Armed and Dangerous--This is the True Story of How I Carried Out Scotland's Biggest Bank Robbery

by James Crosbie

  It is obvious to me that Andy Bunnet is a pervert; I can tell by the way his eyes pop open and his breathing sounds funny when he is inspecting me. However, if he gets his kicks out of watching me spinning around in my vest with my private parts merrily jiggling up and down, that is entirely up to him. In fact I am not complaining about his perversion. What I am complaining about is that I am beginning to get to like it!

  Yours faithfully

  Walter E

  These petitions were a constant source of amusement for us cons but, of course, not all of them were funny. Sometimes a con would have what he considered a real grievance and getting nowhere through the local complaints procedure would resort to writing a petition. But it was a last resort – do you think for one minute that the Secretary of State for Scotland ever clapped his eyes on a petition from a convict? Besides, it didn’t matter what you wrote or who answered it, the reply was invariably the same: ‘Please inform the prisoner that he has no grounds for complaint.’

  There was one guy, Pokey Turner, who got so frustrated by this repetitive reply that he decided to really put the process to the test. He wrote a petition in utter gibberish, along the lines of:

  Yjr kgpt yr dommy dllyp;y fisyylh dkdky rldsylyy iy y nn syss snf yi ld I hr.

  Yours sincerely

  W Turner

  Six weeks later, Pokey was called up in front of the governor to receive his reply. The governor opened the envelope and prepared to read it out. He studied it for a few moments, slowly shaking his head, before finally passing it to the waiting Pokey.

  ‘Here, Turner,’ he said. ‘You better read this for yourself.’

  Pokey stared at the paper for several seconds before bellowing out, ‘What the fuck’s this? I can’t read this shite!’

  The governor took the paper back and looked at the writing again. It went something like this: ‘Okeadt ubgtin yhr ptidonrt yhsy hr hsd no htounfd gto vompl.’

  ‘Well, it’s quite plain to me, Turner,’ the governor told the puzzled Pokey. ‘The answer quite clearly states: “Please inform the prisoner that he has no grounds for complaint.”’

  Pokey’s baffled expression told its own tale to the waiting prisoners. Fucked again! The moral here was clear: you will never beat the system.

  Sojer (Soldier) Thompson’s nickname was a mystery. He was certainly never in the army, because with a wonky foot and the beginnings of a hump on his back there would have to have been a state of national desperation declared before Sojer was ever called to the colours. Sojer and his pal had taken it upon themselves to mug an elderly female cheque collector and steal her money. His accomplice was arrested shortly afterwards, but Sojer managed to avoid arrest. Later, at the High Court in Edinburgh, the woman was asked if the man in the dock was one of the men who had robbed her. The lady confirmed that the accused was, indeed, one of her attackers.

  ‘And what about the other man,’ the prosecutor continued. ‘Would you recognise him if you saw him again?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the woman. ‘I would know him anywhere. He was ugly. In fact, he had a face like a monkey.’

  ‘Who are you calling a fucking monkey?’ Sojer’s voice rang out loud and clear as he leaped from his seat in the rear of the public benches. This ill-advised action resulted in his immediate arrest, followed by a sentence of four years in jail.

  ‘Nobody’s going to call me a fucking monkey and get away with it,’ Sojer stoutly defended his action whenever he was questioned about his foolhardy outburst.

  Mind you, it wasn’t all laughs in Peterhead. Tempers were always on a short fuse and even a casual, offhand remark could spark an immediate outraged reaction. Many a con has been beaten up or stabbed over an ill-advised comment on the result of a football match or some other innocuous subject. Even if hands are shaken and apologies made at the time, loss of face makes a comeback almost inevitable.

  One such case was when Jimmy H asked Walter E for a small piece of marquetry veneer. On his request being refused, Jimmy picked up a scrubbing brush and belted Walter across the side of his head and hastily departed. Walter did nothing about it at the time and it looked as if he was taking a back seat. With Walter being on security due to a twenty-one-year sentence for armed robbery, while Jimmy worked out a seven-stretch in the mat shop, their paths actually seldom crossed. Added to that was the fact that Walter never left his cell to engage in any so-called recreational activities in the hall, reducing the chances of them running into one another even more. So as the months passed it seemed that the incident with the scrubbing brush had faded from memory.

