In 2000, Lee Wenham planned what would have been the world's largest jewel heist, targeting De Beers diamonds valued at more than $500 million.
The plan involved a dramatic raid on London’s Millennium Dome, an excavator, and a speedboat for the getaway. The Met Police's Flying Squad thwarted the operation, though, and arrested Wenham and his accomplices before they could get to the diamonds.
Wenham opens up about the meticulous planning, the gang, the surveillance, and the security around the gems.
After leaving prison in May 2005, Wenham started a landscaping business. He was the subject of the Guy Ritchie Netflix documentary "The Diamond Heist" and wrote a memoir, "Diamond Gangster."
For more, visit:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Diamond-Gangster-inside-million-Millennium/dp/1917439016
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090125140762
The plan involved a dramatic raid on London’s Millennium Dome, an excavator, and a speedboat for the getaway. The Met Police's Flying Squad thwarted the operation, though, and arrested Wenham and his accomplices before they could get to the diamonds.
Wenham opens up about the meticulous planning, the gang, the surveillance, and the security around the gems.
After leaving prison in May 2005, Wenham started a landscaping business. He was the subject of the Guy Ritchie Netflix documentary "The Diamond Heist" and wrote a memoir, "Diamond Gangster."
For more, visit:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Diamond-Gangster-inside-million-Millennium/dp/1917439016
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100090125140762
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TechTranscript
00:00My name is Lee Wenham. I helped plan what would have been the world's largest diamond heist,
00:05targeting diamonds worth £350 million.
00:08But it didn't go to plan, I ended up in jail.
00:11This is how crime works.
00:15When I'd gone into the vault and seen the diamonds,
00:17to be honest, I'd never seen a diamond as big as that. It was pretty shocking.
00:20To do a heist like this, it takes balls, it takes history.
00:25You can't go and do a job like that and not be positive.
00:27You can't go in half-hearted, thinking maybe it's going to work.
00:31You've got to think it's definitely going to work.
00:38I decided to do this job when Ray Batson came to the farm.
00:43I didn't know anything about it until then.
00:45He just came up, we sat down, he spoke to me for half an hour, three quarters of an hour,
00:50said what he had planned, and within 10 minutes I said, yeah, I'm on board.
00:55It's as simple as that really.
00:58We used my father's farm that was right down deep in Kent.
01:01It was quite a few miles away from any villages or anything like that,
01:04so it was a real secure place, you know, we used that as a safe house.
01:07So, yeah, it all started from there.
01:09We'd meet at the farm, all of us, twice, three times a week.
01:13When you meet people like that, you know, when you're going to do something as big as this,
01:16you do your background on the people, you know, you find out their history, and if I'm really honest,
01:23they're all 100% every single one of them.
01:26They're loyal.
01:27They've obviously done this sort of thing before, got a very good pedigree.
01:31I trusted every single one of them, and they trusted me.
01:34I got on really, really well with Aldo, with Bob, all of them, to be honest, yeah, all of them really well.
01:40Well, obviously we discussed how we're going to get through it,
01:43and what we're going to do and things like that, and what we're going to use.
01:46But if I'm honest, most of the meetings, we were all joking and laughing.
01:51It was fun, to be honest.
01:52It was fun.
01:53It's not like it's in the movie, all sitting around smoking cigars and drinking scotch.
01:57We didn't do that.
01:58There was a cabin, a big, like, port-a-cabin where we used to have meetings in.
02:01We had maps of things, maps of the dome, different areas of that we were going to look at.
02:05I think it took overall about six months to plan the whole thing and get it in place.
02:13I think I went to the dome four or five times.
02:20There was a big bollard as you go in, a big concrete bollard.
02:23Then as you go into the dome, you've got lots of surveillance cameras, check them out.
02:27Then I had to go into the vault to check out the cameras and the doors.
02:31To be honest, it's just a massive tent, isn't it?
02:33It's a concrete floor and a big, massive tent.
02:35At the time, that's all it was and all these displays inside.
02:38I took my family once, just as a smother, really, to all blend into everybody.
02:43It's walking around on your own.
02:45There's thousands of people in there at the time.
02:47Obviously, I wouldn't have got spotted if I wouldn't grasp.
02:49But it looks better going with a family, you know, and it was a day out for me wife and kids.
02:54Never told my family about what I was up to, what I was doing.
02:57Didn't want to, didn't want to get them involved, obviously.
03:00On the day of walking around the dome, they didn't have a clue what was going on.
03:03I just wondered why I kept wandering off on my own and looking at things.
03:07I just said I was bored.
03:10When I'd gone into the vault and seen the diamonds, I was a bit sceptical, to be honest.
03:13It was a big, big job and, you know, everyone has their doubts.
03:18What did I think when I first saw the diamonds?
03:20Just pound signs in my eyes, you know?
03:22To be honest, I'd never seen a diamond as big as that.
03:24It was pretty shocking.
03:25I think it's one of the biggest diamonds in the world, I believe.
03:28It was a good moment, seeing them.
03:29Yeah, there was obviously the Millennium Star and the 11.
03:32I was more interested in the other blue diamonds.
03:34They were more fascinating to me, to be honest, because my favourite colour is blue,
03:37but I'm more interested in them.
03:39I was told how much they're worth, and I was shocked by how much they were worth, to be honest.
03:45I did £350 million for 12 pieces of glass, to me.
03:49I didn't take photographs.
