The Krays: London's Most Notorious Twins | Real Crime

on the 11th of october 2000 the body of reggie cray made the long journey through the east end of london to its final resting place thousands of mourners lined the streets to pay their respects to a man whose reign of terror alongside twin brother ronnie ended some 30 years earlier when they were imprisoned for murder but why were two convicted killers so revered by the british public who were the real craze this film offers unprecedented access to their trusted friends loyal confidants most bitter enemies silences will be broken [Music] with their dark brooding looks and violent temperaments twins ronald and reginald cray became notorious early in life alongside older brother charlie the boy's upbringing was typical of working class london but this was no ordinary family these boys were destined to stand out maureen flanagan former actress and one of britain's first page 3 girls first met the cray family when she was just 17. 1961 well london was buzzing swinging 60s was just beginning everything was changing fashion politics we had the pill some women were going out to work like me and it was a very busy area most respectable and that's when i met the notorious cray family when i was about 19 come out of prison young then i knew their father and sometimes i'd go home with the craze with father rather than and they were back from evacuation reggie and ronnie there was only about nine years of age when they used to call me uncle frank i met charlie the elder brother he was the elder by seven years from the twins i met him first found him most handsome and charming then he introduced me to his mother at their house in valance road he said she wanted someone to come home and do her hair every week rather than sit in a salon and be unindated with the requests which she always was so along i went i met this charming lovely kind typical east end mother who just happened to be the mother of the most notorious men in london i saw this woman in green road shopping bags and i said old lady can i give you a hand she said oh what's your son so anyway she lived in valance road i didn't know who she was when i got to the doorstep i went to give it a bag said come and have a cup of tea i can't believe it two geezers in there you couldn't tell them apparel that was ronnie and reggie i found mrs cray violet a wonderful chair i had an affinity with her the minute i met her i knew i'd have a friend for life typical mother who loved and adored the sons mr cray who i always called mr cray and never called charles at the whole years i met him i found him quite withdrawn miserable man but then he wasn't there very often hence no authority no fatherly authority in the house was there much between ronnie or reggie no no that was about same as most brothers you know they'd have their arguments and one being ringed down again but otherwise they were okay yeah okay is not how the other children of bethnal green remember the terrible twins those that somehow offended ronnie and reggie were beaten mercilessly the twins grandfather recognized their lust for violence and urged them to channel their vicious energy into the noble art of boxing as former friend and true crime author bernardo mahoney explains this is the famous repton boxing club where all three cray brothers came to learn their trade they were influenced by their grandfather cannonball lee himself a proficient boxer well reggie i thought reggie was a rut a really good fighter i think he could have been a champion what what used to happen was started in the school playground having little scraps chilling people and then after that in the street chilling people i think they were destined from little boys to be leaders she spot them terribly what they wanted they had and then they grew up and they thought what they saw what they wanted they took demanding devious and dangerous the twins did indeed commandeer whatever they wanted whether it was money material items or manpower eddie richardson and frank fraser of the rival gang the richardsons knew the twins and their firm all too well it was a mixture of fear and respect respect because women and children untouchable ordinary guys who went to work and that untouchable any rails we had was only amongst ourselves and if we or killed one another so what i was violent yeah yeah i mean they're there in their own little way i suppose that was violent yeah so it was where wasn't we so uh you know that didn't worry you and your brother now never never i tell you that if they put me and my brother in a cell with m2 there's only two people coming out that's me and my brother they wanted to be gangsters they set out to be gangsters i was invited to go around the house one day and i went down there and they're all sitting there the twins and charlie sitting there and then charlie stood up and he said welcome to the firm like some [ __ ] board meeting and he said we want you on our phone to earn money with us i was with him on and off for about 20 odd years what sort of work did you do for him i said mainly drive them about and be with them in general you know i used to live with veggie and ronnie all of us three of us used to live