VETERAN BURGLAR

Evening Star, Issue 22881, 12 February 1938, Page 10

VETERAN BURGLAR

EXPERT WITH LOCKS SONS CONVICTED THIEVES Known, as “ Benjy ” to his underworld associates, London’s champion lockpicker has just started on a term of penal servitude passed on him when he appeared with two confederates in the Old Bailey dock. Although he is now 74 years of age, the skill of Benjamin Gerlack is unsurpassed in his own special line. Gerlack pleaded guilty to warehousebreaking, and Detective Sergeant Nicolson threw light on the man’s past. “ He is the cleverest man in London with the lock,” the officer said, “ and was looked up to with respect by other thieves. . . “ When he was called in on a job he used'to dress up, smartly, and the benevolent old gentleman _ wandering round a warehouse was spying out the ground and examining the locks. “ He would take impressions and cut out keys, which he would supply to the gang waiting to break in. He has two sons who are convicted I pickpockets. Both are about 40, and they were first convicted when they were 13 and 10. “ Gerlack came to England at the latter end of last century, and his wife who is in Antwerp—complained to the police that he brought his sons to England to teach them to steal.” Gerlack lived in South Hackney, and with him in the dock were Abraham Levison, aged 61, traveller, of no fixed abode, and Lewis Lazarus. 37, dealer, of Upper Clapton. They were caught coming from a Stepney warehouse with sacks full of furs valued at £440. All three men were sentenced to three years’ penal servitude.