03:50It was Ray Bettson and Bill Cochran, who went up and they'd done a video inside the vault itself.
03:55But I didn't have to take photographs, I just had to report back, as they say, what was there, and my part, yeah.
04:03We communicated with each other with burner phones.
04:06We'd use a phone, use it two days, and then chuck it in the river, or smash it up.
04:11Yeah, every couple of days we'd change phones.
04:13We had police scanners that were going all the time, so we were listening to the police.
04:16They weren't listening to us.
04:17That's 25 years ago.
04:19Back then, you could listen to their radios, you know?
04:21So we used to listen to them in, like, a 20-mile radius.
04:24You could hear what they were doing, yeah.
04:26I've used a scanner before, many times.
04:30I used to do cash points.
04:32You don't just go on and just do a cash point.
04:34You have the roads blocked off, you have people sitting down the road,
04:36and they sit there with a scanner, and you know when the police are coming.
04:39Yeah.
04:39There was a lot, obviously, there was a lot of cameras in the dome,
04:42but I've done jobs before where there's been lots of cameras, not as on that scale.
04:46I've done jobs before where there's been lots of cameras, and I've got away with it, you know?
04:49It wasn't phased by the cameras, to be honest, no, no.
04:51Not once did I think it wasn't a bad idea or it wasn't going to work.
04:56A couple of times I got a little, not nervous, I was coming out of the dome with my brother-in-law.
05:03I took him up there once, and as we were walking out, a couple of the cleaners were sort of staring at me
05:08as I was walking out, and I turned around and they just looked the other way.
05:11Just a little, you know, puts a little slight bit of doubt in your mind,
05:15but I thought, **** it, we're too far in, you know, it's me probably being, you know, worrying over nothing,
05:21you know what I mean?
05:22So I thought, you know, this is going to go on roller skates, this is all right, yeah, it's going to work.
05:26Throughout the planning, I never got any thoughts of we're being followed or anything like that.
05:32Obviously, he wouldn't do it.
05:33But it was only when it was cut up to the last few days, when I went up to the coal yard to do the last preparation on the JCB,
05:40there was a guy walking his dog, and he just kept sort of looking over, watching what I was doing.
05:44But again, I thought, you know, you're getting paranoid, stop it.
05:47But obviously, it probably was the police, yeah, watching me, yeah.
05:57First, obviously, you get a plan on what you're going for, what the prize is, you know.
06:02So, then, you've got to get the machinery together.
06:05I did not just go to the dome to look at planning as well.
06:09I sat up on the bypass and watching what was going on.
06:12At the time, there was loads of building work being done around the dome,
06:15dumpers and JCBs and all sorts of diggers.
06:18You know, even coming right up to the edge of the dome, there was JCBs flying up and down.
06:22That was mainly why we used a JCB.
06:24It's a camouflage, it didn't look out of place.
06:27And you had the room in the back to get everyone in, yeah.
06:29The plan was to take a JCB, crash through the gates and then go through the side of the dome.
06:36It's a pretty dangerous bit of kit if it's used, you know, in that way, I suppose, yeah.
06:41Obviously, you can't go out and buy a JCB to use it.
06:44I nicked the JCB from a place called Tunbridge in Kent on a building site,
06:50drove it back to my dad's farm.
06:51And then after a while, I had to do some modifications to it.
06:56A JCB is a seven or eight ton machine, you know.
06:59They had about two mile drive of it.
07:04And the whole thing was just too heavy, you know.
07:06And taking that bit off, we're taking like a ton and a half off of it, you know.
07:10Because you have a big thing on the back called a backhactor.
07:12So I had to take half of that off.
07:13Because there was going to be four bodies inside with Ray driving,
07:16and I had to take all the mechanics out of the back,
07:18all the levers that weren't the backhactor, take all them out.
07:22And then halfway up the windows, I blacked them out.
07:25So I said, they can't see in.
07:27And then as Ray was driving it around the field, he said,
07:29when you bring the front arms up, you've got a big bucket and you can't see that well.
07:34He said, so I can't see through the bucket.
07:35So I had to cut big square holes in the front of the bucket
07:37so he could see through as he was going through the side of the dome.
07:40Same with the van, a couple of vans.
07:42You have to nick them.
07:43You can't go and buy them because they'd always trace it back.
07:46I think the only thing we bought was the speedboat and the nail gun.
07:51Everything else was stolen, yeah.
07:52We nicked it all, yeah.
07:53Using the Hilti gun was, I think it was Bill Cochran's idea.
07:57We had to test the nail gun.
07:58The other guys were a bit skeptical about it working.
08:01I had a piece of steel in the yard and I said, watch this.
08:03And it went through steel like that thick.
08:05And they said it'll piss through it, yeah.
08:07We decided to use a speedboat because the dome was right on the Thames
08:10and it's built on a polincitor.
08:12So it's the only way out.
08:13Unless you start driving back for it, you're going to bang you in the traffic.
08:17I think Ray and Bill first bought a speedboat to the yard.
08:20It wasn't any good.
08:21So we ditched that one.
08:22And then we sent Terry Millman to buy another boat in Whitstable.
08:27So Terry went and bought one in the name of Terry Diamond.
08:29F***ing idiot.
08:30He paid three and a half grand for it, I think, in cash.
08:35I bought that one back and we tested that one and that one was perfect.
08:39I took it down to a place called Buell Water, which is in Kent.
08:42A friend of Terry's had a house that was right on the water.
08:46So we took it down there and tested it on there and it worked perfect, yeah.
