The Bedford Heist

by Frederick Linden-Wyatt

  So, you lost your wife and your house but what brought you to my door? Henry said that he was very angry and wanted to make the bookmakers pay but he didn’t have the courage to rob a betting shop but he still needed to find a way to make them pay and bring the problem home to the government once and for all. He said that he had always been a keen flyer of microlight aircraft and he had a Quicksilver "e" type 28240 Champrond en Gatine stored at his brother’s smallholding in Surrey. The fish and chip lunch was no longer an option as his father was shocked at what had happened and he wanted no more to do with horse racing. Since his troubles, his brother and sister-in-law had been trying to get me down to visit them and my two adorable nieces that I took them up on their offer. I said that I wanted to test out my microlight on the Saturday afternoon and we set a date for my visit which would be the first weekend in June. I drove down on the Friday and stayed at my brother’s place and on Saturday morning checked out the aircraft.

  On the Saturday afternoon my sister-in-law had to take her daughters to a birthday party so I said that I would play around with my aircraft and would meet up in the evening. Before flying you are supposed to log a flight plan with the CAA but I didn’t want to take a chance and I wanted to surprise everybody in the afternoon with a plan that I had been hatching since my wife left me. The first Saturday in June is always Derby day and millions would be bet on the race from around the world. The Queen always attends the meeting, so I had to keep clear of the grandstand or I could be a terrorist attempt on her Majesty’s life and would be shot down by her security men.

  My plan involved in stopping the race after the first three furlongs of the one-and-a-half-mile race. The race started out at the far side of the Epsom racecourse and included a four-furlong steady climb by the horses before taking a left-hand turn to start their downhill journey to the winning post. I had my earpiece tuned in to radio five live who were covering the race and as the horses were making their way to the start, I started my flight south of the course raising to a thousand feet. I was making progress and flying next to the racecourse ready to pounce. Through me earpiece I heard the race commentator saying, “and their off” and I could even hear the Epsom crowd cheer when the race started. I turned my microlight so that the horses would be approaching me and started my decent. As the horses reached the top of the climb, I swooped down scaring the shit out of the horses and the jockeys. The first two horses reared up and all the other horses went in to the back of them causing a pile up that reminded me of the time I had seen cattle being dumped on the fire after the breakout of foot and mouth in 2001.

  The race was stopped and six of the thoroughbreds worth millions of pounds were put down. I then returned to my brother’s house and explained what I had done and the reasoning behind it and we watched the shocking carnage on the BBC news. I could clearly see my microlights number B-625 so I knew that I would be getting a call from the men in blue once I returned to my lodgings. When I got there the police were waiting along with a host of media vans all signalling my return home and the media would show my arrest to the rest of the world. I was sorry that horses were destroyed as this was never my intention, but all actions have consequences and mine was a long prison sentence at her Majesty pleasure hopefully at the Bedford jail.

  In a further session Henry went on to state that he had recently seen an article about ‘Skin Betting’. I asked him why someone would bet their skin and he laughed at me. He said that he thought the same when he first heard of it but he soon realized the massive problem facing children and teenagers around the world. A report recently showed that around 370,000 11-16-year-olds spent their own money on gambling in the past week. I asked Pete to explain in simple terms what skin betting was all about as I had never heard of it before. He said that “Skins are collectable, virtual items in video games that change the appearance of a weapons - for example, turning a pistol into a golden gun. Sometimes skins can be earned within a game, but they can also be bought with real money. Some games also let players trade and sell skins, with rarer examples attracting high prices. Several websites let players gamble with their skins for the chance to win more valuable ones. Since skins won on such a website could theoretically be sold and turned back into real-world money, critics say betting with skins is unlicensed gambling.

  On the BBC it showed that Bangor University student Ryan Archer's love of gaming spiralled into gambling when he was 15 and he became involved in skin betting. Four years later he has lost more than £2,000. He told the BBC that when he got my student loan, some students spend it on expensive clothes, but he spent it on gambling virtual items. There have been points where I could struggle to buy food because gambling took priority. Ryan wanted to build an inventory of skins, but when he could not afford the price tag attached to some of them, he began gambling on unlicensed websites to try to raise money”. He said: "It's hard to ask your parents for £1,000 to buy a knife on CSGO (the multiplayer first-person shooter game Counter Strike: Global Offensive), it's a lot easier to ask for a tenner and then try and turn that into £1,000." In CSGO, players can exchange real money for the chance to obtain a modified weapon known as a skin and several gambling websites have been built around the game. "You wouldn't see an 11-year-old go into a betting shop, but you can with this, there's nothing to stop you," Ryan said. He went on to quote that he had read that “It is estimated that half of the UK online population - more than 30 million people - play video games.

