Reports by Richard Alleyne
October 19, 2001
RONALD KRAY, the East End gangster who with his twin brother Reginald terrorised London in the 1960s, "cried inside himself every day" about his homosexuality, Government files released yesterday disclose.
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Kray, who died in Broadmoor in 1995 aged 61, often broke down and told a friend of his inner turmoil and how his sexuality was the "tragedy of his life", the records show.
The disclosures go some way to explain the causes of the demons that pushed the criminal to ever more violent and rash acts.
His sexuality became the subject of gossip after a newspaper reported in 1964 that Scotland Yard was investigating that he was having an affair with Lord Boothby.
While the newspaper later backed down and paid the Tory peer £40,000 in an out of court settlement, the allegations were too close to the bone for Ronald.
When in 1966, George Cornell called him a "fat poof", Ronald shot him in the face in the Blind Beggar pub, Whitechapel, a crime he was to be convicted of three years later.
It was during the investigation of that murder that a friend of Ronald disclosed the gangster's inner turmoil in an interview with the police, the details of which were only released yesterday by the Public Record Office.
According to Charles Clark, his landlord and a friend, the gangster often confided in him while staying at his house.
In a statement to police in which he provided a character reference for Kray, Clark, a bookmaker and former nightclub manager, said: "I knew Ronnie Kray very well because he confided in me.
"He once told me the tragedy of his life was that he was the twin who was born the wrong way round sexually and he wanted to turn in his life of crime and turn over a new leaf.
"We talked of this for a long time. He said he cried inside himself every day. Indeed, he cried in my presence a few times.
"He was always very generous, particularly to old people. I know he had plenty of money and he put it about to help old people and the wives of men in prison. This I would like to say for him if he is found guilty of anything at court."
Mr Clark went on to say Kray had stayed with him for five months and during that time there had been many visitors to his house, including Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra's son, Frank.
The disclosures about Kray's state of mind contradict a recent biography, A Man Among Men, which claims he was at ease with his sexuality and that it did not conflict with his hardman image.
According to Laurie O'Leary, his biographer, he frankly addressed his gang, know as the Firm, about his homosexuality. "Even if they objected, Ron just smiled at them and told them they didn't know what they were missing."
Ronnie is said to have had many sexual partners, in and out of prison, and fell in love with a young Arab boy on a trip to Tangiers. Kray was jailed for life at the Old Bailey for shooting Cornell in the face in 1969.
According to the files, just hours after the murder Ronnie was overheard boasting: "Always shoot to kill. Dead men cannot grass." He added: "Cornell was the only one to call me a poof and he is dead."
The files showed the fear that surrounded "The Twins" particularly Ronald who was notoriously unstable.
John Dickson, an associate, said: "Everyone was dead scared of Ronnie. He would be a friend of yours one minute. The next he would turn on you. A mad bastard."
The Krays' reign of terror ended in 1969 when Reginald Kray was convicted of the murder of Jack "The Hat" McVitie.
Normally, the files about the Kray twins would have remained confidential until 2032 but they have been opened early following a request in the Commons by Harry Cohen, Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead.
Related
Article: Wall of silence protected twins
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Daily Express
http://www.lineone.net/express/00/08/27/news/n0420-d.html
Twins Hid Behind a Shield of Glamour
BY MATTHEW
MERVYN JONES
WITH the T-shirts, the books, the feature film and the television programmes, Britain's most notorious gangsters have grown into a myth of epic proportions. Ronnie and Reggie Kray always loved the world of showbusiness and glamour, often using it to hide the brutal nature of their crimes.
And for years, celebrity campaigners have been battling to secure an early release for Reggie.
EastEnders star Mike Reid said: "Had the Krays remained free, the London of today would be a safer place. During their reign there was no mugging." The Krays have become modern icons, part of some glorious nostalgic past, where old ladies and children could walk about without fear because Ronnie and Reggie would "sort out" anyone who threatened them.
From adolescence, both twins were cunning, violent and always claimed to be telepathic. But that was where the similarities ceased. Reggie is gregarious, lived off his wits and showed great flair as a hustler and night club promoter. Ronnie was mentally ill, dependent on his twin and obsessed with violent crime fantasies.
They grew up in a culture where crime was an accepted way of life and the "villain" who got a living through violence and intimidation - usually at the expense of other criminals - was a recognised figure.
Even as children their fighting talents were formidable. When the 11-year-old twins fought each other, they battled with such ferocity that their mother, Violet, made them promise never to fight each other again. Their earliest rackets were relatively simple: preying on other criminals, collecting protection money from shopkeepers and clubs and running so-called long-firm frauds (ordering goods on credit, selling them and vanishing before the suppliers caught up with them).
But the legalising of gambling under the 1960 Gaming Act gave them a rich, new source of income from running and "protecting" gaming clubs throughout London. Their ruthlessness meant a softer generation of old-style mobsters soon moved aside.
In 1960 the Krays forcibly took over their own smart West End gambling club, Esmeralda's Barn, in Knightsbridge, which proved to be a remarkable success. The twins were very much at home in the early Sixties, where a dinner jacket made the roughest villain socially acceptable.
The Krays even persuaded Lord Effingham, a silly but entirely honest member of the House of Lords, to join them on the board of Esmeralda's Barn. "Effy get the effing tea," Ronnie would shout at the hapless peer.
