Original subtitles

The twins... They were two different people.

There was the beast and there was the gentleman.

They were split personalities.

You could take 'em home to meet your mum,

and they'd be perfectly polite.

I'd like to have a bit of family life now, you know?

I intend to get married in the near future.

Well, I'd like to go abroad for a short while,

and then I'd like to be left alone.

But something inside their brain clicked like that,

and they turned into something so destructive.

They were dangerous people.

The Kray twins had such power at the time in the East End.

It frightened people.

Reggie asked him one or two... questions,

and, with that, he's pulled out a flick knife

and striped the man right across the face.

By this time, the whole Kray publicity caravan was in full flow.

Photographers were always ready.

They were criminals, and they felt it was perfectly OK

to court publicity, because nobody could touch them.

But it didn't last.

You see, one part of me really loves 'em.

They're my cousins, you know, but there's a side

that I just think is sort of... I can't comprehend it.

These were people who'd got into the deepest end of violence -

murder.

Why would you want to do that?

I don't... I don't get it. I don't get what they did.

There was a code in the underworld

that you didn't talk about these things.

But they wanted the world and their brother to know

just what they'd done.

They really had no limits any more.

Here were people who were willing to kill,

willing to take on the establishment.

Willing to do anything.

The Krays were out control.

The reason the Kray twins have become that much-overused word,

"iconic", is because they were the first villains

to understand celebrity.

Celebrity had just kicked off.

So, you've got mini skirts...

music, dope, Black immigration.

All that is happening, and, suddenly, celebrity matters.

And I think, when they realised that, they joined in.

Ah...

I was voted "England's most popular singer"

by the New Musical Express in 1961.

Er, I'd al... I was famous overnight,

unbelievably famous.

And, when I met them, they were big celebrities.

They... They were on the level of Jess Conrad.

They were beautifully dressed, and they were celebrities,

like the rest of us.

They just fitted into the picture.

They love publicity.

If the Krays were around now, they would be on Big Brother,

they would be on Celebrity Come Dancing,

they would be on all of these things,

because they craved publicity and they were actually good at it.

They loved it, and every time they had a decent photograph,

it raised their opinion of themselves

and other people's opinions

of who they thought they were.

I think celebrities liked being with the Krays

because they had become big stars and they drew so much publicity.

Barbara Windsor... Joe Louis...

They loved all that.

Diana Dors, she did like a naughty boy.

So, to have the two naughtiest boys in England at one of her parties,

she loved it. They were icons.

They were just overwhelmed by... by the whole celeb thing.

For them, it meant they'd arrived.

They'd crossed over into another kind of culture.

But they weren't prepared to compromise on the villainy.

NEWSREEL: 'The West End has 500 nightclubs -

'a breeding ground for protection.

'They are the centre of recurring violence.

'It could be a petrol bomb through the window,

'it could be a visit from hired thugs.'

They were making their money from extortion.

They took protection money, from clubs.

Going after them with threats of violence.

The twins... They were volatile.

They were dangerous. They were out to make a reputation.

You didn't mess about with 'em. They'd beat people.

They used knives, bayonets... hammers.

They would stripe people with a razor at the drop of a hat.

They shot people in the legs on numerous occasions.

These were a couple of serious guys.

Their modus is to make it clear that, for a payment,

they will look after that pub or club.

For the most part, they only preyed on other criminals,

dealing with people who had some connection with crime.

They would be very wary of upsetting straight people,

cos straight people could go to the police.

Of course, many of the people that ran clubs

would be straight people, as well.

They were being extorted, losing their livelihood.

It was a big problem.

Nipper Read is a career copper,

and, by 1964, he's got promoted, and he's got a good reputation.

A copper's copper, and... he's called up to the office,

and he's the man that they think can bring in the Krays.

So, Nipper Read knows that the Krays

are involved in a number of criminal activities,

because, in the newspapers, journalists were writing articles

about protection rackets and these criminals running free.

The Krays have been given a free run from '64,

when the police lost in the Lord Boothby case.

He's a genuine policeman trying to put away the bad guy.

So, he set up a small team to get the Krays.

INTERVIEWER: What sort of a man was Nipper?

Lovely. Obviously, I'm biased. Husband - great.

He wanted to do his best for the police force.

It was his life, in fact. And he didn't want to be beaten.

He wanted to go out and get the bad men.

Nipper goes round to see nightclub owners,

were they paying blackmail to the Krays?

