07/11/01 - Brothers Kray And The E Files

It's March 9, 1966, just over an hour since the shooting of south London gangster George Cornell. The Lion pub in Tapp Street, Bethnal Green, is crowded with assorted members of the East End criminal underworld.

Suddenly, Reggie Kray enters the main drinking area through a side door looking highly agitated. His brother Ronnie is behind him the colour has drained from his face. "Drink up," barks Reggie. "We're going to Walthamstow."

Graeme Culliford follows their trail. THE Krays ran a tight-knit criminal organisation from a house in Vallance Road, Bethnal Green.o Yet the brothers' close proximity to Leyton, Walthamstow and Chingford, meant that their activities inevitably leaked over to these areas.

Now, Metropolitan Police files just released to the public have not only demonstrated how locals became associated with the Krays they also show how Waltham Forest became a favoured hang-out for Britain's most notorious gangsters.

Charles Clark lived in Marlborough Road, Chingford, with his wife, having moved there from Kent. He first met the Krays when he was in his mid-forties. He was helping to run Stows, a gambling club in Walthamstow High Street, which the brothers had started to frequent.

An informant later told police just how friendly Mr Clark became with the Krays. He described an incident in which a man had fallen foul of Ronnie's psychopathic temper. John Cardew obviously considered himself to be on friendly terms with the brothers.

He offered Reggie a drink and quipped that Ronnie shouldn't have one because he was "getting fat". This was a big mistake. Ronnie left the toilets later in the evening and stated that he had "done Cardew".

Concerned friends rushed to the gents and found blood all over the walls and floor. Cardew had been "slashed to ribbons" and dumped unceremoniously in a back alley. The informant said that it was after this incident that, in an attempt to lie low, Ronnie and Reggie sought lodgings in Chingford with Charlie Clark.

In a statement to police, the manager of Stow said: "I think Alf Willy asked me to fix Ronnie Kray up with a room about late 1964 and I agreed. "By then I had got to know Ronnie quite well. I gave him accommodation at my house free of charge.

He also said: "I know that the night of the shooting of [George] Cornell, Ronnie Kray stayed at my house well, I am near enough sure of that. "I feel sure he was here in the morning when I read the paper about the murder."

Charlie Clark was apparently attempting to cover up for his friend who was now being hunted by police for one of the most audacious acts of murder ever seen in the East End. f=ITC Franklin Gothic Book d=4,4Oon March 16, 1966, Ronnie Kray had started drinking early and by all accounts was in a foul mood.

His psychopathic tendencies had, by this stage, led him to be convinced that a number of people were out to get him. He thought it necessary to kill someone, anyone, to prove that he was a man who should be left alone.

Drinking at the Lion, he heard that south London gangster George Cornell was drinking on his patch, at the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel. Outraged, he summoned a driver and one of his henchmen, a man known as Scots Ian.

An un-named Leytonstone man, who had recently moved to Bethnal Green, was unfortunate enough to be working behind the bar at the time. He was to become a key witness for police. "I was aware of someone coming in the saloon bar probably because I heard the door move," he stated when interviewed.

"George Cornell said something like 'Look who's here', and I had the impression he was getting some money out to buy a drink. "I turned to look just as the two men came up level with me which were obviously the people George Cornell saw they had guns in their hands.

"I knew one of these men. It was Ronnie Kray. I had seen him in the pub before, perhaps a few months before. "Ronnie Kray had the gun pointed at George Cornell's head from a distance of about a few yards, maybe six feet.

"I remember Ronnie firing a shot and almost at once I could see George Cornell spinning sideways off his stool. "I looked towards the men and the second man had his gun pointed towards me. Ronnie turned towards me so I started running and as I started, I heard a noise go past my ear.

"It was a shot, very loud, and it gave me a kind of deafness in the ear. "I ran to the cellar. I was scared to death. I waited down there for what seemed to be ages but it may have been only minutes." f=ITC Franklin Gothic Book d=4,4Tohe job done, Ronnie and Scots Ian, real name John Barrie, returned to the Lion.

The news of the killing was passed on to Reggie for the first time. He was said to have been furious and took Ronnie into an upstairs room to admonish him. The order was then given for the group to decamp to Walthamstow.

The brothers had become regulars at the Chequers pub in the High Street. Manager Charles Hobbs, of Brookdale Road, Walthamstow, aware of the gangsters' reputation, always allowed them to use a back room.

On this particular evening, it was the perfect place to hide out and plot how they could get away with this most reckless and public murder the first Ronnie had committed. Various witnesses later described events at the Chequers to police.

"What have you done, you filthy, drunken slag?" Reggie shouted at Ronnie as the two engaged in a heated argument. Ronnie then began throwing up, either because of the drink or from the emotion of making his first kill.

"He spewed his heart up," according to one person who was drinking at the bar. A hushed silence descended on the pub as news came on the radio of the murder. The atmosphere then turned to one of jubilation. Ronnie was heard remarking:

"Only one person ever called me a fat poof and he's dead now," in reference to George Cornell. One witness described how "Ronnie Kray washed himself in the little sink there, he washed his hands and I know he changed his coat too.

"He swapped garments with some people. There was a joke about this. Ronnie was acting like a silly woman and he appeared to be overjoyed with himself. "It was common talk that Ronnie and Scots Ian had shot Cornell."

At one point two greyhounds were paraded in the bar, perhaps from Walthamstow dog track. Ronnie and Reggie plotted how they could get away with the murder. One witness said: "They were telling people to put it about that Jimmy Evans shot Cornell.


"While the pub was about to close, the brothers called a man they knew who lived nearby and asked if they could come over. Roland Tarlton of Palace Parade, Walthamstow High Street, considered it unwise to say no.

A party of drunken revellers arrived at his house with the intention of drinking until the early hours. Unfortunately for Tarlton, his wife came home and was not best pleased. "I arrived home at about 12.35am and found my flat full of men and a party going on," she told police.

"There were also about half a dozen women. I went to the spare bedroom and found a couple in the bed. I got these out and came downstairs. "My husband was serving drinks behind the bar that we had.

The radio was going very loud and I pulled the plug out and somebody grabbed hold of me and took me outside in the passage and there was a chap on my telephone. "I snatched it away from him and replaced the receiver, whereupon he burnt it with a cigarette end.

"I wanted to telephone the police to get them out but they followed me everywhere I went. "At about 1.40am my daughter arrived home and she started shouting at her father how stupid he was to allow such people in his place.

"Then we both sat on the seat until about 5.30am when everybody left." The woman was so upset by this that she went to stay with a policeman she knew and never returned. She also identified the Kray brothers and Charlie Clark as being at the party.

It was later claimed that it was Charlie Clark who was responsible for disposing of the guns used to kill George Cornell on March 16. The Kray brothers went into hiding but were eventually arrested and charged.

Scots Ian was drinking at the British Oak pub in Lea Bridge Road, Clapton, when he was captured by investigating officers. Following his arrest he told another Kray henchman that he believed Charles Clark had tipped police off about his presence there.

As for the Chingford man himself, he emerged from the incident untarnished. Only with the release of police files of the investigation into the murder of George Cornell has it become apparent just how well acquainted he was with the Kray brothers.

The documents reveal that, in what was one of the most startling insights into Ronnie Kray's character, Charles Clark told police: "He once told me that the tragedy of his life was that he was the twin who was born the wrong way round sexually and he wanted to turn over a new leaf. "We talked of this for a long time.

He said he cried inside himself every day. Indeed he cried in my presence a few times."