ROBBERY

See Also: BIRDS Feathers, Edwin Wrist; CORONATIONS The Crown Jewels, Captain Blood; CRIME; HARRY TRHE VALET; A MASTER IDIOT; THE POLICE The Metropolitan Police, Art Theft; THE TOWER OF LONDON The Crown Jewels, Captain Blood

The Brink's-Mat Robbery

The growth of containerisation reduced the scope for theft in docks. As a result, some career criminals shifted their focus of interest to Heathrow.

£28m of gold was stolen by six old-style Kent blaggers. The money went into ecstasy and the development. One of them brought down the price in 1987. Three were caught went to prison. A tentacle that straddled the world in murders. A core group of three, one had a brother-in-law who worked in the warehouse. By 2012 it was estimated that at least people had died as a result.

George Francis called it a curse. A couple of months later he was killed in his pub.

Brought in another team to melt and a third to launder it.

They were held in such awe that other criminals were committing murders on their behalf without the killing being requested.

Made more money from buying and then selling warehouses in Docklands than they did from the robbery.

A couple of the men got away with it.

Up to a third may have been recovered.

In 2012 it was believed that a large proportion of the gold was still buried.

George Francis had been an associate of the Krays. He was entrusted with 'Mad' Mickey McAvoy's share of the Brink's-Mat robbery.

In 1985 Francis survived an assassination attempt.

In 2007 two ageing hitmen were imprisoned for killing George Francis. He had been the sixth person connected with the robbery to have been killed.

In 2008 the police conducted searches of numerous raids on safety deposit boxes as a part of an operation against organised crime. Among the items recovered were six suitcases that were filled with gold that was worth £8m and £30m of cash. There was speculation that this might be connected with the Brink's-Mat robbery.

John Palmer

John Palmer (c.1950-2015) had been a scrap metal dealer before moving into bullion and jewellery.

Palmer fled to Spain and then Brazil. In 1987 he stood trial. He claimed that he had melted down the bullion but had not known that it was stolen. The jury acquitted him.

In 1993 Brink's-Mat secured an injunction that froze his assets. His finances were then scrutinised. He made a large payment to the company's loss adjusters.

In 1996 Kenneth Noye killed Stephen Cameron in a road rage attack.

Palmer became active in the timeshare industry. In 2001 he was convicted of a timeshare fraud. He was sentenced to eight years in prison. He served four. After the trial it was reported that the police suspect Palmer of having helped Noye flee the country in 1996.

In 2005 Palmer was declared bankrupt.

In 2007 Palmer was arrested in Spain.

In 2015 Palmer was shot dead

Eddie Chapman

Eddie Chapman (1914-1997) was a criminal who became a double agent.

See Also: PROSTITUTION Mariella Novotny

George Davis (Wasn't Altogether Innocent)

George Davis was a lorry driver who lost his licence as a result of being convicted of drink driving. He drifted into a life of petty crime, ostensibly working as a mini cab driver. In April 1974 five men carried out an armed pay-roll robbery on security guards at the London Electricity Board offices in Ilford. Two police officers were injured, one of them being shot in the leg, the other was run down. In January 1975 four men, of whom George Davis was one, put on trial. Two of them were acquitted; on a third the jury failed to reach a verdict; Davis was convicted of having participated in the crime and sentenced to twenty years in prison. The evidence of two police officers had been a decisive factor. 308 items had been produced as evidence; not one of them could be linked to Davis. A campaign was set up that engaged in a campaign of civil disobedience. Rose Davis (née Dean), Davis's wife, played a prominent role in the campaign. Its longest lasting legacy was to be slogans that were daubed over East London. These read 'George Davis Is Innocent OK' and 'Free George Davis'. There was support from many working class East Enders and from middle-class left-wingers.

In 1975 before the third of four Ashes tests that were being played between England and Australia, a group broke into Headingley. They dug up part of the pitch and spread oil over it. This action generated international coverage for the campaign when the Test was abandoned. Four people were convicted of the action. Three were given suspended sentences and Peter Chappell was given an eighteen-month-long sentence. Pop bands such as The Who and Sham 69 gave their public support to the campaign. An internal Met inquiry was established to examine the Davis conviction.

The rules for I.D. parades were tightened. The practice of inserting incriminating words to a statement were effectively outlawed.

In 1976 the Home Secretary ruled that the evidence of identification was unsound and recommended that Davis should be released by exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. This was not a free pardon and it did not mean that he had been found innocent. Eighteen months later David was caught while robbing the Bank of Cyprus in the Holloway Road. He was sentenced to fifteen years. Rose Davis divorced him.

In 1984 Davis was again released. He was soon in again after having been sentenced to eighteen months for attempted robbery. Upon his release he married the daughter of a police chief inspector.