there four of us used to live there first in 1956 ronnie craih had begun to display the early signs of a man suffering from mental illness he shot a man for little or no reason and severely beat another for which he was sentenced to three years imprisonment [Music] on christmas day 1957 ronnie's beloved aunt rose died and he suffered a complete breakdown he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and returned to long grove asylum near epsom a secure mental facility reggie saw this as an ideal opportunity to free his identical twin what decided me to to to get rome away from was some of the stores you told me about the place one day he was sitting there eating an apple and his nutter come along and smacked him in the eye because he would tell you it just because he was eating against all odds reggie did indeed manage to free his brother in the meantime a long-term associate of the firm named freddie foreman had been given a place to live by the twins he had inadvertently become indebted to them something he would later come to regret i stayed in money crazed flat when it it escaped from epson at the mental place and he was holed up in his flat and uh that they gave me his flat to to live in and i got my wife and kids over there they went to school over there and uh that's how i come to live in the east end and got to know the cray family very well i i never trusted reggie yeah i thought he sat on the fence and he would go whatever way suited him whereas ronnie was more if you give his word he would stick to his word dave is that nazis wanted to do he was a very very scary man believe me i had met a lot of scary people but ronnie cray was a very very sick psychopathical schizophrenia a manic depressive all rolled in one in one word of his mouth he meant everything he said it wasn't right in the head it definitely wasn't ryan head after ronnie had been returned to custody a notorious landlord named peter rackman was approached by reggie cray who demanded protection money rackman was notorious for bullying and exploiting his tenants but he was no match for reggie in an effort to pacify cray he offered to sell him a west end nightclub for a nominal fee things went well initially but then ronnie was released i was there on the meeting when they took it over but they took the east end to knightsbridge you know all them ugly looking bastards with their cuts down their faces and all that and their flat noses and they should have left the club as it was and run it and without it and just sat back and and got that collected the debts that was owed that's all they needed to do but of course they burned the place like they ruined every [ __ ] thing you know anyway every club they had that business they had they they ruined it but the clientele they used to take down there i'd see people laughing and having a good time five minutes before he walked through the door the minute he walked through the door that laughter stopped the conversation dimmed people were terrified that he would say are you laughing at me and then he had that paranoid feeling that they were laughing at him and then there'd be a bloodbath random acts of violence were part and parcel of ronnie craig's disturbing world lenny hamilton jewel thief and long time friend of the family suffered a terrible ordeal after a dispute with a man whose father knew the craze andy come home and he said len ronnie wants to see you up the club i feel well but i had nothing to do at night you know and i was going in and out of the house and that like as a friend so i go up now get camp black cat and go up now they showed me in the kitchen and ronnie was standing with his back to just i didn't know but it was a guest though then he told two people two fellows to get hold of me and they got hold of me like and that's when i see the pokers on the gas he said now i'm going to burn your [ __ ] eyes out and as he's coming towards me someone said that no well not that and he just stopped he walked and he walked away too they said i can go there in july 1964 the sunday mirror published the story about ronnie being involved in a sleazy sexual relationship with a conservative politician named lord boothby after the twins threatened the journalist involved and boothby threatened to sue the newspaper backed down it sacked the editor printed an apology and paid boothby 40 000 pounds a friend of ronnie craig named toby von judge the son of a high court judge knew the allegations about cray boothby and young men were true and so he confronted the peer i said tell me something what sort of a a man like you can come to somebody like ronnie and demand your boys he said i begged your pardon i said i've asked you a straightforward question your lordship or whatever you are oh it's none of your concern he kept on saying it was none of my concern and this really got up my nose what are you doing with a person like ronnie cray and then ronnie buttered in he said toby that's enough he's a friend he does me favors that's it no more questions i left it that that he left rather quickly ronnie craig and lord boothy were not the only ones enjoying the sexual revolution of the promiscuous swinging sixties freddie foreman's brother george