  Six months or so later, Jimmy, along with Mick K, was sitting in Howard W’s cell enjoying a chat and a cup of tea. There was a polite knock at the door and Walter appeared carrying a large basin of boiling water straight out of the immersion heater. Naturally he totally ignored Jimmy and spoke directly to Howard about the return of some magazine or other. Agreement reached, he turned to leave and unfortunately ‘tripped’ over the edge of Howard’s carpet. Needless to say, Walter lost his balance and lunged forward, ‘accidentally’ throwing the scalding water straight into the face of an unsuspecting Jimmy.

  Jimmy’s face peeled like a banana and he collapsed, screaming in agonising pain. Walter was distraught, running for help, demanding an ambulance and wringing his hands in worry as Jimmy was stretchered off to an outside hospital.

  I was one of the few people Walter talked to at any length but, even to me, no mention of the ‘accident’ was ever made.

  Around this madness, life still went on in Peterhead. After all, the jail held over three hundred prisoners and they weren’t all crazy. Most of the men just wanted to put their heads down and get on with doing their time. And you could do that too if you wanted. No one forced you to join a gang. If you didn’t want to get mixed up in jail politics, all you had to do was keep yourself to yourself and mostly you would be left alone to get on with it. I was proof of that.

  Escape had been uppermost in my mind during that first long year of my sentence, so much so that in my dreams I escaped every single night. However, I did more than just dream about it. At one stage I got myself a hacksaw blade – smuggled up from Edinburgh in the sole of a training shoe – and began the long slow task of cutting through my window bars. It’s a big job when you have to cut through six sections of cast metal before tackling the horizontal steel bars outside. I made a small frame that would hold half a blade and grip it steady enough for use. Then, with a pal called Jimmy K keeping watch for me, I began my task. In all, I would need six cuts in the frame and four cuts in the outside steel bars. A formidable job, even if you had the best of equipment and the freedom to use it openly; but a hopeless task for my puny tool working under the close supervision of the screws.

  Is it some kind of blind optimism, or maybe sheer stupidity, that spurs on people like me to try the impossible? Whatever it is, I was having a go. My optimism had even led me to prepare a rope to get over the wall. It wasn’t a thick rope, but it was strong, made from heavy fishing-net material woven into four or five ply, with pieces of wood tied into it to provide grips for my hands and feet. I tested it by tying it up in my cell and standing my full weight on it and it worked OK.

  After a week of surreptitious sawing, I had managed to cut through two sections of the cast-iron frame and visions of freedom loomed ahead. Then one night I was carried away by the noise of a North Sea storm that should also have carried away the sound of my enthusiastic sawing. A patrolling screw crept round the corner of the cell block and heard the sound of the saw. Jimmy K should have been sacked! The screw immediately alerted his colleagues inside who rushed my door and I was caught bang to rights, hand on saw, saw biting into metal.

  Captured! Again! Fuck it!

  The charge laid against me when I was marched in front of the governor for adjudication was attempt to escape. There would appear to be no defence – after all, I was caught with the saw in my hands halfway through the third bar on my cell window. Not so. You
are forgetting the devious criminal mind with which I was endowed. Remember, it takes a clever man to act the fool.

  ‘Not guilty, sir,’ I replied to the charge. ‘I had no intention of trying to escape.’

  ‘What do you mean, not guilty, Crosbie? What were you doing with the hacksaw then, engaging in a bit of fretwork? Trying out some sort of new cell hobby perhaps?’

  ‘No, sir. I cut my cell bars as a protest.’

  ‘What do you mean a protest, Crosbie? What were you protesting about?’