But no-one will come forward and say,

"Yes, the Krays are leaning on me for money.

"I'm having to pay protection."

It was awkward, trying to talk people round

into telling the truth, and they were worried.

They didn't want to go to court and stand up in front of the Krays.

Oh, people were frightened of the Krays, obviously,

because they were such violent people.

They shot people, they stabbed people.

Some people who were actually shot never even came forward,

because they was still frightened of the repercussions.

So, Nipper Read has six months of banging his head against the wall.

He knows that what they're doing is illegal,

but he cannot find any witnesses.

By this time, the failure of the police

gave them this sense of invulnerability.

Both Ronnie and Reggie, they thought they were untouchable,

and, in a way they were, but they just pushed it a little bit too far.

Make yourself comfortable.

The inquiry's fizzling out when Nipper gets a call

to say that a man called Hew McCowan,

who owns a nightclub called The Hideaway in Gerrard Street,

uh, is willing to tell him that he is being leant on by the Krays,

who not only want money,

but they actually want a share of the club.

So, Nipper Read interviews McCowan,

interviews his assistant manager, Sydney Vaughan,

thinks McCowan's OK, but Sydney Vaughan is a good witness.

Nipper Read goes to McCowan, and he says,

"Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

And he says, "Yes. This is despicable,

"and I'm willing to testify."

He's delighted, obviously.

This is gold at the end of the road.

Ronnie and Reggie are arrested.

My name's Ivan Lawrence,

and I was junior counsel in defence of the Krays

in a number of their cases in the 1960s.

I had no idea who the Krays were...

In fact, until I, erm... appeared for them at court,

and there was this crowd

of photographers and journalists outside,

erm, brought home to me that they were actually

very important people in the criminal world.

The allegation was that the Krays were muscling into The Hideaway,

demanding money by menaces -

threats which leave the recipient of the threats unable to,

erm, make any other decision than to accept.

The charge of demanding money with menaces

resulted in about 14 years in prison,

so the Krays would have been put away for a very long period of time.

When they were arrested in 1965, Violet was in a terrible flap.

Typical mother, crying and saying, "Why have they been arrested?"

Someone said, "They were demanding money."

She said, "Well... why would they demand money?

"They've got plenty of money - more money than anybody round here,

"so that's another lie, isn't it?"

Hew McCowan made a statement to the police

that Ron and Reg had threatened him...

..that if they didn't, erm, get an interest in The Hideaway,

they would see the place smashed up.

Well, I have here my notebook,

which is dated January 15th, 1965.

Oh, this was obviously, er, McCowan.

"Ronnie suggested we draw up an agreement to protect me.

"In return for the protection, I would give him 50%.

"I said I thought it was a pretty high percentage.

"Ronnie said it would well be worth it.

"There would be no trouble at all at the club.

"I said I didn't expect any trouble, anyhow.

"I said I thought it was a lot to ask

"as we were just opening up.

"It was proposed that if I did open the club, I would have trouble."

There was a determination by the police

to make this a prosecution that stuck.

So they went for trial at the Old Bailey.

McCowan just feels that he can cope with this.

That they're not all that, and that, maybe,

if somebody stood up to them, then maybe they would go away.

I would suggest that's quite naive.

At the trial, the witness didn't substantiate the allegation

that the Krays had threatened him and had demanded money with menaces.

So there was no evidence that the Krays

had done either of those things.

The assistant manager, Sydney Vaughan, recants his story.

He's Nipper Read's best witness, and he has swapped sides

and says that what he said about demanding money with menaces

wasn't true and he was instructed by McCowan to say that.

They've got to Nipper Read's main witness,

basically working on fear.

There was threats of violence.

There was witness intimidation.

It's what goes on.

The twins...

..they could convince you it was in your interest... to let go.

And, unfortunately, the whole thing was brought to a standstill.

And the jury acquitted the Krays...

of the allegations of blackmail.

The Krays have won. They believe they're untouchable.

The newspapers are reporting something similar.

Nipper Read has been told to back off

and is sent off to another division

to, er, forget about the Krays.

He said they were vicious - excuse the language - bastards.

And he knew they'd done something wrong and they'd got away with it.

They were welcomed back to the East End as conquering heroes.

The police had allegedly tried to stitch them up,

but they'd got off with it.

This added to this sense of...

they could do whatever they wanted to do.

There was such a day in Vallance Road,

and there's all those lovely pictures of 'em shaking hands,

the neighbours came out.

