Ronnie Hart

Ronnie Hart
Born	1942, Bethnal Green, London
Occupation	Solider Dock labourer
Allegiance	The Firm
Origin	Isle of Dogs
Status	Possibly alive

Ronald Joseph Hart was a distant cousin of the twins and was a key member of The Firm towards the late 1960s despite being the youngest member. He turned Queen's Evidence at the Kray trial when the twins attempted to get him to stand for Jack McVitie's murder.

History

Early life

Hart was born in Bethnal Green in 1942 to Thomas Joseph Hart and Mary Ann Burling who married in Stepney in 1927. Hart had been ingratiating himself into the Firm during the early 1960s. He had recently been released from prison, and like many before him, went to the twins for help on his release. Reggie later remembered that He came knocking on the door at Vallance Road one day and said, ‘Hello, I’m your cousin. I want to join your gang.’ We’d never met him before but our checks showed he seemed to be reliable – another mistake – and so we took him on. He was our cousin but he had the habit of calling us both ‘uncle’."

Ronnie Hart (left) with Billy Frost (centre) and Lenny Hamilton (right) during the 1960s.

It has never been explained in what way Ronnie Hart was actually related to the twins. His parents were Thomas Joseph Hart and Mary Ann Burling, who had married in Stepney in 1937.

The Krays

Hart was a young man with boyish good looks who admired the twins’ way of life, and he enjoyed the sort of work that the twins could now offer him; this was probably provided more out of some family loyalty than a real desire to make Hart a valid, useful member of the Firm. A visit to an established club, with two trusted members of the gang, in order to exert the Kray influence, must have been a very appealing prospect to the young Ronnie Hart.

It was alledged that on the night Jack McVitie was murdered at 97 Evering Road, he was held in a bearhug by the twins' cousin, Ronnie Hart, and Reggie Kray was handed a carving knife. Hart was then asked by the twins to take stand for the McVitie case. Ronnie Hart had initially not been arrested, and was not a name initially sought after by the police. With Albert Donoghue's testimony, Hart was hunted down, found and arrested. Offering the same terms as the others arrested, Hart then told Nipper Read everything that had happened during McVitie's murder, although he did not know anything about what happened to the body. This was the first time that the police knew exactly who was involved, and offered them a solid case to prosecute the twins for McVitie's murder.

When Harry Hopwood was interrogated, he was reluctant to speak at first, and then suddenly broke down in front of ‘Nipper’ Read, telling him about the night the twins came to his place covered in blood. He spoke of disposing of the gun and the knife with Ronnie Hart, leading to a police diver retrieving the now grime-encrusted weapon from the bottom of the Regent’s Canal on 23 August. An attempt was also made to locate the murder weapon, the carving knife, from the river bed; three knives were actually found, but none were any use as evidence.[899] By late August 1968, Ronnie Hart was the only person involved in the McVitie murder who was still at large. He knew full well that Read was looking for him, and eventually, at 4.30 a.m. on 31 August, he called Tintagel House and said he was ready talk. And talk he did, turning Queen’s Evidence and effectively producing the longest account of the McVitie affair the police would get, albeit with certain alterations to the truth designed to save his own skin.

Later life

Hart allegedly attempted suicide but then emigrated to Australia.