A rare recording of the voice of gangster Reggie Kray, one of the notorious Kray twins, has been released for the first time.
Reggie Kray sent the tape to a brother of Dublin man Greg Smith. Greg Smith (34), originally from South Circular Road, was left in a coma after being beaten up on the streets of Dover in 1995. He died from his injuries.
Vincent Smith travelled to see his brother in Ashford Hospital in Kent and his attempts to wake him from a coma were covered in local newspapers and came to the attention of Kray, who was then serving time in Maidstone Prison.
Kray wrote to Vincent Smith in September 1995 on his own headed paper and enclosed a tape in which he urged Greg Smith to wake up.
The tape was played for the first time on RTÉ’s Liveline programme on Friday. It was recorded 20 years ago.
In a monotonous tone, Kray addresses Greg Smith as “your friend Reg Kray”.
He continues: “Open your eyes, don’t hesitate. Just open your eyes and we can talk. I will shake your hand and we will talk. This is Reg Kray speaking. I wish to speak to you. Please open your eyes. Just do this. Open your eyes and talk to me. Don’t slip back. Open your eyes and talk to me. This is Reg Kray, your friend. I wish to talk to you.”
It went on for several minutes after that. Vincent Smith said he also felt like slipping into a coma himself listening to the tape.
Mr Smith told the programme he did not know either of the Kray twins and could only assume that Kray had come across the story by reading it in the local newspapers.
“He may have been attracted to the bond I had with my brother as he had with his brother (Ronnie). It was a nice gesture on his behalf either way,” he said.
Vincent Smith’s family has been blighted by tragedy. His father and four siblings died by suicide and his mother died from cancer. Unfortunately, the tape had no impact on Greg Smith who died some weeks afterwards.
Andy Jones, who runs a crime museum in the UK, said he was “1,000 per cent” that the voice was that of Kray as he had met him on many occasions.
Kray was a prolific letter writer from prison and became a born-again Christian in his latter years.
He and his brother were icons of 1960s crime and were convicted in 1969. Ronnie died in prison in 1995. Reggie died in 2000 eight weeks after being released from jail with terminal cancer.
Vincent Smith contracted Liveline after hearing an item on BBC Radio 4 in which the actor Tom Hardy, who plays both Ronnie and Reggie in the film Legend, said he was unable to find an authentic tape of Reggie's voice except for a short excerpt in the BBC archives.