was having an affair with the wife of an eastern villain named jimmy evans when he learned of his wife's adultery evans and an associate named tommy ginger marx decided to shoot george all i knew was someone come round to me and i got a message that george was in hospital was in thomas hospital and someone had shot him on his doorstep while he was he was having a meal with his wife and kids someone ginger knocked at the door he went and answered the door and then someone stepped out of the shadows with a shotgun and blasted him in in the lower area and the top of the caught him in the top of the leg he was lucky in that respect and of course i'll go up i'll go to the hospital and the police down the bed and they they went and had a cigarette and now judging over there and they just whispered ginger tom and that's the only name i had well the twins knew everyone in the east end and so when i went to see the twins they told me who ginger tom was you know who understand that was tommy marks by then i found out through that who the other fellow was i didn't know about the relationship he was having with this girl i had no idea he'd been carrying on with somebody else's wife you see so that was something that was a shock to me and uh we so now naturally i like to take revenge you know so they pulled on him one day in cheshire street and they got in that gym they wanted jimmy evan but ginger monks turned out thinking he'd call gin they shot ginger marks dragged him in the mouth and whipped him off and that was the last day of sorry somehow amongst all of the bloodletting and hatred reggie cray found love initially his heart was stolen by a young man but when he rejected his advances he started a relationship with the man's sister a beautiful young girl named francis shea reggie knew france is i think from the age of about 14 but first of all he knew her brother and i think probably would have had an affair with the brother first had it been consented but the brother didn't want to know and then he'd met the the sister who was equally beautiful and con started this love affair at last he'd found somebody reggie that he really really fell in love with he was absolutely he adored her and ronnie absolutely hated that and he had no intentions or so he thought with the time to let this marriage go ahead and he did everything in his power to stop this marriage very jealous of france's he was but eventually the marriage did take place but he never liked francis ever ronnie eleven months after the wedding cray firm member richard dickey hart was shot dead at a nightclub called mr smith's in south london eddie richardson mad frankie fraser and other members of the crazed rival gang the richardsons were said to be involved ronnie craig's moment had arrived he was going to teach the richardson gang and everybody else that they shouldn't mess with him or his farm i don't know it was sort of underlying rivalry we never actually clashed in any way you know i had six pen shops you know bearing offices and one of these young guys he's only 20 kenny hampton he got bashed up down in the toilets for no reason why but i kicked the [ __ ] out of him i'll find out that eddie had and face and then had done and the rest of the firm my brother george had added the red cell club up at clapham common and they were all down there and you're running he said well they're all down downstairs and so i went down there and i was very angry and i only went with one person ronnie chronic king and i was all in a group and i went up whenever i pulled him i pulled eddie about it and uh and uh i stuck this 38 up his nostril you know up his nose someone from up north through billy eel actually and uh he got in touch with lillian and then they put us in touch to put the people on the door in the club to you know show that's what we was going to do we went over there and was unaware that uh other things had been going on i walked up to to dig it i said what are you doing he's going to say a luger it was a luger he said jim it's going to be water night he said i'll be i said dick i said don't be silly took the gun off him put it in the girl's bag that was with right then boom boom boom all the wall everything else happened then dickie r somehow i've already got the gun anyway they had two guns we never had no guns and then one of them wanted a rather fight with me we had a fight on the on the dance floor i'd done him on the dance floor set astride of him i want to really punch his head through the [ __ ] floorboards to be quite honest but i want to get shot in the back then there was a bit of movement from outside and that's with dickie harp lost his gun and he got one from the gun but he didn't survive it and also the phone went i went hello there's ted he went jim dickie aunt's dead got killed i said oh i see you in the morning um i thought come on that was that was it eddie and uh fraser and and and and all the rest of the firm had been down there and it kicked off about four people been shot you know ronnie jeffries got shot i got shot fraser got shot harry rollins got shot and of course that that was like an open warfare now it was sort of that was the beginning of all the trouble the night after dickie