Inspector Leonard Read
Leonard Read was a former serviceman and World War II veteran who had been with the Metropolitan Police since 1947. In 1967 he was assigned as Detective Chief Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Murder Squad. With the Richardson gang largely destroyed by the arrest and convictions of several associates and both Richardson brothers in prison, Read made the arrest and conviction of the Krays a priority for his department. He found more and more willing to testify against the twins, but little in the way of hard evidence.
In 1964 Read had investigated Ronnie Kray and his relationship with Robert, Lord Boothby, a Member of Parliament and the Conservative Party. Ronnie Kray had met Boothby through a mutual acquaintance and aware of the value of having a prominent politician subject to blackmail, Kray provided Boothby with male prostitutes and underage boys. When Boothby’s activities were pointedly hinted at in a tabloid story, the daily newspapers and Detective Read investigated. At the time the majority of the story was known by a Conservative paper, the Sunday Express.
The Party and Boothby leaned hard on the paper to quash the story, which it did. Still, the story was out in the tabloid, which supported the Labor Party, and Boothby recruited a member of the Labor Party, also associated with Ronnie Kray for services similar to those provided Boothby, to threaten to sue the paper for libel. With both major political parties pressuring the paper the story was killed, and with no support to investigate the Kray’s from either party Read had little support for his investigation. The 1964 incident gives insight into how deeply the Kray’s tentacles ran into the government, and how they were able to avoid prosecution for so long.
With Read focused on obtaining evidence to convict the Krays the brothers used their reputation, enhanced by the demise of the Richardson gang, to intimidate witnesses and victims of their protection rackets into refusal to talk to the metropolitan police. Read and his investigators found themselves dealing with a populace which although clearly in fear of the brothers was not willing to co-operate with the authorities. They also found that loyalty to the Kray’s was faltering, especially among members of the firm, and Read decided to exploit the growing weakness.
By the end of 1967 Read had obtained evidence directly linking the twins to several crimes, but in none of them was there sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. Read had also learned of a rumor, later confirmed by Kray associate Freddie Foreman, that members of the Firm, angered over the murder of McVitie and fearing similar fates awaited them, had decided to take action of their own. Rather than co-operate with the authorities who may botch the case, leading to retribution, these members intended to assassinate both twins using car bombs.