See, everybody in the East End, all the neighbours -

what we call the "normal" EastEnders -

they were so happy that they was acquitted.

Because, again, they thought, "One to the Krays, nil to the law."

One of the very few times I've seen Ronnie Kray what I call happy,

really happy, erm... really smiling.

He very rarely smiled. He had this little sort of... Mm-mm.

..sardonic grin that went up to the side.

He was the happiest probably that I've seen him, was that day.

Do I think that justice was done in the case of blackmail?

I, as the barrister, could only go on the evidence

as it was adduced in court.

But, erm, I'm as suspicious as everybody else is, I suppose.

By this time, the whole Kray publicity caravan was in full flow.

Photographers were always ready, and they had a famous interview

with the BBC at this particular time about their life in clubland.

My investment in the Kray twins...

began essentially when I joined the BBC.

I invested in them journalistically.

I was interested in the rise and rise of the Kray twins.

I think they must have thought that

it might be useful to have friends in the press,

and I certainly thought it would be useful

to have friends in the world of gangsters.

And when they were found not guilty, I knew them well enough

to invite them to BBC Broadcasting House.

A lot of people have got the impression from this trial

that clubland, London, is very tough.

Do you think it is?

Well, in all clubs, you get an occasional drunk, you know,

and, sometimes, they have to be slung out,

and that's why there's doormen there, but, erm...

I suppose it's like clubland all over the world, really.

It's just the same as... I don't suppose it can be that bad,

or else people wouldn't go to 'em, really, would they?

What do you think about clubland in London?

'Well, I think most clubs are very respectable...'

LAUGHS '..and I don't think

'there's any trouble at all in 'em. Except occasionally.'

It shows me quietly having my trousers taken off

by two very clever people.

How much has this trial cost you? It's cost us roughly £8,000.

And how do you feel about that?

I don't suppose anyone likes the idea

of spending that money for no reason at all, you know?

Does it leave you broke, or... How does it leave you?

It doesn't leave us broke, but, at the same time, it's a lot of money

to have to pay out when one is innocent, you know?

Both of them looking like hurt victims of justice.

You know, they couldn't understand why they'd been arrested.

And they answered it, er, just taking the mickey, really.

What are you going to do now that it's all over?

Well, I'd like to go abroad for a short while,

and then I'd like to be left alone.

I think their decision to give that interview was, er,

the beginning of real fame and power for them.

They were known from one end of this country to the other,

and the police couldn't touch 'em.

They were at a new... a new level.

They had a talent for two things and that was violence and publicity.

They did crave it.

They liked the idea of being the bosses of London's underworld,

and they wanted the photos to prove it.

These are supposed to be top gangsters,

but they're having their photos taken

by the most prominent society photographer of the time,

David Bailey. Quite amazing.

INTERVIEWER: So, what are your memories of that day?

CHUCKLES Christ.

It was a long while ago. Er...

It was just another day at the studio, really, with... Ron and Reg.

I thought they weren't very intelligent,

being that they'd let me photograph them,

cos I thought, "If I was a gangster, I'd want to be a secret gangster.

"I wouldn't want to be... known as a gangster."

But they liked having their picture taken.

They liked the glamour of the '60s, I think.

Well, Reg was all right. Reg wasn't frightening.

Ron was.

I was really careful with Ron what I said,

because I knew that... he couldn't control...

..his emotions.

Ronnie was bad news.

He was a dual personality.

He was going to this doctor every fucking day,

getting more pills, more pills, more pills, and that...

He just couldn't control himself.

The dominant twin was, of course, Ronnie.

I don't think there's any doubt that Ronnie was psychotic.

Reg was nervous of him and just sort of always...

He was always looking to his side to make sure that Ronnie was OK

and wasn't setting off about anything.

Reggie had a different character - much more sober.

Ron, I wouldn't care less if I never saw Ron again,

and Reg, I sort of became kind of fond of him.

He was kind of like a lost soul, in a way, Reg.

He said to me once, "Here, Dave..."

You know, everything's a secret. "Here, here..."

I said, "What's up?" Reggie said, "Er, you know, Dave,

"I wish I could have done it legit, like you."

The first time I met Reg was in prison in 1996,

in Maidstone prison.

I think there was regrets about what had gone on

from what I gleaned from some of our conversations that he...

he wanted to be in the West End and be a club owner,

and he wanted to wear nice suits, like Ronnie,

but he wanted a legit business.