hart's murder ronnie craig heard that george cornell was drinking in the blind beggar pub he summoned his friend ian barry and as they entered the premises barry fired two shots into the ceiling ronnie saw cornell at the bar and as he approached him cornell said look who's here but ronnie didn't answer he pulled out a luger and shot cornell through the forehead cornell slumped forward and eventually fell to the floor where he died moments later georgie cornell was from east london and he'd gone over to south london to to join up with the the richardson firm so they felt that he'd changed his loyalties from east to south veronica used to get the amp with people for for very little reason you know they didn't need a lot of excuses to get it up with people and this this this was a bad uh uh bad thing about him because of his mental state you know he wasn't a wealth person he wasn't well at all on the 12th of december 1966 frank mitchell was sprung from dartmoor prison and brought to this flat on barking road frank mitchell was a product of the environment he stole a bike when he was a little kid and his father instead of going around to the person's house and saying look this my son's just nicked your boy's bike here's his bike back he didn't do that he took him to the police station he got the kid in juvenile court mitchell started off when he was a 16 year old kid he stole a push bike he got nick for that and then he went through the system [ __ ] if a screw said something to him he chinned him and that was it when he quite got friendly with him in the in ones worth and he looked like he used to send visitors in give him money in and look after him and because he won up in in brampton for the criminal insane and um he he was a handful to uh for the present system and uh but with the attacking and screws and other prisoners and i know he stabbed bruce reynolds in the world of scrubs in the barf house which i never forgot i remember remembering yeah bruce was good he was a great pal of mine bruce and uh i was up when i heard about that i wasn't happy about that anyway so ronnie with all his connections and his his political connections with these different people both b and co and dry berg and all that activities that were going on he thought he could pull a few strings and if he got if he got mitchell out he would be able to give get him a release date and if he handed himself in after six months and and and behaved himself and never got in any trouble frankie was a very tough geezer but he wasn't a libby taker he thought he could go out and and club it out and put himself on the firm and go and do all sorts of villainy with the twins and be their right-hand man and you know in his mentality and of course he couldn't do none of those things all he could do was exchange one place one prisoner for another really unfortunately mitchell was an absolutely huge man had a lot of demands he wanted a woman the craze brought him a woman he wanted food ridiculous amounts they were bringing in food alcohol so they did everything to keep him quiet got forgotten my nose test and some sex and things like and tried their best to keep him sweet and then the idea was to smuggle him out abroad you know to get him to australia or spain or somewhere and where he could live the rest of his life and i had facilities to do that because i'd got people out the country for previous you know train robbers out the country i managed to do that you know he got too much from me i mean they couldn't handle him they was [ __ ] reminders around there looking after him 24 hours yeah yeah the bird was alright to start with because he's an handsome man a good figure of a physique but now she realized what what he really is like you know eventually he started saying i want to get out i want to go and walk around the streets and he became an absolute headache for the twins so as the twins did they decided any sort of headache they were going to kill him so they had minders looking after him day and night and they were all terrified and [ __ ] scared of him and they wasn't uh they was complaining all the time and so they got me over asked me to come over and i went to see reggie and charlie and and they said can you get us out of trouble here and help us and that brings under their eyes and they threaten to go around and take their mother hostage and then he knew what to blame if if and they would take six coppers with him uh if if if it was the police turned up he would shoot his way out the craze had always been keen to learn how former managed to dispose of ginger marx's body because back in the 1960s the police worked largely on the assumption that if there wasn't a body then there hadn't been a murder however foreman refused to disclose his darkest secret a decision which led him to be called upon to dispose of bodies on more than one occasion so now that now now and now they're really worried now so now they've got to get some help from somewhere and they come to me again so i i'll go over and see them and they so i made arrangements to pick him up and take him out the country on the night of christmas eve 1966 uh albert donaghue was in the flat with uh frank and um some men came to the door