by Paul Millen
Two weeks later, Hertfordshire Police were called to the premises of Cross and Herbert in Hoddeston. Members of staff had been tied up and held hostage by two men, again when a security van was due to arrive. The van’s crew sensed something was wrong as the area was unusually quiet and aborted the drop. So once again the gang left empty-handed.
Three weeks later, the Flying Squad investigated an attempted armed robbery at a business premises in Brimsdown, Enfield. Three men took the staff hostage whilst they expected a security van to arrive. It didn’t, so they left.
Two months later, the premises of Imperial Cold Storage in Tottenham took the gang’s attention. Two men armed with a handgun and a shotgun took members of staff hostage. A security van arrived and one guard made a drop but he was quickly attacked and an explosive device was strapped to him with threats that if he didn’t comply it would be detonated. He was made to go back to the van. His colleagues were overpowered.
By this time other workers were arriving for work and a shot was fired. A manager too arrived and he was overpowered and another shot was fired. The gang escaped in the manager’s car with a large quantity of cash.
The Flying Squad linked these scenes together because descriptions and other factors matched and, quite simply, largescale robberies are not that common. The gang had left a number of items behind, but not a single finger mark. Most interesting to Detective Constable Kevin Shapland, who was investigating the crimes, was the explosive device which they had left strapped to the terrified guard at Imperial Cold Storage.
Kevin arranged for the offence to be publicised on the BBC Crimewatch programme. This was a now monthly opportunity for police to appeal to a large TV audience for any information members of the public might have regarding serious crime investigations. It was popular prime TV viewing and it had resulted in many successes. Apart from members of the public calling in, police and prison officers from around the country would watch in and have information which the police network had failed to communicate. This is not a criticism but a reality with the sheer volume of information which circulates in the police service. The programme has also resulted in the prompt arrest of suspects whose descriptions or photographs have been so accurate that the suspects themselves walked into a police station to give themselves up.
The device was shown on the programme but the response was lukewarm at best, but then something happened which can only be described as luck. Luck is something which sometime happens and Kevin could be said to be luckier than most detectives. The saying ‘you make you own luck’ has elements of truth. Kevin’s sheer productivity led to things which meant nothing on their own suddenly falling into place.
A young boy living in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire had been watching TV one night and slotted in a video to watch a film he had recorded some weeks before. The video had recorded part of the Crimewatch programme which was broadcast before the film. The boy saw Kevin’s appeal and, more importantly, recognised the device. The boy was, like many teenage boys, a bit of a geek, a bit of a hoarder. A few weeks before, the boy had been looking through a plastic bag left out by a neighbour for that morning’s refuse collection in the road where he lived. In it he found a circuit board which looked remarkably like the one which Kevin had shown. The boy also found a mask and a wig. The boy kept the pieces and was particularly inquisitive about the device, but having studied it and played with the mask he later threw all the pieces away.
The boy called the local police, who contacted Kevin. Although the boy had thrown away the device he had found he was able to draw it. Kevin was convinced that this was a firm lead and no coincidence. So he made enquiries about the occupant of Emerald, the house outside which the boy had found the items. The house had recently changed hands. The previous owner ran an electrical business, but enquiries led nowhere, and it was pretty clear that he had nothing whatsoever to do with the robberies. Kevin’s attention moved to the new occupants. David and Rita Croke moved to Emerald from rented accommodation in Enfield where they had lived for many years. David apparently had no regular job and Kevin ascertained that he had a couple of very minor criminal conviction many years before. The house was in Rita’s name, but had been bought outright for cash.
Kevin was working on other investigations and other lines of enquiry. But he made more discreet enquiries about the Emerald lead and would pass by the house at regular intervals and note the registration numbers of cars parked on the drive or nearby.
