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

by James Crosbie

  Kenny was over the moon with my suggestion and delighted at my offer of a free holiday in Italy with a chance to earn a few quid. A couple of days later we flew to Turin and he bought a nice 7.65 Beretta pistol along with a box of shells. Gun secured, we enjoyed a few days’ driving about in a hired car before taking, for safety’s sake, the train and cross-channel ferry back to the UK. I let Kenny carry the gun – after all, it was legally his anyway – and during the trip he told me that he was sick of the army and wanted out. Later, back in Scotland, I drove him through to Redford Barracks near Edinburgh and wrote out a cheque for his freedom. Kenny was delighted. He had been a well-paid mule, had enjoyed a nice trip to Italy and now he was out of the army.

  I was busy enough in my workshop, but the quality of the material I was buying was continuing to deteriorate and I was getting annoyed at having to spend more and more time checking every board for flaws before assembling the furniture. Eventually things got so bad that I decided to stop making furniture myself and instead buy it in from the big manufacturers and simply retail it. After all, the other furniture shops in the city seemed to be doing well. And it appeared simple enough: order up, take delivery and sell. I could do that.

  But it turned out that it wasn’t as simple as all that. I found myself having to source out furniture from as far afield as Germany. I had been to Hamburg a couple of times and noticed the style and quality of the furniture in the shops there; it was far superior and much better value than anything I could get here. Delivery was no problem – ten days. Ten days from Deutschland, against three months from England. It was no contest.

  I went over to Germany and visited a few manufacturers to compare their products. I finally settled on Rauch of Freudenberg, a company that specialised in bedroom furniture, and started buying directly from them, arranging my own transport and paying cash with my order. But fitting out the shop and paying cash for the large stock cost a lot of money, so to give myself a little financial cushion I decided it was time I robbed another bank.

  There was no problem in sorting one out – I already had a bank in mind from my conversations with Bob Ross nearly two years before. The only real problem I had was in finding a partner to work with. I decided that Andy was out of it: he had invested in a small engineering company and I was quite sure he wouldn’t be interested. There was no point in asking him about it only to receive a refusal. I never did see any reason to let anyone who was not directly involved know my business, especially the serious stuff.

  But there was one man: John, the guy I used as a gopher on the Hillington robbery. I knew he had pulled off a couple of jobs himself fairly recently – nothing big, just a couple of small wage snatches – but he had assisted me before and kept his mouth shut afterwards. On top of that, he had recently been on at me to let him into something decent. Yes, I thought, John will do nicely.

  Sure enough, he was up for it. John had even bought himself a .410 shotgun and kept it in storage for just such an occasion. I showed him the target: the Whiteinch branch of the Clydesdale Bank on the corner of Dumbarton Road, just yards from the Clyde tunnel exit. It was a fairly quiet, run-down area with no big shops to attract pedestrians and half the tenements under demolition.

  The location was good, but I checked the job out just to be certain. Even though it had been two years since Bob Ross had told me about it, the routine and timing were just the same – Tuesday mornings around eleven o’clock. Yes, this was the one all right.

  When you’ve got a few quid behind you, it’s easy to set things up. As far as I could see, our only problem would be the getaway. Whiteinch is a Clydeside district, with the river making any escape route southwards impossible. This effectively cut our escape options in half, which meant that the police could concentrate their efforts over a much smaller area and quickly seal off our getaway. Roadblocks were a very definite danger for us on this job. Of course, we could put the boot down and try to beat the cops to the canyon, but you have to realise that the high-speed getaway is mostly film fiction. The fact is, unless the cops are right on top of you, the last thing bank robbers want to do is draw attention to themselves by barging through traffic and screeching round corners on two wheels. But in this case it seemed that only speed would get us clear of the area before the police could close us down. So we had a choice: drive fast to beat the roadblocks, or drive carefully and hope to bluff our way through if we were stopped.