08:50The smoke grenades, I didn't have anything to do with them.
08:52That was Aldo Shiroki's job to use them and I think he was the one who supplied them.
08:58I don't know where he got them from, to be honest.
09:00But the point of them is, because there were so many cameras in the dome,
09:05once the JCB had pulled up, it's to throw sort of half a dozen around to make a wall, really.
09:10It's a smoke wall, you know, to try and stop as much as they can watching what they were doing.
09:16I used to use body armour just going to do a cash point.
09:19You never know what's coming, you never know who's coming.
09:21You never know, you know, when you're doing something as severe as that,
09:24you don't know if someone's going to pull out.
09:25I've had guns pulled out on me before.
09:27I've been shot at before doing jobs.
09:30So using a body armour, it's just a natural thing that you do.
09:33And you can, you know, I think you can't get them anywhere.
09:36It's just there's loads and loads of planning and loads of stuff to it.
09:39And also it costs a lot of money.
09:41You know, I think between all of us, it had cost us 20 grand to put it together.
09:47You know, I know it's not a lot of money in concerns of 350 million pounds of diamonds,
09:51but, you know, we never got no money and it cost us 20 grand.
09:56It was so well planned.
09:59There was a little bit of, I was a bit sceptical about the boat driver
10:03because he was brought in right at the last minute
10:05because another guy we had let us down, but the other guys knew him.
10:09So I just, I went on that, you know, that was the only concern I had.
10:15But everything else, getting into the dome, crashing through the side of the dome,
10:20getting into the vault, I didn't have no worries about it at all.
10:23When I first had the conversation with Ray about doing it
10:30and he asked me to come on board, there wasn't any mention of how much they were worth.
10:36So I just sort of worked out for myself,
10:39they've got to be in the region of like 40 million pounds, 40, 50 million
10:43to be on a display like that for everyone to come and look at them.
10:46You're not going to come and look at a 500 quid diamond, are you?
10:48Even though they're worth 350 million pounds, they're not in the black market.
10:55You know, they're, I don't know, I think they were sold for like 20 million,
11:01which is still a lot of money, but just for my part, I was getting a million pounds,
11:05which I wasn't grumbling about.
11:07I was happy with that, yeah.
11:09I didn't want to know where the diamonds were going or where they were being sold to.
11:13I knew I trusted Ray to bring my money back.
11:17Obviously, we had a good working relationship,
11:19but I didn't know where the diamonds were going
11:21and I didn't want to know, there was a little rumour that
11:23the big one was going to be cut down into four,
11:26but that was just rumours between us.
11:28I don't know where it was going.
11:30At the time, when my dad bought Tong Farm,
11:33there was cottages on the farm,
11:36or just on the perimeter of the farm,
11:37and I bought one of them three-bedroom cottages with an acre of ground
11:40and I was just starting to sort of do that up.
11:43So I was going to chuck sort of underground at that
11:45and have that done up.
11:48And then my dad had a couple of,
11:50three villas in Marbella in Spain.
11:52There was two for sale and I was going to buy two of them
11:54and just rent them out.
11:55And buy bits of land and stuff like that
11:57to put the money into things, you know.
11:59It was just all focus on the money, to be honest.
12:01As I said, diamonds are not my thing.
12:03I don't care where they were going.
12:05I was on a wage and that was it.
12:10In the morning, I think I got up about five after five in the morning
12:17because obviously it was playing on my mind.
12:19Couldn't sleep.
12:20I knew the raid was going to happen between nine and a half past nine.
12:23I weren't there because simply I wasn't needed.
12:27Everybody had their job to do, but my job was to,
12:31once the robbery was done,
12:34they were coming back with vehicles and vans and stuff like that
12:37that were left along the way that I had to destroy.
12:39We chose November the 7th, 2000,
12:42because the main reason that day was when the tide was up
12:46for the boat to work, you know,
12:48otherwise we couldn't have got the boat in the water.
12:52We decided to do it as soon as it was open in the morning,
12:56as soon as the vault door was open.
12:57I think it was, door opens about nine, just after nine,
13:01so it was going to be going at half nine.
13:04Reason why, during the day, it did get quite busy,
13:08a lot of people in there,
13:09but at that time in the morning, as soon as it opened, got in there.
13:12And at the most, we saw five people maybe walking past, you know,
13:19so it was the best time to go in there.
13:21Obviously, we didn't want to hurt anyone.
13:22We didn't want anybody injured or anything like that,
13:24so, yeah, that was the best time to go.
13:26They left the coal yard about 20 to nine,
13:29because it's a 20-minute drive with a JCB to get there.
13:32Ray Bettson, Aldo Scirocchi, Bill Cochran, Bob Adams,
13:36who was in the JCB on the morning.
13:38The raid was timed to go down just after nine o'clock,
13:41as soon as the doors had opened,
13:43crashed through the first concrete bollard just after nine,
13:47crashed through the gates,
13:48and then go through the side of the dome,
13:50the plastic and aluminium doors of the dome,
13:54smashed through that,
13:55getting to the vault about a quarter past nine,
13:57getting to the vault and out.
13:59The whole job was timed from literally starting the crash on the outside,
14:03getting into the vault and coming out five minutes to get onto the boat.
14:07That's how much time we allowed from five minutes from start to finish.
14:10From the first crash to the finish, five minutes in and out.
14:13Jumping onto the boat across the Thames and getting into the van,
14:17another two, three minutes tops.
