Page 194 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

smuggled a note out to his mother who had brought his baby to see him. He had been
nursing it during the visit and when he handed it back he pushed the note into its nappy.
Their conduct in Brixton was just another indication of their despicable behaviour and the
treatment of their underlings. Those unfortunate people who still believe that redemption is a
factor worth considering so far as the Krays are concerned are deluding themselves. They
must at some time come to the realisation that even a cursory examination of their
antecedents qualifies the Krays for identification as the wicked murdering villains I insist they
were.
The loss of the Mitchell case, which followed on after their convictions for Cornell and
McVitie, hurt me. I have always believed that this was by far the more interesting case
because it combined all the elements of a major melodrama - promises, escape, hiding, sex
in the form of Liza, the nightclub hostess, the realisation Mitchell could not be contained, the
clinical decision that he would have to be killed, his execution and the callous way in which
his body was disposed of. All of these ingredients made up a story far superior to anything
you can find in a paperback thriller.

Of course, as the last person to say he had seen Mitchell alive, Donaghue was the obvious
target for the defence counsel to project to the jury as the murderer and this they did with
vigour and enthusiasm. But he never faltered in his description of the scene nor could he be
shaken by persistent and probing cross examination:
“Me and Mitchell got in the van. Foreman said, 'How are you, Frank? Sit down there,' and he
pointed to the wheel casing. Then he said to me, 'You go up the front and tell the driver the
best way to the tunnel.'
Now you've got [Alfie] Gerard and Foreman sitting on the left side and Mitchell sitting on the
right side opposite. Then, as the door was slammed on the passenger side, it was like a signal
and they began shooting. They fired about twelve shots altogether.
Gerard had a revolver and Foreman had an automatic with a silencer on it. I think Frank half
sussed something because he made a dive for the driver. He was groaning and Gerard said,
'I'm out. Give him another one'. Then Foreman reloaded and he fired about three shots into
Mitchell's chest near the heart. Mitchell was laying quiet, then he lifted his head up again.
Gerard said again, 'I'm out, give him another one,' and Foreman held his gun near to
Mitchell's head and fired two more shots”.

All of this happened very quickly. Just the time it took to drive the van round the block.There
a terrified Donaghue leaped out of the van. He was convinced as he walked away that he
would be shot. He couldn't believe that as the middle-man he had been allowed to leave
and he hurried back to the flat to find a distraught Liza waiting for him.

I was therefore interested when in 1999 I was asked to take part in a television programme,
'The Krays- Unfinished Business'. In it Freddie Foreman, acquitted of the killing of Mitchell,
appeared and explained exactly how it had been done by him and Alfie Gerard. Almost, if
not quite, word for word to what Donaghue had said to me and later to the jury over thirty
years ago. In a voice just as unemotional as Donaghue's, he repeated exactly how he and
Alf Gerard had shot Mitchell repeatedly.

Myself, I am glad to see that the truth has finally been admitted after 30 years and that the
prosecution I mounted was a right and just one. In a funny way it was Mitchell who brought
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down the Krays because it showed not only that they killed 'their own kind' but their friends as
well”.