What makes this sickening waste of money even worse was that most cases were won by the claimants. It has been clear for years to those who are sick or disabled and those that care for them, that there was something seriously wrong with the system, they were forcing through. Even when the United Nations said that they were deeply concerned but the government just ignored them. It's common knowledge that over a two-year period more than 2,000 people had died after being passed fit for work by some unelected pen pusher.
I knew of one person who answered the questionnaire sent to her about her use of the toilet and it asked, “When was the last time you had your bowels open”. The claimant told the truth and said 28 years. So the DWP thought that this was impossible and instead of checking her medical history asked her to attend a medical miles away from home and the doctor was so embarrassed and couldn’t apologise enough. If the person checking the forms had an ounce of common sense they would have checked to see that the claimant had her bowels removed and was fitted with a colostomy bag 28 years ago.
Iain Duncan Smith the then minister in charge of this fiasco stood down and perhaps after all he did have a conscience but, in my opinion, he should face charges and be brought before the court of human rights at the Hague. Instead, what the conservative government did was to give him a knighthood. I for one will never call him Sir. If you compare the treatment against the sick, disabled and poor of this country and compare it against the soft treatment given to the tax evasion super rich then taking the decision to set up several special heist across the UK was an easy decision for me to make. Enjoy my heist in Bedford.
Chapter 45. Heist time. CCTV camera control box
Like all main towns and cities, you couldn’t spit on the pavement without it being recorded on a CCTV camera and the police use these rather than having a police officer on the street. Bedford is no exception and has over 100 cameras covering the town 24/7. Bedford CCTV cameras are monitored by the police at an office just south of the river Ouse. To make the crossing of the river all cameras north of the river i.e. in the town centre, are brought together in a control box just north of the A6 river bridge which sits just south of St. Paul’s Square. The green box looks like those you see from BT at the end of most streets where all the phone lines come together before being sent to the main exchange down a fibre optic cable.
Alan Frazer had designed a small incendiary device that would be triggered by a mobile phone call and when it exploded it would spray mercury across the terminals and short circuit the whole system. Alan had also designed a safety feature in case someone tried to open the green box door before the set time of explosion. He had come up with a trigger device that would detonate the mercury and still make all the CCTV’s useless but he hoped that this wouldn’t happen as if it did then maybe it would give them time to make good.
Chapter 46. Incendiary bomb in Clarence Street
There was just one more thing that needed setting up and that was the incendiary bomb in Clarence Street. The derelict house at the end of Clarence Street needed to be set up and ready to explode at 10.00 am. We took the van to the address and found a parking lot outside the house and Doug soon gained access via the rear of the property. As soon as we entered, we could smell death. We hadn’t expected to find anyone inside but to our dismay there was a tramp who when we tried to wake him up, but we found that he was dead. He must have died during the winter from the cold and we were uncertain what to do. Doug said that we would carry on as planned as we had no alternative so Doug and Simon covered the two floors with 5 gallons of petrol on each floor while Alan set up the timer on the incendiary device that would explode at 10.00 am on the dot. Once done we repaired the lock on the rear door but before leaving the house, we fixed the “Police – Crime Area – Do NOT CROSS” tape to both the front and the rear entrance.
Chapter 47. My day as party organiser
I had an early start mainly down to the fact that I was so excited that I couldn’t sleep. I drove around Bedford just after 8 am checking out the work that Doug and his team had done and even at this early hour traffic was starting to back up. I then headed for the White Swan public house in Bromham as they have a room they rent out for small meetings and provide coffee/tea and sandwiches. The entrance to the room is round the back of the pub which sits next to a public car park. On the morning I made sure that I visited the pub for a quick coffee at around 10.30 am as I wanted them to be able to say to the police that I was actually there. After leaving the pub I went back to my car and purchased six more parking tickets from the machine as these would be given to each of the team leaders. I then went to the meeting room and moved a lot of chairs around and poured a lot of teas and coffees and then emptied them in to a sink at the back of the room where there was a small toilet. I also tipped a lot of the sandwiches into a carrier bag and I would feed the ducks later.
The room looked as if a meeting had taken place for around 20 people and this was important as it would give everyone an alibi for the day. They would all tell the police, if asked, that the reason for the meeting was to see if any ex-cons would be interest in starting a group to help each other find work. It was being arranged by Lucas Payne who gave an example of a similar scheme that had worked for ex-cons in the States. After that I headed north out of Bromham and took the country lanes back to Kempston Hardwick station to wait for the safe return of my guest.
