Finally the truth about Ronnie and Reggie by the man who took them down

Bringing Down The Krays

An explosive first-person account of life with the Krays by the man who took them down

Bobby Teale was born in central London in the middle of the Second World War, the third eldest of seven children. He met the Krays as a teenager and, after giving evidence at their trial, he left Britain in 1969 for a new life in America. Today he lives in Cedar Hills, Utah with his third wife Dawne. 
 
He has written his extraordinary story with the help and love of his two brothers, David and Alfie Teale.

'The Krays were out of control. They had the East End buttoned up too tight and someone had to undo it. Slowly, I realised that someone had to be me...' 
 
Bobby Teale and his brothers, David and Alfie, were the three men the Kray twins trusted most. They weren't in the Firm, they were closer than that. They were old family friends, confidants, companions... 
 
But then things changed. Witnessing Ronnie and Reggie become increasingly psychotic - taking murder, torture and rape to sickening new levels - Bobby knew he had to take action. Unknown to his brothers, he became a police informer; risking not just his own life but those of the people dearest to him too. 
 
Using the codename 'Phillips', he was forced to live on his wits, feeding back information to Scotland Yard. With bent cops on their side the Krays knew they had a grass in their midst, but before they could flush him out, Bobby's evidence saw the London gangsters get locked up for life. 
 
Bobby fled the country, but now 40 years on he's back. And he wants to set the record straight. With the help of his brothers, the man brave enough to stand up to the Krays has rewritten history as we know it; dispelling the myths and tearing apart the gangsters' glamorous veneer to reveal the true, sadistic nature of Ronnie and Reggie. 
 
Crammed full of explosive, new revelations, Bringing Down The Krays is the last great untold story of Britain's most infamous crime family.

David Teale

Bobby Teale

Alfie Teale

Life in the Shadow of the Krays

Survivors from London's gangland 
 
The third and final chapter in Bobby and David Teale's powerful true story focuses on the shattering consequences of Bobby's secret decision to inform on the Krays, putting himself and his brothers David and Alfie in mortal danger. 
 
Sure enough, someone, somehow had told the murderous twins they had a spy in their midst. Suspicion fell on Bobby, and Reggie held him at gunpoint in a terrifying mock execution in Epping Forest, as a warning for what happens to 'informers.' 
 
Three days after that, Bobby, David and Alfie were arrested. Bobby had believed it was the Yard's way of making him and his family 'safe'. His brothers didn't have a clue what was going on. Bobby expected six months inside, maybe. They each got three years for 'demanding money with menaces,' a catch-all crime that required minimal evidence to convict. 
 
In Legacy of Menace, Bobby opens up on what he went through at the hands of the Krays and the police, how his economy with the truth was his attempt to protect his brothers, and why he vanished, fearful of gangland retribution, when he was released from prison. 
 
While David recalls the appalling confusion of brutal life in prison, not knowing why he was there, his brother refusing to speak to him, rumours swirling about the Krays coming for them. 
 
David, now aged 81, has remained profoundly angry with Bobby, 82, for abandoning him and Alfie to their fate. But the brothers, once close, are reconciling again, as Bobby provides full disclosure with new and dramatic details of his time in prison and his cross-border escape, helping David to understand the experience from Bobby's perspective for the first time. 
 
This extraordinary three-way narrative memoir provides fresh insights on a classic true crime story, wrapped in a compelling family saga of bitter estrangement and ultimate redemption.

Bobby Teale

Books by Bobby Teale

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