'The police were lying all the time'

I speak to Sir Ivan Lawrence KC, who as a barrister in the 1960s and 70s specialised in proving that police officers were liars. He represented numerous gangsters, including the Kray brothers – twins Ronnie and Reggie, and also their less famous sibling Charlie.

Among his other clients were “Mad” Frankie Fraser, Joey Pyle, serial killer Dennis Nilsen, and Babes in the Wood murderer Russell Bishop - who was acquitted at his first trial in 1987 when Sir Ivan defended him, but was convicted and jailed for life 30 years later. Just sit back and listen to some of his fascinating stories.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the Total Crime Podcast. I'm Chris Summers and this is Episode 11. Today I sit down for a very informal chat with one of the best defense barristers of his generation, Sir Ivan Lawrence KC, who will turn 90 later this year, represented numerous gangsters during the 1960s and 70s, including the Cray brothers, twins Ronnie and Reggie, and also their less famous sibling Charlie. Among his other clients included mad Frankie Fraser, Joey Pyle, serial killer Dennis Nielsen, and Babes in the Wood murderer Russell Bishop, who was acquitted at his first trial in 1987 when Sir Ivan defended him, but was convicted and jailed for life 30 years later. Much of his best work was in the magistrates' courts. Back in the day there was a thing called a committal hearing, in which the prosecution had to prove their case was strong enough to go to a Crown Court trial. Committal hearings were gradually phased out and completely abolished in 2013. Sir Ivan was also a Conservative MP between 1974 and 1997, and chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee in the last five years of that stint. I persuaded him to let me interview him in his back garden in Deepest Surrey, and the noise you can hear in the background is a water feature in his pond burbling away. We later went inside and he showed me some of the paperwork he still has from some of his famous cases. It was a fascinating meander through his legal career, and we started off by talking about his first big case in the 1960s as junior counsel representing Stephen Ward, the society osteopath who was accused of living off the immoral earnings of Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice Davis, the girls at the heart of the Crofumo affair. I hope you enjoy listening and take it for what it is the reminiscences of a razor-sharp legal mind who was the man to have in your corner if you were accused of a serious crime back in the day.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

I was his junior in the magistrates' court. I've got his notebook with all the notes I took. And um Mandy Rice Davis didn't say didn't say when asked by James Bird, told by James Burge that Lord Astor denied sleeping with her. She didn't say well he would say that, wouldn't he? Which is the famous She didn't uh say that. She didn't say that. I've got the note exactly what she said, which was I've got it there, I mean I can show it to you. Um which was something like um I wouldn't stand here and perjure myself if it wasn't true. Which is not not quite the same as he would say that, wouldn't he? Because he would say that wouldn't he, as become a a sort of uh something that you say, yeah, like the bishop said to the um and uh and people say, well, as Mandy Rice David would say, well he would say there wouldn't be reported in the papers as a it just sort of somehow put it in the particular culture of the interesting. Fascinating. Yeah, so I'm proof that uh I can show you in a minute.

SPEAKER_02 3:36

Yeah, yeah, true.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

And anyway, I um I got in uh given in um Stephen Ward's will, one of one of his girls which I've got there and picture.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

And um when things were a bit photograph or a painting.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Painting, a picture a drawing. Oh, show it in a minute. And um um when things were a bit tough, like in the last twenty years or so I haven't been working so much in court, people think I'm dead, you see. If I had a brief in the train robbery and I had a brief in the um in the profumo and I was in the craze and almost in the nineteen sixties, they think, well you must be dead now.

SPEAKER_03 4:30

Yeah, that I mean you should be in popping up in documentaries all the time, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I switch uh I last night uh for example, I came home after made myself a cup of coffee, switched on the and there was me I know what you're gonna say the dumblane handguns, yeah. Yeah. I had no idea because when I did I did an interview uh about a year ago or perhaps six months ago for them for television. And then they got in touch with me and said we're not going to use it.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Well there you are, it was They just used the the old clip of you.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Oh that that one it was, yeah, you're quite right. Yeah. So the interview that I thought wasn't worth it.

SPEAKER_03 5:18

Oh I could yeah, 'cause they interviewed lots of people like Michael Ankrill and people who had been sort of ministers at the time and Yes, yes, I yes, I so I watched that, but I thought so I can switch on the television and there's David um Turner is his name.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

Who's who's the actor? David Tennant Tennant and Des which is Nielsen.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

And somebody plays me.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Um doesn't look like me and didn't sound like me and didn't ask my questions. Um and then a perfumer all the time and craze all the time. I mean, if you want to watch the craze, you just put cray in and up come two or three of their uh and then the other thing that's had uh a bit of coverage recently was Bishop and the Babes in the Wood. Because when I defended him in eighty-five he was acquitted and then they found some DNA recently and um uh retried him and convicted him.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yeah. Can I just go back to asking about profumo?

