Free Wannabe in My Gang? by Bernard O'Mahoney

joint conference in Brixton with my brother, the Krays, Bender and Ralph Hyams. Ronald Kray was almost apoplectic with rage over what my brother had said and we both realised that we had to support the Krays to stay alive. I never wanted to go into the witness box but such pressure was put upon me in the trial that I had to do that in the event.
    So much for the East End code of silence and Tony’s ‘decision’ to talk about the murder and his time as a ‘Kray boss’ for ‘the first time’ in his book.
    Chris Lambrianou had made a statement about the murder before the trial, but as he says in the statement he made for his appeal, the Krays terrified him into retracting it.
I made a statement in my own handwriting on three foolscap lined pages. This did not set out the account as I have put it down truthfully above but involved the Krays and told the essence of what happened. I gave it to Ralph Hyams and he read it and said that he would have to show it to the Krays. I told Hyams not to show it to the Krays but he said he would have to. Two days later Hyams came back and said that the twins had said that it was not to be used. I went on about it to Hyams and he kept reminding me that Tony was in Brixton with the Krays. He said that you have got to do it their way. The twins say that they weren’t there and you have got to help. He then told me that I had nothing to worry about because the twins had a lot of power. He altered the statement and I was told what to say.
Just before the trial we all went to Brixton for a joint meeting with Hyams, the Krays, Bender and my brother Tony. Hyams told me again that the twins were very upset about my statement and inferred that this meant ‘angry’ with me. When I saw Ronnie he was livid with me and said ‘Are you fucking well putting us in it?’
He was swearing and shouting and I quite honestly thought I was going to get done.
Hyams was present during the whole outburst. Whatever I said always went back to the Krays. I knew that I could not change solicitors because the Krays had told me that I had got to think about my family. I knew that their power extended way beyond prison walls and I thought it was more than my life was worth to go against them.
    So much for ‘looking after your own’, as they preach in the East End. Here were two young men who had been duped into luring their friend to an unimaginable death and now they were being told they would have to protect the murderers and face life imprisonment themselves for something they had clearly not done. What sort of ‘man’ would allow himself and his own brother to serve life imprisonment because he was too scared to stand up to two bullies and tell the truth? Hard man? Man of honour? Weakling? Tony considers himself to be a hard man and a man of honour. He is ‘proud’ of the public image he has forged for himself. In his book he says of himself and his ‘bosses’:
The twins went away with a lot of honour and a lot of dignity. They could have brought many other people down with them, but they chose not to. I took my punishment, whether I deserved it or not. I was there at the end and hopefully took it like a man. It wasn’t a question of my killing anybody. It was a question of ‘I was there’, and I knew there was going to be trouble of some sort.
I saw what happened. Perhaps I didn’t like what I saw, but I kept my mouth shut and that’s why I got the sentence that I did.
    This from the ‘gang boss’ who ran upstairs and locked himself in a room with children. His brother hadn’t gone to fetch a gun to ‘finish McVitie off’, as he claims – he had sat on the stairs and wept whilst a man he had enjoyed a drink with that night was butchered in the next room.
    The Lambrianou brothers served 30 years in prison between the two of them. During that time their mother and father died. Tony says in his book, ‘I blamed myself, if I hadn’t have had this sentence, I would have spent more time with him. I