14:18So the whole job together was playing for about eight minutes in and out.
14:22I'm not sure what was going to happen with the diamond,
14:25if I'm really honest.
14:26I knew it was going, once they picked them up on the boat,
14:29I think it was going to be two or three miles down the road,
14:32and then it was going to go into a rucksack
14:34and on the back of a motorbike to get away,
14:38you know, not just get away in the van.
14:40We were very close, very close,
14:42especially when they had done the glass
14:43and, you know, just about to put your hand in and get it.
14:46But obviously we had never got away with it
14:47because they were there waiting for us.
14:49Right after they got into the vault and broke the glass,
14:52the police arrested them.
14:53We found out later that they knew about it all along
14:55and they changed the diamonds to fake ones.
14:57I was waiting for a friend of mine to pick me up
15:05to go down the farm and do what I had to do.
15:10I was listening on the radio,
15:11to see if I could hear anything about the raid
15:12or what had happened.
15:14Strange there was nothing on there, to be honest.
15:15It was right up until, like, ten o'clock.
15:19I didn't hear anything on the radio,
15:20but it was already on TV by then, which I didn't know.
15:23I was just very anxious about what had happened.
15:26And I got to the farm to do my bit,
15:30get rid of everything that was at the farm,
15:31at the safe house.
15:33A friend of mine was driving.
15:34As I went to pull in there,
15:34there's, like, a little triangle for you at the farm
15:36and you've got about 300 yards
15:38before you actually go into the farm.
15:40And I could see it was just black with police everywhere,
15:42all armed police.
15:44And I said to him, like, just go.
15:47And he drove me into it, into the police.
15:50Yeah, and they just put two guns through the window
15:54to my head, dragged me to the floor,
15:56kept me there for about an hour, I suppose,
16:00and then took me off, back up to London.
16:04As soon as that gun came through the window into my head,
16:07the first thing that went through my mind,
16:08oh, f*** it, I've lost all that money.
16:10And the second thing was, who's grasped us?
16:14You know, who's grasped us up?
16:16Yeah.
16:16They had a surveillance team day and night on the farm,
16:1924-7.
16:20The guy next door was supposed to be a friend of my dad's,
16:22but he let the police put cameras up
16:24on the telegraph pole in his house
16:26so they could watch us.
16:28There was a field opposite the farm with a hedge
16:30and they were laying in camouflage there
16:32for weeks on end watching us.
16:34Yeah, they were everywhere.
16:36There you go, that's life, it's history.
16:39Character building, that's what it is.
16:42Maybe it was a little bit,
16:44because I'd never been caught before,
16:46that I was a little bit, what's the words?
16:49A little bit overconfident, I suppose.
16:51Yeah, a little bit overconfident with not getting caught.
16:55I should have thought about it a bit more,
16:56but, you know, that's life.
16:59I see myself as someone who would take a chance
17:02doing robberies like this.
17:04You've got to be in a completely different mindset
17:05to do something like this,
17:07and then just your person who goes out and nicks a car
17:09or anything like that,
17:09it's a completely different mindset.
17:11So I see myself as nobody different,
17:15any really, than anybody else,
17:16but just better.
17:21At the time of the dome heist,
17:24I was 32.
17:26I was young,
17:28just wanted bundles of money, to be honest,
17:30but looking at it realistically down the line
17:33we'd have been caught at some time, yeah.
17:36Listen, we've all got a job to do
17:37and the police have got their job to do.
17:39If the police wasn't informed,
17:41and I believe this in my heart,
17:43definitely 100% we'd have gotten away with it.
17:45Definitely.
17:46You can't go and do a job like that and not be positive.
17:48You can't go in half-hearted.
17:50You know, you can't go in there and thinking
17:51maybe it's going to work.
17:53You've got to think it's definitely going to work.
17:55If we had have pulled it off,
17:56it would have been the biggest heist in the world.
18:04The trial was separated,
18:05and me and my dad were on trial together.
18:09First, I was only charged for the dome robbery,
18:12and then after about six weeks,
18:13I was charged with the Ellsford robbery,
18:16where the getaway van had my DNA found in a glove inside,
18:21so then I knew I was going away for a long time.
18:23The Ellsford robbery,
18:24that was about nine, ten months before the diamond heist.
18:28There was a Securicor van,
18:31every Thursday or Friday or whatever it is,
18:32comes out of a depot in Ellsford in Kent,
18:35and it carries just under £9 million in it, in cash.
18:39So me and some other guys came out of a plan,
18:42so we bought a tipper lorry
18:44and built a big spike on the back of it.
18:47It was about six foot long,
18:48steel spike,
18:49to ram through the back doors.
18:51And as you ran through the back doors,
18:54we had a big chain with a big cross on the end.
18:56You put it through the hole,
18:58and then pulled the lorry away,
18:59and then pulled the back doors off.
19:01On the day of the raid,
19:02we had other guys with Arctic lorries
19:05blocking the road off,
19:06so no one could get in.
19:07And just before we did it,
19:08we drove the lorry up,
19:10drove the spike into the back of the lorry.
19:12Just before that,
19:13because inside the securical lorry,
19:15they have panic buttons,
19:17like alarm buttons,
19:18that sends the alarm up straight away.
19:20So we made bombs
19:21that go on the side of the doors,
19:23not real bombs.
19:24They were frayed bent off pies.