Chapter 48. The A Team
After setting up the traffic lights and setting the incendiary devices the A team members headed back to the workshop to remove the angle grinder and Kango hammer, sweep the van out and load the 18 large suitcases. We also smartened ourselves up and put our robbery clothes and disguise back on. Thankfully one of the team could get us trainers which had a raised platform making us 3 inches taller than usual. They took a bit of getting used to, but we managed not to fall over. We also wore a lot of padding to make us a lot fatter than we were, but it made Doug look like Father Christmas. He said he didn’t care if he didn’t get recognised. We all added caps or hats and wore sunglasses. Every guest to the heist had been told to grow a beard if they didn’t have one and if they usually had one to shave it off for the day. There were a couple of the party goers that couldn’t grow a beard that quickly, so they had been supplied with stick on beards for the day. They were to leave these in the side compartment of the suitcase when getting back to Kempston Hardwick station after the heist.
We then grabbed a cup of tea and ate some cereals Doug had laid on for us before heading off to meet all the party goers at the railway station. As a precaution Doug used his car to the station as it needed to ping the ANPR camera on the A421 just before it reach Kempston so that if the police checked at a later date they would see his car was where he had said it was. Alan would drive the van to the Kempston Hardwick station via the back roads.
Chapter 49. Party day 9.30 am Greyfriars Police Station
The main police station for Bedford is in Greyfriars but many of the activities were moved to the much larger and more modern Kempston police station which is south-west of Bedford town. In recent months the police chief has been contacting the local press (along with anyone who was willing to listen), repeating his warning that he “cannot keep people safe anymore", and attacked spending cuts he claims have left him with too few officers to respond to 999 calls.
Well I was listening, and I hope that he won’t have too many officers available when we have our heist in full swing. Exactly at 9.30am the CCTV control centre called the sergeant on duty and said that all the CCTV cameras were no longer working and that they had contacted the company to find out what had gone wrong. The bad news was that the company couldn’t get anyone out until around mid-day as they were also facing problems in Norwich. The Norwich problem had nothing to do with us but it was welcome news.
Chapter 50. How the guest made it to and from Bedford
All the party/heist goers will arrive in five vehicles carrying 3 passengers in each. Their cars will be p
arked behind the railway station in Manor Road Kempston where they will be met by my number 2 Douglas Boswell and his two team members. Each of the six groups of three will be handed a suitcase numbered 1 to 18, so that when returned we can easily see who got the most out of the heist. The various suitcases contained the tools of their trade and included a replica hand gun, skin colour surgical gloves, printed notices for positioning both outside and inside the bank and Police – Crime Scene – Do Not Cross tape pre-cut to fit the entrance to the bank. Each party goer had been given their unique number and all they must do is give this to Doug and he would hand them their suitcase.
The train to and from Bedford station is used a lot for holiday makers traveling from Bedford main line station to London Luton airport, so seeing people with suitcases in the town wouldn’t seem out of place. The small railway station the guest used is on a line that had originally run between Oxford and finished in Cambridge. The line was called the Varsity line. The oxford to Bletchley part was closed during the Dr Richard Beeching massacre of railways which happened at various times during the 1960’s. The Bedford to Cambridge section was also closed in the 1960’s but left the Bletchley to Bedford part (known as the Marston Vale line) which was probably saved due to the huge brickworks in Marston. During the early millennium the route slightly changed and instead of starting in Bletchley it was relocated to the larger Milton Keynes Central station. At the other end of the line finishes in Bedford St. Johns but briefly stops at the main station in Bedford for a few minutes. The line had been managed by several consortiums but was taken over in December 2017 by the London Northwestern Railway. There are talks to reopen the route from Oxford to Cambridge, but this has been talked about so many times, I’ll believe it when I see it.
The train the team will be taking is the 10:03 from Kempston Hardwick to Bedford Main Line station arriving at 10:15. The cost would be only £3.00 return (off-peak) per guest which I had already purchased online using my untraceable debit card and printing off the vouchers. The Kempston Hardwick station is about half a mile outside the village of Kempston, so it is seldom used. The benefit is that there is a small and free to use car park but no CCTV to worry about so we can be in and out without being logged. On arrival at Bedford station they will leave the main station in groups of three, rather than a group of 18 which could easily be picked up if the police checked the stations CCTV later. Those with their target bank being furthest away from the station would go first followed by the second team and so on.
Once outside the station they could all head separately to their target banks at a leisurely stroll but avoiding any ATM’s along their route as many have independent CCTV coverage which can be checked by the police later to show anyone using or passing by the ATM. They don’t have to worry about wider CCTV coverage as these would have been disabled by the time they arrive. All teams need to arrive at their bank by 10.45 and the leader of the group should open the side pocket of his suitcase and remove the two printed A4 messages and attach this to the banks entrance. It would be a simple message with the banks logo at the top stating “Bank Closed until Noon Today due to computer failure. Do Not Enter before noon.” This should give enough time for most of the customers inside the bank to leave and at 10.59 am exactly the team leader should let his two team mates enter and then attached the tape across the entrance which states “Police Crime Scene Do Not Cross”.
Each team should then enter the bank at 11.00am exactly and collect a nice donation from each bank.
