The Great New Zealand Robbery

by Scott Bainbridge

  It did mean, in effect, that after having served a seven-year sentence for theft I was to stay in prison indefinitely unless I could indicate what happened to the stolen property and accomplices. I believe that this is contrary to law in principle. I do not have the legal ability to go into it at length on this aspect.

  I considered that this presented an utterly hopeless respect to me so I escaped. I think that this is a greater penalty than that inflicted on a person convicted of murder.

  I do not ask anything on my own account. Only that you may consider that I have four young children and that if or when I may be released from prison I intend to be a responsible parent to them. In relation to the above, I have irrevocably resolved never to be involved in any criminal activity again in my life.48

  Despite his history of dishonesty, this letter was regarded as a sincere statement of his intentions and Brien bought it. In his summary report, he wrote, ‘I believe Nash will not offend again. I firmly believe that his statement publicly made to the effect that he will never indulge in crime again is correct, although he informed me that he has not made this resolution on moral grounds, but merely because he is so well known that further indulgence in crime would be detrimental to his chances of avoiding detection.’

  Meade sentenced Nash to an extra two years’ imprisonment, to be served consecutively with his current term. He would not be due for release until 1966.

  Nash launched an immediate appeal against the severity of the sentence on the grounds that an extra two years was manifestly excessive for an escape that did not involve any breach of trust or any violence and in the course of which no further offences were committed. This appeal was heard on 6 September 1961 by Mr Justice Hardie-Boys, who adjourned it on the basis that it might be brought on at a later date after a decision had been reached in the matter of Nash’s appeal on his bankruptcy charges.

  Nash gave up. There was no point fighting further.

  CHAPTER 16

  WHO AND HOW

  ‘I was taught the rudiments of blowing a safe by an Aussie crook named John Rupert Coles,’ Barry ‘Machine-gun’ Shaw said in 2013.

  [Coles] also went by the name of Jack Shaw, which pissed me off from time to time. You know, I’d be in a pub and some fuckin’ Jack would call out ‘Shaw!’ and I’d think it was me, but it was him. Back then, if you planned a big job, it could involve any number of mugs, and it was a privilege to be asked. Every mug has a specific job to do, and it was important for the organiser to pick his team carefully. You wouldn’t want a guy who was going to fuckin’ fall to pieces, or a big-note who was going to spill his guts. Trust was a very big thing. In the fifties I knocked a number of safes with Jack West, a real hard-arse. Two of us would go in together, but for the bigger jobs you’d need a third to act as a lookout and getaway driver. We used a fruit named Nicky Darling who I normally wouldn’t associate with on account of him being a fruit, but he was reliable; a very good driver and he had access to a fast car. When you came away with the takings you’d split it three ways or more. Often mugs got their skinny from someone in the know, like a disgruntled fuckin’ employee or something, and they’d get a drink out of it too. If you came away with a hundred quid, and that split four ways didn’t amount to much, so you would have to knock off a few more to make it worthwhile.

  Shaw’s description of how big safe-cracking jobs were done seems like a blueprint for the Waterfront payroll robbery. Over the years there has been a great deal of conjecture and debate as to who was really responsible for committing the crime. Trevor Nash always refused to say.

  To some, such as his nephew Warren Nash and several detectives interviewed for this book, there is no doubt that Nash planned and executed the robbery alone. Certainly at the time, if he had the experience to both blast and cut into a safe, he was one of few. And Trevor, according to Warren, ‘was selfish. He wouldn’t have wanted or trusted anyone else.’

  Ray Jennings agreed.

  The Waterfront payroll robbery was huge. I mean it was like the pinnacle of heists at that time. You would find it extremely hard to top that one. I remember drinking at Zelda’s [sly grog on Franklin Road] and we were all talking. No one knew who pulled it off and we raised our glasses to whoever it was. I had always suspected [Ron] Tattley, but then he was always asking me to lend him a quid and was never flush. He was the sort of guy who would pull off a job and then go and buy a fucking Cadillac and a house on Paritai Drive, but was always otherwise skint. I think if he had been involved then he would have flashed it about. I hadn’t heard of Nash and we had a bit to do with each other in prison during ’58 and ’59. He distrusted everyone, even the most solid cons. If he saw me talking with another con, then he would sidle over and ask a dozen questions, like sussing the guy out. He only really ever bothered talking with a few guys and was guarded with what he said to others. I got the impression he was a loner and would struggle to work within a team—like he would want overall control. I always thought he pulled off the Waterfront heist by himself.