  ‘I was protesting about being held illegally on security.’ I tried to be indignant. ‘I’m fed up with being treated like an escapee when, in actual fact, I have never tried to escape. So I sawed my bars to justify being treated as an escapee.’

  The governor exchanged a long-suffering look with his Chief Officer and shook his head. ‘Wait a minute, Crosbie,’ he said. ‘Are you trying to tell me that you cut your bars because you think you should not have been on security?’

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ I replied. ‘But now that I have cut my bars, you are definitely fully entitled to put me on security. I knew I would be caught, but at least now I don’t have to worry about being treated unfairly any more.’

  The governor looked at me, then round the other staff in the orderly room, as if seeking help. Then he fidgeted with his hands, obviously at a loss at what to do. ‘A protest?’ He stared hard at me, his eyes crinkled in confusion.

  ‘That is correct, sir,’ I assured him. ‘I never had the slightest intention of trying to escape.’

  Finally he shook his head in total exasperation. ‘Right, Crosbie,’ he made up his mind. ‘I intended to treat this as a serious escape attempt and remand you until the Visiting Committee could deal with you. However, in view of what you have just said, I have decided to deal with the matter myself and punish you to the limit of my powers.’

  I felt a wave of relief. I knew the governor’s limit was measured in days, whereas the Visiting Committee could take months of remission from me. Dodging the VC was a victory and I listened happily to the governor’s admonishing voice as he told me off before handing out his punishment. I got twenty-eight days all round for my antics with the saw. That means twenty-eight days’ loss of remission, twenty-eight days’ solitary and twenty-eight days’ loss of earnings. And that was getting off light.

  The Chief Officer marched me off to the cells.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Poofery at Peterhead

  My twenty-eight days in the cells had seen no change in PH. Christ, twenty-eight years had seen no change in that place. Still, there was gossip to catch up with. On top of that it was good to enjoy some human company again and I was glad to sit in with Walter E to be brought up to date with what had been going on in my absence.

  Nothing out of the usual: half-a-dozen transfers in and out. Scruffy S had gone to Bar L for accumulated visits. Mac the Knife had returned on a life-licence recall. There was a rumour that we were going to get lamb chops in a couple of weeks’ time. The new three-month film list was up and looked pretty crap. And, of course, there had been a couple of stabbings – one over the use of the tea urn, the other because of a false accusation about some sort of poofery.

  It was a rare occurrence in Peterhead, the poofery I mean; in all the years I spent there, I can only think of maybe half-a-dozen occasions where incidents of blatant, outright homosexuality came to light. In the normal course of events, it was statistically inevitable that every now and again one or two of the more extrovert gender benders would turn up at Peterhead and unashamedly strut their stuff, taking full advantage of the child-in-the-sweetie-shop syndrome to enjoy several clandestine affairs. But one thing was sure: if anyone did have an affair, it was all kept behind closed doors. Well it would be, wouldn’t it?

  Image and reputation were everything in Peterhead, especially among the hard men and the gangsters. Any hint of weakness or fallibility of character could destroy a man and make his life a misery. That was why comebacks were made and justified, on the slightest of provocation. A man had to show he could not be bammed up – made to look stupid or weak – without some form or retribution, usually violent, being sought. But there was one memorable occasion when one of the big names, perhaps in a moment of recklessness, chose to be bold about things.

  Mandy, one of the more outrageous poofs, came upstairs to the security party in the tailor’s shop one day and made a point of speaking familiarly to Boulder Head, a known hard man. Conscious of the many witnesses and keen to maintain his standing in the macho community of Peterhead, Boulder Head’s response was predicable to most of us, but obviously came as a shock to Mandy himself. ‘Fuck off!’ he was told in no uncertain terms. ‘Don’t you come trying to talk to me, you fucking wee poof!’

  But the suspicions of the workforce were already aroused. Why would the flouncing Mandy be so bold as to openly approach Boulder Head and try to engage him in chit-chat? What made him think such a liberty could be taken with impunity? We all looked at one another. Surely not! The unspoken question hung in the air.