  The Gambling Commission said it had identified third party websites that enabled players to gamble their skins on casino or slot machine type games and then these could later be sold and turned into real-world money.” Henry was another victim of the gambling epidemic facing Britain and the world today and as he would be inside for many years to come, he wouldn’t be getting an invite to my heist in Bedford but I did want to share Henry’s story with you as I’m deeply concerned about the number of lives being ruined every week by the government not having the balls to tackle the problem.

  Afterword’s Chapter 33 - Autism

  This was Glen Toogood’s third time in prison but the first time he came under my wing and he had been caught again for dealing in drugs. During the sessions I tried to get a breakdown on the inmates’ childhood and Glen said that one of the worse childhood experiences was to do with his brother Tom who suffered from Autism. I told him that I also had an autistic brother and could understand how hard his childhood had been. Glen went on to say that his brother was born with a bent spine and had surgery in his first year of life to try and correct the problem but with little success. Apart from this he seemed like a normal infant but that ended when he was around 20 months of age when we were told that he suffered from autism.

  My mother’s only knowledge on autism was that she remembered seeing the film Rain Man where Dustin Hoffman played the lead role as an autistic savant. My brother Tom was always in and out of hospital for either treatment or more test, but the autistic label came as a shock. Up until then he made the usual progress apart from his spinal problem. He had started to say a few words such as momma, papa, and Len (he never could pronounce the G part) and always loved cuddles. This changed once the autism stepped in, he could no longer say a few words, hated being cuddled, stopped eating and disappeared into a world of his own. My mother tried to find more help and speak to other mothers with an autistic child but at that time there was little going on and no support groups in our area.

  My mother was told by a friend that she had heard of a man in Northamptonshire - which was the next county to ours, who had been pushing for better provisions for autistic children in his county. She went along with her friend to several of their group evenings to see if she could learn anything that would help. Up until my brothers’ birth, she was a reporter for our local paper, and she had been taught shorthand skills whilst at college. This skill was a blessing as my mother could keep notes and then type them up later. She then kept them in a lever file which was handy as it meant that I could
refer to them when needed. My mum came back extremely late at night, but she was so happy, I thought that she was drunk. She sat us all down and reading from her notes explained what she could remember about the meeting.

  She told us that there was around a dozen parents at the meeting all of whom had an autistic child and some people from various care providers. The Chairman was the main speaker had given a brief history of what the counties autistic group had managed to achieve in the past eight years. He said that when his daughter had been born in 1985, she was born two months early due to his wife’s illness and it had been touch-and-go whether she would survive. When his daughter was about 9 months old the Northampton General hospital came up with a list of her medical problems. She had cerebral palsy, brain damage and her sight and hearing were extremely poor, and her paediatrician said that she probably wouldn’t see her second birthday (She’s now 34). He went on to state that both he and his wife were in shock and I asked the paediatrician “where do we go from here”. The paediatrician said that it would be best to just leave her there and walk away. He and his wife were so shocked by the comment that he nearly hit him. Well he didn’t hit him but told him that they never would, even though it would be tough.

  If that wasn’t enough, he went on to state that when his daughter was around 18 months of age things really got bad. Up until then his daughter would say a few baby words and crawl about the room and would love cuddles but overnight everything changed. Like most caring parents he and his wife wanted answers and he had read somewhere a story of a child in America who had similar problems to his daughter. The word autism was mentioned and so he started to do some digging around to see if his daughter could be a sufferer. They had contacted the hospital, but they knew very little about autism in those days, very few did, and the consultant said that they didn’t think she was a sufferer.

  Glen went on to say that according to his mother’s notes the man had by chance heard of a specialist, Doctor John Richer who was based in the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford and was one of the country’s leading specialist on autism. However, he only took on private patients and the fee would be £400.00 (£1,219.98 in today’s money). The man went on to say that although money was tight – as his wife was now a full-time career, they went along for the assessment. After several screaming hours, the specialist reported back that his daughter was the most severe case of autism he had seen in the UK. It was then that he decided to see what if anything was available in Northamptonshire. There was extraordinarily little, but he did find a support group which had been set up by a lady who had a son who suffered from a form of autism known as Asperger syndrome. After a few monthly meetings, the lady wanted to step down as chairperson and he was elected to the position to continue the fight for better provision in the county.

  Glen stated that his mother went to further meetings and managed to learn a lot more about autism and what if any help there was. After the brief formal part of the meeting they had tea and biscuits and she asked the chairman more about his time as chairman of the county autistic group and how things had improved during his time at the helm. He was always honest and stated that after only a few months in the unpaid role as chairman he received a call from a friend of a member who had a severely autistic son aged 14. Sadly, the boys’ father had taken his son for a drive, so that his wife could have a break but had not returned. She was worried when her husband and son hadn’t returned by lunch time and called the police and the local hospitals. A few hours later she received a visit from two police officers who had said that they had been found but were both dead. He went on. I was called in by a friend of the family a few days later as the mother was worried that her husband would be classed as being insane when he took his own life and that of their son and asked me if I could state that he was far from insane at the forthcoming coroner’s inquest.

