
Nipper Read: The Man Who Nicked The Krays
By Leonard Read and James Morton
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.
Nipper Read is the enthralling story of the life of a London detective. It is a tale teeming with the names that defined the era: Billy Hill, Jack Spot, Frank Mitchell and ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser; porn dealers like James Humphries; and police officers such as Ernie ‘Hooter’ Millen.