LAST DAYS OF
Holed up with his wife in a hotel
DEATHBED confessions, honeymoon suites and MI5 moles, Reggie Kray’s final days were no less strange than the rest of his bizarre and brutal life. Kevin and Michelle Baker were, by all accounts, looking forward to their stay in the honeymoon suite of the Town House hotel in Thorpe St Andrews, just outside Norwich, in August 2000.
The modest hotel (today a carvery and pizzeria) boasted a suite, £57 a night, with four-poster bed and view of the River Yare.
Two days before checking in, the couple had a phone call. They wouldn’t be able to have the suite after all. There was an elderly, sickly guest who needed the room.
Hotel manager Gordon Graham-hall told the Bakers it was “a bit of a problem”.
The newlyweds were out. Reggie Kray was moving in. It would be the first time Reggie had seen the outside world since 1969 when he was jailed for 30 years (alongside twin brother Ronnie) for the fatal stabbing of Jack ‘The Hat’ Mcvitie and the shooting of George Cornell, both fellow villains in the London underworld.
“The length of time they spent in prison was extraordinary,” says Kate Beal, documentary maker and author of The Krays: The Prison Years. “Consider that the murderer of Baby P got five years and it does seem amazing. But they made more money in prison than they ever made on the outside. And their decades in jail did the Kray brand no harm at all.”
Reggie had had a 33-year tour of prisons, much of the 70s in Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, also staying at Maidstone, Leicester and others before moving to HMP Wayland, Norfolk, in 1997.
He had been obsessively fit and healthy until his 60s (he even considered writing a book on exercising in a confined space). But years of drinking smuggled booze had wrecked him and he began to complain to prison guards of intense stomach pains.
By the summer of 2000, Reg had been married for three years to Roberta Jones, a filmmaker and English literature honours graduate from Stockport 25 years his junior. A highly unlikely couple, many in the Krays’ circle believed the marriage was a scam designed to help Reggie get parole.
But those close to them saw what seemed genuine love. Reg had served three years more than his 30-year sentence and Roberta tirelessly fought for his release.
Ronnie had been gone five years, dying, aged 61, of a heart attack in 1995 at Wexham Park Hospital, Berkshire. By late summer 2000 2000, Reggie was also still mourn mourning the loss of their older brother Charlie who had died in April. Convicted for a multi-million-pound cocaine plot, Charlie died broke and lonely of a heart attack, aged 73, in Parkhurst, a prison all three brothers knew well.
What was a business empire with everything from ‘Krays On Tour’ T-shirts to movies (Fugitive Films spent £3million on The Krays starring Gary and Martin Kemp – and, naturally, the Krays got their share) had vanished, much given away by Reggie after many begging letters from the public with requests for help with everything from medical bills to charity donations.
Despite visits from Roberta and gangster pals, Reggie spent much time alone, haunted by the memory of first wife, Frances, who took her own life in 1967, two years after they y married.
As the hot summer er dragged on, stomach pains reduced educed Reggie to a wreck. The end was drawing ing close. The campaign n for him to be released grew louder. Even Len
‘Nipper’ Read, the detective who collared the twins three decades earlier, said the time was right. In July 2000, Reg was admitted to HMP Wayland’s medical wing. “There’s no doubt – he’s caused serious damage with his drinking,” said a prison spokesman. Now surviving on liquids and painkillers, Reg was taken to Norwich and Norfolk hospital on August 3 to remove a malignant tumour on his small intestine. But it was too late. On August 19 the hospital announced: “Reg has terminal cancer and there is nothing anyone can do.” Barbara Windsor and Mike Reid were among celebrities urging his release. Photos showed a gaunt figure, wired up to tubes. “There is no greater punishment this Government can inflict other than denying him his last, small taste of freedom,” said Roberta. Home Secretary Jack Straw finally ordered Reg’s release on August 26. Remarkably, he was cling clinging on to life and, after 3 33 years, was just able to climb into a Ro Rolls-royce, laid on by well-wishers to c chauffeur him to t the honeymoon suite of the Town House. “I’d like to sit down by a swimming pool and have a nice gin and tonic,” said
Reg. But he wasn’t even able to leave his bed for a last drink in the bar with Roberta and the ex-cons who had descended.
“It was almost too late but, after 33 years, even getting the short time he did to be with Roberta would have been exhilarating,” insists Kate Beal.
Yet the story wasn’t over. From his hospital bed, wearing a florid pink shirt which hung off his skeletal frame, and with a large crucifix around his neck, Reggie admitted there was one murder for which he and Ronnie had evaded justice.
Smart money was on it being ‘ Mad’ Teddy Smith, one of Ronnie’s lovers, who vanished in 1967. Yet the National Archive shows Smith died in Australia in 2006. Files suggest Teddy was an MI5 man, gathering information on figures, such as Tory peer Lord ‘Bob’ Boothby, who enjoyed the Krays’ company. The victim’s identity was a secret that went with Reg when he died on October 1 after barely a month out.
Thousands filled the East End as the horse-drawn carriage passed. It would be the last time Reg would rule these streets yet the Krays haven’t vanished.
“There’s still more that hasn’t emerged,” says Kate Beal. “The reverence we have may have changed but the hold they have on the public imagination is still there. We definitely haven’t heard the last of them.”
The Krays: The Prison Years by Kate Beal (Arrow, £7.99)
LIKE many couples across the UK, Toby Attwood-wright and Hannah Sherfield were devastated when their wedding was affected by Covid-19.
Hannah, 33, had been planning the day at Upton Barn in Cullompton, Devon, with her partner and their four children for more than two years when they felt they had to call it off.
The couple, right, were supposed to marry in front of 100 0 guests last month but instead would have been forced to have just 10 with social distancing, masks, and all of the magic removed from their special day.
“It was awful, really stressful,” Hannah said. “I was in tears nearly every day. We had been planning for such a long time and it was being taken away from us.”
But rather than wallow, they chose to use their pre-booked honeymoon to Sandals Grande St Lucian Resort & Spa in St Lucia as a chance to elope.
The company offers a free wedding ceremony for any guest staying more than three days, so the bride and groom chose to marry there and have a second celebration next July with their families.
The brand says they are one of many couples who have chosen to change their big day for a smaller, more intimate, destination wedding.
“I just didn’t want to wait another y year to call him my husban husband,” said college lectu lecturer Hannah.
“I have been wanting to marry him for such a long time. Before he even asked I knew he was the one. “I thought it was the perfect solution and it was so romantic.
“It has made our relationship even stronger to have this wonderful moment together.” Husband Toby, 41, agreed, saying: “It was brilliant. Obviously we were sad to lose the wedding we had booked but we had a wonderful day on our own.
“It was very special, everything we could have hoped for.”