Английская Википедия:Brian Reader (criminal)
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Infobox criminal Brian Henry Reader (born 28 February 1939)Шаблон:Sfn is a British gangster and villain, and has been described as "one of the busiest crooks in the British underworld"Шаблон:Sfn and a "ringleader"Шаблон:Sfn of the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary in 2015.
Early life and career
Born in Cressingham Road, Lewisham, in 1939,Шаблон:Sfn to Henry and Doris Reader, his father fought in World War II but had deserted his family by 1955.Шаблон:Sfn Reader would later tell how his first experience in crime was thieving-to-order from the South London docks.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn He first appeared in court in 1950 when he robbed five shops in East London at age 11. Accused of "stealing tins of fruit by means of store breaking",Шаблон:Sfn he received a criminal discharge.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn As a child he had a variety of local jobs such as butcher's boy, and joined British Rail when he left school at 16.Шаблон:Sfn
Early career
In late 1958, Reader made his first appeance at the Old Bailey, which the investigators Tom Pettifor and Nick Sommerlad have said "mark[ed] a serious escalation in his offending".Шаблон:Sfn He received a relatively light sentence for his offences of grievous bodily harm with intent.Шаблон:Sfn Perhaps because of this escalation in his crimes, his mother organised for him to perform his National Service. Posted with the Royal Engineers, he was based in West London, which allowed him to return home every night. Discharged the following year, his character was diagnosed as "good".Шаблон:Sfn
By the 1960s, Reader was working with what Lashmar calls "a flexible group of Britain's top robbers and burglars",Шаблон:Sfn responsible for the theft of millions.Шаблон:Sfn His gang comprised men such as Tony Hollands, a safe-cracker, John Woodley, an expert "alarm man", and John Goodwin, an intelligence gatherer. Others included a lock picker and journalist.Шаблон:Sfn Paul Lashmar has valled them "the best group of burglars in the country. This was the London team. The Old Bill knew about them but they were pretty careful."Шаблон:Sfn Reader had also established himself as a fence as well as a burglar. He particularly specialised in fencing stolen goods through the less ethical traders in Hatton Garden.Шаблон:Sfn By the early 1960s Reader was busy enough planning, meeting and surveying jobs that he complained to a compadre that he "never got a day off".Шаблон:Sfn Although most of Reader's crimes at this time remain unknown today, some, such as the Albemarle Street post office—which gained Reader's gang £500,000—put him near the top of a huge underground black market network".Шаблон:Sfn
Later career
In May 1971 Reader was almost killed planning a bank robbery in Reading, Berkshire. Having broken into the local telephone exchange—through which banks' burglar alarms to local police stations were routed—he was interrupted. Attempting to escape out of a window, he slipped, fell, and landed on his head. He recovered consciousness under a police guard in hospital. Suffering minor brain damage, Reader had to learn to walk again due to his sense of balance having been badly affected. Later in the month, he was convicted of burglary with intent and fined £35 at the Magistrates' Court.Шаблон:Sfn
In 1974 Reader was offered the chance to take part in the robbery of the Bank of America in Mayfair, which he turned down due to not trusting other gang members.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn It is likely, although unproven, that Reader bribed police officers when he had to, as the practice was extensive in the 1970s.Шаблон:Sfn Either way, Reader managed to stay out of jail until 1980.Шаблон:Sfn