  For all that, it seems highly unlikely just one person was involved. Carrying all the equipment upstairs would have taken one man several trips, during which he would have run the risk of being noticed. Then there were the witnesses: Chapman, who heard a car blaring its horn every fifteen minutes between 11 pm and 12.30 am—likely the lookout—and Thomas, who observed two men walking from the rear entrance of the building and climb into a dark blue car, which then sped off.

  ‘I knew Trevor Nash,’ ‘Diamond Jim’ Shepherd recalls.

  He, Ron Jorgensen [convicted of the Bassett Road machinegun murders in 1963] and I worked as wing cleaners together in the North Wing of Mount Eden Prison in 1964 and ’65 just before the big riot. Back then, I regarded Ron Jorgensen as a friend but I did not regard Nash as likewise. He was a hard man to like. He kept to himself all the time. Jorgy was the only crim he ever really interacted with.

  He was very furtive, very secretive, did not trust anyone. He used to scurry around the wing, always looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t a violent man, but was an extremely good thief, safe-breaking, et cetera. I lost track of him after the jail riot. Despite my not liking him, he had my grudging respect for pulling off the Waterfront robbery and not giving his mates up.

  Barry Shaw reckoned he knew who the rest of the crew were.

  Yes, I do know who was in on that job. A lot of the hard cases did. The bottom-feeders tried their arses off by bribing and threatening [Nash] and to his credit he said nothing. I remember being in the yard when some of those cunts were having a go at him and he just stood there and took it. Some of the bozos in on it were there watching and they just said nothing. He told me all about that night and said he would take it to the grave. He wasn’t alone on the job. Wouldn’t tell me who, but I found out later.

  When pressed about who was in on the Waterfront payroll robbery, Shepherd gave a long pause. ‘They are all dead now. He never gave them up.’

  Nor did Barry Shaw, who died in June 2013.

  Ex-safe-breaker and ex-gangster ‘Johnny Angel’ reckoned a total of six men were involved in the Waterfront payroll robbery.

  . . . two guys who pulled the job off, and the lookout-cum-driver. Nash was there as a last-minute inclusion ’cause he had the implements to cut into the safe and they found they couldn’t blow it. So there’s your four. The other two were the security guard who was paid to look the other way, and then the guy who gave them the information about the layout in the first case. He was either a cleaner or worker, someone who knew the layout of the office and the fact it was payday next day, so there would be a great deal of cash in the safe. The main guy who done it [sic] had it well planned in advance and shot through quick while the others lay low. Apart from Nash, none of them were ever caught.

  Without Nash they wouldn’t have pulled it off, so he got quite a sizeable drink. He got the bulk of the ten-pound notes whereas the others were paid in the smaller stuff which would have been easy to shift without arous
ing suspicion.

  This was a different generation of criminals. Only a handful are left alive now, but the old criminal edict holds true: you never rat out your mates, even after all this time.

  — — —

  According to a leading theory, the robbery was conceived at the Freemans Hotel almost a year before it happened. Someone said they knew of an easy payroll grab and it went from there. For many years it was believed, in police and criminal circles, that this was planned and executed with precision by a highly professional criminal gang. The only local ‘firm’ capable of successfully pulling this off at the time was Richard MacDonald and his crew of David Brady and George Newman. Ron Tattley was an associate on the periphery and had the necessary skills. All frequented the Freemans Hotel and were known to drink and associate with John Sharp, the night watchman.

  During the latter part of 1956, Newman had his cell next to James Lloyd, who had worked at the Waterfront Industry Commission for one week in October 1954. It was rumoured Lloyd tipped off Newman and plans were put in place to hit the joint.

