CRIMINAL GANG

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 December 1925, Page 2

CRIMINAL GANG

BANK ROBBERY RECALLED;

Glasgow recently had an interest all its own in the reappearance in the dock at the seventy-one of James Duncan Roberts, alias Brown, who 1 folil a oWnei 1 bbtaiiid a swell filobsmali, aild Who has .received another three years sentence of imprisonment at the London Sessions, Roberts, who Wats born at Bellshill, was one of the tlirde men who were.sentenced in 1903 in Glasgow for the pdlt they played in the most dramatic batik robbery ever perpetrated in that city, the sum concerned amounting to over £5OOO. In,liis youth Roberts, whose father, after his emigration to Australia, became Il prosperous sheep fanner, had all the advantages of a good education and a good home. When his father died he left a fortune of between £60,000 and £70,000 between five sons, Roberts, who was the black sheep of the family, went 'in for horse racing with his share. ■ But. he was' not careful with his money, and, although at one time he was reputed to be worth a six-figure sum, extravagant living, reckless gambling and betting soon made him a poor man. When the girl he loved deserted him because of his wayward habits Roberts came to the conclusion that was the last straw. Working his passage from Australia to Britain, he soon fell into the underworld of crime, his first acquaintance,, : being, a man who was a well-known thief—a modern Fagin, in fact, for he trained young people to thieve —and he it was who completed the downfall of Roberts. When Roberts, returned to Glasgow lit was to carry out the most extraordinary coup of his amazing career. ■ On a fine summer afternoon toward the end of June, twenty-two years ago, the trusted book-keeper of a wellknown firm of stockbrokers emerged from their offices in West George Street and made Ills way, as was. almost his daily custom, to the office-of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Exchange Square. He was carrying a small bag containing a sum of over £6OOO in cheques and bank notes. Tlie messenger reached the bank almost on the closing hour., There-were no customers on the premises at the time except a man seated at the central table, where it was the messenger’s usual procedure to transact his business. This was a youngish man from 35 to 40 years of age. and no explanation was ever forthcoming of how he came to be in the bank. The messenger was well known to the bank officials. He placed his bag on the centre table, opened it out, and began to separate his cheques and other bank documents froin the notes. The messenger had brought with him £4600 in £lOO notes, and £B5O in notes of small denominations, including £5OO in £2O notes and £350 in £lO and £5 notes. Leaving the bundle of notes on the table, the book-keeper walked across to the smaller table with his cheques and discount slip. These he handed Over to the discount clerk,.. Returning to tlie other counter, he sari that nothing unusual had occurred But a tremendous surprise was in store for the book-keeper. Lifting his notes, 'he handed them to the bank teller. A few words were passed in a business why. and then the messenger saw a strange look come into the teller’s-face. He Was engaged checking the notes. The first lot of smaller notes, amounting to £350, was quite in order, but when he lifted up the bundle containing £lOO notes, judge of his surprise when he .found that it, only, consisted of pieces of blank paper. These had been carefully folded up like notes, having a genuine £1 note on the outside. “There’s surely been a practical joke played on you to-day,” ‘remarked the teller. “You’ve only given me £350. See, there js nothing here but blank paper covered with a £1 note!” “What!” exclaimed the bewildered

messenger. “There should be £5450. Surely no one would play a joke like that on me.” In his excitement he looked round the bank, only to discover that the mysterious man who had been sitting at the table had quietly made 1 his exit while the teller had been counting the genuine bundle of £359 1 The plain and unpleasant fact was apparent; the messenger had been robbed of over £5OOO, and that at the bank counter. The hue and cry was at once raised, but for fully three weeks the police were completely baffled. At the end of that period an elderly man who gave the name of George Burns, and stated he was an Englishman resident at one of the best hotels, in the city, called at the Charing Cross branch of the Royal Bank and expressed his desire ' to open an account. Having lodged a fairly large sum of money, Burns paid a number of subsequent visits, but his apparent ignorance of ordinary banking business, his peculiar manners and the nature of his transactions, roused the suspicions of the bank manager, who informed the police. Just about the same time there called'upon the firm of stockbrokers who had been the victims of the bank robbery James Duncan Roberts then masquerading as a.Mr. Duncan Brown. Speaking with a colonial acfcent, he stated that he wanted to invest some money, the firm having been recommended to him by a friend. The stockbrokers, however, were not impressed, and declined to enter into negotiations. But it speaks volumes for the audacity of Roberts, who was prepared to do business with the firm ho had robbed, and to benefit the stock-

brokers with their own cash. The movements'of Roberts and two confederates aroused suspicion, and they were trapped by detectives in a hotel. Their connection with the hank robbery was clearly evident from the notes and cash found in their possession. and each received a sentence of five years’ imprisonment. When he finished this sentence Roberts started forging Bank of England notes on a grand scale. For a long time Scotland Yard had their cleverest men trying to discover the origin of these spurious notes, while Roberts and his gang were laughing up their sleeves. ■ Roberts, in fact, was a second “Jim the Penman” in the art of forgery, and while he was living-in the West End of London as an eminently respectable gentleman—he posed as a retired sheep farmer-—he was all the time busily engaged directing operations as to the flooding of England with banknotes that were not worth the paper they were printed upon. Had not on© of the gang dined not wisely but too well one night, and opened bis mouth a little too much, the sphere of operations might have been considerably enlarged, but, as it was, a. wideawake detective who was with a friend in the same yetsaurant overheard certain remarks which provided the clue for bringing the exconvict to book - . This time at the Old Bailey, in 1912, he was sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude, and was in prison during the war. While Roberts stood in the dock at the London Sessions in September last, he joked with one of the witnesses, although he.must have known, that, with iiis criminal. rei*ord; a heavy, spnlence was certain if Im was found guilty 61 a

conspiracy which involved wholesale thefts from big London hotels. Along with him in the dock stood Alfred Ingram } aged 47, described as , an agent; Edward Francis Peters, a' 25-year-old cinema operator, and his •> wife, Edith Peters, aged 20, ' who pleaded guilty to stealing and receiving goods of' other people. They were ' respectively sentenced to eighteen eighteen mouths’, fifteen months’, and nine months’ imprisonment. It was only his age that saved Ro- 1 berts from a. longer sentence than the one he got—three years’ penal servi • tude—when?-the jury found him guilty •> of being a “fence,” or receiver of stolen property.