Just after 7p.m. on Tuesday 4 March, 1969, the jurors filed back into the Old Bailey courtroom to give their verdict on Ronald Kray. The word ‘guilty’ brought to a triumphant conclusion the months of hard work put in by Leonard ‘Nipper’ Read and his team.
In 1964 Read was invited to put together a team to ‘have a go’ at the Krays. Here he charts his extraordinary investigation, from the first time he saw Ronald in a pub on the Whitechapel Road – where he turned up flanked by minders – to the brothers’ eventual arrest in May 1968 and their sensational trial.