charley shied away from the media spotlight. They quietly built a major criminal empire based on illegal drinking clubs, extortion and corporate fraud. The Krays were based in London’s East End; the Richardsons operated across the River Thames. Both groups jealously guarded their respective turfs ... Fraser and the Richardson gang offered protection to bars and pubs in return for installing the gang’s fruit machines. It was thinly veiled extortion. Underworld: London
During the 1950s Ronnie Kray and his twin brother Reggie grew up in a working-class East-End household close to the docks. Early on, the brothers learned how to use fear and intimidation to survive in a tough city neighbourhood. Freddie Foreman, a lifelong friend, joined the Krays in their criminal enterprises. He soon discovered that getting between them was dangerous. With Foreman’s help, the Twins rose from poverty to become crime bosses of London’s East-End. The Krays called their gang The Firm ... The Twins made money through extortion, offering protection for clubs and pubs and receiving payment in return. Those who refused to comply faced serious consequences. ibid.
The Richardsons made £100,000 from fraud alone. More than a £1,000,000 in today’s money. But they were businessmen with a highly unusual management style. ibid.
London 1966: for months a dispute had been heating up between the City’s top crime families over control of the West End, London’s red light and entertainment district. ibid.
Ronnie Kray shot [George] Cornell in front of witnesses ... In London’s East End the Krays were beyond the reach of the law. ibid.
Across the River the Richardsons weren’t so lucky. Angered at the continued use of torture to keep them in line, gang members began informing police about the abuse. It was the break authorities had been waiting for. On July 30th 1966 Charlie Richardson was arrested on five counts of grievous bodily harm. He joined his brother Eddie and Frankie Fraser behind bars. With key members of the Richardson gang locked up, the Kray twins effectively became the rulers of London’s gangland. ibid.
London’s police now made busting the Krays a top priority ... The Krays still believed gangland loyalty would keep them from prison. Ronnie and Reggie were both sentenced to Life with a minimum of 30 years for the murders of Jack McVitie and George Cornell. Freddie Foreman got 10 years for his role in the McVitie murder. ibid.
The 1970s saw a five-fold increase in armed raids. Robbers like Bernie Khan were committing three or four robberies a week ... Alarmed with the crime wave, police fought back with an elite specialised squad of detectives – the Flying Squad. ibid.
Meanwhile, the City’s banks and cash-carrying companies were still being targeted. Out on the streets it was business as usual for the criminals. Robberies in London continued to escalate – 734 in 1978 alone ... By the 1980s the recent rash of armed robberies plaguing the City was declining. Security was also improving at banks and in the vehicles that transport the cash. ibid.
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 gangsters 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.
By the dawn of the new millennium, the era of London’s infamous gangsters was over. 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 their 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
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. Secret History: 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.
Boothby’s friendship with Kray was attracting the attention of Scotland Yard’s intelligence section C11. ibid.
Some of the photographs showed a fourth man, Teddy Smith, or Mad Teddy as he was known. ibid.
The Mirror caved in. Cecil King agreed to pay Boothby £40,000. ibid.
There were orgies too. ibid.
The unlikely friendships which at once seemed so promising were disintegrating. ibid.