The Dartmoor Prison Escape
In the 1950s Ronnie Kray was serving a prison sentence in Wandsworth Prison when he met and became friends with Frank Mitchell. Mitchell had previously escaped from custody, on more than one occasion, attacking guards and policemen in the process, and during one escape had held a couple hostage in their home, using an axe as a weapon. When he was recaptured the press dubbed him the Mad Axeman. In 1958 he was sentenced to life in prison, and by 1962 he was in Dartmoor prison, where for good behavior he was granted several privileges, including being allowed to work outside the prison walls as a trusty.
Mitchell had been promised a release from custody date for his continued good behavior but by 1966 had yet to receive one. This angered him, and Ronnie Kray, and Kray convinced his reluctant brother Reggie that helping Mitchell escape would both increase the twins standing in the underworld and draw public attention to the neglect directed towards an otherwise model prisoner. Much later evidence would surface that Reggie was jealous of a possible lover’s relationship between Ronnie and Mitchell. This suggestion arose from papers which indicate an incestuous relationship between the twins, desired by Reggie in part to keep his homosexuality hidden from the outside world.
It was a disguised Reggie who briefed Mitchell on the plan at Dartmoor Prison, and it was several associates of the Kray’s who waited in a getaway car on the moor for the prisoner to simply walk up to them after requesting of a guard to be allowed to feed some moor ponies. Mitchell’s affinity for animals were well known to the guards, and the request was not an uncommon one when he was outside the walls on working parties. The Kray associates brought Mitchell to London, where the brother’s hid him in a small flat. The escape took place on December 12, 1966.
By Christmas Eve the Krays were fed up with Mitchell. The nationwide manhunt was too intense to allow him to leave the hiding place and there was no way to move him to another location. Turning him into the authorities or simply releasing him to his own devices was impossible since he would be able to inform the authorities of the Kray’s part in his escape. Mitchell was also upset with the Krays, mostly for not allowing him to visit his parents or having them visit him in the flat, which the Krays could not allow due to the diligence with which Mitchell’s family was being watched.
On Christmas Eve, under orders of Reggie Kray, Mitchell was informed he was being moved to a safe house outside of London. He was loaded into a van by several Kray associates, and once inside was shot multiple times by at least two gunman. His body was never found. Many years later one of the gunmen involved claimed responsibility for both the killing and the disposal of the body. He claimed the body was weighted and thrown into the sea. In his autobiography Reggie Kray later wrote, he called the Frank Mitchell affair the biggest mistake of his career.