19:25I saw them in a shop,
19:27and I saw it looked like a bomb,
19:28so we sprayed it and put wires on it
19:29and made it look like a bomb.
19:32So we just had magnets on it,
19:33just put them on the doors,
19:34so they put their hands on the windscreen.
19:36They'd done that,
19:37that all went off okay,
19:38smashed into the back of it,
19:40just about to put the chain in,
19:42and the police turned up.
19:43Someone else had seen what was going on
19:45a few minutes before and phoned them,
19:47but they were in the area,
19:48so two police cars turned up,
19:50two Range Rovers.
19:52So sitting there in the getaway van,
19:55one of the other guys came out,
19:59had a shotgun,
20:00one of the other guys had a shotgun on him,
20:01so he let two shots into the police car,
20:04into the grill,
20:04to get them to back up.
20:06We all managed to get in the van
20:07and get away down to the Medway River,
20:09jumped on a boat
20:11and we got away.
20:12Didn't get the prize,
20:13didn't get the money,
20:14but we got away.
20:21The day we were about to go up on trial,
20:23they sent a message to me saying,
20:26if you plead guilty to both sentences,
20:29I will let your dad go.
20:31So, you know,
20:32I don't suppose everyone would do it,
20:34but I just thought,
20:35you know,
20:35I've got to get him out of here.
20:37My QC said to the judge,
20:38I recommend single figures
20:40instead of double figures,
20:42because he's pleaded guilty,
20:44so he went right to the top
20:45and gave me nine years
20:46and four years,
20:47but it was just,
20:48it was a relief to be honest.
20:50The stress of not knowing what's coming,
20:52I was just really,
20:53really happy that it was over.
20:55I think it was a Thursday night,
20:56we come from,
20:57in Woolwich Court,
20:58we all got remanded
20:59and there's a big tunnel
21:00that goes under,
21:01from the court
21:02straight into Belmarsh Prison.
21:03The time we got processed in,
21:05given our numbers
21:06and taken to the wing,
21:08it was quite late in the afternoon
21:09and this is how the jokes were.
21:11We're all facing 10, 15, 20 years in prison
21:13and Bob Adams said,
21:16oh, it's a Thursday night,
21:17they do a roast on a Thursday night.
21:18It was joking all the time,
21:19you know,
21:20even at that point,
21:21he knew he was going to get a lot of burr,
21:22but he was still joking,
21:23you know,
21:23spirits were high
21:24and as he walked onto the wing,
21:26people must have been watching it that day on TV
21:28because it was really big on TV at the time
21:30and in the newspapers
21:31and they just all stood up
21:33and started clapping
21:33and, you know,
21:35it felt good at the time,
21:37it didn't last.
21:38Everyone, you know,
21:40wanted to come and talk about it
21:41and ask what had happened.
21:42More or less everyone on the wing, really.
21:44The reaction from people inside
21:46were, you know,
21:47you're like a little bit of a hero to them, really.
21:49They all want to sort of, you know,
21:50hang around you and stuff like that
21:52because you've done something
21:53that's right out there, you know,
21:55bigger than what they could ever think of.
21:57We never had any negativity at all.
22:00People were just like,
22:00f*** me, you poor bastards,
22:02you never got away with it, you know.
22:03It was that sort of attitude.
22:05Sorry about swearing.
22:07It felt good at the time,
22:08but the next day,
22:09actually the next day,
22:10you wake up,
22:11I don't know,
22:12it's a strange feeling.
22:13You wake up and you look around
22:14and you think,
22:15when you open your eyes,
22:17you think you're at home,
22:17you've got to go and do something
22:18and then you go, wow.
22:19Do you know what I mean?
22:19Bang, you're inside.
22:21Yeah.
22:21Then it hits you.
22:22Yeah.
22:23It's just being away from your family.
22:24I had two young daughters at the time,
22:26very young daughters,
22:27and being away from them,
22:28you know,
22:29if, say,
22:29I'd have got 20 years in total,
22:32I'd have had to serve at least 10 years
22:34and 10 years away from your kids,
22:35they're teenagers
22:36or they're, you know,
22:37they're having kids
22:38by the time you come out,
22:39you know,
22:39that's a scary thought, yeah.
22:42A day in prison is,
22:44in Belmarsh,
22:45it's a very, very strict prison.
22:46They have a lot of staffing problems,
22:48so you're behind your door,
22:50locked up 22 hours a day.
22:52So you get up in the morning,
22:53I used to wake up at six,
22:54half six,
22:54always have done,
22:55have a shave or whatever
22:56and just, you know,
22:57make a cup of tea
22:58and then the doors open at nine.
23:00You let out to get your breakfast
23:02for half an hour
23:03and you're banged back up
23:04until 12 o'clock,
23:07half past 12,
23:07lunchtime.
23:08You come out,
23:09you get your lunch
23:09and then you bang back up again
23:13until six o'clock,
23:15half five,
23:15six o'clock in the evening
23:16and then they let you out
23:17for half an hour's association
23:19and then you're banged up again
23:21until the next day
23:22and every day's like that
23:23and some,
23:23because it wasn't many days
23:24but some days
23:25you go out on exercise
23:26for half an hour
23:27but if they had the staff
23:28so it was hard.
23:30Yeah,
23:31there was lots of time to think
23:32but I think
23:34I'm quite a positive person
23:36and sitting there thinking
23:37just stewing on things,
23:38it doesn't make it any better.
23:40You know,
23:40you just got to get on with it.
23:41I just slept most of the time
23:42to be honest.
