Baker Street robbery

[2] His plan was inspired by "The Red-Headed League", an 1891 Sherlock Holmes story in which criminals tunnel into a bank vault from the cellar of a nearby shop.

[11][12] Thomas Stephens, another second-hand car salesman with no criminal record, was used to acquire the tools needed for the break-in, including a thermal lance and a 100-ton jack; one of Reader's friends, Bobby Mills, was employed to be the lookout man.

[13][14] Another of Gavin's friends, Mickey "Skinny" Gervaise, a burglar-alarm expert, was brought on board, as were two men who have never been identified: "Little Legs" and "TH".

Lashmar reports that TH was a contact of Detective Inspector Alec Eist, whom he describes as "by reputation the most corrupt Yard officer of the 1950s to mid-1970s".

[15][e] In May 1971 the owners of the leather goods shop Le Sac at 189 Baker Street—two doors down from the bank—sold the lease of the premises for £10,000 to Benjamin Wolfe, a 64-year-old seller of ornaments and knick-knacks, and a contact of several gang members.

[17] The digging created 8 long tons (8.1 t) of waste, which was hauled back into Le Sac and dumped towards the rear of the premises.

[3] At around 11:00 pm on Saturday 11 September Robert Rowlands, an amateur radio enthusiast living in a flat in Wimpole Street, half a mile (800 m) away from the Lloyds branch, picked up the walkie-talkie conversations of the gang.

[31] At around midnight he recorded dialogue between the gang inside the shop and the nearby lookout about their need to take a break: First voice: Right, well listen carefully.

"[34] Eventually, after input from a woman's voice and a fourth person who seemed to carry more sway than the others, the lookout agreed to remain on the roof overnight.

[35] The lookout man was also given an update on the progress they had made in opening the safety deposit boxes: "We have done 90 per cent of the easy ones and we now face the hard ones.

"[32] At 2:00 am Rowlands decided he had enough material recorded to call the police again; he did not recontact his local station, but phoned Scotland Yard directly.

[25][36] Scotland Yard sent members of the Flying Squad to listen to the tapes, and they confirmed that they thought a burglary was taking place.

[37][38] One of the gang members in the shop thanked him for staying on the roof all night and informed him that they planned to finish the job early that afternoon.

[32] At one stage in the morning a waiter from the Chicken Inn restaurant heard noises from within the bank and peered through the windows of the building to see if anything could be seen.

"[51] Initially a news blackout was imposed on the radio messages to avoid letting the burglars know their conversations had been overheard by the police, but this was lifted by Monday 13 September.

[54] After several weeks of surveillance and investigation police had identified Wolfe, Gavin, Stephens and Tucker as the key individuals to arrest, but they also wanted to speak to three or four other people who they thought were involved.

One of those they were interested in had been living in France and Italy since October 1971; there were no extradition agreements in place to request overseas police arrange for his return to Britain.

[3][j] After the end of the investigation Scotland Yard considered prosecuting Rowlands under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1967 for listening to unlicensed transmissions, but no charges were laid against him.

[59] Wolfe claimed that after he signed the lease for Le Sac, he had only returned to the shop once, to pick up the post, and that he was shocked to hear the news about the break-in.

The two Gangjis were found not guilty,[59] Stephens, Tucker and Gavin were each given sentences of twelve years; Wolfe received eight years—shorter than the others on account of his age.

[63][p] Another customer complained that he saw a ring in a wastepaper bin, that it was too easy to steal some of the smaller items, if one wished, and that one of the bank assistants had told him that two people had tried to claim the same pair of candlesticks.

One is that the government issued a D-Notice—a formal request that the media not publish a story on a specific subject for reasons of national security—to stop any news being released.

[65] The claim is dismissed by Duncan Campbell who writes "no D-Notice was even requested, far less granted";[66] the journalist Graeme McLagen observes that there was a news embargo on the Sunday—while the burglary was still in progress—but that the events were widely reported over the following days.

[67] Another rumour is that one of the safety deposit boxes contained compromising photographs of Princess Margaret and the actor and criminal John Bindon.

[69] A third rumour is that photographs of a Conservative cabinet minister abusing children were discovered by the gang and left behind for the police to find, but no action was taken.

[70] In 1976 James Humphreys, a Soho-based pornographer and strip club owner, alleged that police officers had stolen £1 million worth of gems "as their share" of the burglary.

[45][71] The following year Commander Bert Wickstead, a senior officer at Scotland Yard, was appointed to head an inquiry into the allegations.

[10] It was headed by Brian Reader, was carried out over a weekend and involved breaking into a vault containing safety deposit boxes, although in this case the burglars used a heavy-duty drill to enter through a wall.

[7] Although many of the records relating to the burglary at the bank were released by the National Archives in 2013,[79] approximately 800 pages of information remain closed; they are scheduled to become available for viewing in January 2071.