By the mid-1980s, now living in Grove Park,Шаблон:Sfn Reader fenced some gold with Noye, which brought them both around £200,000.Шаблон:Sfn The following year, Reader was tried for complicity in several robberies with John Godwin, which netted them £1.3 million, but the trial collapsed after allegations of jury tampering.Шаблон:Sfn At the later "jury-nobbling trial", as it was dubbed in the media, one witness told how she was visited by two menШаблон:Sfn offered £500,Шаблон:Sfn and asked to influence a fellow juror. One of these men was Godwin, and the other "was called Brian and that she had never seen him again".Шаблон:Sfn A contemporary "supergrass", Michael Gervaise, also stated that police had asked him to implicate Reader in his statements.Шаблон:Sfn Although a retrial was ordered, Reader and his wife Lyn went to Spain,Шаблон:Sfn only to return the following year due to a family illness.Шаблон:Sfn The surreptitiousness of his return did not go unnoticed, and he was re-arrested. This was to become a familiar technique of Reader's and one he employed whenever he felt the police closing in on him; by escaping abroad at short notice, he was able to keep his criminal record relatively clean.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn
Baker Street robbery
Шаблон:Main Having only left hospital a few weeks earlier,Шаблон:Sfn in September 1971, over two weekends, Reader took part in another robbery. The target was another bank: this time, the Baker Street branch of Lloyds Bank.Шаблон:Sfn It was Reader's biggest job yet,Шаблон:Sfn possibly leading the gang himself. Reader brought in an old friend from his youth, Bobby Mills. The other gang members thought Mills a liability with no area of expertise, and ultimately Mills proved an embarrassment to Reader, refusing to go into the building, supposedly on doctor's orders. He was made a look out instead.Шаблон:Sfn He caused trouble in this role also, firstly claiming that he needed over eight hours sleep and later stating that, in any case, he would be unable to sleep on the roof "cos it's freezing cold and everything up here now".Шаблон:Sfn The plot involved tunnelling from two doors down and breaking into the bank vault from below.Шаблон:Sfn They successfully emptied hundreds of safe deposit boxes and escaped with over £8 million. Given their "strikingly similar"Шаблон:Sfn modi operandi—including tunnelling—investigative journalist Paul Lashmar has credited the Baker Street robbery as acting as a blueprint for the Hatton Garden heist over 40 years later. Reader, he says, "was key to both".Шаблон:Sfn Reader later claimed to have found several pedophiliac photos in one of the boxes, which he believed to have been owned by an unnamed but prominent Conservative Party Member of Parliament. He left the photos scattered around the floor to ensure they could not be missed by the police.Шаблон:Sfn Pettifor and Sommerlad argue that "not for the last time, Reader and his cronies were causing the Met acute embarrassment".Шаблон:Sfn Only three members of the gang were ever brought to book for the robbery; Reader escaped to Spain,Шаблон:Sfn with his wife and two children, although not before discovering that Gavin had conned him and the rest of the gang out of £150,000.Шаблон:Sfn
Brink's-Mat and death of DC Fordham
Шаблон:Main In November 1983, the Brink's-Mat robbery occurred at the Heathrow International Trading Estate. It was one of the largest robberies in British history, with approximately £26 millionШаблон:Refn worth of gold bullion, diamonds, and cash being stolen.Шаблон:Sfn Reader was subsequently convicted of handling stolen goods and money laundering.Шаблон:Sfn He was jailed for eight yearsШаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn and was also convicted of fraudulently conspiring to evade VAT.Шаблон:Sfn He received a further year in prison after it was discovered he had dishonestly handled another £66,000.Шаблон:Sfn
Although they had taken no part in the robbery itself, they were involved in what has been called its "bloody aftermath" as the robbers attempted to fence the gold.Шаблон:Sfn Author Wensley Clarkson has suggested that Noye and Reader had, by now "taught themselves everything there was to know about gold".Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn They renewed their acquaintance playing squash at Brenda Noye's club in Dartford, and here they set the price of the gold and established sale terms. While the terms were not particularly profitable to Reader as a fence, "it was clear a VAT fraud was being carried out" to go towards making up for it.Шаблон:Sfn Reader regularly stayed around gangster Kenneth Noye's house, and was later described by Justice Lowry as Noye's "vigorous right-hand man";Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn they had grown up close to one and other in Southeast London.Шаблон:Sfn Suspicion had coalesced on Noye over Brink's-Mat, and he was under constant police surveillance,Шаблон:Sfn as was his house in West Kingsdown, Kent.Шаблон:Sfn