I think Reggie wanted to be a businessman, no fighting,

no extortions, wanted to get on that way.

Reggie would have been, er...

far more successful without Ronnie, I think.

I mean, he showed me some photographs of Ron,

and I sensed there was a resentment there.

It was Ronnie pulling him away all the time, that was the problem.

If he wanted to go left, Reggie, Ronnie would pull him to the right.

No... he never had a chance.

And you can't... you can't live like that, you can't.

You've got to have a life of your own.

There was a desire in that man to be just a normal man.

An honest man.

And I think that's why he wanted to be married.

I'd like to have a bit of family life now, you know?

I intend to get married in the near future.

I did before this case, but it's put back over the case,

and, erm... just get married as soon as possible, you know?

Frances Shea was a very... ordinary, working-class girl.

She was with Reggie on and off for eight years.

They were both from the East End, and that really worked for Reggie,

because he really wanted an East End girl on his arm,

and the girl that was gonna be on Reggie's arm had to look stunning.

Part of the image.

I first met her when she was in Vallance Road,

in Mrs Kray's. Erm...

Lovely dark brown eyes, red hair.

Quite slim, but very vulnerable.

Reggie was able to persuade her to marry him and she agreed.

I was in the house in Vallance Road on the morning of the wedding,

and, er, they had the most horrific argument,

the twins, Ronnie and Reggie. And, in the end, he said,

"Well, I'm not going to the bloody wedding."

And Reggie said, "Well, you've got to come to the wedding.

"You know, you're my best man.

"Well, if you're not coming, I can't get married,"

which probably would have pleased Ronnie Kray.

He was very jealous of, erm, women that liked Reggie,

because he always thought a woman would come and take him away.

And when it did happen, that's why he didn't like Frances.

I mean, I loved him, he's my cousin,

but if he didn't like someone, he'd make their life a misery,

and I can imagine he was quite nasty towards her.

Ronnie hated Frances.

One of his favourite tricks was to say,

"Don't she have horrible legs?" in front of her.

He didn't like her at all, Ronnie. Jealous.

He was always having little pops at her, you know?

So like you say that to someone who's already quite...

you know, fragile, it's... it's not good, is it?

It's not nice to do that.

He really did not want that wedding to happen.

But then he thought to himself, "Well, I better go.

"There'd be all the attention and everybody there,

"all the photographs."

Ronnie didn't want to be there,

because he didn't want this to be happening,

but they also knew it was brilliant publicity for them.

MUSIC: 'Going To The Chapel Of Love' by The Dixie Cups

So, the wedding was also a publicity event,

as far as they were concerned,

because that's what they were about then.

Which, when you consider they were criminals,

was quite ridiculous.

Well, the wedding...

Oh, how can I put it? I mean, we was only kids.

It... Everything looked staged, do you know what I mean?

It was sort of... It was all done perfectly,

but, to me, it weren't an happy event.

It was false.

They were married in the full glaze of publicity,

with David Bailey taking the photos.

I remember... she looked a bit lost.

Reg looked worried. He looked really worried, Reg,

and Ronnie just looks like Ronnie.

If I was captioning it, I'd say, she's thinking, "What...

"What have I got myself into here?"

She doesn't fit in with the two of them.

I don't think she was happy that day.

I think there was a lot of pressure from her parents,

obviously, not to get married.

They certainly didn't want Reggie Kray as a son-in-law.

Her parents were against the whole thing,

because they realised what the Krays were.

Frances' mother turned up all dressed in black.

Everything black - even a ring with a black stone.

We was sitting in the pews, and me brother, he was going,

"Who's that... Who's that woman all dressed in black?"

"That's her mother. That's her mother, that is, like that."

And, you know, she was, like, dressed up for a funeral.

Done it as a statement, I think it was a statement to say,

"I don't agree with it."

But, of course, by then, it was too far gone.

So she married him,

and they went on a honeymoon to Athens.

The honeymoon proved to be a disaster.

Most nights, Reggie would go out and get drunk

and leave Frances in the hotel.

It was not a good honeymoon.

They were away for a week. They came back,

and they had a drink with Micky Fawcett.

In came Reggie with Frances,

and she said, "Do you know, he hasn't laid a finger on me

"in all the time we've been away. He hasn't touched me."

I don't remember being surprised. Let me put it that way.

He couldn't make love to her.

We knew Ronnie was totally gay, but... but Reggie, erm, you know,

I heard a couple of girlfriends that he had that he actually slept with,

but I don't think it was to his pleasure.