It was then that another offence took place. In December 1985 Joe Symes, who worked as a guard at the Armaguard security depot in Harlow, Essex, returned home late one evening. Opening the door he found his wife and daughter being held hostage in their own home by two armed and masked men. It was apparent the men knew a lot about Joe and his family and where he worked. They strapped a device to him and told him that they would detonate it if he didn’t do exactly as they said.
Joe and his family were kept hostage overnight. His wife and child were allowed to go to sleep but Joe was quizzed. Joe was a custodian, so he held one of the sets of keys to the premises, but two sets were needed to gain full access to the company vault. Another custodian needed to be overpowered. Very early the following morning Joe was made to drive back to his place of work. As other workers, including a second custodian, arrived for work they were attacked. This gave the gang full access to the vault and allowed them to strip it of a large quantity of cash. The employees were locked in a room and it was a few hours before the alarm was raised. Joe’s wife and child were found unharmed, but tied up at the family home. They were terrified and had suffered a long ordeal. The robbery was the largest in Essex Police’s history and news quickly filtered through to the Flying Squad office. Essex set up a major incident room headed by a detective superintendent.
The device was disrupted by the Army Ordnance Corps. But when later reconstructed it was found to be a dummy. It was found to contain nothing more than wires and lights, which nevertheless had a terrifying effect on the victims.
Kevin made immediate contact with the Essex investigation team. He was seconded to the investigation there for a short while. There was a concern that the Crimewatch programme may have led to a copycat team trying their luck. It was a serious concern which needed to be borne in mind.
Further observations were made of the coming and goings at Emerald. One day there was particular activity at the premises. Surveillance photographs showed the presence of a car that was registered to the wife of a man also very well known amongst detective for his past criminal activity. There was also a photograph of a tall slim man. When the photograph was passed around the Flying Squad office, Phil Burrows, a detective sergeant, immediately recognised him. The man was Don Barrett. He was a former supergrass and a division one armed robber. The investigation was given an official operation title and Operation Standard was born.
Donald Walter Barrett was a career criminal, with a string of convictions for violence and armed robbery going back over thirty years. Now approaching fifty, he was a tall handsome man, but masked and holding a shotgun he would frighten the hell out of any law-abiding member of the public who would have the misfortune to meet him.
Barrett had been a supergrass in the 1970s. He had been caught ‘bang to rights’ at an armed robbery by the Flying Squad. He had turned supergrass against his criminal colleagues, which resulted in a string of lengthy convictions for them. His reward was a lighter, but still considerable, sentence. In his early days he had been at the wrong end of a supergrass’s evidence. Bertie Smalls, the very first supergrass, had informed on him.
Once out of prison Barrett went back to his old ways. He was known as a grass amongst the top divisions of robbers, but Croke, with no convictions or apparent experience in armed robbery, decided to work with him. I’m not sure if he knew of Barrett’s past or his craft as a ruthless robber was sufficient to make him attractive to work with. Equally, Croke may have believed that Barrett wouldn’t or couldn’t be a supergrass again and t
hat made him more attractive. Whatever the reason, Croke did work with Barrett. Barrett knew how the police worked, maybe Croke thought this would be useful. If he did, he would be wrong.
Other players were noted coming and going at Emerald. Barrett and Croke travelled down to Battersea in London, followed by a police surveillance team. Barrett and Croke paid particular attention to Shield Security, a security company premises on an industrial estate. A car was noticed there which had also been seen outside Emerald. It belonged to a young man called Al Turner who worked at the security company.
A full surveillance operation was mounted over the coming weeks. It was pretty clear that Shield Security was to receive the gang’s attention and Turner was the inside man. For this reason the company could not be contacted directly by the detectives for fear that anyone close to the management might be involved or unwittingly let out to Turner or any other crooked employee that the police were on to them.
One night there was late-night activity at Emerald with Barrett and Croke both present. In the early hours of the following morning, Turner drove to work at the depot, followed by Barrett and Croke in a blue Ford Escort van.