23:43I'd get up and do exercises
23:44in the cell,
23:45just keep self-motivated,
23:46talk to people
23:46out the window at night.
23:47You know,
23:48you just got to make the best
23:49of where you are.
23:50We had a wing to ourself.
23:52There was obviously
23:52six of us
23:53with the whole wing to ourself
23:55and downstairs
23:57there was four IRA guys.
24:01They had a wing to themselves
24:02but we used to talk to them
24:03through the window at night,
24:06go out at a certain time,
24:07have our little chats
24:07with like a load of old women really.
24:14Each prison I moved to,
24:15there was people I knew
24:17and there's new people
24:17and they were coming up
24:19with different ideas
24:19and stuff like that
24:20so you know,
24:21you think,
24:21well,
24:22I'm going to do this one again
24:23but when it got to
24:24coming to the end,
24:25I'd done four years
24:27in a closed prison
24:28and then the last six months
24:29in an open prison.
24:30Then you know,
24:31you start going out
24:31at weekends on your own.
24:33That's when it sort of
24:34started realising
24:34maybe,
24:35you know what,
24:36this just isn't worth it.
24:37This going out
24:37and just being free
24:38is a much better life.
24:41I'd had visits
24:42from my dad.
24:44He used to bring my family up.
24:46He promised me
24:47all these things
24:47that he was going to
24:48look after my kids
24:49and he was going to,
24:50because I'd done what I'd done
24:51which was a big thing
24:52now looking back on it now
24:53was a big thing
24:54taking someone else's time
24:55even though it's your dad,
24:57you know,
24:57it's still a big thing to do.
24:58I never got a thank you
24:59for what I'd done.
25:01Even that,
25:02you know,
25:02how are you going to thank you?
25:03You'd say,
25:04you know,
25:04thanks for what you've done.
25:05Never got that.
25:08It was a bit of a disappointment,
25:09yeah.
25:10I don't blame him
25:11for getting me involved,
25:12not one bit.
25:14You know,
25:14I wasn't a kid,
25:16I was 31,
25:1732 years old,
25:17I was a grown man,
25:18I knew what I was doing.
25:19He died of Parkinson's
25:22in 2018.
25:24I never did get the chance
25:25to speak to him
25:26about everything
25:27that had happened.
25:29There was no closure.
25:31Regrets,
25:32I've had one or two.
25:36I regret my children
25:38going through
25:38what they went through.
25:39when I was away.
25:41I don't know how
25:41it's affected them
25:42because they've never told me
25:43how they feel about it.
25:45I don't know if they keep
25:46trying to keep me happy
25:47by not telling me.
25:49But to be honest,
25:50since the documentary's
25:51come out,
25:52my oldest daughter's
25:53been quite tearful about it
25:54and I've never seen
25:56that side of her.
25:57You know,
25:57I've never seen her
25:58and I've called her
25:59and I'm like,
26:00what are you crying for?
26:02And then my wife's going,
26:03well,
26:03just listen to what she's saying
26:04and she's talking about
26:06the photographs
26:07that are coming out
26:07of her as a kid
26:09and sort of bringing it
26:10all back for her
26:10and I am sorry
26:12for her feeling like that.
26:13That's what I'm sorry about.
26:15I've never ever,
26:16and to this day,
26:17and I don't want my kids
26:18to be involved
26:19in anything like that.
26:20Definitely not.
26:22I'll try and steer them
26:22away from it as much.
26:23Well,
26:23I don't have to.
26:24I don't have to steer them away
26:25but I keep them away
26:25from anything
26:26or anybody else
26:27who's involved with them.
26:29I'm very strict on,
26:30you know,
26:30don't go around that person,
26:31you know.
26:32My relationship
26:33with my girls now
26:34is the best it's ever been
26:35over the last few years.
26:38We're very close.
26:39I've got three gorgeous
26:40grandchildren
26:41who I adore.
26:44Both girls,
26:45I see as much as I can.
26:47The oldest one,
26:48I don't see so much
26:48because she's always working.
26:50But the time we do have together
26:51we really make it count.
26:57To do a heist like this
26:58it takes balls.
27:02It takes history.
27:05You know,
27:05the people that you've grown up with,
27:08that you've learnt along the way.
27:09I've been involved in crime
27:10all my life,
27:11you know,
27:12since a child.
27:13That's all I've seen.
27:15I was born in Pembury in Kent.
27:17When I was born,
27:18we were living in a caravan
27:19and moving all over the place
27:21because I'm coming from
27:22a gypsy family.
27:24I didn't like school.
27:24I didn't like school at all.
27:25I got bullied at school
27:28when I was a kid.
27:31I can't remember the guy's name
27:32but I remember a big tall guy
27:33with ginger hair.
27:34And he bullied me
27:35because I was a gypsy traveller.
27:37I left school when I was 12
27:40because we kept moving so much
27:41and I was taken out of school.
27:42Most gypsies,
27:4399% gypsies,
27:44are very close
27:44and we don't mix with non-gypsy.
27:46We call them gorges.
27:48We don't mix with gorges.
27:49But I wasn't like that,
27:51even from a child.
27:52You know,
27:52I sort of mixed with everyone.
27:54But that's where we came from.
27:57I have a big family,
27:57very big family.
27:59My dad's brothers and sisters,
28:03there was 10 of them.
28:04My dad,
28:04when I was growing up,
28:06a first,
28:08as all gypsies say,
28:09tarmac in the drives.