Reggie was gay, but... didn't want to be gay.

He wanted to be one of the chaps, one of the boys.

I think he probably thought he'd go on holiday with Frances

and do the business, whatever needed to be done,

and to prove it to her and the rest of us.

And, er, he just froze and couldn't do it.

I know he was embarrassed by Ronnie's overt homosexuality,

because, in those days, you know,

it still wasn't a great thing to be gay, publicly gay.

Reggie Kray was... was gay.

He had many, many boyfriends, which people didn't know about.

He got married - waste of time - to make it look like it was kosher,

but it wasn't all that kosher.

She married him, not knowing the real measure of living with Reggie.

She'd never lived with him. She'd never shared a room with him.

He'd always insisted on separate rooms.

But the worst thing that Reggie did,

and it really was the worst thing, was to move them to a flat

underneath Ronnie's flat in Cedra Court.

Every night, Ronnie was having parties with young men,

orgies, all kinds of stuff going on, and Reggie would go up there

and leave Frances in the flat, night after night.

INDISTINCT CHATTER, MUSIC THUMPING

God knows what... I can imagine what he's doing up there.

And then she'd have to listen to that.

She'd be in her bed down below,

having to listen to what's going on up there.

You know, it's... it's not right.

'Her diary revealed so much that she had to put up with.

'She'd written it down, and there it was, in black and white.

'Her life had turned into a nightmare.'

"Staying in a dark room, barely any furniture,

"his suits hanging round the wall.

"On my own until four, five in the morning,

"when he came in drunk.

"Always swearing and shouting at me.

"My nerves were terrible.

"Talks to me like a pig.

"Mental cruelty.

"Shouting, swearing, aggravating, provoking, threats.

"Habitual drunkenness, knives and guns,

"and had a rifle by the side of the bed, loaded.

"Brother used to torment me.

"Swearing and abuse. 'Shut your mouth.' "

Ronnie was always on his case to leave

and spend more time with him.

I heard him say many times,

"I dunno what you got married for. What are you married for?"

You know, "You don't care about the business.

"I have to do everything."

Ronnie always wanted Reggie with him.

Wanted him standing by his side. Wanted him at his beck and call.

And Frances got in the way of that.

She was like a rose between two thorns, er,

and... she was crushed.

She couldn't handle it.

It sent her into a spiral of nervous breakdowns.

She started taking different kinds of drugs

that psychiatrists would prescribe.

She was in a desperate state.

And the consequence was that she left,

and she went back to her family.

And there is a separate sheet of paper, torn from a notebook,

which is clearly a letter to Reggie.

"I've finished with you forever,

"and don't come crawling back, guttersnipe.

"Have the decency to let me live my type of life,

"and you can stink in yours,

"unless you want a ghost to haunt you."

The marriage for Reggie was a way

of separating himself from his twin,

but I don't think he understood his own psychology enough

to realise that he couldn't get away from his twin.

Reggie also wanted to protect Ronnie from his illness.

Ronnie was diagnosed as schizophrenic in the '50s,

and he was ill.

In 1966, his mental health was deteriorating

because he wasn't getting the right treatment.

He could go off into these rages that you really think

he could kill everybody, Reggie included.

With Ronnie and his mental problems,

sometimes, he found it difficult to separate, you know,

fact from fiction.

Reality from fantasy.

He thought he was a character in a Hollywood gangster film.

Ron was always living out his gangster fantasies,

right from being a young boy.

He wanted to be the Colonel, the man in charge of this gangster army.

And extreme violence was very much part of that fantasy.

He'd had the gang fights,

he'd cut people's faces, he tortured people,

but here was another step in the gangster career.

To murder someone.

Cos that's what gangsters do on screen.

The tension was building up.

Ron Kray's mental illness was building up.

His obsession with violence was building up.

Someone had to die.

George Cornell and Ron Kray - now, they had history.

Cornell had had a fight with Ronnie Kray and beaten him.

So that wasn't good for his reputation.

Georgie Cornell... strong as a bull.

Very, very strong man.

One of the best street fighters in London.

Georgie gave Ronnie Kray a good hiding in a club.

Cornell had also, in the past, called Ron Kray "a fat poof".

Your reputation in Bethnal Green and the East End of London mattered,

and if you were insulted, somebody called you a "fat poof",

you know, that could not go without revenge.

