Astor Club a remark which led to a gangland war (Cornell himself being shot dead in March 1966 in front of witnesses at the bar of the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel) and so, ultimately, to the trials and sentences which destroyed both the Kray and Richardson gangs. Indeed, when the Krays were arrested for the Cornell murder (two years after the fact), they were drinking (at 6 a.m.) at The Lion pub, Bethnal Green, intending to move on later to the Astor. The Astor survived beyond the era of the Krays and Richardsons and continued to attract wealthy customers. An Astor
The Richardson Gang and tooth removals, he said that it was "all false... Today, we wouldn't have even been charged, let alone gone to prison." The Richardson gang and the Kray twins were engaged in a turf war in the mid- to late 1960s. Charlie Richardson and George Cornell had first met the Krays while in Shepton Mallet Prison. Tensions came to a head in 1965–66. During a Christmas party at the Astor Club in December 1965, Cornell called Ronnie Kray a "fat poof" and a fight ensued. On 7 or 8 March 1966, Richard Hart, one of the Krays's associates, was shot