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Um I don't know, I'm gonna probably ask you about your recollections of the trials, etcetera, but the the people who say compare it to the Epstein scandal, do you think there is any similarities or you think there were just supposed sort of sex scandals at the end of it?

SPEAKER_00 6:53

No, everything was on a much smaller scale. I mean what's changed about modern life generally and particularly the prominent things like that is there's a massive amount of information now through the computer and the social media. And so you read about uh Epstein trafficking a hundred girls or whatever it is to a hundred men or whatever whatever the allegation was, and I haven't read his trial. Whereas um all Stephen Ward did was um introduce one or two of his girlfriends to one or two of his men friends.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

But he he was was he sort of portrayed at the time as a pimple.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yes, he was trying he was he was tried for living off the immoral earnings of um of the girls, Christine Keeler and Manny Rice Davis. And it just wasn't true. Um they were living off him.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

I don't think they were very financial, um demotivated girls. I think uh I don't think they were sort of common prostitutes as it were, but if they saw somebody they liked they went to over them and maybe got money from. Maybe maybe got paid by Ivanov, the Russian um spy. Um which caused a bit of a scandal because his Christine Keeley was sleeping with him, she might have been giving all sorts of stuff away that she got filler talk from from Profuma.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

He was in a war ministry I think still.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Who? War yes, um um Profuma was defence minister, yeah. Um and uh on a much smaller scale is the answer to your question. No comparison in my view. Different scale.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

And um well like you say, Stephen Ward his role was sort of exaggerated anyway.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Well, it was untrue, you see, the allegation on which he was convicted. And uh while the jury was out he killed himself.

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Yes, I was gonna ask you about that because I was reading about he uh took an overdose before the actual verdict.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

And the the jury went ahead and delivered a verdict and then he died after the sentencing?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Oh I I think, but I'm not sure I'm right. They were only out over the night and that was the night in which he killed himself, so it must have been known that he killed himself when the jury came back. I think. I could be wrong. Um And he killed himself because presumably because he was had a a good reputation amongst the aristocratic classes as being a good chiropractor. James Burge used to ask me to leave the conference room when Stephen Ward was um coming in because um not because he didn't want me to know what they were saying, but because he wanted Stephen Ward to uh give him some chiropractors on his back. I made my name, and I say that not immodestly, but because it's actually true. Um in the old Bailey defending all these gangsters and various people and um challenging the police who were lying all the time. The police always lied in uh they were corrupt in that sense, not necessarily because they were making money out of their lies, but some of them were. I mean, there was a time when I was in operation when the head of the flying squad was in prison, the head of the fraud squad was in prison, and the head of the pawn squad were all in prison at the same time. Yeah. And um they weren't they were making money, they were the job people. But ordinary policemen just lied because they say, Well, we haven't got any other evidence against this fellow who we know did the burglary or did the robbery. We know they did it because the gossip is, you know, amongst our contacts. Police seems to move all the time with all the villains. The villains uh most a lot of the cases, I won't say most of the cases may be wrong, but a lot of the cases I did was exposing police officers as being liars. And it got to the stage where no jury in London ever convicted on the evidence of a London policeman alone. A number of examples of just how stupid the lies were. A conspiracy to murder, two of their jobs drove up to the front of the old Bailey, which was the old front, which was used, it's still there, but it's no longer used as the main entrance. Um, and they were there to kill one of the Richardsons. And they had a briefcase which had been made by Split Waterman, the world motorcycle champion, who was an engineer and who was in with the craze for some reason. And he done made this beautiful leather briefcase with a trigger in the handle which released a cog which released the knit went down through the outside of the um briefcase, and a needle came out at the bottom, and it had potassium cyanide in, which Francis Camps, the home office pathologist, said would kill in ten seconds. And what they were going to do was go inside once the Richardsons had gone in, and brush up against them with the needle, and the one the Richardson they were after would be dead in ten seconds. And this was before Markov and the stuff on the Waterloo Bridge. And um what hap actually happened was that they had a photograph of the man they were supposed to be killing, these two yobbers, who were c who were cray gang, and uh one of them said to the other, that's him. The other said, No, it fucking ain't. The other one said, Yeah, it is. No, no, it ain't. So they couldn't agree the man they were gonna kill, so they went away. And they were charged with, and the crays were charged with, conspiracy to murder. And the uh magistrates, ifendry magistrates, Harrington, I think, threw the case out. You know, they had this beautiful evidence to support, factual evidence to support the two villains.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

