Bringing Down the Krays Read online

  And you know, in the Kray biographies, neither Reggie nor Ronnie ever mention the time in the flat with the Firm and all the children. They go straight from the Blind Beggar to being lifted and put on Butler’s identity parade. The three months in the middle aren’t mentioned. What were they so ashamed of? I’ll tell you. They were ashamed of hiding behind women and kids.

  David thinks it was the police who were responsible for Moresby Road disappearing from the record and still being hidden. How would it look that they hadn’t arrested them there and then when so many more murders followed? They knew Ronnie had done it. They surrounded David’s place, Butler and his men. David says they told him at Tintagel afterwards that they planned to come in with all guns blazing. It was only down to the fact that the children were there that they didn’t.

  But Ronnie was told that at the time by his police contact inside the Yard. Ronnie told David when they were all in the flat that some copper had tipped him off: ‘Where you are now, we won’t come in, so don’t worry about it.’

  What with all the people coming in and going out, and Reggie and Charlie meeting up with police, the Old Bill was getting information all the time. No wonder the official files about all this are sealed for seventy years.

  But David managed to get one file opened. It’s a series of letters from July to August 1966 between officials in the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office – David Hopkin and David Prys Jones – about whether or not to go after the Krays. There’s a big note dated 18 July, reminding everyone that Butler, James Axon (the Whitechapel detective), and the commander of the CID, Ernest Millen (who had secretly investigated Leslie Holt’s connection with Boothby two years before), had had a meeting in March to urgently discuss the Cornell killing.

  That’s what it says. March. Precisely when the Firm had taken over the flat and I’d made that first phone call to the Scotland Yard switchboard and asked to speak to Mr Butler.

  In the note it’s clear that everyone knows that it’s Ronnie who did Cornell. Still these three very senior detectives think it’s not going to work, that the twins can keep the East End intimidated, no one will talk and they’re going to get off. And that will just boost Ronnie ‘in the eyes of the underworld,’ so they say. Which is exactly what happened, of course.

  So their advice that March is to leave it alone. Just like always. But ‘there are other matters in the melting pot which may be successful,’ Butler says. That’s me.

  The police are saying they can do nothing, while the DPP is saying they should go after the Krays because they must be seen to be doing something. It’s all political.

  After that, there’s the raid on Lea Bridge Road and the cock-up at the identity parade. Everyone’s very embarrassed. But this law officer reports after it’s all gone wrong that: ‘One factor that has emerged is that Chief Superintendent Butler is satisfied from the description given to him by his informant that the second man involved is [Scotch Ian] Barrie.’

  Well, that’s me again. And now the law officers in the Department of Public Prosecutions know that he’s got a spy in the Firm. That’s not police, that’s the government. Who else in the government knows?

  Then a day later on 8 August, Butler says that there’s nothing more he can do. Within a matter of hours of him saying that, the police know that I’m with Wallace in Dolphin Square, and that Alfie and David are with me.

  And who or what was Wallace? I’d met him, it seemed, by chance. He was friendly, accommodating, he lent me his car and didn’t mind too much when I got arrested in it. He was gay, but he didn’t try anything on me. He just seemed to like me being around. And it was very handy to have somewhere to lie low.

  It was Wallace who took me in when I had nowhere to hide after Epping and the Firm was looking for me at Steeple Bay. But what was he really? The operation to bring us in had to be primed – with him as the ready-made ‘victim’ to get us all nicked.

  The three of us were invited to stay the night. Next thing we knew we were all arrested, dragged off to court, stitched up at the Old Bailey and dispatched to spend the next two years in prison as blackmailers of homosexuals. Who invented that one? The file on our trial is closed until the year 2037. I am told if I can produce my own death certificate (and Alfie’s and David’s) I might be allowed to see it.

  So how, at the time, could I explain that to my brothers? How do I really explain it all these years later?

  Of course there was suspicion and resentment between us after the initial joy of reunion, a sudden sidelong glance from David when he thought I wasn’t looking, a questioning look as if even now he was wondering whether to trust me. Alfie, too, in spite of his obvious affection for me, remained puzzled about some of my actions. Worst of all for me was the look in their eyes when they asked, ‘Why didn’t you tell us, let us in on what you were doing? We are your brothers, for God’s sake.’ In the Teale family, that means a lot.

  I understand why they feel like this. I would too, if it had been one of them who had disappeared. But as Ronnie would have said, ‘What’s done is done,’ and all we can do is to look back and make some kind of sense of it.

  Turning informer was one of the hardest decisions I ever had to make in my life. Having villains as our family friends at first had all seemed so glamorous, so exciting. But then I saw the violent reality, the fear, the cruelty. After Ronnie raped me on the Isle of Wight I couldn’t deal with it. And when I saw what they were doing to David, his children and our little brother, I knew I had to act. So I did what I did.