and said you know we're going to take you to see the twins the girl will have to stay here but you come with us so albert walked him out of the flat with frank he said goodbye to the girl and they went head to that door into the street my job is to get frank out of the hat out of the flat parking lot and into the van that he's got his girlfriend so that was easy because i could say to him you know running one of women around him so we tap what we do we thank you frank and then i'll bring the girl along afterwards and follow up he's supposed to spend a fortnight down in kent somewhere after leaving the flat albert donaghy and frank mitchell walked around the corner to lady smith avenue the young copper come around the corner and frank i think it felt intense out though he said turn it in frank parked on the kerbside was an old comma style van the back doors were open and inside sat freddie foreman and another man named alfie gerard they motioned for mitchell to get into the vehicle and he sat on the wheel casing there was a small petition between the back of the van and the driving the cab so i sat down and uh then gerard callahan was shut the back doors and he walked around and got in the passenger seat and slowed the passenger door i didn't know till later when he slammed that passenger door that was the signal that everything's all right that is when the guns opened up a fella called donaghy brought him out and uh walked him around and put him in the back that climbed in the van with him and he should never climbed in the van but he did i had alfie gerrard sitting next to me and the next one was freddy filming the people in the flat heard the gunshots going off you know they had to put the shots going up so it was car back firing and all that and the girl panicked and they panicked and everybody panicked i was pumping shots into him and he was ah grinding it wasn't dirty it didn't kill him and then gerard said go on fred give me another one i went to i was pleased to hear at least one of the guns is empty performance put his gun mother beyond his ear and going down that was the final shot but the twins wanted him out didn't i and they got him out and look what they've done to him the girl was getting bit excited then i phoned ready and said you don't that dumb one she said i said the dog is dead but i know i said the dog one that was to tell reggie that mitchell was off the plot you know the phone call went through and he's and reggie craig said the dog is that dog uh donahue said that dog is one you know which was the say that everything was okay you know that was the sort of code message frank mitchell has never been seen since following the disappearance of frank mitchell reggie craig's wife francis was becoming less of the starry-eyed young girl she once was she was his misses his property the pressure this caused led to rouse between the couple which became hideously abusive eventually francis has packed her bags and returned to her parents home in the summer of 1967 reggie and his wife were reunited and planning a holiday but before that could happen francis was found dead in her bed she was just 23 years old i think the person that murdered francis and i'm sorry to say this but categorizing the times that i've spent with her and this will be a shock to everybody but it was a no-nonsense effort because francis got pregnant nobody knows that but i do she had what they called bulimia and was a very manic depressive she didn't like ronnie in any way shape or form but i think maybe the mother had something to do with francis's death not reggie he loved her too much ronnie tolerated her because it kept him stable mrs craig could never have treated her badly and as for this ridiculous notion that ronnie had anything to do with her death i would dispute that to my dying day because although he didn't like her he would never have harmed her in any way because reggie would never have forgiven him i don't think violet cray liked francis whatsoever she was jealous of her because she was losing one of her babies and they were going out more they were going to the seaside they went to spain ronnie wouldn't let him go on his own because he was frightened she might take him away he was jealous he was so so jealous of her when she committed suicide i mean we saw a completely different reg we he was untidy and shaven which was totally you know the opposite to what they really were the death of his wife francis undoubtedly had a devastating effect upon reggie everybody who knew him says that he became a disheveled drunk the cray empire had begun to crumble four months after francis's death reggie stabbed a man to death in a drunken rage ronnie was always screaming already it's your turn you carried you why don't you do your i don't know on the night after the funeral he was in the regency having a having a drink and getting rotten drunk and uh jack the hat came round to to shoot any one of the grey brothers he came into regency one night supposed to have a shotgun he said it's any of the firm and he'll blow the [ __ ] way reggie was just sitting inside there i put like the bar on on dr martin drunk at the time so he he had a note and a very narrow escape then and