Well, they they found the suitcase.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

They found the suitcase they got the suitcase, and that's in the Black Museum.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Oh, I see that.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Uh but they couldn't prove the rest of the Well they they would have been able to with this thing, but the magistrate wasn't happy with it and threw it out.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

One of the cray acquittals. But at this stage it was just Magist Bow Street. They were thrown out supposed. I couldn't believe it. And uh I used to meet these senior police officers. Well they used to have a they used to have a drinks party, then I used to go and I used to s take them to one side and say, Why don't you allow tape recorded interviews? Well, you knew why you didn't, because then they as long as they had that was legal, they could invent whatever they liked on their note and the judges would support them. Um and I said, But you don't get any convictions in without if the only evidence is police officers' evidence. And if you didn't have falsified uh admissions of go, all right, Gov, I done it, type stuff. You would try harder to get real evidence against my clients. So I can't see and for years I used to nag them, I wrote an article in the telegraph as our member saying, um, look, if the police won't allow tape recorded interviews, then let's do a deal with the place, please um shift the burden of proof or something. Because people are being just walking free all the time. And also it just I mean, I wouldn't want to be a police officer cross-examined by by me saying what a liar and a cheat and then everything he was, would he? Because he would may not have been. In that particular case, he may have been telling the truth, who knows? Anyway, I went on about tape recorded interviews, and eventually Leon Britton was home secretary in nineteen ninety-two, and he introduced the reforms of police questioning and tape recorded interviews.

unknown 17:36

So that was pace, was it?

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Pace. Yeah. Was it yes, eighty four sorry, eighty-four. And um I was I could claim to be one of the people la calling loudest for tape recorded interviews. Um, and that's one of my I consider one of my achievements because Leon Britt was a pal of mine. He was a barrister, but he wasn't a criminal lawyer, and I said, Look, while I'm talking to you. Please all the time um falsify admissions. And we used I used to look at notebooks and they used to say, No, we wrote this at the time, whatever it was, and then on the page underneath would be the impression of what they'd written on the top of a date a month later.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

I had one client called Mangan, who was an armed robber, and he was so bad at it, his team used to bash him over the head with a rifle butt and le let him to die in the in the gutter, you know. He was but I I must have defended him half a dozen times. And uh on one occasion there was a whole lot of admission of guilt. So I said, Did you say that, Mr. Mangan? He said, No, of course that was a f verbal, wasn't it? Um turn to the jury, Mr. Mangan, and tell them what a jury what a verbal is. She jury are fucking verbals when you fucking said they fucking said you've admitted your fucking guilt and you ain't fucking said fuck all. And everybody creased themselves with laughter. The judge said it was from the north. She said, and with that definition of a verbal members of the jury will adjourn for lunch. And the jury acquitted. In the old Bailey, that's how I made my name. You couldn't try two murders at the same time if they were different murders at different times and places, and that was the law. Because otherwise it was too prejudicial for the second one if the jury heard about the first one, or vice versa. But when it came to the craze, they did Cornell in the Blind Bigger and Jack the Hat McVitie in the same trial. So I went to the Court of Appeal, I said, This isn't on, this is against the law. Oh no, well, blah, blah, blah. No, no, w we find that it's um because it's the craze. It's possible to try the two together. I went to the House of Lords. House of Lords said, Oh no, because it's the craze. They didn't say it because it was the craze. Well, that was what they were saying. We can't suffer. Yeah, yeah. Um so it that might be worth looking up the the judgment of the House of Lords in the craze. But they changed the law. So that um you could be try more than one at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 20:54

Was there any clients you ever were sort of offered who you turned down or you you would never have done that?

SPEAKER_00 21:00

No, you're you're not allowed to turn down if uh if you've got a if you've been instructed, you're supposed to take the But i you're not able to say, I'm too busy, I'm doing other course. Well, that's probably what people did do. They said, I don't like this case, um give me another one.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

And they were doing another one. I mean, I went to see Quinton Hogg um about the craze, saying, Would he lead me in the craze? And he said, Well, it's nice of you to ask me, but I'm going to be the secret I'm going to be the home secretary or I'm gonna be th the Prime Minister or something like that. I can't, um I can't be involved with a case like that, can I? And uh I said, No, no, but I thought I'd a ask you 'cause you're the leading barrister of the time