  He said that he would but before doing so he needed to know much more, so he could make a case when he attended the Coroners court. The wife was upset but pleased to hear that someone was willing to help, and she told him the sad facts that led up to their deaths. She said her son had been severely autistic from 18 months and although things were hard for them, they managed to cope until he reached the age of ten. Her son then became more agitated and started continually banging his head. They were told to put a padded helmet on his head so that he wouldn’t do so much damage. This really didn’t help as he continued to bang his head but now banged it even harder. This resulted in effecting his eyesight and by the age of 14 they were told that he was going blind and there was nothing they could do. He enquired whether they received any respite care but although they lived on the same street as an old hospital Rushden, Northants which had a ward used for respite, they were told that their son was too difficult to handle and they never received any help whatsoever. He asked about her husband and was told that he was a professor at a local college and tried his best to help where he could.

  The mother said that he wasn’t insane, far from it, as what he did was for her and her daughter, so that they could have a “normal” life. He had left letters of apologies for the person who found them and the police and other rescue services who had to attend the sad scene. He knew what he was doing and planned it right down to the last detail. He left letters for his daughter and wife which clearly explained the reason he decided to take two lives. At the inquest he said that he had given the facts as they were and explained to the Coroner just what autism was and the effect it had on family members. The Coroner returned a verdict of suicide and unlawful killing and ruled out insanity. From this sad event he manged to bully the Oxfordshire Health Authority (which was also responsible for Northamptonshire) to pull down the Victorian hospital which housed the Carlton respite ward and replaced it with two modern respite care hospitals in Rushden. One was for children and the other unit was for older sufferers.

  Glen went on to state that his mother and a friend continued to go to the monthly meetings and kept asking questions and learning about autism. Again, the chairman tried to answer my mother’s questions as best he could. My mother asked what he thought caused autism and was it anything to do with the triple vaccination (MMR) given. In answer to her question on what he thought caused autism he gave this answer. To the best of his knowledge he said that an infant’s brain develops in stages during the first 18 months of life. With each of these stages the brain develops the key to walking, talking and other common stages. However, when the final stage tries to activate itself there is a wiring fault within the brain that doesn’t work properly. He said that the easy way to try and explain the brain was to compare it to a computer. When you have typed something into your computer, you press the save button and the computer stores that text in a new section of the computers brain (Hard drive). When you want to open the saved work later, it goes back and opens the file so you can read or edit it. The workings of the “normal” human brain isn’t that different. We hear or read something, and the brain sends an electrical signal to a part of the brain to store that information. If we want to retrieve that information the brain again sends an electrical signal to the brain to search and open the stored content, so you can reach it again and use it. However, this stage of opening and closing boxes within the brain doesn’t for some unknown reason kick in and when it doesn’t, the start of autism is the result. Hopefully, one day scientist will be able to find the fault and offer a cure.

  He went on that many mothers thought that it was the triple MMR vaccination that was causing the problem, but he didn’t think that this was true as his daughter didn’t have the triple vaccination due to her weak lungs. Many groups said that the increase in autism was down to the MMR as since its introduction those suffering from autism had increased tenfold. He said that this in his opinion wasn’t the case as the figures could not be trusted for two reasons. Firstly, up until a few years after he had taken over as chairman, doctors were not diagnosing the condition but once the template of what had happened in Northampton
shire had been rolled out across the country, more and more paediatricians were aware of the condition and were now diagnosing the problem. The second reason was that the old data couldn’t be trusted as prior to the mid 1980’s autism wasn’t being diagnosed and sufferers were treated as being brain damaged with many severely autistic sufferers ending up in mental institutions or even prison. He said proudly that the increase in numbers of autistic children was down to the great work that he and his team had done in Northamptonshire and nothing to do with the MMR vaccine.

  He said that his only two concerns about the MMR vaccine would be the actual time it was given which was usually around 18 months. If it could be given a few months later then it may not have the same effect as the child would have passed the final infantile brain development stage. He also said that he was unhappy with the vaccine as it wasn’t a live vaccine and the preservative used in the vaccine was mercury. Mercury is a poison and large amounts can kill and that’s why he always said to worried parents that if they can afford the cost to have the “live” vaccine given privately in three separate doses. Thankfully, pressure put on the government by organisations such as his forced the government to stop using Thimerosal, mercury in 2002.