He had a grudge against Cornell,

but he also had a thing about violence generally.

You know, he was a very violent man.

He liked weapons, he liked guns,

so the next step for him was to... was to kill,

and here was an ideal opportunity.

He hated him. He said to me nan, "I'm gonna do summat."

So she said, "What are you gonna do?"

She said, "You be careful. Don't get yourself in trouble."

And he said to her, "See, some people, they don't respect you.

"They don't show you no respect."

He said, "They got to be taught a lesson."

Even got me granddad to clean a gun for him.

It was 1966 when George Cornell

went to The Blind Beggar's to have a drink,

and he was off his manor, and he was on the Krays' manor,

which they didn't like.

Ronnie Kray, who always knew

everything that happened in his patch, was told

that George Cornell was in The Blind Beggar.

He actually walked into The Blind Beggar.

He walked up to the bar, where George was sitting.

George said, "Look who's here."

And he pulled out the gun.

And he'd shot him in the head, and that was it.

And walked out as calmly as he walked in.

Ronnie Kray's right-hand man apparently fired a few shots

into the ceiling of the pub and said, "Everybody here,

"you keep your mouth shut if you know what's good for you."

And they turned around, and they walked out.

I was shocked. There was a code in the underworld

that you didn't talk about these things,

but Ronnie Kray had done this blatantly,

in front of people - there was a crowd of people.

You know, it's just... it's just madness.

There is no logical reason for shooting George Cornell.

This wasn't an instrument or act

that was going to further his gangster career,

that he was gonna make money from.

Why did he kill him?

Because he's raving mad and he wanted to be in the action.

That's it.

He didn't need any logic, though, Ronnie.

Just his insanity.

When I spoke to Ron, you know, about the killing of George Cornell

in The Blind Beggar, Ronnie actually said to me,

"I'd never felt so fucking alive."

So, there wasn't remorse.

They wanted publicity.

They wanted the world and their brother to know

just what they'd done.

In no time, everyone knew throughout the East End

who had committed this crime.

I was still at school at the time,

I can remember people talking at school

about the shooting in The Blind Beggar pub, er...

talking about it like it was a football result.

It was something that the Krays had done.

We were sitting in the kitchen,

Violet and me, and she said,

"There's lots of people saying things are happening

"round the East End about Ronnie."

She said, "Well, people are very jealous.

"They're always talking about my twins.

"Always saying that, you know, it's cos they're successful,

"or their sons are not success... which I think is a lot of jealousy."

But everybody in the East End knew it was Ronnie Kray.

The moment you shoot someone dead in a London pub

in front of other people, the law are gonna come for you.

The police knew within a matter of hours who it was,

and they go down to The Blind Beggar

and start inquiring as to who was there.

The principal witness was the barmaid,

who saw the killing,

who also knew Ronnie Kray,

so there was no question of her making a mistake with the gunman.

'This is an extraordinary document.'

This is an unpublished manuscript from Ronnie Hart.

And Ronnie Hart is the cousin of the Krays,

and he's then a member of the firm.

Ronnie Hart writes about the George Cornell killing.

"The following evening,

"Ronnie began boasting about killing George Cornell.

"And I said, 'Fancy going into a pub, just like that,

" 'and shooting a man.

" 'Aren't you worried about the other people who were there?'

"He said, 'No, they won't say anything.

" 'Otherwise, they will go as well, and they know it.' "

The Kray twins had such power at the time in the East End of London

that if you were told not to speak about them, you wouldn't.

They shut people's mouths, and family members were threatened.

People were terrorised.

They arrest Ronnie Kray. They put him in a line-up.

The witnesses that turn up do not identify Ronnie Kray.

They know that Ronnie Kray walked into a pub and shot somebody.

Therefore, he is not scared of anything,

and if he can do it to George Cornell, he can do it to them.

And Ronnie Kray is released.

By now, Ronnie believes almost that he is impregnable,

certainly when he's not picked out on the identification parade.

For the police, the attempts to nail the Krays have gone west.

They know that they're doing protection rackets.

They know they're threatening people.

They know they're killing people, but they don't have any witnesses.

These were people who, now, had got into the deepest end of violence.

Murder.

Who were they gonna do next?

I think the thing that might've done them the most damage was,

funnily enough, an act of theirs that was well-intentioned.

The Mad Axeman affair.

Their mate Frank Mitchell, the Mad Axeman,

called the Mad Axeman.

