by Dick Kirby
In addition, Martin could not in any way be regarded as ‘a hard case’; because of his physical frailty, prison opinion was that ‘he couldn’t have a fight to save his life’. But the views of the mainly hard-line would-be escapers began to change radically after Martin began to display his expertise when it came to locks. He fashioned lock picks out of any available commodity, metal or plastic. Magpie-like, he would collect nails and paperclips to utilise them for future use. He said he needed to see a key only once to be able to make a facsimile, and this was no idle boast – it was a gift granted to many ‘keymen’, including ‘Johnny the Boche’ aka Leonard Wilde, later sentenced to twenty-three years’ imprisonment for his part in the 1975 Bank of America robbery.
All the time prior to, during and after his incarceration, Martin was learning: studying alarm systems and the workings of locks. He dissected locks to discover their workings and in a pin tumbler deadbolt lock, he saw how the five to eight key pins stopped in the middle of the radius of the cylinder above the key wald. Martin learnt the use of hook picks, diamond and snake picks, as well as a torque wrench to open those locks.
Wafer tumbler locks, of the type used in jewellery display cases, purported to have six pins. Martin discovered they had none. In more complicated and expensive locks, Martin discovered which way to turn the tumbler and some locks contained two sets of pins, with the second set being known as the master pins. They required two different keys to open them; they soon did not represent a problem for Martin.
He studied electronic circuit boards for security devices. He saw that single zone circuits contained independent exit and entry delays, but also that instant zones, tamper zones and personal attack zones could be added. There were circuits with timed bell cut-offs and resets and he discovered how pressure mats and inertia sensors were used. He learnt about the workings of alarm control keypads and also that some premises had alarms fitted to their fire doors. These doors could be opened to allow access but they had to be shut afterwards; if they remained open longer than thirty seconds, the alarm would sound. Martin discovered how to neutralise these and other door alarms.
He arrived at Parkhurst high-security prison on the Isle of White in 1974 with good credentials, having just been moved from Albany prison – similarly high-security – from the other side of the island following an escape attempt. Yellow stripes down the sides of his trousers announced that he was an ‘E’ Man – a potential escaper. It wasn’t too long before the ‘potential’ was removed from his description. Martin offered to make a key which would open all the gates in the jail for a group of latent escapers and in addition a key to fit a double lock; and he was successful. Over a period of months, one by one, the other would-be escapers dropped out of the plan, leaving Martin and one other prisoner. They had also acquired items of warders’ clothing, bit by bit, which were skilfully altered to fit them. On the morning of the escape, Martin and his companion, dressed in their prison officers’ uniforms, unlocked, walked through, then locked one door after another. The prison security camera followed their movements but all that could be seen, to all intents and purposes, were two warders going about their duties. First, one gate with a double lock was opened and relocked, and now they were in the compound. They walked through to the second and massive double gates which were unlocked and then secured and now in front of them was the perimeter fence. Martin produced a pair of bolt cutters which had been smuggled into the prison and started cutting his way through the fence to freedom. Almost, but not quite. Sod’s Law intervened when a prison dog handler from nearby Camp Hill prison was walking past. The dog took exception to Martin trying to emerge from the hole in the wire, his handler sent out a call for assistance on his radio and once more, Martin was thrown into solitary.
His key had not been discovered, however. It was slipped inside a thin, cylindrical tube which also contained a hacksaw blade; the tube, in turn was slipped up his rectum. That night, Martin extracted the tube, partially sawed through the hinges of his cell door and the following morning, eased the door open, released his companion and opened the punishment block gate. They were spotted by a warder and taken back to solitary confinement. During the time he actually spent in his own cell – and that was little enough – he was still up to mischief, drawing plans of the prison on pieces of paper and leaving them on his bunk, knowing that in his absence, they would be found by the staff. To Martin, winding up the staff was a pleasant way of passing the time, as was referring to the IRA prisoners as ‘thick paddies’. Since the IRA was maintaining a mainland offensive with an appalling loss of life, Martin knew that he could well rely on the rest of the mainly staunchly monarchic inmates to protect him against retribution from those intrepid freedom fighters, but he also enjoyed antagonising other prisoners with stupid, spiteful comments. Perhaps he felt that his expertise in neutralising locks and escape attempts would elevate his status and act as a barrier from receiving a pasting, but on several occasions matters came very close to his convex nose becoming concave.
One evening, when one of the warders was carrying out his rounds, he noticed that there was an echo on his personal radio and realised that this was only apparent when he passed the door of Martin’s cell. This was reported immediately. Martin was roused from his slumbers and his cell was searched. It was discovered that he had rigged up an aerial to his transistor radio which he had managed to re-tune to the frequency used by the warders. Was this a plan for the future or was it part of his own amusement, to casually pass on snippets of the conversations he had overheard between the warders, leaving them to scratch their heads in bewilderment as to the source of his accurate information? Possibly a bit of both, but whatever the reason, the aerial was dismantled and the radio probably accidentally dropped and just as unintentionally trodden upon.