  Then again, maybe there was another way …

  All my life, ever since I could ride, it was routine for me to jump on my bike if I was going somewhere. And what could be a more innocuous form of transport than a bike? The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. A bank robber fleeing the scene on a bike? Even the cops wouldn’t go for that.

  John was a bit iffy about the idea when I put it to him, but then he wasn’t a cyclist. However, when I told him that he wouldn’t need to ride a bike himself and explained how he would get away on his own, he became more interested and eventually agreed to my plan. Finally everything was set up and we were ready to go.

  On the day, we met up in my shop and drove to a garage near Whiteinch where the ringer was stashed. All our gear was already in the car: John’s .410 and his balaclava, along with a wild wig and an old coat and scarf I had bought at Paddy’s Market for myself. Oh and my bike.

  I let John do the driving, as much to steady his nerves as anything else and directed him to a block of flats just off the main road about 400 yards from the bank. I went into the building and up to the first half-landing of the emergency stairs where I chained my bike to the banister – you just can’t trust anyone these days! Putting the bike in place was the last of our preparations and once back in the car I checked my watch. We were well ahead of time. This was good because I knew the bullion van made a delivery at the Clydesdale branch in Partick, the district before Whiteinch, before carrying on to our bank. The time cushion allowed us to drive the short distance to Partick and we parked up in sight of the bank and waited for the van to turn up. As soon as it appeared, we headed off for Whiteinch in the sure knowledge it would be along just five minutes behind us. This leapfrog tactic meant our timing was precise and we would not have to hang about too long near the bank we were going to rob.

  The five minutes gave us just enough time to get into our smother and when the bullion van pulled up outside the bank I kept my eye on the delivery as I applied a thin smear of Evostick glue to my cheek – the stuff really does have a thousand uses. From our vantage point, we watched the crew carry a large silver bullion box and several sacks of coins into the bank. Things were looking good. It took them a few minutes to complete the delivery and I was just pinching the flesh of my cheeks together to form an evil-looking scar when the van pulled away.

  ‘That’s it,’ I ordered. ‘We’re on!’

  There were no customers in the bank and none of the tellers as much as looked up when I entered. In about two strides, I jumped up on the counter and straddled the low screen, one foot landing right next to the counting fingers of a teller.

  ‘On the floor!’ I barked. ‘Quick, now! On the floor!’

  There was a stunned silence as wide-eyed faces gaped up at me.

  ‘On the fucking floor!’ I shouted with hostility in my voice. This time the clerks began to move. I was conscious of a teller’s fingers flicking through a pile of banknotes right next to my foot. The guy seemed hypnotised, as if ignoring me would make this nightmare disappear. Flick, flick, flick, his fingers continued to rustle the notes. I tapped him on the head.

  ‘You too!’ I instructed. ‘On the floor.’

  I was actually on the other side of the counter before John appeared round the door from the street, white as a sheet and obviously a bundle of nerves. However, he strengthened up when he saw I had everything under control and he did all I needed him to do, which was look threatening while I collected the dosh.

  The silver box was lying open on a table with half its contents already spread out be
side it. I picked up one of the bundles of notes to put it back into the box, but I had a gun in my hand with my finger through its trigger guard. As I picked up the notes, my finger squeezed the trigger and, as much to my surprise as anyone else’s, the fucking gun went off. Bang! Bollocks, I thought. I can do without this. Bang! Again. Behind me I heard a nervous gasp from one of the clerks; they must have thought I was firing at them. In fact, the only person in danger of being shot was me, as my back was turned to the staff and the bullets were going straight into the money.

  I looked over at John to see him confronting a customer who had entered the bank. He handled the situation well and I told him to march the man behind the counter and get him to lie down with the others before we left. Being on the floor would discourage them from getting up too quickly, hopefully allowing us to drive off without anyone seeing the motor. When we hit the pavement, there was a small crowd gathered outside staring anxiously at the bank’s doorway, no doubt alerted by the sound of the gun going off. There was a collective gasp when we burst out of the door, but no one seemed inclined to interfere, simply staring open mouthed as we rushed past, scrambled into the car and disappeared in a cloud of burning rubber.