By early January 1985, Reader had personally processed £3.66 million of Brink's-Mat gold.Шаблон:Sfn On the night of Saturday, 26 January 1985,Шаблон:Sfn around 6.30 PM, Reader was with Noye and his wife.Шаблон:Sfn Chief superintendent Brian Boyce, responsible for the gold hunt, later said it was Reader's arrival—as a "known fugitive from justice"Шаблон:Sfn—at Noye's house that forced him to launch a covert search of Noye's grounds that night.Шаблон:Sfn Boyce was already uncertain as to the precise number of transactions that Reader had carried out, as in many cases, he had received parcels in return. This confused the case against Reader to some degree.Шаблон:Sfn
Fordham and a colleague thus entered the property by way of a convenient tree.Шаблон:Sfn When the Noyes' two dogsШаблон:Sfn began barking, Reader accompanied Noye into the gardenШаблон:Sfn on the night Metropolitan Police Constable John Fordham was stabbed 12 times to death in Noye's garden. Fordham was part of the investigation into the Brinks-Mat robberyШаблон:Sfn and was carrying out close-quarters surveillance on Noye,Шаблон:Sfn possibly looking for signs of bullion in Noye's grounds.Шаблон:Sfn By the time Fordham was on the ground and Noye ran back to the house, his wife had collected a shotgun from the cabinet and was loading it as she came downstairs. Reader took the gun from her.Шаблон:Sfn
Reader's role was as a go-between between Noye and John Palmer who was smelting and moving the gold bullion. Reader travelled between Noye's house and Bristol Airport—where transport abroad awaited it—approximately 30 times in 1984. Reader possessed multiple vehicles in which to make the journey.Шаблон:Sfn Aware that he was being kept under police surveillance, Reader regularly drew his tails on a wild-goose chase; he also went on dummy runs, swapped cars en route,Шаблон:Sfn and performed u-turns to throw off potential followers.Шаблон:Sfn He and other conspirators met in a variety of locations, including Bexleyheath pub car parks, the Royal National Hotel in Bloomsbury,Шаблон:Sfn Farringdon cafes,Шаблон:Sfn and a fish and chip shop in Swindon.Шаблон:Sfn
Noye and Reader were tried for Fordham's murder, but both claimed it to have been self-defence. Further, it was "pitch black"Шаблон:Sfn and snowing.Шаблон:Sfn Fordham was unarmedШаблон:Sfn and dressed in "SAS-style" camouflage, Gore-Tex suitШаблон:Sfn and balaclava.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Following the confusion when the police turned up, Reader had had it away on his toes,Шаблон:Sfn sneaking through private gardens and fields until he reached The Gamecock pub on the A20 where he was arrested at 7.40 PM trying to hitchhike to London.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn Clarkson comments that "for a man who had just witnessed a killing connected to a notorious gold bullion robbery, he chose an extraordinary way to make good his escape—to hitch a lift".Шаблон:Sfn Reader accepted a lift which turned out to be two undercover detectives in an unmarked car. He tried to pretend that he had been drinking in the pub and had just left. However he was arrested for assaulting a peace officer, to which he replied, "you must be joking!"Шаблон:Sfn He was taken to Swanley police station,Шаблон:Sfn where he expressed concern for Lyn, who by now was diabetic and due a pancreatic operation the following Monday.Шаблон:Sfn The police had found a quantity of money when they raided his house, and as a result, his wife had also been arrested and was being held at Gravesend.Шаблон:Sfn Under questioning, he refused to cooperate without his solicitor being present, although he also stated that "I know a police officer has been murdered, and I was told I was responsible",Шаблон:Sfn and although he reiterated that he knew nothing of the circumstances,Шаблон:Sfn he appears to have expressed sorrow for the dead man.Шаблон:Sfn He was charged early on the evening of 29 January.Шаблон:Sfn