Within months, he was transferred to Long Lartin prison in South Littleton, Worcester which had opened in 1971 and a year later added security meant that this prison held the most sophisticated security systems in the country. Cells doors were opened electronically from the central control room; Martin managed to short-circuit a control panel and open his and his companion’s cell door without it registering in the control room. Over a period of weeks, Martin carefully sawed through the bars of his companion’s cell before they crawled through the aperture. Even so, although they had escaped from the wing, with all of the other security measures in place, they never really stood a chance of escaping from the prison and once more, Martin was returned to solitary. To date, no one has ever escaped from the prison. Martin was fully aware that escape was impossible; it was his way of showing contempt for the penal system.
Next, shifted to Gartree prison in Market Harborough, Martin and a fellow prisoner escaped from their cells and broke into the workshop. There, they unsuccessfully tried to weld together a ladder in order to scale the perimeter fences. Making adroit devices to open the most sophisticated of locks or bypassing the most ingenious electronic security systems in the country posed no problems for Martin; constructing a simple ladder did. They were found next morning drinking tea when the workshop employees arrived for work. A rather more grandiose scheme was enacted five years later when a hijacked Bell 206L helicopter sprung two prisoners from the exercise yard, neither of whom were Martin or his fellow prisoner.
This is because by then Martin had been released. He had lost so much of his remission that of his nine-year sentence, he served eight years and three months, much of it in solitary confinement.
Out of Control
Martin was released from prison on 16 September 1981 into a Britain which was now experiencing unemployment of 3 million, the highest since the 1930s. Almost a decade had passed him by. The disappearance of Lord Lucan in 1974 would have been of little interest to him, as would the kidnap and murder of an heiress named Lesley Whittle a year later, although her abductor and murderer, Donald Neilson, would later figure decisively in Martin’s life.
Prior to his release in 1981, Martin might well
have expressed sympathy with the Brixton rioters for attacking the hated police; the same year, he definitely would have felt empathy for Marcus Serjeant who during the Trooping of the Colour discharged six shots from a starting pistol at Her Majesty the Queen. Prior to starting a five-year sentence, Serjeant told his accusers, ‘I wanted to be famous.’
As Lord Byron had said following the success of his poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, ‘I awoke one morning and found myself famous’ and that would equally apply to Martin. So too could the comments of Byron’s paramour Lady Caroline Lamb, who noted in her journal that her lover was ‘mad, bad and dangerous to know’. However, Martin’s fame – or notoriety – would have to be put on hold until he had carried out a rampage of months of criminality. Then his name and photograph would be plastered over the front page of every newspaper in the country and his fame would be assured.
And yet when one examines the facts, there was no need for it. Martin’s expertise in the world of locks and security devices was second to none. He could have gone to the great locksmiths – Yale, Chubb, Lowe and Fletcher – and advised them of his ability and given his glib tongue they would certainly have employed him on an advisory basis to demonstrate to them the weakness in their appliances and how to manufacture their locks so that they might become impervious to lawbreakers. Armed with that degree of skilfulness, he could have named his own price. And the same applied to the security companies of the day: Securicor, Group 4, Brink’s-Mat. His ingenuity could have rendered their defences impenetrable.
Because of his genius in the world of security, Martin would have been highly prized and respected, he would have basked in the adulation of his employers and he would have revelled in displaying how clumsy and ineffective their previous efforts had been and how clever he had been in pointing out and strengthening their deficiencies. In addition, for a poorly educated young man of 35 with eight previous convictions and who had just completed a nine-year prison sentence, he would have quickly and legitimately become very well off. But this was no ordinary talented person being discussed; this was David Martin. At a time when ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) were still in their infancy, Martin boasted that he could breach their security; and he probably could.
He was angry with society at large and in particular with those members of the penal system who he felt had treated him so shamefully over the past nine years and had led to a great deal of time in solitary confinement and being shifted from one high-security prison to another. Of course, his misfortunes were entirely the consequences of his own actions but Martin was unable to accept this. He had always loathed the police whom he regarded as the enemy. Now his hatred for them intensified; within a few short months of his newly found freedom, Martin would display his detestation for them in stunning style.
But now that he was free, Martin determined three matters: first, he would obtain a great deal of illicit money; second, he would never go back to prison; and third, he would never place himself in a situation which he could not control. First then was the acquisition of money. Ideally, this had to be in cash; it would cut out involving a receiver to fence the stolen goods and incidentally minimise the possibility of betrayal. Therefore the most lucrative and speedy way was by means of armed robbery, but this presented a problem. Robbery would be a first for Martin.
He had listened attentively to the armed robbers that he’d met in prison, those who were masters of their art: quick, ruthless and professional. But none of them would have volunteered to have ‘gone across the pavement’ with Martin; his idea of carrying out a successful robbery would have been going into a bank and shooting dead an elderly woman customer. In that way, ‘everybody else would do exactly as they’re told’ while he helped himself to the money, which is how he described his intentions to a group of incarcerated and incredulous time-serving blaggers, many of whom had elderly mothers. Putting a shot in the ceiling to focus the bank staff and customers’ attention was one thing, they felt, but blowing a grandmother in half with a sawn-off shotgun was quite another. They were even less interested when he suggested carrying out the robbery in drag. He might – or might not – have intended screeching, ‘Look at me!’ at the top of his lungs to shocked passers-by but that would have been the inevitable conclusion. And in addition, armed robbers were inevitably physically strong and as hard as nails, something Martin was not.