uh he so to me that the week later they found out what happened and that's that's the reason they they murdered uh jack the hat well they give him money to go and shoot this guy leslie payne the physical pain that worked for them he took the money and drank it all and bought pills with it or whatever he did with it but he never did what he was supposed to do the twins were clearly upset with mcvitty so on october the 29th 1967 they invited him to this house where there was a it was just a local park house party going on and uh prior to his arrival the twins turned up told the host to get rid of all the guests they waited down in the room in the basement and a couple of other members of their firm were on the stairs mcvitty arrived he was very drunk been popping pills all night so wasn't really you know with it the the lambiano brothers took him to this party and when they got him down there they just challenged him and uh and finished up stabbing him to death ronnie got him in a bedroom and he was saying to reggie do him do him i've done mine you do yours bender got a knife from the kitchen one of them [ __ ] kitchen carving knives you know and it just started stabbing it in the head the face started everywhere mcvitties fell to the floor and reggie continued stabbing him and in the end he impaled him on the floor by sticking the knife through his throat into the floorboards it was a messy really messy job what they did of him anyway took a long time to kill him apparently it was a bad scene following the murder jack macvittie's body was loaded into tony lambriano's vehicle it was brought here to the streets in rotherhide and left outside some mary's church the following morning they contacted freddie foreman and asked him to deal with it well they took him across and dumped him right on my [ __ ] doorstep around the corner for my pup and left him down in the back of a car every single aspect of the crazed lives are surrounded by conspiracy theories and myths in the late 1960s this flyover was being constructed and many believe that the bodies of jack the hat frank mitchell and ginger marks ended up being buried here beneath the foundations tony lambriano did drive the body away with his brother behind him in another car all the way to south london parked outside um three four o'clock in the morning outside a little church fred was told to pick it up take it away and he always claims that went to sea which is quite feasible to me i've heard all the bow fly over stories and buried in different graves there was a man that could melt down stuff the smelter i think he took care of another two bodies but i do know the jack the hat story the being out to sea was the correct one and they've told me that the twins and who drove him there they used to have a pole we had two cutter breakers yards one over the wall oh that's right one at the bread he used to blake lobbies up smelt ellie and he had a big aluminium smell and what he used to do is have an old chest freezer he used to put them in now then they cut them up and put them in the smell only a small number of freddie forman's closest confidants know what really happened to the bodies of marx mitchell and macvittie even the craze were not privy to such sensitive information despite the no body no murder assumption they arrested the cray brothers and their associates on the 8th of may 1968 several gang members gave evidence against the twins after they were told that they would have to take the blame for the murders ron and reg cray were eventually sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that they serve at least 30 years charlie cray and freddie foreman were both in prison for ten years for being accessories in jack mcvitti's murder anyway the three cries today and that's been running you've got an idea he said you're going to get running up to stand up for matt pitty we're going to get uh scotch jack to stand up for calm down we want you to stand up for mitchell i said no i've not been there oh while he [ __ ] looked at me he wouldn't need it at all i've been dropped in on the spot while he looked at me he thought what he thought because we were frightened still frightened on you know we were still frightened of the crave but it was me running out and checked it scott's check we weren't right though so that was when my mother came to visit me with my my youngest son with a baby when i slipped and just looked no telling the memory from those return if you watch the business come and see me i sat next to violet cray at the trial on on a couple of occasions and as the witnesses were going into the box and informing on them now that they were incarcerated um nipper reid had got to the witnesses and they were all informing she was turning to me and saying why are these people telling these lies scrooge took him down and then no we all went in ourselves then next thing the door was up and then and the screw and the two two coppers off the swing he said come on we went and stood at the bottom of the stairs and the judge was peeling off the sentences running crying has earned the right to arrest from your activity you go to prison for a minimum of 30 years rental crime saying well first when they were