I have a terrible, terrible confession to make.
I suppose it’s a reflection of my own darker side and perhaps a love of a certain kind of British movie.
But I have to own up to feeling just a tad disappointed when news broke that the first arrests had been made in the Hatton Garden heist case last year.
Please don’t get me wrong the owners of the contents of safety deposit boxes must have been beside themselves when they were told their precious possessions had been raided over the Easter weekend, and will have been glad to see the criminals involved brought to justice.
But from a writer’s point of view, news of the arrests broke the weeks of delicious mystery of a daring gang who bored through the concrete wall, bypassing the London vault’s reinforced metal doors.
The audacious gang rifled through 72 so-called ‘secure boxes’, leaving behind tools, including drills, crowbars and angle-grinders used to force the boxes open. Officers were trying to find out why only 72 of 999 boxes were opened.
More: Locked Up: The rapist, pervert and other criminals who were sent to prison in the last week
DNA and fingerprints
Forensic experts apparently scoured the crime scene, which was left strewn with dust, rubble and equipment used by robbers. Material they might be able to recover, such as DNA and fingerprints, was considered crucial.
Police believed those responsible had substantial knowhow and sophisticated skills, as they would be needed to bypass the tight security. The gang would have had to know how to gain intelligence about the premises, when it might be vacant, how to access the equipment to drill through the concrete wall encasing the vault, how to break into the boxes, and how to transport away valuables.
The story is reminiscent of the 1971 Baker Street robbery of Lloyds Bank on the corner of Marylebone Road in London -already the subject of film.
That was one of the original high-tech heists, when a team of robbers rented a leather goods shop two doors down from the bank, and tunnelling during the quiet weekend periods, dug a 15-metre tunnel under the bank, blowing the wall of the vault down with explosives.
Film script in the making
It reminded me of one of my favourite films The Great Escape. Though clearly far less noble a motivation than breaking out from a Prisoner of War camp, this kind of high-precision planning still has to garner some kind of admiration.
There’s nothing as exciting than knowing someone has executed a exceptionally complex and apparently impossible operation.
That is until they might be caught.
In the meantime the gang under suspicion, helped spin the story into an even more unlikely tale. The age of the suspects - most over 50 and three old enough to claim a pension - must be a mouth-watering prospect for film.
Sir Michael Caine has already said he’d like a part in any film about it.
It’s pretty arresting stuff, this bank job lark.
