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Published: 9th December, 2010
EXCLUSIVE by JAMIE WELHAM

AS one half of Britain’s most notorious gangland pairing, his name struck fear into the hearts of men.

Yet during his time behind bars, Reggie Kray renounced his criminal past and became a born-again Christian through a hitherto unknown friendship with a nursery worker from West Hampstead who became a “wife figure” to him, a series of previously unseen letters reveals.

Carol-Ann Kelly had forgotten about the cache of paintings and letters sent to her by Kray until she was reminded of the correspondence while  watching the recent East End drama, Whitechapel. 

The letters, written to her by the gangster in the 1980s while at Parkhurst and Gartree prisons, have been sitting in a drawer at her home for 25 years. 

They thank Ms Kelly and her son David for helping Kray find God, as well as revealing his frustrations with the Parole Board over restrictions that stopped him seeing his twin brother and partner in crime, Ronnie, and his paranoia about his reputation in the national press.

The pair began their correspondence after meeting while Ms Kelly was visiting a relative in prison – forming a strong bond over their respective battles with cancer. 

Ms Kelly, who lives in the Abbey Road estate and now volunteers at Holloway prison, went on to visit Kray once a month over a period of six years between 1983 and 1989, as well as talking to each other on the phone every other week. 

He kept a photo of Ms Kelly on her wedding day in his cell. He told her: “I still have the wedding photos but they are not for show. I keep them personal,” and he signs the letters, “God Bless, your friend Reg Kray.” 

In another letter, the once feared criminal encourages her to “keep your head” over problems she was experiencing in her marriage.

It read: “You must ­never contemplate suicide. It would be like turning traitor on young David and your mother too. I became a born-again Christian on behalf of you.”

Another of the letters – all of them scrawled in a messy hand on different kinds of paper – was smuggled out on a piece of tissue paper containing Reggie’s younger brother Charlie’s phone number. It asked Ms Kelly to pass on a message to another friend, but added “not on the phone”. The youngest Kray brother even paid for Ms Kelly and David to stay in a cottage in the Isle of Wight during one summer so they could visit Reggie.

She said she regularly read the Bible with him, recalling his favourite passage was the story of the crucifixion when Jesus told the repentant thief who was also being crucified that they would meet in Paradise.

Ms Kelly now intends to sell them at auction next year to raise money for the Royal Free.

The letters are mainly from 1985 and 1986, by which time Reggie had spent 17 years in prison after being convicted of the murder of Jack “the Hat” McVitie in Stoke Newington. 

He was the older of the twin by 10 minutes, and together they ran one of the most ruthless criminal gangs ever seen in Britain.

The letters reveal Kray’s battle with the Parole Board about his wishes to move to Maidstone prison. 

One says: “I feel my reputation is stopping them from accepting. I am not a nutcase. I’m quite stable in myself. I’m going to point out that I would even forgo so many visits to Ron then they have no reason not to release me. I just know Maidstone would be good for me.” In one outburst he attacks a tabloid newspaper: “The Sun has a smear campaign against me. I do not know why.”

While Kray is best known for his life of violence, the letters show a softer side, especially when writing about Ms Kelly’s then eight-year-old son David.

He wrote: “Please tell David thanks for his drawing which was good. Tell him to dare to dream. If he gets any ideas during his life to put them into practice even if others don’t like the ideas as he will eventually see his ideas bear fruit with a little luck.”

Ms Kelly said she thought he saw David – who went on to become a police officer – as a son, and revealed that she became “scared” when she thought that Kray thought of her as more than just friend. 

What makes their relationship even more incredible is that Ms ­Kelly’s mother worked for the Prison Service – of whom Kray wrote “she must be a very interesting woman”, and her father was a policeman.

The letters also provide an insight into Kray’s prison life. One read: “I had an hour’s game of paper tennis [inmates weren’t allowed balls]. He [a mutual friend] was like a sure-footed deer. He had me stumbling. We had a laugh.”

Speaking about their relationship, Ms Kelly said: “I became a sort of wife figure to him I suppose, but we were just friends. He said I reminded him of his wife [Frances, who committed suicide in 1967] in the way I spoke. I saw my role as giving him spiritual help. We talked a lot about the cancer, and tried to get him to understand that he could be set free in prison, and to use the rest of his life to help others. I couldn’t believe it when he told me he prayed for me. To think of a murderer praying is a powerful thing.”

Reggie wrote of his repentance and religious conversion in his book, Born Fighter, donating hundreds of his paintings to charity. He also wrote in the book A Way of Life about Ms Kelly, who has never spoken of their friendship until now. 

Kray wrote: “Due to Carol’s illness I was very concerned for them [her husband] both and for the future of their little son. I was so worried about it all that on one particular night I said what was quite a strange prayer. I offered myself to God and Jesus Christ as a born-again Christian if in turn Carol could be cured.”

Kray married his second wife, Roberta, who he met in 1997, before dying from bladder cancer, aged 66, six weeks after his release on health grounds in 2000. He  spent 32 years in prison.

Ms Kelly added: “He was so upset about how his image was being used. He didn’t want to be a hero. It was the public who made him a hero. 

“The first time I met him I was shocked. He wasn’t this tough gangster. He couldn’t hear, he had a stoop and he was so thin he looked like death. 

“He was so sorry for what he had done. He was searching for inner peace. I felt sorry for him. 

“Looking back I think I helped him find that peace.”

The letters and paintings will go under the hammer at Gorringes Auction House in Lewes, Sussex in February.