Name Leonard Read | Role Policeman | |
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Leonard Ernest "Nipper" Read QPM (born 31 March 1925 in Nottingham, England) is a British former policeman and boxing administrator.
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Career
Read served as a Petty Officer in the Royal Navy during the war. He joined the Met in 1947. He was Detective Chief Superintendent on the Met's Murder Squad in 1967 and put away the Kray Twins. He held various positions as a boxing administrator, most notably chairman of the British Boxing Board of Control, Vice President of the World Boxing Council and Vice-President of the World Boxing Association.
He has published two autobiographies with ghostwriter James Morton; Nipper 1991; and Nipper Read: the man who nicked the Krays (2001).
In popular culture
Read was parodied by Monty Python in their sketch "The Piranha Brothers", in which the titular brothers are caught by "Harry 'Snapper' Organs". He was portrayed by actor Christopher Eccleston in the 2015 film Legend.