Exercising his right against self-incrimination, Reader refused to give evidence at his trial,Шаблон:Sfn for which he received legal aid.Шаблон:Sfn Although, with Noye, he was found not guilty of Fordham's murder,Шаблон:Sfn he remained in custody over Brink's-Mat bullion.Шаблон:Sfn Tried again in May that year,Шаблон:Sfn this time he was jailed over a confession he had made while on police bail that he had indeed handled some of the gold.Шаблон:Sfn At his sentencing, where Reader received eightШаблон:Sfn years, his son Brian—known as PaulШаблон:Sfn—was arrested for contempt of court for shouting that his father had been "fucking stitched up",Шаблон:Sfn with a scuffle ensuing. Paul appeared later the same day alongside his father and Noye at their sentencing for his own for contempt of court.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn Reader shouted at the jury, "You have made one terrible mistake. You have got to live with that for the rest of your life."Шаблон:Sfn Five months after the killing, Reader was accused by Fordham's colleague on the night as kicking Fordham "as he was lying on the ground",Шаблон:Sfn although he did not see where the kick had landed.Шаблон:Sfn
Brian Reader and Noye maintained business links, and after Noye was released in 1994, Reader joined him in a timeshare scheme in Northern Cyprus.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn Reader's brother Colin had already invested in it and was employed full time in the scheme.Шаблон:Sfn Reader's association with Noye meant that, come his final job, he was the only member of the gang to have underworld contacts.Шаблон:Sfn Among these were included Tommy Adams, whom Reader had been spotted in Hatton Garden with, in 1985 discussing the fencing of the Brink's-Mat ingots.Шаблон:Sfn Reader was also close associates with Terry Perkins, with whom he worked on the last job; they had been inside together and shared work.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn
Hatton Garden
Шаблон:Main Following his wife's death, Reader moved to Dartford and ran a second-hand car dealership with his son.Шаблон:Sfn Although by now Reader had been in effective retirement from his criminal career,Шаблон:Sfn he was still in touch with old colleagues. He and Perkins had been discussing the heist for around a year by the time they felt sufficiently confident to bring in others.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn Hatton Garden had long been on Reader's mental list of potential targets.Шаблон:Sfn
At 76, Reader was the eldest of the conspirators.Шаблон:Sfn He made numerous trips to Hatton Garden in the weeks before the robbery,Шаблон:Sfn and is known to have brought the as-yet-undiscovered, mononymous "Basil" into the gang.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Refn On 2 April 2015, travelling on "somebody else's" Freedom Pass,Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn he took a 96 bus to Dartford, where he caught a train to Waterloo East. Reader arrived around 18:30 hours. Each gang member made their way separately to 88–90 Hatton Garden.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn They managed to drill through the thick concrete foundations but had stop work when they found their passage blocked by cabinets bolted to the other side of the wall.Шаблон:Sfn By the end of the night—the burglary took place over a bank holiday weekend—relations between several members of the gang and Reader were at breaking point, with serious consideration being given to evicting Reader from the scheme that night.Шаблон:Sfn In the event he pulled out of the job,Шаблон:Sfn and did not turn up on the night of the 3rd.Шаблон:Sfn Further problems arose when it became clear that Reader intended to collect his agreed cut regardless of the degree to which he had participated.Шаблон:Sfn
By the time of his arrest for the Hatton Garden robbery, he was said to have earned "millions" from his tradeШаблон:Sfn and "had a reputation as one of the country's most audacious burglars".Шаблон:Sfn He was arrested on 19 May 2015,Шаблон:Sfn with a diamond grader and the scarf he had worn on the night both being found in his house.Шаблон:Sfn He had failed to dispose of his mobile phone,[1] although it is uncertain whether this was his or his son Paul's.[2] Police also found a book detailing the life and career of a diamond traderШаблон:Sfn and industry magazines.[2] In March of the following year, he pled guilty to a charge of conspiracy at Woolwich Crown Court.Шаблон:Sfn He was sentenced to six years and three months in prison.