The full police team were called in and were briefed at Lambeth Police Support HQ. From there I was called to slip quietly into a rear entrance of Battersea Police Station with Kevin and a few other officers. This station was at the entrance to the industrial estate where Shield was located. It was normally only open during daylight hours to serve the local business community. The building remained in darkness throughout the night, hiding its cargo of detectives, including Kevin Shapland, who kept ‘eyeball’ or observation from a darkened first-floor office window.
Turner waited for a colleague to arrive. Barrett and Croke were parked up nearby. Then, rather unexpectedly, Turner came out of the building carrying a small but very heavy box, followed by his colleague. They got into a white security van and drove off, followed closely by Barrett and Croke in the blue van.
It was decision time for the police commander. Peter Gwynne, the detective chief superintendent, immediately gave the order for the surveillance team to split. Half would stay at the industrial estate, whilst half would follow the vehicle at a discreet distance. The police helicopter was used to track the vehicles as they made their way north across London, eventually picking up the M1 motorway.
All the time the blue Escort van remained close behind the security van. Moving north caused problems for the trailing surveillance officers and detectives. They were armed and they needed to inform each police force area they entered that they were there.
Finally, the security van pulled into the service area at Newport Pagnall, near Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. Turner went and got two cups of coffee and returned to the vehicle, pursued closely on foot by Barrett and Croke, who by this stage was wearing a poorly fitting wig. The white van quickly left the service area and it was seen that Croke was driving it, followed by Barrett, on his own in the blue van. That was enough. Within half a mile of the service area the signal to ‘attack’ was given. To give the ‘attack’ is the pinnacle of a Flying Squad detective’s career and normally reserved for the senior officer on the ground. I have observed it many times and it still fills me with emotion and pride to have witnessed such brave action by police officers. It is when the tables are turned and the criminals who think they are in control suddenly realise they are not. Out of the very woodwork, normal-looking members of the public emerge, in unison, show their true colours and pounce on the gang as they literally go ‘across the pavement’. Well, the pavement this time was the M1, the major motorway running through England. Listening on the radio back in Battersea, I heard the words ‘Attack, attack, attack’. Not then a religious man I still said a prayer, for the safety of those going into action. The next few minutes were an anxious wait until the news of the arrests was conveyed with the welcome information that they had been effected without injury.
Flying Squad vehicles had forced the white and blue vans to stop. The Squad officers emerged from their cars, surrounded the vans, and with sheer overwhelming numbers and fire power quickly took control, but not before Croke and Barrett had tried to make a run for it. Turner and his colleague were both found tied up and lying face down in the back of the white security van.
Barrett took it like the seasoned professional robber he was. Croke not quite so. It was his first arrest in such circumstances, his world had been turned upside down and he hadn’t seen it coming.
Both men were in possession of loaded handguns, ammunition, radio scanners (for monitoring police radio frequencies, unsuccessfully on this occasion). Croke was wearing the wig and Barrett a balaclava mask. A knife was taken off Croke.
Turner and his colleague were released from their bonds and to his surprise, Turner was promptly arrested. The content of the box was examined and revealed a quantity of gold bullion bars valued at a quarter of a million pounds.
The motorway was closed for half an hour as the suspects were taken away and the vehicles recovered. I was already on my way and within an hour I had arrived at Milton Keynes Police Station.
At the police station, Barrett realised his predicament. He would die in prison, either from old age or from an attack by another inmate. He quickly offered to turn grass. At first the suggestion may have been laughed at, but it soon received more serious consideration. The rest of the team were obviously not going to help the detectives. So his offer was carefully considered. After a few days’ discussion at the highest levels within the force, it was accepted. Barrett became the first man in British legal history to be a supergrass for the second time.
I knew I was working with competent and talented detectives, I knew my job and I was sure we would be able to determine if Barrett was telling the truth or not. We had to find strong independent corroboration which would satisfy the most testing defence examination. It would take many months of meticulous work by a diverse team of professionals, but the truth was out there. We would have to review many old scenes, some going back years. It would involve undertaking new examinations of suspects, their homes and workplaces to find incriminating evidence. This was the nature of using crime scene and forensic science evidence to corroborate the supergrass.