What happened was that he was on the run,

and he hid in a little old lady's cottage,

and, as the police were closing in, he took an axe off the wall

to deal with the police, you know,

but then he got the soubriquet "the Mad Axeman",

but he had no intention of using it on the little old lady in the house.

So, he goes to prison and didn't have a set sentence.

What he wanted was to be told when he would be released.

The Home Secretary would not give a date,

and he thought he was entitled to be told when he would be released.

And Ronnie often said to me, "I think...

"Bitterly unfair, Tom," you know, "poor old Frank."

And... the Krays got it in their heads

that they were going to spring him from prison.

And the deal was, they would free him,

and they would free him long enough for him to negotiate

with the Home Secretary to be given a set sentence.

He never denied his villainy, but he said,

"I want to have a set sentence."

The Kray twins thought if they can get Frank away from Dartmoor,

get him to London and negotiate parole with the Home Secretary,

look how powerful that would have made them.

They would have been untouchable. They would have definitely been

the kings of the whole of London's underworld.

What a coup to pull off, to tell the government what to do.

Which was, of course, was preposterous.

Freeing Frank Mitchell from Dartmoor was actually very easily done,

because Mitchell was allowed to work outside, in the prison grounds.

They simply arranged a time with him,

sent a car, and he just left the working party,

climbed in the back of the car, and they drove him back to London.

It was as simple as that.

NEWSREEL: 'Many of the people who live on the moor went to bed

'haunted by the vision of a madman fleeing across it,

'waving an axe above his head

'and prepared to do serious harm to anyone who stood in his way.'

INTERVIEWER: Mr Wise, can you describe the men for us?

Yes, well, two of the men were extraordinarily large men.

They were very, very broad and very big.

Now, these two men, you said that they might look alike?

They looked very much like brothers to me.

They could, in fact, be twins? I should imagine so, yes.

Commandos, helicopters, police and prison guards

are searching the moor,

but Frank Mitchell is housed up in London, watching the news.

They put him in a flat on Barking Road.

kept him stocked with food and drink,

and with a... a sexual partner for a time,

but he very quickly became problematic to them.

Where it all went wrong, of course, was, in their own imaginations,

they were so powerful,

they thought they could actually take this man from Dartmoor,

hide him away in a flat in London,

and then deal with the Home Secretary, Roy Jenkins himself,

and get parole, get freedom for Frank Mitchell.

And the government weren't having any of that.

And then... Which left the Kray twins with a major problem.

Frank Mitchell was a very, very troubled man,

a man of superhuman strength,

but a man with enormous mental health issues.

Frank Mitchell now feels that he's gone from one prison cell

to another and starts to get restless very quickly.

They've got this very unstable character in a flat.

What are they gonna do with him?

The twins said, "Look, you've had your freedom.

"You've made your point.

"We've won all the points we're going to win.

"Please go back to Dartmoor

"because the whole of bloody Fleet Street knows we're responsible,

"and we don't want to go back to prison for you.

"You know, we got you out, and we've helped you, and you owe us that."

And an argument ensued in which he threatened Vi,

the twins' mother.

You don't do that.

You don't do that with... with the twins. You just don't.

And, at that stage, they decided that, erm,

they needed to get rid of Frank.

So, Reggie gets hold of Freddie Foreman.

Freddie Foreman is from South London,

and he's a big friend of Ronnie and Reggie Kray,

but he also has a reputation as a fixer.

"Freddie Foreman, we need you, son."

And, er, Freddie went over with a old friend of mine.

They decided that he's gotta go, you know?

It's decided Freddie Foreman

will escort Frank Mitchell away from Barking

on the pretence of taking him to the countryside

to meet Ronnie Kray at a big house.

So, Albert Donoghue, who is Reggie's right-hand man

and has been for a couple of years,

has been looking after what's been going on in the flat.

And he is tasked with walking Frank Mitchell to the van.

Inside the van is Freddie Foreman's firm with guns.

Frank Mitchell gets in.

As soon as the door slams and the van starts to pull away,

they put a number of bullets into Frank Mitchell.

What upsets me about Frank Mitchell is that

they get a man out of prison.

A friend. A man who... respects them.

What did they do? They have him killed.

A friend.

He did not need to die.

He was another senseless murder...

..because they couldn't control themselves.

In fact, Reggie Kray once said that Frank Mitchell

was the biggest mistake they ever made.

Nobody, to this day, as far as I know,

knows what they did with the body.

I knew none of this, and nor did anybody else at this stage.