[3] He was unable to attend the gang's sentencing hearing following a stroke;Шаблон:Sfn his counsel suggested that Reader may have had a life expectancy of only a few months by this time.[1] The journalist Paul Moreton has described Reader as being "now deaf, half blind and at death's door, according to his lawyer".Шаблон:Sfn In 2018, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, he and three Hatton Garden associates were condemned to pay back £27.5 million between them.[4] Sentenced by video link in March 2016,[5] Reader served it in Belmarsh Prison, where on one occasion he collapsed and was left without care for two days by authorities, The Independent newspaper reported.[1] While undergoing treatment at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich, Reader was guarded by a nine-man-strong squad of police officers, six of whom were armed.[1] He was released in March 2019.[6]
Marriage and personality
Reader met his future wife, Lyn Kidd, in 1963. She was a bookmaker's assistant and four years younger than him. Pettifor and Somerlad argue that while she was impressed by his smart suits and ready money, it [took] her a little while to discover that his earnings did not come from the car dealership he claimed to run".Шаблон:Sfn They remained married until her death in 2009. For her part, suggest Pettifor and Sommerlad, "Lyn played the role of the master criminal's wife to perfection—always loyal and discreet".Шаблон:Sfn
Describing Reader as a young man, a relative said he was "a dodgy geezer, a good talker who knew lots of people and was always doing deals",Шаблон:Sfn although he avoided the nightclubs and the highlife often of the underworld.Шаблон:Sfn The author Jonathan Levi has described Reader as having "short white hair, full lips [and] still tough looking though also increasingly physically frail"Шаблон:Sfn in his later years.Шаблон:Sfn
Known as "The Master",Шаблон:Sfn "Diamond geezer"Шаблон:Sfn and "The Guv'nor", Levi says Reader possesses natural leadership qualities "with a commanding presence and decisive attitude".Шаблон:Sfn At the peak of his career Reader was "one of southeast London's "most notorious burglars".Шаблон:Sfn Journalist Paul Peachey has suggested that "the septuagenarian revelled in his reputation as a feared and dangerous armed robber".Шаблон:Sfn Levi states Reader to be both methodical and, when required, menacing, although he suggests that colleagues have occasionally accused Reader of walking off a job in a huff.Шаблон:Sfn A member of the 1971 Baker Street gang cited Reader's bringing in of Mills as an example of Reader's poor judge of character.Шаблон:Sfn Perkins also later expressed "particular ire" for Reader, arguing that while "he was a proper thief 40 years ago", by now he was an "old ponce" who spent his time "talking about all our yesterdays. He bottled it at the last minute. He's supposed to be a full-on face."Шаблон:Sfn This—combined with Reader's perceived high-handedness and possible incompetenceШаблон:Sfn—resulted in tensions developing between Reader and several other members of the gang, to such a degree that they contributed to the unravelling of their plans.Шаблон:Sfn Reader also suffered multiple strokes and had recently recovered from prostate cancer.Шаблон:Sfn
Portrayals
Levi has argued that the main attraction to journalists and writers of Reader's gang is their generally elderly age and the "old school" nature of the job.Шаблон:Sfn As such, Reader has been portrayed several times in film and television. In 2016's Hatton Garden: The Heist, directed by Terry Lee Coker, he was played by Sidney Livingstone.[7] Two years later, he was played by—in Levi's view a "slightly miscast"Шаблон:Sfn—Larry Lamb in Ronnie Thompson's The Hatton Garden Job,[8] and in James Marsh's ensemble the same year—King of Thieves—Michael Caine played Reader[9] as a "rheumy-eyedШаблон:Nbsp... lifelong crook first done for nicking tinned peaches 60 years previously".[10] Caine had expressed earlier enthusiasm, saying he would "do it in an instant".Шаблон:Sfn 2019 saw Reader played by Kenneth Cranham in ITV's four-part part TV series, Hatton Garden ("a perfect foil to Timothy Spall's Perkins and the way they wind each other up is believable").[11] In May the same year he was portrayed by James Nelson-Joyce in The Gold, a British TV series about the Brinks Mat investigation.[12]
Notes
References
Bibliography
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