A MASTER IDIOT

See Also: ROBBERY

Peter Scott was born into a middle-class family in Belfast. His father died while he was a child. As a teenager, he gambled away his inheritance at racecourses and dog racing tracks. He then took to burglary. He committed over 150 break-ins in districts off the city's Malone Road before he was caught by the police. They had been slow to identify him as a lawbreaker because the houses that he robbed had been in affluent suburbs and he had worn his school blazer and carried a rugby bag while he had gone about committing his crimes. The clothes and the accoutrement had given him the appearance of someone who was resident in those communities.

Scott enjoyed the thrill of burglary. At the age of 22 he moved to London. He appreciated that the grand townhouses of Belgravia and Mayfair, with their balconies, parapets, and porticos, were tailored-made to be robbed by him. He selected his targets by scanning the society columns of The Daily Mail and The Daily Express newspapers. He held most of his victims in contempt and took particular pleasure in stealing from the gambling club owner John Aspinall. The Ulsterman also read The Daily Telegraph. This was because he appreciated the publication's broad coverage of crime.

When Scott was preparing for a break-in he would plan meticulously. While executing a job, one of his tropes was always to wear a new suit. This was so that he should not look out of place. Upon a number of occasions he was disturbed by the occupiers. His stock response was to shout reassuringly It's only me! Scott was disinclined to use violence. However, on one occasion, while he was struggling to break free from a policeman's grasp, he did break the fellow's nose.

Prison sentences furnished him with an opportunity to network with other criminals. In 1957, while doing a stretch, Scott befriended the renowned burglar George Taters Chatham. Once they had both been released, the two men formed a partnership in crime.

Scott regarded himself as almost being obligated to recycle other people s wealth. However, he did not do this by immediately passing it onto the needy but rather by living the non-criminal aspects of his life in an expensive manner. He had a mind that was stocked with literary allusions. These were drawn not only from the likes of Proust and Oscar Wilde but also from minor authors such as W.E. Henley.

His most famous robbery was of a 200,000 necklace. He stole it from the Italian movie actress Sophia Loren. At the time, she was filming The Millionairess (1960) in London. The picture He Who Rides The Tiger (1965) was largely based upon Scott s exploits. At the time of the film s release he was serving a five-year term in H.M.P. Dartmoor.

During his final years the old lag suffered from bad knees. He ascribed this affliction to his having made so many downward jumps during the course of his burglaries. While he was often described as being a master criminal , he was quite prepared to refer to himself as being a master idiot .

David Backhouse 2024