Nipper Read, Former WBA and WBC Vice-President, Dies of COVID-19 Coronavirus
By Robert Brizel, Head Real Combat Media Boxing correspondent
London, UK (April 8th, 2020)– Leonard Ernest ‘Nipper’ Read QPM, a British detective of the London Metropolitan Police, who also served as a major boxing administrator, rising to become chairman of the British Boxing Board of Control, and vice-president of the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council died on April 7, 2020, from COVID-19 Novel coronavirus at age 95.
Read is best known in public circles as the detective responsible for bringing the notorious London mobsters, the Kray Twins, to justice for murder. Nipper Read joined the Metropolitan Police in 1947 and later he became part of Scotland Yard’s murder squad. In 1964, he was promoted to London’s West End Central Police Station, where he began his pursuit of The Kray Twins. The London hoods, East End mobsters and identical twins Ronnie Kray and Reggie Kray, were eventually arrested in May 1968 by a team led by Detective Chief Superintendent Read. The twin brothers, who ran their criminal empire with brutal violence, were convicted of murder in 1969 and sentenced to life imprisonment, with the first 30 years without the possibility of parole.
According to The Sun, in 1966 one of the brothers, Ronnie Kray, shot and killed George Cornell, a member of the rival gang The Richardsons, at the Blind Beggar Pub in Whitechapel. The following year, the second twin, Reggie Kray, was allegedly encouraged by his brother in October 1967 to kill Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie, a rival and minor member of the Kray gang. The two brothers lured McVitie to a flat in Stoke Newington before Reggie stabbed McVitie in the face and stomach, and killed him, driving the blade into his neck. Detective Leonard “Nipper” Read reopened his case against twins subsequently. By the end of 1967, Read had built up the evidence against the Krays, and on May 8, 1968, and the Kray Twins, along with 15 members of their gang were arrested, and later convicted.
Read’s boxing work as an administrator eventually brought him to the position of chairman of the British Boxing Board of Control, the country’s highest boxing administrative position, and later he rose to the number two administrative position at the WBA and the WBC. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson remains in intensive care suffering from the effects of the Coronavirus. Read held the title of QPM, which refers to The Queen’s Police Medal, which is awarded to police officers in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations for gallantry or distinguished service.
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