There are witnesses coming forward

to say that he's been seen in Tangier,

that he's been seen in Southern Ireland.

He's also been sighted in the UK.

So, initially, the police are tracking down these sightings.

They have a good idea that the Kray firm are involved,

but, because of these witnesses, they cannot be sure

that he's been killed.

It's a dreadful scenario.

Frank Mitchell's family never, ever had any resolution.

Things are pretty dire all round.

Frances doesn't know what has happened to Frank Mitchell.

But, at the beginning of 1967, Reggie was still hovering.

He wanted Frances to still be part of his life.

She was already separated from Reggie.

She wasn't living with him.

She tried her best to remove herself.

He didn't want her to be able to talk to other people about him,

because people were so scared of the Krays now

that he actually wanted to keep her on side,

so he would go round there every Friday

with an envelope stuffed with money and put it through her letter box.

He wouldn't go into the house,

because the family wouldn't have him in the house.

She was in a pretty nervous, frail state.

She was seeing a psychiatrist.

She wasn't in a good way.

She was trapped by the circumstance

of being married to a Kray.

She'd made up her mind. She wanted out.

She'd had enough.

On the 7th of June, 1967...

..her brother, Frank, goes to wake her up in the morning,

puts the cup of tea by the bed.

She's asleep. He goes away,

comes back a few hours later.

She's not asleep. She's dead.

She's killed herself with an overdose of barbiturates.

She's gone.

He was sitting at my mum's house, and someone got in touch with him,

and they said, "I think Frances has killed herself."

I've never seen anyone as devastated like that.

I mean, even as a young kid, I can remember him sitting there,

and he'd just look into the fire the whole time, and I went to him,

like, you know, typical kid, "Do you like my doll?"

And he went, "Yeah, yeah, yeah."

And I went, "I'm gonna name her Frances."

And he just pulled me to him and hugged me, like that, you know?

And I remember that, and even makes me go shivery, like,

thinking of it now, cos I remember how sad he was.

When I saw Reggie a few days after Frances had committed suicide,

erm, he was in a terrible state.

I went round to Vallance Road.

He came down, and I saw him crying,

and I... all you could say was,

"I'm very sorry, Reg. She was a lovely girl."

Cos you daren't say anything else.

I couldn't believe that I'm looking at Reggie Kray crying like this.

And that's the only time I ever saw him cry.

Me mum went to the funeral and she said he was inconsolable.

He's trying to throw himself in the ground, everything.

He was trying to get in with her. He wanted to go in with her.

And once she was gone, nothing mattered any more.

He didn't care about anything no more.

I think he thought he loved Frances,

but he wanted to possess her,

and that's not the same as loving someone.

But I don't think he understood,

because possession and love, to him, were the same thing.

Her family were distraught.

Of course, they blamed Reggie Kray.

They... felt that they had killed her.

I never heard Violet blame, er,

Reggie of anything to do with Frances.

I think she just blamed it on Frances' state of mind

and thought that Reggie was a good husband.

This is all I ever heard from Vi.

She wouldn't hear no wrong about either of them.

Such a short time between marriage and death.

It seemed so sad, really.

I think she was caught between two people

who squeezed the life out of her.

The suicide of Frances Kray had a big impact.

Reg completely went to pieces.

He was using drugs. He was drinking.

He was mourning the loss of his young wife,

despite the peculiar relationship that they obviously had.

Reg lost his business-like, smooth, club-owner facade

and became someone who was increasingly unpredictable.

When Frances committed suicide,

I thought, "Pfft, I don't want to get anywhere near.

"Whoa, he'll be in a terrible state.

"Keep away from him."

Ronnie would ridicule him.

He wasn't giving him any, erm, consolation

or put his arms around his brother and say, "Never mind."

Ronnie's screaming at him after his wife's death.

This is all to a man who's just sitting there, crying, drunk.

He was in such a bad way.

I mean, he wasn't right after Frances.

Ronnie now could get control,

because Ronnie knew his brother was vulnerable and weak.

In his manuscript, Ronnie Hart writes,

"Ronnie was always talking about his killing of Cornell.

"He was very proud of his murder and was constantly getting at Reggie

"and asking him when he was going to do his."

Ronnie said, "Then we're together, then.

"Then it'll be like twins together. We've both done it."

So, the pressure was on him to do... to do his murder.

Ronnie was shouting out to Reggie,

"I've killed mine! Now you kill yours."

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