  It took us less than a minute to reach the flats where I had stashed my bike and, once off the road and out of sight in the shelter of the flats, I stuffed all the money into a large rucksack along with my handgun and John’s now dismantled .410.

  Once out of the car, I made my way to the half-landing; my wig, coat and scarf went down the rubbish chute; I unlocked my bike and pedalled off. John was already gone, simply walking away from the ringer to the nearest bus stop, just another citizen going about his business.

  I didn’t even feel the weight of the heavily money- and gun-laden rucksack on my back as I rode away to the sound of police sirens closing in. Sure enough, within minutes I was approaching a police roadblock and I looked ahead to see how conscientiously they were handling it. I had a choice at this point: I could either ride straight up to the roadblock and gamble on being waved through; or I could cut off into the side streets and try to bypass it. The pros and cons were clear: the police on the roadblock were looking for a getaway car and with so many vehicles on the road they would probably ignore a cyclist. On the other hand, police cars would almost certainly be cruising the side streets hoping to luck on to the changeover motor or any suspicious vehicle. Even a lone cyclist, especially one carrying a large rucksack, might just make them look twice.

  I had to make my mind up quickly before I passed the last turn-off. Go with the traffic, or stand out alone? The traffic won. I always did favour the bold option and I had already seen that the car searches were perfunctory – a word with the driver followed by a quick lift of the boot. It looked good to me. It was also obvious that they were paying more attention to cars with two occupants, so I adjusted my speed and fell in behind a car with a passenger in it. Sure enough, up went the copper’s hand and the car stopped. I pushed on as the cop rounded the bonnet to stand right in front of me.

  ‘Come on, come on.’ He pressed against the side of the car and urgently waved me through. ‘Fucking pest!’ I heard him mutter under his breath as I shot past.

  Out of the saddle, three pushes of the pedals and I was through. Yes! I felt the exultation as I continued up the road and fifteen minutes later I was in my shop in Springburn, out of breath but safely home and dry.

  It came to £87,000, a fortune in 1974 and once again the biggest bank robbery in Scotland.

  Needless to say, the cops were outraged and pulled out all the stops to make an early arrest. The story front-paged for a couple of days, moved on to the inside pages for another few days, then dropped out altogether. The robbery became a mystery, with the cops left sucking their thumbs.

  John and I split up the cash, less the money I took off the top for expenses and a cut for Bob Ross. I hadn’t actually told Bob that I was going to hit the Whiteinch Bank, but I had used the memory of our two-year-old conversation and he was still entitled to his ten per cent. Of course, he guessed it was me that had pulled off the job, but he was pleased with the money and he certainly had no qualms about taking it this time. I left him with a happy smile and settled down to normal life again.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The Most Dangerous Man in Scotland

  I hadn’t been skint when I went on the Whiteinch job, but I had spent a lot of money re-laying the workshop floor and having storage racks installed to turn the Adamswell Street place into a small warehouse. Then there had been the expense of stripping and fitting out my new retail premises on Springburn Road. All this, along with my policy of paying up front for my stock, had used up most of my cash in hand and I hated standing about in my shop praying a customer would come in and buy something. It always seemed to me that the more you needed money, the harder it was to come by. But when you had a few quid behind you and weren’t totally dependent on sales, things definitely seemed to run more smoothly. Suddenly everything was good: instead of taking money out of banks, I was depositing money from my business into the bank every week; but I still had a bag full of cash, about £40,000 stashed away.

  I was beginning to live a more or less straight life, but I began to worry about this money. How should the incriminating cash be safely put away? In the end, I broached the subject with my accountant, telling him that I had been accumulating profits for years and just stashing the money, but now it was bothering me. He was surprised at the amount, but he agreed to handle it for me and I made arrangements to bring it down to his office.

  The following day, bag in hand, I telephoned his office just to make sure he was in. I admit that I was feeling a bit self-important. After all, I was going to hand this guy £40,000 and he would be getting a good fee out of it, as well as a share in any profit. I thought he was getting a good deal. ‘I’ve got that money,’ I told him. ‘I’m just checking that you’re in right now.’