28:10He was doing that sort of work.
28:12Up until I,
28:13I can remember
28:13when I was about five or six
28:14and then I just knew
28:15everything he'd done
28:16was up to no good.
28:18He was doing all sorts of nicking.
28:19That's when he started
28:20getting in with people
28:20from the south of London,
28:22you know,
28:23and getting into criminality that way.
28:25So that's when I was at five,
28:28I was going out with him.
28:29I can have flashbacks to then,
28:30you know,
28:30I can remember what was going on.
28:33People chucking boxes of cigarettes
28:34and whiskey
28:35out of the back of the lorries
28:36and stuff like that,
28:37you know.
28:38If I'm honest,
28:40I don't think I know a gypsy
28:41that hasn't done criminal things,
28:45you know.
28:46We're all at it.
28:48Again,
28:49it's a way of life,
28:49not a way of life,
28:50but it's just there we are.
28:52That doesn't sound good,
28:52does it?
28:56Listen,
28:56if it's there,
28:57you've got to take it.
29:01Oh,
29:01I started quite late.
29:02I didn't start until I was 14,
29:0415.
29:05My very first job I did,
29:08I was in Tunbridge Wells High Street
29:10in Kent.
29:12I nicked JCB
29:13out of the high street.
29:15My dad had,
29:16at the time,
29:18people from all over,
29:19all over the country
29:19buying stuff like that.
29:21He'd never do anything himself.
29:22He'd always get other people to do it.
29:25All these little thieves going out
29:26and getting stuff for him.
29:27And they were charging him
29:30quite a bit of money
29:31to do it.
29:32One day I said,
29:33listen,
29:34there's one in Tunbridge Wells,
29:35I'll do it for half the money.
29:37And he said,
29:37I bet you can't.
29:39And two hours later,
29:39I drove in the yard with it
29:40and I just started from there.
29:42That was my first crime,
29:44yeah.
29:45My father was very happy
29:46to be involved,
29:47but it was different times.
29:48You're talking in,
29:49you know,
29:49late 60s,
29:5070s,
29:51different times.
29:51Back in the day,
29:52you could,
29:53you know,
29:54JCBs only had one key
29:55to fit all JCBs.
29:57So,
29:57you were just,
29:59rich pickings.
30:00And I'd done that one,
30:01I thought,
30:02you know what,
30:02that's pretty easy.
30:03And I had 1,500 quid,
30:04I'm 15 years old.
30:05It was back in the 80s,
30:08it was a lot of money,
30:081,500 quid was a lot of money,
30:09you know.
30:11So I just went out
30:12and just started doing it
30:13and kept doing that
30:14and then just got into
30:14loads of other things.
30:16No,
30:16I didn't grow up watching movies
30:18or I want to be like that.
30:20It wasn't movie,
30:21it was the people I was around,
30:22the people I was brought up with,
30:23not movies.
30:24The people I was looking up to,
30:26it was like I said,
30:26it was like the Haywood Brothers.
30:28There was lots of people around
30:29in them days.
30:32There was another guy up in London,
30:34I can't remember his name now,
30:35but he was doing,
30:35he was doing arm robberies
30:36at the time
30:37and you know,
30:37he'd come back down to Kent
30:39and he'd be in a brand new
30:40Mercedes car
30:40and he'd stand in the pub
30:42and pull out about 500 quid
30:44and buying drinks.
30:45I thought,
30:46yeah,
30:46I'll have some of that
30:47and that's what sort of
30:48got me into it really,
30:49yeah.
30:49The first cash point I did,
30:51I think I was only 20 then,
30:5221,
30:53again,
30:54stole a JCB,
30:55got up to the cash point,
30:56just got the back actor,
30:57the back digger on there
30:58and just dug the safe
30:59completely out of the wall,
31:00ripped the wall out.
31:01I remember one time
31:02we'd done one,
31:04there was a police station
31:05very,
31:06very close to the cash point
31:07and we knew there was
31:08a lot of money in that one,
31:09I think it had just been
31:10loaded up for the bank holiday.
31:11We went up to the police station
31:12and there's four cars
31:13sitting on the forecourt
31:14and we let all their tyres down
31:15before we did it.
31:17Then,
31:18I got into,
31:19so many things
31:21I can't remember.
31:21I got into,
31:24somebody was nicking
31:25travellers' checks
31:26and bankers' drafts
31:28out of banks,
31:29me and a couple of other guys
31:30were buying stuff on them
31:31and selling them on
31:32for half the money.
31:35I'm giving it all away here,
31:36aren't I?
31:37Doing post office,
31:38breaking in the post office,
31:40then blowing the safes in them,
31:42doing that.
31:42Not when anybody was there,
31:44so I didn't want anybody hurt.
31:46It is exciting,
31:48well it was exciting,
31:49should I say,
31:50the cat and mouse game
31:51with the police.
31:52Many a times,
31:53even after a cash point,
31:55I've been chased by them
31:57and I've turned around
31:58and stuck my finger up
31:59at them and things like that,
32:00you know,
32:00to get them to chase me more.
32:02At the time,
32:03I was young then,
32:03it was exciting,
32:05it was a real buzz,
32:06yeah, yeah.
32:06When I was,
32:08say from 20 years old,
32:10I was,
32:11I don't know,
32:12pulling in about
32:12five or six grand a week.
