Page 195 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

Jack "the Hat" McVitie

The Krays' criminal activities remained hidden behind both
their celebrity status and seemingly legitimate businesses.
Reggie was allegedly encouraged by his brother in October
1967, four months after the suicide of his wife, Frances, to kill
Jack "the Hat" McVitie, a minor member of the Kray gang
who had failed to fulfil a £1000 contract, £500 of which had
Figure 88 Jack 'The Hat' been paid to him in advance, to kill their financial advisor,
McVitie
Leslie Payne. McVitie was lured to a basement flat in Evering
Road, Stoke Newington on the pretence of a party. Upon entering the
premises, he saw Ronnie Kray seated in the front room. As Ronnie
approached him, he let loose a barrage of verbal abuse and cut him below
his eye with a piece of broken glass. It is believed that an argument then
broke out between the twins and McVitie. As the argument got more
heated, Reggie Kray pointed a handgun at McVitie's head and pulled the
trigger twice, but the gun failed to discharge.

McVitie was then held in a bear hug by the twins' cousin, Ronnie Hart, and
Reggie Kray was handed a carving knife. He then stabbed McVitie in the
face and stomach, driving the blade into his neck while twisting the knife, not
stopping even as McVitie lay on the floor dying. Reggie had committed a
very public murder, against someone who many members of the Firm felt did
not deserve to die. In an interview in 2000, shortly after Reggie's death,
Freddie Foreman revealed that McVitie had a reputation for leaving carnage
behind him due to his habitual consumption of drugs and heavy drinking,
and his having in the past threatened to harm the twins and their family.

Tony and Chris Lambrianou and Ronnie
Bender helped clear up the evidence of
this crime, and attempted to assist in the
disposal of the body. With McVitie's body
being too big to fit in the boot of the car,
the body was wrapped in an eiderdown
and put in the back seat of a car. Tony
Lambrianou drove the car with the body
and Chris Lambrianou and Bender
Figure 89 Tony and Chris Lambrianou followed behind. Crossing the Blackwall
tunnel, Chris lost Tony's car, and spent up to fifteen minutes looking around
Rotherhithe area. They eventually found Tony, outside St Mary's Church,
where he had run out of fuel with McVitie's body still inside the car. With no
alternative than to dump the corpse in the churchyard, and attempt to plant
a gang south of the River Thames, the body was left in the car and the three
gangsters returned home. Bender then went on to phone Charlie Kray Page195
informing them that it had been dealt with. However, upon finding out where