No. ‘Dave the Pouf’ might to some have been an amiable companion in prison and he was well respected for his skills as an escape artist, but going ‘on the plot’ with him was regarded as being unthinkable. Martin was a loose cannon and a lone one. So for the time being he concentrated on what he was good at: burglary at commercial premises by neutralising alarms, plus house burglaries, stealing cash and jewellery. He stole chequebooks and credit cards belonging to both men and women; most burglars would have sold these on to fraudsmen to use and dispose of, but not Martin. He carried out the fraudulent transactions himself and, according to the gender of the owners of these items, dressed accordingly.
In January 1982, he broke into Colour Film Services, a film processing laboratory at 22–25 Portman Close, Baker Street, W1, possibly through the roof. If he did, it is possible that he discovered a spare set of keys and made impressions of them. Albert Seaman, a driver, had been collecting films from the company late at night when he noticed a light on upstairs in the premises. He went up to switch off the light when he saw someone whom he initially thought to be a woman, since that person had long, fair hair, was wearing a woman’s coat, tapered trousers, Cuban-heeled women’s shoes and was carrying a handbag. As he got closer, he then realised that it was a man he had confronted, and gasped, ‘Who the bloody hell are you?’ to be told, ‘It’s all right, mate, I’m security’ and Martin walked off, checking the door handles as he went. Seaman was a fortunate man; the next person to challenge Martin at those premises would not be so lucky.
Between 26 and 29 March, he burgled the offices of Eurotell Security Specialists in Davies Street, Mayfair, W1 and stole an enormous amount of property: an antique sword, two recorders, a television set, a voice stress analyser, twelve belt recording systems, two transmitters, a burglar alarm, three answering machines, fourteen belt microphones, a riot helmet, two sets of handcuffs and a quantity of surveillance and security equipment and body armour valued at £20,000. It is not known if Martin ever donned the body armour with the intention of it deflecting a bullet but whether he did nor not, it was fortunate that it was never put to the test, since it was used for demonstration purposes only and would not have afforded him any protection. The following week, he broke into John Weiss & Son Ltd, 17 Wigmore Street, W1 and stole surgical equipment. In both of these burglaries the loot was extremely bulky, so he must have used a vehicle and quite possibly, some assistance. If that was the case, however, the identity of his accomplice(s) was never discovered.
To further his aims to become a blagger, Martin now needed to acquire firearms and this matter was resolved during the weekend of 10–12 July 1982. The highly respected gunsmiths Thomas Bland & Sons at 22 New Row, Covent Garden, had the most sophisticated alarm systems – even the light switches were alarmed – but in his most daring coup to date the shop’s security features did not present a problem to Martin.
Over that weekend, during the hours of darkness, the alarm sounded at the gunsmiths and the police from Bow Street were duly dispatched. They checked the outside of the premises and when they found nothing amiss, they called the keyholder. When he arrived, he unlocked the shop and he and the police searched the premises. Everything was as it should be, so the keyholder re-set the alarm, locked the premises and he left, together with the police who marked up the message ‘faulty alarm’. A little while later, the alarm sounded again. Once more the police attended, could find nothing wrong with the exterior of the property, so they again called the keyholder. Once more the premises were unlocked, entered and checked to find nothing untoward. It was decided that the alarm must be faulty so this time it was
not reset and it was decided to leave it turned off until the morning, when the alarm company would be contacted to come and fix whatever problem existed. The keyholder apologised for inconveniencing the officers again and they went their separate ways, with the police returning to Bow Street to once again mark up the message ‘faulty alarm’.
This was the moment that Martin had been waiting for.
Several days prior to this incident, a man had been seen at the side entrance to the premises, apparently repairing a lock. It was thought that the man must be a locksmith and so he was: his name was David Martin. This door not only gave access to the gunsmiths, it also afforded entry to a multi-occupancy business premises. The mortise lock which Martin had removed was a very secure five-lever Chubb lock. Martin removed four of the levers, leaving just one in the middle which would activate the lock, and replaced it. Therefore, the key belonging to the owners of Bland’s would certainly lock and unlock the door; and so would any old Chubb key which Martin had in his possession.
And therefore, on the night of the burglary, Martin simply walked up to the door and unlocked it. This activated the alarm; Martin relocked the door and melted away into the shadows. After the police and the keyholder had attended the premises on two occasions, with Martin again triggering the alarm on the second occasion, they had done Martin’s job for him; the alarm was now disabled. The way was clear for Martin once more to use his key to unlock the unalarmed door and help himself to twenty-four handguns, 975 rounds of ammunition, four gun slings, two gun belts, thirty-three holsters and a pair of Powder scales, valued at £4,105. There was, of course, no sign of forced entry, either to the premises or the vaults where the firearms and ammunition were stored. In an almost uncanny way, it was as though nobody had entered the premises – it was just that a very large amount of highly dangerous weaponry had disappeared, which, in the words of Prospero from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, had ‘melted into air, into thin air’.