See Also: STREET ART & GRAFFITI

The Eastcastle Street Robbery

People were paid in cash weekly. There were vast volumes of cash swirling around London.

On 21 May 1952 a van that was routinely transporting cash from Paddington Railway Station to the Post Office Sorting Office in Rathbone Place was driven along Eastcastle Street. Usually, it would have gone along Oxford Street. However, there were roadworks there, therefore, it took a diversion. At 4 a.m., at the junction with Berners Street, its way was blocked by a car pulling in front of it. A second car drove up behind it so that it could not be reversed away. £236,748 10s. was taken from the vehicle. A lot of bags were left behind.

The crime was of a type that was different from those that had preceded it. The sort was to become known as project robbery. It had been planned carefully. There had even been a rehearsal out in the suburbs. People had questioned the men involved about what they had been doing. They had replied that were making a film.

The perpetrators were already well-known figures within London's criminal world. That they were behind the robbery became known. Billy Hill was the principal planner.

Nobody was ever convicted. None of the money was ever recovered.

The next couple of decades saw a plague of armed robberies on vehicles that were transporting cash.

Location: Eastcastle Street, W1W 8DD (red, turquoise)

The Hatton Garden Safety Deposit Centre Robbery

The idea for the robbery seems to have derived from research that Daniel Jones (59-years-old) undertook on his computer. Subsequently, he was to be described as something of a Walter Mitty.

Brian 'The Guv'nor' Reader (75) had been a close associate of Kenneth Noye. He and Noye were acquitted of the 1985 murder of the policeman D.C. John Fordham. However, both were convicted their involvement in processing gold that had been stolen during the 1983 Brinks-Mat robbery. Terry Perkins (66) had taken part in the Security Express depot robbery in 1983.

Reader travelled to the break-in using his old age bus pass.

The first attempt to break into the vault failed. Jones then bought a replacement pump to secure entry. However, when doing so he gave his actual home address.

During the attempts to break in John 'Kenny' Collins (74) acted as a look-out. The other gang members did not have a high view of him. However, he was a diabetic and on at least one occasion fell asleep. The car that he used was distinctive. This enabled the police to identify him.

Four other men were involved: Hugh Doyle (47), William Lincoln (60), Carl Wood (57), and Basil , whose identity was unknown and who had not been convicted when the others were sentenced in 2016. Lincoln and Doyle did not participate in the robbery but were involved in handling its proceeds.

Some of the robbers celebrated the heist with drinks at The Castle pub in Islington.

Location: 88-90 Hatton Garden, EC1N 8PN (orange, yellow)

The Castle, 54 Pentonville Road, N1 9HF

Website: www.thecastleislington.co.uk

Peter Scott

Peter Scott was a noted Irish-born, cat burglar. Those whom he robbed included the actresses Sophia Loren and Zsa Zsa Gabor (née Sári Gábor) (1917-2016). He was given to gambling away the profits from his hauls in the casinos Cannes and Monte Carlo.

The Security Express Depot Robbery

In 1983 the Security Express depot robbery was led by Johnny Knight. The gang doused the security guards in petrol and stated that they would set them alight. The £6m that was stolen was the largest ever cash haul.

Tunnellers

Baker Street Lloyds

In 1971 the vault of the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank was robbed while it was closed. The criminals had rented a leather goods shop two doors away and had tunnelled fifteen feet down and then 40 ft. horizontally. It took about three months to dig the tunnel. A look out monitored the outside scene. At the time, it was illegal for private citizens to have two-way walkie-talkies.

Robert Rowlands lived in Wimpole Street, a couple of streets away. One evening when he was trying to tune into Radio Luxemburg, he heard some of the gang's radio communications. He informed the police. They were unable to ascertain which bank was going to be robbed. Rather than focus on the immediate area, the force opted to regard every bank in central and inner London as being the target.

The gang used a thermal lancer to burn through the 2ft.-thick floor of the vault. They opened about 260 safe deposit boxes. Sprayed with an aerosol was 'Let Sherlock Holmes try to solve this'.

The man who had rented the shop was traced. Four petty criminals were identified and convicted. Following their releases they disappeared into obscurity.

It is reputed that a D-Notice was issued to the media about the robbery. There has been speculation that its purpose had been to enable the authorities to recover sexual images that would have enabled Princess Margaret to be blackmailed. It was claimed that the photographs had been placed in a safe deposit box that had been rented by Michael X.

In the early 1970s Princess Margaret's marriage proved to be very troubled. She found that she could seemingly escape her problems on the Caribbean island of Mustique.

Michael X was to face a charge of extortion at the Old Bailey. However, he appears to have been allowed to leave the country.

There is reputed to be at least one security service file on X that cannot be opened until 2042.

The film The Bankjob (2008) was written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais.

Location: 185 Baker Street, NW1 5RY (red, purple)

See Also: TUNNELS

David Backhouse 2024