sentenced um he was never treated for this paranoid schizophrenic so of course he went to an ordinary prison ronnie craig which should never have happened he should have really gone straight to broadmoor where he could be treated they were fine until he got to broadmoor and then he wanted to live exactly inside as he'd lived outside when i saw him in in broadmoor incredible you'd think he was a harley street psychiatrist beautiful italian silk suit silk white shirt double wire cufflinks in gold the beautiful rolex watch shoes you could have put your makeup on in that shiny absolutely horn rimmed glasses which you changed every year i just have to take a tailor in there every year to measure him up for suits nobody could believe it [Music] the craze did their sorry best to live their lives in prison whilst clinging to a name of reputation that was being diluted by each and every embarrassing charade that was being carried out by their minions the press began to humiliate the twins and many former firm members began to publicly ridicule them ronnie whose name meant everything to him who spared the worst of the criticism when he passed away in march 1995 i'd been to broadmoor about two weeks before he died and he looked very pale and a little bit disheveled which was very unusual and i and i asked him i said have you changed your medication i literally heard it on the news and i spoke to several people in these and they said yeah it's true and then i was phoned by reggie the following day saying i want you to do the seating in the church he's going to be buried like he always wants to like a king the craze had made many enemies during their reign and now ronnie was dead reggie was feeling vulnerable fearing attack he asked bernado mahoney and dave courtney to protect him at his brother's funeral there were 26 limos there's the famous picture of the 26 limos going over the bow fly over quite a sad day for reggie because he wasn't allowed to go into a funeral car with his brother charlie he had to travel behind the horses with the carriage in a prison van handcuffed handcuffed in the church we did ask as soon as he arrived could you just be unhandcuffed for the service no they said as reggie came to the end of his 30-year sentence his brother charlie was arrested for conspiracy to supply millions of pounds worth of cocaine many believed it was in fact a conspiracy engineered by the authorities to ensure that all three cray brothers died in jail charlie i'd been to durham just before he was put into parkours i'd been to durham and he came out in the in the orange vest being a category a prisoner and i'd never seen charlie cray ever white always had that tan again always immaculate and he came out in durham like white looking ill the next thing we knew he'd been transferred to parkhurst there was no reason for that whatsoever they didn't want two crays on the street and i always say the whole sentences were political sentences but that was a dreadfully sad and probably cruel thing to do to charlie charlie to me was his name killed charlie if he wasn't called craig he'd still be alive today but his name killed charlie charlie was just a friend with everyone he was a charmer a real charming man and a nice man to be with he respected everyone and respected all the staff being a waiter a glass collector bar staff his manners were impeccable and he got a bit of pride in a bit of dignity about him in august 2000 reggie cray was diagnosed with terminal cancer he had served 32 years in prison so the home secretary granted him compassionate parole he never did get to walk the streets of the east end again where he and his twin once ruled reggie was transferred to a hotel in norwich he couldn't afford to pay for the room so a friend footed the bill on his deathbed he confessed to another murder although he didn't name the victim leonard nipper reed the detective who arrested the craze later confirmed that he was mad teddy smith smith was a psychopathic homosexual rumored to have had affairs with ronnie cray and tom dryburg the former labour mp he disappeared the day after an argument with the crazed in 1967 no doubt smith ended up with marx mitchell and macvittie on the 1st of october 2000 reggie died in his sleep ten days later he was buried beside his brother ronnie reggie i say was the saddest funeral because having married once i'd refused my three proposals from him um he married a lady called roberta she was with him four years i think it was but she changed the whole sequence and therefore it was sad because all the old school his old old friends such as frank fraser and fred they were just sort of dismissed to a pew in the church a lot of people that visited reggie were given short sharp lessons like do you want to spend your life like me in here like look what i could have done he regretted at the end of his life and told me so on several occasions ronnie never regretted he never apologized he never reformed ronnie cray may not have had any regrets but if he had known the truth about those he considered to be his most trusted friends he may well have had many that's because those he championed as loyal and trustworthy until the day he died were in fact conspiring to