  There are, however, a number of flaws in this theory. The chronology doesn’t quite work. MacDonald and Newman were in Mount Eden for the spate of robberies committed in April. Because of the type of equipment stolen in those jobs, it was thought he and Newman had been stockpiling gear for a big-time heist, and when the Waterfront Industry Commission job went down it was supposed that this was it. But Mac and Newman had become sworn enemies, on account of Newman snitching Mac off in court. Both got a stretch of five years apiece and had been in jail for several months when the Waterfront heist was committed.

  Newman would not have become acquainted with James Lloyd until September at the earliest, so if Lloyd was the tipster he could not have given up the bully until well after the job had allegedly been planned. In the weeks leading up to and immediately after the robbery, David Brady was a regular visitor to Mount Eden Prison, so it was thought Mac had been coordinating the robbery from the inside.

  What has not generally been considered is that Māori Mac may also have had a hand in carrying it out. This is not as far-fetched as it may seem.

  In 1958, MacDonald joined the prison orchestra, which operated under the sponsorship of Superintendent Haywood’s wife. He was one of a number of band members who were shifted to a minimum-risk association cell block where they enjoyed trusty status. Around this time, there was an increased spate of burglaries around Auckland city. When forensics came back with Mac’s fingerprints, this was initially written off as an error.

  One night, a young couple walking in Cornwall Park were attacked by a group of men masquerading as police, and the girl was pack-raped. Fizz talk made its way back to Superintendent Haywood that the offenders were prisoners going over the wall on Sunday evenings during band practice, when there was only one guard supervising the area. A search of the cells found clothing, cigarettes, food and other contraband hidden beneath the floorboards. Detective Perry mounted an investigation and learned that Mac had taken advantage of the lenient conditions and organised a makeshift ladder be constructed in the prison workshop and smuggled into his cell, along with a hacksaw used to cut the bars over his window, which were then reassembled and held together with plasticine. Mac regularly climbed the wall on Sunday nights when the band was making maximum noise. He would be picked up by his wife and they would commit a number of burgs before heading home and spending the night together. Then in the early hours he would clamber back over and into his cell undetected. The rape put paid to that. Even though Mac was not involved, Haywood heard up to eight other prisoners were also regularly climbing the walls. Some of these men were responsible. The fallout from this scandal could potentially see the heads of the Minister of Justice, the controller-general of the police and even Superintendent Haywood rolling, but Mac cut a deal, admitting he alone had escaped and robbed a cafe. He wasn’t charged with the escape, and everything else was hushed up. In return, he had a year shaved off his sentence and was provided with a state house upon release.49

  Could Mac have found a way of breaking out earlier than thought, thus enabling him to commit the Waterfront payroll robbery? Well, probably not. Mac didn’t get access to the more relaxed conditions until he joined the prison band in 1958. The heist occurred earlier on in his sentence, when he was in the maximum-security wing on account of an assault on Newman. He had very limited freedom of movement and no practical opportunity.

  Nevertheless, if Māori Mac, Brady, Newman and Tattley did not actively participate, detectives believed they knew who was responsible, or if they didn’t, were using their own sources to find out who it was so that they could rip them off. Schultz and his boys checked on the crew from time to time to see if they were flashing it about, but after Nash was arrested the heat went off.

  — — —

  Ten months after Nash was recaptured, Detective Senior Sergeant Schultz got the sniff on who actually committed the Waterfront payroll robbery. As he suspected all along, a crew of men was responsible. Collectively, they weren’t known to be a firm, but individually one had been an early prime suspect in the inquiry and another had been routinely interviewed and completely ruled out.

  On 25 May 1962, Constable Stanley was on duty in Whangarei when he was approached by an elderly farmer named Frank Shortcliffe who had something on his mind. They went back to the station, where the old man became distraught. Mr Shortcliffe had just returned from visiting his son. For the second time in his life, Tommy had confessed to participating in the Waterfront heist. The first time was in the Waiuku Hotel back in 1956 when he was drunk; this time, Tommy was dying of heart disease in Greenlane Hospital. He had lapsed in and out of consciousness as he told his story.