Chapter 51. Party day 10.00 am Clarence Street Bedford
At 10.00am a device controlled by one of our mobile phones triggered an explosion and caused a large fire which should draw the police away from our main area of the town. The main fire station is situated south of the river and with the traffic control in place they will struggle to get to the fire north of the river Ouse. What we wanted to happen is for the police to tie up any available officers at the scene of the bomb explosion and fire at Clarence Street and to keep them busy for at least the next couple of hours.
With the planned delay the fire crew still hadn’t arrived by 10.20 and the fire had taken hold and started to set fire in the next terraced property. If luck would be on our side, it would take them hours to control the fire as it spread from attic to attic along Clarence Street. Police were busy trying to get people to evacuated houses and to move the cars parked along the narrow street. They were not quick enough for the first two cars and a Campervan which probably contained two calor gas bottles as the flames shot across the 3-foot pavement and soon had both cars and the campervan alight.
After only a few minutes the first cars petrol tank exploded throwing flames in all directions. By 10.40 am the fire crew were still struggling to get across the river Ouse and once they had crossed it they were met with cars in both directions blocking the road and they had nowhere to move to. My plan was working better than planned. At just after 10.45 police finally managed to get some homeowners to respond but there was one old lady who couldn’t be moved as she was bed ridden and it would need both the fire service and ambulance crew to safely move her. A paramedic on a motorbike arrived quicker than the ambulance and he rushed in to see the overweight lady. The ambulance had the same problems that were facing the fire crew, but they did arrive five minutes after the paramedic. However, they could do little until the firemen arrived as they need the lifting gear to move the overweight lady. The fire was now only two doors away and the police insisted that all persons be cleared and only when the fire crew arrived would they go back in.
The old lady was now panicking, and the paramedic gave her a sedative to try and help relax her. He told the policeman who had joined him that he wasn’t leaving, and he wouldn’t go. He said that the poor lady was big because she had been reliant on steroids for over 25 years due to low immune system but she had never been told from the start that the steroids would put unwanted weight on. The officer tried to plead with the paramedic, but he wouldn’t budge. The policeman knew he couldn’t change the paramedics mind and left the scene. A few minutes later the second cars tank blew, and this spread the fire closer to the old lady’s house. If that wasn’t bad enough the calor gas bottles in the campervan exploded and set more cars and homes alight on both sides of the street.
The paramedic got hold of a couple of blankets and soaked them in the sink and after wringing them out placed them over himself and the old lady. Five minutes later the house was alight and still no sign of the fire crew. The police spoke to the paramedic via his control room and told him to get out now as the house was now burning and the old lady’s home would soon be gone. He said that he was staying put and killed his phone. He could feel the heat from next door even through the dividing brick wall and he knew that unless a miracle happened his and the old lady’s days were numbered.
Chapter 52. Bedford gangs
As with any town or city in the UK, Bedford has its fair share of gang culture and based on the population of the county in 2015, also had the highest rate of murders in England. Bedford has two main criminal gangs, but one was severely deleted in 2017 when 6 gang members were sentenced between 15 and 22 years for a "violent" retaliation gun battle. As with all gangs, protecting their territory is a must and the trouble between Bedford’s main two gangs had been going on for several years. No sooner had the sentences been read out other gang members stepped in to fill the vacant slots at the top and business carried on as usual.
The gang leader was Mohammed Fazi and he was sent to my prison and I knew that he was still controlling things from inside via his iPhone. Just before leaving I arranged a meeting with Mohammed in the comforts of my soon to be vacated office. He wondered why I had called him up as he knew that I was leaving soon, and it would be too late to offer him any counselling. At our meeting he said that he had first refused my offer but after speaking to other inmates he had been told that I was straight and so he decided to see what I wanted.
I didn’t like the bloke one bit h
as he came over has an arrogant bugger, but my meeting wasn’t about making new friends. I told him that I knew Bedford well and was fully aware that he was still pulling the strings by controlling his gang via his iPhone. I wasn’t at all bothered about that as I would be leaving very soon but I wanted to make him aware that something big was going to happen in Bedford, but it had nothing to do with drugs. I didn’t want to give too much away but I had to let him in on some of the plan else he wouldn’t feel safe and instruct his gang members to take my plan up.
I informed Mohammed that on the last Tuesday of the month following the second bank holiday in May something big was going to happen in Bedford and his gang may want to be part of it. Several target businesses would be hit and to enable this to happen the town’s CCTV would be out of action from 10.30am on the day, along with dire traffic problems in the town itself. There would also be diversionary project set up in the north of the town to draw the police to that area. What his gang could do is to rob the two main jewellers in St. Peters Street at exactly 10.45am. They should steer clear of the town centre as this would be grid-locked, but his team could enter and escape via the A4280 St. Neots road at the east of the town. They should obviously wear a disguise as the jeweller will sound the alarm. However, with everything else going on in the town the police will be slow to respond, and they should have a good 15 minutes to execute the robbery and make a clean getaway.
The Bedford Heist Page 20