Posts Tagged ‘Krays’
The Blind Beggar And The Bloody Killing of George Cornell by Ronnie Kray
Ronald Kray 1969 – At last in Gaol.
ONE hundred and one years after the evangelist William Booth preached his first open air sermon outside the Blind Beggar Public House on the Whitechapel Road – a sermon which ultimately led to the establishment of the Salvation Army – Ronald Kray walked into the very same pub. Or at least it would have been the same pub had it not been rebuilt in 1894 by the Mann, Crossman and Paulin’s Albion Brewery at the same address. It was 8.30pm on 9 March 1966 and Kray was accompanied by his right-hand man Ian Barrie, while his driver, John ‘Scotch Jack’ Dickson, was told to wait outside in his Mark 1 Cortina.
A pub had been on the same spot in Whitechapel since 1673 and it was named after Henry de Montfort, the son of the Earl of Leicester, who is said to have posed as a blind beggar to escape detection after the battle of Evesham in 1265. Of course Ronald Kray wouldn’t have been the first villain, big-time or otherwise, who had found themselves in that infamous East End pub. Before the First World War the Blind Beggar was the meeting-place of a gang of pick-pockets and ne’er do wells. One of them called ‘Bulldog’ Wallis got into a fight with a Jewish couple and ended up killing the man by pushing the tip of his umbrella through one of his eyes. The East End code of silence prevailed and ‘no one saw nuffink’ and Wallis had to be released from police custody through lack of evidence. Accompanied by his cheering supporters he returned to the Blind Beggar a hero.
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Posted: 14th, March 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment
Krays Associate Smashes Windows To Prove He’s Not A Paedophile
JOHN Raymond Searl, 74, was so desperate to prove he was not a paedophile he broke two windows of Graham Knapp’s house in Hillsborough thinking that when his life of crime was read out in court there would be no mention of any sexual assaults on children.
Searl had been in jail for armed robberies in the 1950s. (He met the infamous Kray twins in Parkhurst jail in the 1960s. He claims they nicknamed him ‘The Iceman’ for being cool under pressure. See broken windows.)
Searl was upset at rumours that he’d served an 8-year-senteced for being a paedo.
Searl is arrested. At Sheffield Magistrates’ Court after he pleads guilty to criminal damage.
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Posted: 7th, October 2010 | In: Strange But True | Comment