  In vain I tell David and Alfie that it is because they are my brothers that I did all this. That I was trying to protect them and their families from what the Krays might do. I knew Alfie and David were on Ron’s dreaded list – we all were.

  There is a quote from somewhere I’ve always remembered: ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.’

  I had to do something, and I did it, even at the terrible cost of losing my family for forty years. I’m not ashamed of that – I’m proud of it. And over the years to come I hope to be able to convince Alfie and David of it too.

  NOTE

  Ronnie Kray married twice while in prison. He divorced his second wife, Kate, in May 1994. On 17 March 1995 he died of a heart attack in Wrexham Park Hospital, Slough. He was sixty-one. Reggie organised a quasi-state funeral for his twin from inside prison. He married his second wife, Roberta, while in Maidstone in July 1997. In June 1997 Charlie was sentenced to twelve years for conspiracy to supply cocaine. He died in April 2000. Then Reggie was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died on 1 October 2000. He was conveyed ten days later to Chingford Cemetery to be buried next to Ronnie with Frances besides them. Bobby was in America and did not follow events. Alfie and David Teale attended none of the Kray funerals.

  Dad always had some kind of business on the go. This is his betting shop.

  This is him with his beloved motor car outside Edmonton dog track.

  Dad (left) and the many trophies they had down at the dog track.

  Beside the seaside. (L-R: Dad, Paul, Mum and a family friend)

  Me, having fun in the sun on the Isle of Wight.

  All the boys together. (Top to bottom: Paul, me, David, friend John, and Alfie)

  The boat we took Ronnie out on and used to dump his holdalls.

  While I was messing about with boats, David and Alfie were playing it cool in London.

  The family. (L-R: Me and friend, David, Alfie, Dad, Wendy, Mum, Christine and friend)

  Alfie and friend Jack looking the part.

  Alfie (back left) and David (back right) celebrating their wedding day with their lovely wives and the family.

  Ronnie and Reggie with brother Charlie (second from right) at The Kentucky Club. (Keystone/Getty Images)

  The Krays with Judy Garland and her husband Mark Herron. (Keystone/Getty Images)

  L-R: Actor George Sewell, Reggie, Barbara Windsor and Ronnie at the El Morocco nightclub. (Larry Ellis/Express
/Getty Images)

  The twins being welcomed home after being found not guilty on a menaces charge. (Ron Gerelli/Express/Getty Images)

  With their dear old mum Violet and their grandfather Jimmy Lee. (Ron Gerelli/Express/Getty Images)

  Reggie and sweet Frances Shea on their wedding day. (Express/Getty Images)

  David’s caravan and the one owned by The Krays behind it.

  Reggie relaxing by the sea on holiday. (Evening Standard/Getty Images)

  Inside David’s caravan. ( L-R: Ronnie Hart, Frosty, Alfie, Christine and me)

  Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

  George Cornell. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

  The Blind Beggar where Cornell got shot. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

  The crime scene with Cornell’s blood on the floor. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/Press Association)

  Ronnie and Reggie back home after 36 hours of police questioning over the Cornell murder. (William Lovelace/Getty Images)

  Detective Superintendent Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read. (W.Breeze/Evening Standard/Getty Images)

  Police cars escorting the Black Maria van, containing Ronnie and Reggie, to Brixton prison. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

  Reggie was let out of prison for Ronnie’s funeral. (Kent News/Pictures/Sygma/Corbis)

  The haunting picture that prompted me to finally tell my family the truth. (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)

  Some of the police statements and court reports detailing my part in the downfall of the Krays. (The National Archives UK)

  Finally reunited with my dear, dear brothers. That embrace was one I never thought would happen again.

  The Krays may have come between us, but we’ll never be parted again. (L-R: David, me and Alfie)

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My brothers and I would first and foremost like to thank our family for all of their love, support and encouragement: our mother Ellen, Dawne, Tracy, Christine, Wendy, Mark and Michael. Special thanks go to Clare and Christy Campbell for all of their help. Without them this book wouldn’t be half the book it is.

  We are extremely grateful to Jonathan Lloyd, Felicity Blunt and everyone at Curtis Brown. We would also like to thank Kelly Ellis, Andrew Goodfellow and all of the team at Ebury.

  Thank you to Kelly Whitfield and the team at Teacher Stern; Lali Gotich and, finally, to Rasolil Daitor at the Kings Cross Computer Centre.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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  First published in 2012 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing

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  Copyright © Bobby Teale, Alfie Teale and David Teale 2012

  Bobby, Alfie and David Teale have asserted their right to be identified as the authors of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  Written with Clare Campbell

  Extracts from Crown Copyright material held by the UK National Archives (CRIM 1/5128-5143; PREM 11/4689; MEPO 2/10922; DPP 2/4223, DPP 2/4583) are reproduced by permission of the Controller of HM Stationery Office

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