  Detective Robertson was summoned through to take a statement. According to Frank Shortcliffe, Tommy confessed he was one of six men who planned the Waterfront payroll robbery, and was one of four who actually carried it out (the four including the getaway driver). As an actual participant, he received a large portion of the takings in £5 denominations.

  ‘Who else was on the crew?’ Robertson asked.

  ‘Trevor Nash was one,’ Shortcliffe replied. ‘I didn’t quite hear the name of the other fellow Tom mentioned.’

  Immediately after the money was divvied up, Tommy returned to Waiuku, where he lived with his wife and son. Over the course of the next few days, he pulled the bodywork of his 1938 Hudson to pieces and stuffed the cash inside a cavity, which he securely welded closed. The money was safe, but Tommy sweated and continued to fret about it.

  ‘He changed,’ his father recalled. ‘He became a different person, really nervous and fearful. We couldn’t figure out why.’

  Now, Tommy Shortcliffe knew he was going to die. The money was still inside the car and he was worried somebody unscrupulous would come after it when they heard he had died. He instructed his father to retrieve it and give it to his wife and son as he wanted to see them right. Frank Shortcliffe was disgusted. He didn’t want to have anything to do with dirty money and left his son’s bedside. But after mulling it over he decided he didn’t want to see his daughter-in-law destitute and his grandson go without. More than that, he didn’t want them to be hassled by gangsters any more than he wanted that kind of attention himself. He decided to tell the police.

  — — —

  Thomas Shortcliffe never fit the frame of someone who could mastermind a heist as elaborate as the payroll robbery. Like Trevor Nash, he was regarded as a small-time, petty criminal who had, by and large, come good and secured a legitimate job. But when in 1954 he was charged with robbing a store of a small sum of money—his first conviction in years—it placed him within Bob Walton’s three-year timeframe of crooks to interview. Shortcliffe was interviewed as a matter of course and gave an alibi that seemed to fit. Police didn’t bother to seek corroboration; Shortcliffe was discounted from the inquiry. Still, the fact he had briefly crossed their radar meant that when fizz talk suggested he had been shooting his mouth
off about the robbery in the Waiuku Hotel, it was taken seriously enough to interview Shortcliffe again and to pull his grader apart. Hoy recorded it was unlikely Shortcliffe was involved, but it was interesting Shortcliffe told the fizz he did the job with Harold Kendall. At that point in time, detectives considered Kendall the prime suspect, but this was known only to the inquiry team.

  As Detective Senior Sergeant Schultz read the statement Robertson had taken from Frank Shortcliffe, he fired a teletype to Detective Robertson to ask whether the other fellow Tommy mentioned was Harold Kendall. There is no record of the response, or even whether this was followed up.

  Things began falling into place. Although Thomas Shortcliffe lived and worked in Waiuku for a number of years, he regularly returned to Whangarei and the general Northland area where he was raised and where his wider family still lived. From around May 1961, when Nash was on the run and banks nationwide had been alerted to be vigilant once more for reports of suspect notes, £5 notes from the series of interest began to turn up in shops, banks and in wage packets here and there around Northland but particularly in Whangarei. Trouble was, the inquiry team had adopted a policy of checking banknotes only if a number from the same sequence showed up together. Then, when the CIB decided to send Hughes north, word came through that Nash had been arrested in Australia.

  — — —

  Following Thomas Shortcliffe’s statement on 29 May 1962, Schultz instructed Detective Sergeant Shannon and Detective Killen to head to Waiuku, where they met Sam Cowell, the local Māori warden, who had been entrusted with Thomas Shortcliffe’s car. A cursory examination found the head lining had been torn in several places and the two front door panels were missing. The bodywork had been tampered with in other ways, too, although it wasn’t considered to have been done recently. The vehicle was badly damaged and considered unroadworthy. It was moved to Police Transport Yard, where it was stripped and systematically searched.