murder him and his twin shortly before they were arrested he was getting out of control ronnie he was going so far that he couldn't care less he thought he was untouchable i was asked to go over again to see and see them and i walked into this bungalow and there's a fellow called charlie clark he was an old cat burglar from years ago and then and when i walked in there there was a terrible atmosphere and all the rest of the firm was sitting there look and wowed out their life and there's ronnie craig pacing up and down in his bases with a cigarette which is the light he one after the other like and puffing away mulch up like a cage tiger or a light in a cage you know i said what's up what you gotta be here for what's the problem you know so this he said it's that billy generally just said i'm gonna you know i'm getting them i've sent the firm out to pick him up and bring him back and he's gonna do him uh i said what for what what what's billy gently done you know oh he's upset me he did this did this anyway all the rest of them all come in they they sent out like four fellas to go and pick him up and bring him back so that ronnie could [ __ ] shoot him you know or kill him wherever he was going to do it and i said no i'm so sorry i said i'm not kind of i said i'm talking him out of it i said i ain't got any facilities to handle this situation anyway i said i can't it can't be done and i forget about it ron and you know calm down and of course she i've got just got him around to that where he was he accepted the fact that he wasn't gonna you know go through with it and the [ __ ] doorbell rings doesn't it all right they're back and they they've come back uh i say i said all right let me go i went down the passage to get to the door first open the door and if if bill gently's down i'm gonna push him and say now [ __ ] leg it you run you know just go but they they they was there there was a it was donaghun and another couple of people and they come back and they winked at me like they gave me a wink they went i we couldn't find him we looked everywhere we could go into the front and then body guys did you go down the widows did you go down there did we where did you look there and look here for him and everything and i thought well what's his [ __ ] waving mad here you know and that was a sort of a very worrying situation then when ronnie craig sat in the car he always wanted to sit in the passenger seat so we just just knocking about we said be so easy just sit behind him when you find a nice corner pop him in the back of the head and chuck him out and let him roll down the bank it would have been so easy he wasn't a colonel he wasn't a boss he wasn't a leader of men he was he was a mass murderer enjoyed like a serial killer he enjoyed what he did he got a kick out of it the really the thing would have been much better if if the [ __ ] ironed out the two twins earlier and it saved a lot of trouble and a lot of people wouldn't have gone to prison and then and then saved up 250 years being dished out at a later date you know people have been alive today i mean with people like that that topped it that the billy gentry thing you know when they that particular incident well one of reported back to my my pals what what had happened that night you know i just started one thing for you that's in this simpsons industry and that that took place discussion i'm glad they're six foot under the best place they can be they were two oval bastards you don't hurt your own you don't the fact that you're anybody there they were really frightening if you really knew them people who said the lovely boys didn't know them they were bloody animals i thought they should be handed out but to be honest you thought they crossed yeah they're two of them yeah why did you think because that was too that was dangerous to everybody and that and uh if if if they hadn't been invested when they were that's what would have happened long after their deaths the craze are still revered by old-time crooks and misguided youngsters from a generation that wasn't even born when they took over the east end of london more than 32 books and a succession of films have chronicled their reign and in some cases glorified it but is there really any glamour in the sexual abuse of young men the exploitation of innocent members of the public and the murder of fathers and husbands simply because there is a facility to dispose of the bodies and in doing so play god the deranged and dysfunctional twins will undoubtedly be remembered for many years to come but nobody should forget the misery their crimes caused to so many

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 913,133

Keywords: 1950s London, 1960s London, British crime lords, British criminals, London's Most Notorious Twins, Real Crime, crime and punishment, crime lords, criminal activities, criminal activity overview, criminal case study, criminal investigation, criminal psychology, criminal siblings, forensic analysis of crimes, gang leader, mafia brothers, notorious figures, notorious outlaws, organized crime syndicate, true crime investigation

Id: EhT1-FSC5cg

Length: 50min 39sec (3039 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 10 2022