  His reply was offhand to say the least. ‘Oh, I’m a bit busy right now,’ he said. ‘Could you bring it down tomorrow?’

  Jesus, I thought. I’m telling this guy I’m on my way with forty grand, giving him the chance of a really good earner and he’s telling me to come round tomorrow! Who does he think he is? ‘Tomorrow?’ I managed to squeeze the word out. ‘You want me to come round tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow. I’m a bit tied up today. Just you bring it in tomorrow and we’ll deal with it then.’

  Fuck you, I thought. I’ll give you tomorrow! I’ll make you sweat over this – mugging me off like some second-rate punter. But now he had given me a problem. For the first time in months, I had taken my money from its safe stash and now I was in a bit of a dilemma: should I take it back to the stash, or should I just keep it handy so I could get to it quickly, after I had made Mr Smart-ass Accountant sweat over his commission for a couple of days?

  I had a pal, Alec McNeil, who lived nearby and decided to leave it with him. Alec suffered badly from spondylitis and rarely went out, so I felt my bag would be safe at his place. Of course, Murphy’s Law raised its pernicious head.

  Because my money was there, I made a point of spending more time than usual with Alec. Normally he stayed at home, but with me there and having a car handy, we decided to go out. In our absence, a visitor to the house, a seventeen-year-old girl who was a friend of Alec’s daughter Lesley, was rooting about in a cupboard and came across my bag.

  There were a lot of stories in the press about a gang of youngsters finding the money and throwing wild parties at the house, but that was just tabloid journalism trying to make a story out of it. What actually happened was that Margaret Ann Keenan, Lesley’s pal, was suspicious about me hanging about so much and thought I was up to something. Maybe she had seen me looking in the cupboard and found the bag. I don’t know. But as soon as she got the chance, Margaret Ann gave the cupboard a spin and found it. She filled up a vanity case with £27,000 in fivers and rushed down to her nineteen-year-old boyfrien
d – I don’t even know his name – and presented him with the money. This guy came from Possil, a run-down, dole-dependent district in North Glasgow that could compete comfortably with Liverpool’s Toxteth or Manchester’s Mosside in the deprivation stakes. There is no doubt that 999 out of 1,000 guys in Possil would have fallen to their knees, thanked God and hugged Margaret Ann to death in gratitude for this miraculous windfall. But not this stupid prick. Maybe his name was Murphy; if it wasn’t it certainly should have been. Instead of expressing his undying love, taking the cash and changing his impoverished lifestyle, this nutcase grabbed Margaret Ann, marched her round to the nearest police station and stuck her in! The cops couldn’t believe it and even now, nearly thirty years later, I still can’t believe it myself. But that is what he did and that’s what got me caught.

  At first, Margaret Ann was going to be charged with stealing the money, but when my name came up, old memories stirred and the CID sprang into action. Of course, by this time I had missed the money and realised something had gone badly wrong. I immediately moved the remaining cash and, late that night, when I was sitting in Alec’s house trying to get to the bottom of things, the front door crashed in. The CID had arrived.

  The cops had no idea who had robbed the banks and even at this stage they weren’t certain it was me. But backtracking made things easy for them. The fact that Bob Ross was my next-door neighbour soon came to light and started alarm bells ringing. Bob, of course, stood up to interrogation for about two minutes before collapsing. I had told him several times, ‘Bob, if I ever get arrested for these bank jobs, the police will definitely come for you. All you have to say is: “I don’t know what you are talking about. I never told James Crosbie anything. He’s just my neighbour.” Nothing more than that and stick to your story no matter what they say.’

  Pointing out to him that there was dozens of Clydesdale Bank employees living around us and any one of them could have passed out the same information, I gave him a full rundown on police techniques and impressed upon him that whatever happened, I would never mention his name. I warned him not to get into any dialogue or offer any explanation. All he had to do was deny, deny and deny.