  Slowly Mandy backed away, sensible enough to curtail his attempt at conversation with the scowling Boulder Head, at least at close quarters. Visibly hurt, he edged back towards the safety of the stairs before uttering his damning words. ‘Oh!’ he announced, his voice trembling with emotion. ‘So now I’m just a wee fucking poof. Well, it wasn’t that last night when you were shagging the arse off me, was it?’

  There was a stunned silence at the accusation and all eyes swung to Boulder Head, expecting some sort of immediate retaliation, violent, verbal or both. Well, we got one, but it wasn’t the one we were expecting. It would seem that Boulder Head had decided to apply reverse psychology. Mandy wouldn’t embarrass him; he would embarrass Mandy.

  ‘Aye!’ He looked round the shop with a stupid grin on his face and yelled at his accuser. ‘I was right up you last night! And you fucking loved it, you wee cow!’ He stood up and made violent pumping motions with his hips. ‘You fucking loved it!’

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Mandy replied. ‘You were up me all right,’ he repeated, positioning himself at the head of the stairs in preparation for a speedy retreat. ‘But why don’t you tell your pals that while you were up me, you were giving me a wank!’

  ‘You fucking wee bastard!’ Boulder Head leaped to his feet, ready to do murder. But Mandy was too far away and too quick for him, bolting for the safety of the downstairs workshop to the sound of our raucous laughter.

  There was another occasion when an ‘accident’ occurred that led to the unexpected disclosure of a face as a closet homosexual. A young guy arrived in the hall, a round, glowing-faced, bespectacled little fellow with a very definite effeminate air about him. Now this little guy, I don’t recall his name, was small even to me and I’m barely five foot eight, so to the towering six-foot-three Big Wullie D he must have seemed a veritable midget.

  Apparently, Big Wullie had managed to sneak the little guy into his cell where, in the unlit shadows, he proceeded to have his hitherto-unsuspected wicked way. It so happened that a young, inexperienced screw was supervising that evening and was patrolling the landing when he heard strange grunts and heavy breathing emanating from Big Wullie’s cell. An older, more experienced screw would have minded his own business and just walked on by, but not this guy. He just had to stick his nose in and upon opening the door he discovered two naked men locked in what could only be described as a homosexual embrace. Or, as the screw later informally described it, Big Wullie was buried to the balls in the wee guy’s behind.

  It must be reported here that Big Wullie’s presence of mind upon being caught in this compromising situation was admirable. ‘Help! Help!’ His voice rang round the landing. For a moment, some of us thought there had been an incident, perhaps an ambush – a common occurrence in PH. But when the little guy appeared from the darkness of Wullie’s cell, shirt over his arm and still pulling up his strides, all became clear.

  Help, help? No
chance! No one was having any of that.

  The situation was viewed so seriously by his associates that I was called in to arbitrate on the matter so they could decide whether or not Big Wullie should be expelled from the gang. I like to think that I was quite open-minded in my appreciation of the situation. What I said was: ‘What harm has Big Wullie actually done? He’s still the same guy and it’s really nobody’s business what he gets up to behind closed doors. If Wullie enjoys a bit of bum, so what? It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t stand by you.’

  ‘Aye, and you can fuck off too!’ I was collectively informed after delivering my considered opinion.

  There was one regular in Peterhead, however, who made no bones about his sexual behaviour. Nellie Drummond was, strangely enough for a person of his inclinations, well liked and on good terms with most of the known villains and jailbirds of Scotland. In fact, many of them knew him outside and had even worked with him on occasion. However, although during his spells in the free world Nellie kept his homosexuality well in the closet, once in jail he became quite brazen.

  Nellie also got on well with the screws whenever he was in Peterhead and on admission to B Hall, his usual residence, he would be put in charge of the stores, the cleaning and the hot plate, all of which he organised with the efficiency of a first-class maitre d’. As well as this, he would immediately take over the jail bookmaking business, to which he applied the same dedication and efficiency as his daily work, even accepting cash bets from several of the screws.