What was Ronnie Knight famous for?

Ronald Knight is a British former nightclub owner and convicted criminal.

Ronnie Knight was responsible for minor infractions of the law when young, whereas his brothers Johnny and James were involved in more significant crimes.

Along with Johnny, Ronnie Knight was friendly with the Kray brothers, but, he says, was not connected with their illegal activities.

Ronnie Knight was sentenced to 15 months in prison in 1961 for dealing in stolen goods.

The two clubs ran by Ronnie Knight, the Artistes and Repertoire Club (known as the A&R) on Charing Cross Road and its neighbour Tin Pan Alley in Soho, London, were drinking establishments favoured by the criminal underworld.

David, Ronnie Knight’s brother, was stabbed to death by Alfredo Zomparelli, who himself was murdered in 1974 after being released following a prison sentence for manslaughter (Zomparelli had pleaded self-defence).

And in his later Memoirs and Confessions (1998), Ronnie Knight said he had hired a hitman, Nicky Gerard, to carry out the killing (Gerard, later also murdered, was acquitted at the same trial as Knight) in payback for the murder of his brother.

Ronnie Knight spent a decade on the run living in southern Spain’s Costa del Sol, after fleeing on the night his brother was arrested in 1984 for a robbery at a Security Express depot the previous year.

After returning to Britain in May 1994, Ronnie Knight was jailed for seven years in January 1995 for handling £300,000 in stolen money from the £6m armed robbery at a Security Express depot in east London in 1983.