The robber who got it wrong

Press, 22 January 1988, Page 12

The robber who got it wrong

NZPA-Reuter London A bungling bank robber, Michael Coleman, was the world’s worst hold-up man, a court was told. He pedalled to a north London bank on a borrowed bicycle and astonished waiting customers by asking for the loan of a pencil to write out his demand for loot. Then, with an impatient queue gathering, he used a cash dispenser as a desk to laboriously write out his hold-up note — pausing to ask the owner of the pencil for help with the spelling. Once inside the bank, Coleman, aged 26, carrying a plastic pistol and with strips of sticking plaster on his face as a disguise, joined the queue at the counter. But he

hesjtated for so long that a customer grabbed him and shouted for help. Coleman panicked, seized £l9O ($536) from another customer, and fled. A knife marked with a neat set of his fingerprints fell out of his trousers as he scampered through the door. His getaway cycle with more prints on it was left abandoned at the roadside. A heroin addict, he was turned in to the police a few days later by his sister, who said she wanted to save him from a "life of misery.” The prosecutor, Linda Stern, said: “This is probably one of the most inept and amateurish bank robbers on record.” Coleman pleaded guilty and was jailed for five years.