Ronnie had always needed his fix of fame. Known as the Colonel, he fancied himself as the Al Capone of English crime. He drove an American car and liked to dress like Capone when being photo-graphed with friends such as Lord Boothby, Christine Keeler, Henry Cooper and George Raft.
Ronnie and Reggie were born in Stean Street in Hoxton, East London, in 1933. Later the family moved to Vallance Road in Bethnal Green.
Both twins had an extremely close relationship with their mother, Violet, which some reckoned stopped them from forming mature relationships with other people. Ronnie procured young boys for himself and others but kept his love life private. Reggie, at 27, became infatuated with Irish redhead Frances Shea, whom he met in 1961 when she was 16.
They married four years later but possessive Ronnie came between them and eight weeks later a distraught Frances was back home with her parents. After two years of hospitalisation and drug abuse she took a fatal overdose in 1967. After her death, Judy Garland offered to let Reggie stay at her home in Hawaii.
In 1964 the Krays' Old Bailey trial for criminal protection fell apart and police attempts to rein them in were getting nowhere. But Ronnie was becoming increasingly unstable and a quarrel developed between him and George Cornell after Cornell called him a "fat poof". In March 1966, Ronnie heard Cornell was drinking in the Blind Beggar pub in the Mile End Road. Ronnie went there and shot Cornell dead in front of a number of witnesses, none of whom could remember exactly what happened, let alone recognise the culprit.
IT WAS an insane murder committed by an insane man. The following year Ronnie goaded Reggie into killing Jack "The Hat" McVitie, who had defied the twins' authority by taking money for a hit he failed to carry out. Reggie and perhaps Ronnie, too, might still be at large had it not been for one brave, resourceful police officer, Commander Leonard "Nipper" Read, who took the huge gamble of arresting the Krays and every known member of the twins' firm in a dawn raid in the spring of 1968.
Ronnie was found in bed with a 15-year-old boy and Reggie was lying drunk on the floor with a prostitute. They were convicted of their respective murders at the Old Bailey in 1969 and sentenced to life imprisonment, with a recommendation that they serve not less than 30 years. Ronnie, also present at McVitie's killing, was also convicted of his murder. Trial judge Mr Justice Melford Stevenson said: "In my view, society has earned a rest from your activities."
Ronnie Kray died of a heart attack in Broadmoor top security hospital in
1995, aged 62. His East End funeral procession from Bethnal Green to Chingford
cemetery, led by a glass-sided hearse pulled by six plumed black horses, was
watched by more than 60,000 people and many more on TV.John Pearson in his book,
The Profession Of Violence: the Rise and Fall of the Kray Twins, said: "In
essence they were not ordinary criminals but criminal performers acting out the
crazy drama of their lives."
©
Express Newspapers, 2000
Files: Being Gay Tormented Gangster
Ed Cropley, Reuters
October 19, 2001
SUMMARY: Ronnie Kray, the brutal gangster who ruled London's 1960s underworld with twin brother Reggie, fought a lifelong battle against his homosexuality, secret files released on Thursday revealed.
LONDON -- Ronnie Kray, the brutal gangster who ruled London's 1960s underworld with twin brother Reggie, fought a lifelong battle against his inner homosexual demons, secret files released on Thursday revealed.
The police dossiers also show the "Kray Twins," sharp-suited Cockney masters of the murky world of the capital's East End, had established themselves as "Untouchables" at the heart of a criminal web at the tender age of 27.
Accomplished boxers in their youth, the twins, born in 1933, turned violence into an art form as they threatened, extorted and murdered their way to the top of the pile.
But behind the dark glasses and carefully cultured menace -- a blueprint for dozens of gangster movies from Quentin Tarantino to Guy Ritchie -- Ronnie was walking a sexual tightrope.
Talk of his ambivalent sexuality triggered his downfall when, in 1966, he shot George Cornell in the Blind Beggar pub after Cornell called him a "fat poof (homosexual)."
The testimony of London bookmaker Charles Clark in the run-up to Ronnie's murder trial three years later reveals the extent of the man's troubled psyche.
"He once told me the tragedy of his life was that he was the twin who was born the wrong way round sexually, and he wanted to turn in his life of crime and turn over a new leaf," Clark told detectives in the newly opened files.
Ronnie spent nine months living with Clark and his wife "as part of the family," and he opened his heart to his host.
"He said he cried inside himself every day. Indeed he cried in my presence a few times," Clark said in the documents, which have remained classified for more than three decades.
Ronnie had "heart of gold, not steel"
Ronnie died of a heart attack in 1995 in Broadmoor hospital for the criminally insane.
The curtain finally came down on the Kray dynasty last year when cancer claimed the smooth-talking Reggie, but the family's dubious allure has endured so strongly only now was it considered safe to open the files.
Contrary to modern belief, Ronnie had a heart of gold, not steel -- at least according to his long-time friend.
"I know he had plenty of money and he put it about to help old people and also the wives of men in prison," Clark said.
The files also reveal the mammoth task faced by police in chasing the twins, who appeared in public with stars such as Judy Garland and Diana Dors and whose portrait by celebrity snapper David Bailey became an icon of the Swinging Sixties.
In a letter to his bosses dated May 1960, Detective Superintendent Tommy Butler of Scotland Yard's fabled Flying Squad said the Krays were already beyond the long arm of the law three years before their 30th birthday.
"The Kray twins and their older brother Charles … have welded themselves into a formidable criminal association.
"For this reason their arrest will probably be achieved only by unorthodox policing, or by very good fortune," Butler said.
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