The fact that Barrett had been caught was testament to the fact that there is no such thing as a perfect crime. Even he, who had spent a lifetime committing crime, getting caught and informing, had made mistakes. Some of the obvious thoughts probably went through his mind as he stood on the windy hard shoulder of the M1. Evidence would convict him if he chose to keep tight lipped about his involvement. And not only for the offence for which he had been arrested, but for others too. His attractiveness to the team was his awareness of new forensic techniques and the things he had learned as a career criminal and a grass, and these all proved to be useless. He simply created more and different types of evidence.
The investigator who pursued him for two years was Kevin Shapland. Kevin was a prolific detective. Prematurely grey with a full head of hair and in his early thirties, he maintained a string of informants. This kept the Flying Squad north-east London office busy on its own. No mean feat when the office at the time contained fifty detectives, many amongst the élite of their profession. Kevin was a detective constable, the lowest detective rank, but his abilities outshone many of much higher rank. Kevin wasn’t interested in promotion; he never took the necessary exam to make sergeant. It was his choice. He didn’t want it and didn’t need it. The rank of detective sergeant of the Flying Squad was a career milestone for most. As detective constable he would be the junior, the bag carrier to his sergeant. But such was Kevin’s reputation that his sergeant rightly acknowledged who was senior. Kevin was the only detective constable to be widely known to have a detective sergeant as his bag carrier.
There was no detective task that he couldn’t turn his talents to. He often led the investigation with only the cursory eye of a senior officer. His talent and maturity always shone through. On t
he occasions when the investigation wasn’t his, he would always volunteer to help, just as one of the guys, taking statements, interviewing suspects or handling the exhibits register. To each he would give total professionalism.
Kevin is simply the best detective I have ever worked with, and there have been many contenders.
So Barrett’s arrest may have seemed a foregone conclusion. Nonetheless, it is remarkable since it came out of a situation that in the early days seemed to hold little prospect.
The suspects were held ‘incommunicado’, which means they were briefly denied any contact with the outside world, including legal representation, whilst searches and other arrests were made. This was to prevent other suspects finding out what had happened and escaping or trying to destroy evidence. I say trying to because the very action of destroying evidence often produces more. I will not elaborate! So the arrests at Newport Pagnall triggered a series of arrests and searches. Rita Croke was confronted by a detective as she walked to the front of Emerald with a black plastic refuse bag. She must have already known or suspected something was up, because the bag contained a pistol, shotgun cartridges, hats and clothing. She was arrested and brought to Milton Keynes also.
Things were hectic at Milton Keynes Police Station. This was the biggest thing to happen there in a long time. The first thing I did on arriving was to introduce myself to the local SOCOs, of which there were four. I briefed them as to what had happened and asked for their assistance, which I was pledged, with the exception of one who appeared uninterested. He could not be shaken from reading a newspaper, sat in his chair, even when the Metropolitan Police helicopter, the only one in the country at that time, landed directly outside his window. I wouldn’t have minded but it didn’t even appear a decent newspaper. I realised I wasn’t going to get any help from him, and, quite frankly, I didn’t want it. Coming in from the Met, and particularly from the Flying Squad, often had an adverse affect on provincial officers. Many Met, and perhaps some Flying Squad, officers tried to lord it over their provincial colleagues. The Met was generally good, and the Squad special, simply because of the volume and level of crime it had to investigate. Many provincial officers were every bit as skilled and committed. This was something I tried to recognise and communicate as soon as I went into a police station outside London. I often needed help and the best way to get it was to recognise the worth of others. Swooping in unannounced at provincial police forces was the nature of the job, and my approach normally ensured absolute assistance. I was fortunate to witness some excellent commitment and professionalism amongst the new colleagues I encountered.