32:13It was a long time ago,
32:16it was good money
32:16and some jobs,
32:18you know,
32:18I've done some things
32:19where I've had 80 grand
32:20in one go,
32:20in one night.
32:2280,000 pounds in one night
32:23and I was living the best life,
32:26to be honest.
32:28A little bit stupid
32:29because I wasted a lot of it,
32:31to be honest,
32:31if I'm really honest.
32:32I just,
32:32you know,
32:33I just thought
32:34if I run out of money,
32:36I'll just go back tomorrow
32:37and get something else
32:38and do it again
32:38because it was so easy.
32:40Well,
32:40not too easy,
32:40but it was,
32:41it was easy
32:43if someone knows
32:44what they're doing.
32:45Yeah,
32:46I had a brilliant life
32:47doing it,
32:48yeah.
32:4825 years ago
32:49was really the last
32:50of it
32:51because all the technology
32:53was starting to come in then,
32:54you know,
32:54so then it was getting
32:55really hard to do.
32:57But you wouldn't
32:58get away with it today,
32:59there's too many people
33:00with phones,
33:01as soon as something happens
33:01someone's videoing it,
33:02you know.
33:03You don't hear of people
33:04doing it anymore,
33:04do you?
33:04Do you have anybody
33:05doing secure core vans
33:07or anything like that anymore?
33:09It's all like cyber crime,
33:10isn't it?
33:11You know,
33:11it's a completely
33:12different world,
33:13which is sad really
33:14because the old times
33:15were better.
33:17I don't know
33:18if there's such a thing
33:19as a good criminal.
33:22I don't agree
33:23with petty criminals
33:24or people who,
33:25you know,
33:26rob old ladies
33:27and stuff like that
33:28and nick people's handbags
33:30and,
33:31you know,
33:32that disgusts me,
33:33I just can't stand
33:33people like that.
33:34I wouldn't go
33:35into someone's house
33:36and take their possessions
33:36because I wouldn't
33:38like it done to me
33:38or any of my family.
33:40I wouldn't go
33:40and rob them
33:41or do anything to them.
33:42I do,
33:44for the right word,
33:45pride myself a bit
33:46on that.
33:47It's always been
33:47big companies
33:49that I've,
33:49you know,
33:50I'm not going to say
33:51not miss it,
33:51but it's not going
33:52to hurt them
33:53like it would
33:53anybody else.
33:54If I was to look back,
33:56sit back and look at me
33:57as a 32-year-old
33:58or even younger,
33:59you know,
33:59I started
34:00nicking machinery
34:02when I was 15 years old.
34:04I think I must have been mad.
34:05Crazy.
34:06Yeah,
34:07I must have been mad.
34:08Things that I've done,
34:08I just can't believe
34:09myself that I've done it.
34:15Yeah,
34:16I hadn't been to the,
34:17it's now called the O2,
34:18I haven't been there
34:19for years.
34:19My partner bought
34:20a couple of tickets
34:21for me to go
34:21and see Van Morrison
34:22and Jeff Beck.
34:23We parked up
34:24and we're walking
34:25into the O2.
34:27I don't know why,
34:28but I found myself
34:29checking out security,
34:30looking at the Perspex
34:31and the Alan William door
34:33and I just had to stop
34:34and think,
34:34what the f*** are you doing?
34:36It just got on
34:37and enjoyed my evening.
34:40And that did actually happen.
34:42After I started
34:43the landscaping business,
34:45obviously the money
34:46was completely different
34:47to what I was used to.
34:49You know,
34:49it was good money,
34:51it was good money,
34:52but it was,
34:53you know,
34:53it's just get-buy money,
34:55really,
34:56you know,
34:57especially when you've got
34:57a big family,
34:58it's always taking money off you.
35:00Want this and want that.
35:01But I'd done landscaping
35:03when I was a teenager,
35:05actually.
35:05I was in the open prison.
35:06I was working down on the farm
35:08and so I just thought
35:10I'd go back to try
35:10and landscaping again
35:11and it's worked out pretty well.
35:13I've been doing it ever since.
35:14I've had a lot of tattoos
35:14over the years
35:15and everyone has a story,
35:17I suppose.
35:18Just for example,
35:20I've got the diamond there.
35:21So, you know,
35:23remind me not to do it again.
35:26There's one there
35:28of a sawn-off shotgun.
35:30Takes me back years,
35:31that one,
35:32when I used to use them.
35:33But, yeah,
35:34and these I'd done
35:35many years ago
35:36and I think really
35:37sort of reflects
35:38Bournemouth was me,
35:40really,
35:41back then.
35:42I never thought about
35:43writing a book,
35:43to be honest.
35:44I suppose it's taken
35:45about nine,
35:45ten months to do,
35:46but I'm happy
35:47with the way
35:48the book come out.
35:49It sparked up
35:49a lot of emotions.
35:50It's a rollercoaster
35:51of a ride.
35:52I'm telling my story
35:53because I want to leave
35:55something for my family,
35:59my kids or grandkids
36:00when they're older,
36:01you know,
36:01when I'm gone.
36:02Like I said,
36:03well,
36:03that was my granddad.
36:03I know it's not
36:04a brilliant life,
36:06but, you know,
36:06at least I've been someone.
36:08I'm not just every Joe
36:09on the road,
36:09you know,
36:10that goes to a nine-to-five job,
36:13sorry.
36:14I'm just,
36:14I'm not normal,
36:15you know,
36:16and I'm proud of that.
36:17I'm proud of the way I am.
36:18Yeah.