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The anatomy of a bank robber

By Bernie Matthews - posted Thursday, 16 March 2006


Supreme Court judges have called me a career criminal. To the Bankers Federation, I’m a scourge to society. Some social workers look to me as the product of a low socio-economic environment that created the single parent family.

I like to think of myself as a successful failure.

On any prison yard in Australia I’m the respected professional, but to society, I’m an urban terrorist. In reality, I’m a bank robber - a thief with a balaclava and a shotgun.

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People have asked me why I robbed banks. My answer is simple: there was no such thing as a soft target in my pursuit of professional status. The downside of bank robbery is prison. It can be an occupational hazard, but life is really simple: if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.

I robbed my first bank in 1970, the ANZ bank on the Hume Highway at Yagoona in Sydney’s outer western suburbs, while an escapee from the then NSW State Penitentiary at Long Bay.

Escaping prisons and robbing banks have the same exhilarating feeling - an adrenalin rush that transcends all levels of emotion.

It was during my next bank robbery, at the Rozelle branch of the ANZ bank in Sydney, that I encountered my first problematic situation: the potential hero.

Customers and staff lay spread-eagled on the floor as the teller filled my bag from each cash drawer and I surveyed the scene from a vantage point on the counter. It was the body language that forewarned me. He was a young bloke, early to mid 30s, poised to spring. To retaliate or exhibit courage when confronted with an armed offender is suicidal - but he had thrown all caution to the wind.

I didn’t want to shoot him - I’m a bank robber, not a killer. No amount of money is worth taking a life for, but he didn’t know that. I pointed the gun at his head, and then swore - every bit of gutter invective I could muster I spewed at him, and everyone on the floor.

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“Don’t do it mate or I’ll blow your f----g head off!” I screamed at him.

My voice and my threats regained control of the situation. His girlfriend or his wife pulled him down to the ground, and the problematic situation was resolved. I grabbed my bag filled with the bank’s money and left. Another successful heist, and nobody physically hurt.

Some people call me a dinosaur in the bank robbing business, and maybe I am. Maybe I belong to that diminishing breed of felon who never resorted to chemical-induced bravado to commit crime. I’m not a junkie; I’m not unpredictable like sweating gelignite: one jolt and it explodes.

Unpredictability creates havoc, and that’s the last thing you want during a bank robbery.

To me, bank robbing was a business. I went to banks with the sole objective of relieving them of their money.

My bank robbing career spans 26 years during which I’ve worked alone or with different crews. I’ve been charged with numerous armed robberies in two states, and robbed my last bank in 1996. And I can honestly say I’ve never physically hurt anybody.

Financial institutions and bank staff would contest that claim by arguing I’ve traumatised numerous people, and that is probably correct. But I can rest easy knowing it’s better they be traumatised by dinosaurs like me than be carried out in a body bag because some strung-out junkie has over reacted.

It doesn’t justify my actions - it just allows me to sleep easier at night.

Despite the pitfalls of armed robbery, there remains a symbiotic relationship between the bank robber and law enforcement agencies. It’s the thrill of the chase.

The bank robber uses every evasive technique to avoid capture, and the cops use every technological advance to arrest. It’s the modern day game of cat and mouse. Sometimes there’s an unpredictable collision between both - and that occurred for me on September 26, 1996.

I was fast approaching my use-by-date in the bank robbing business during the 1990s, but the lure of easy money and that euphoric feeling of impregnability was an enticing factor that resulted in my sussing out a couple of banks in the Brisbane CBD.

The NAB bank job on Eagle Street was not a one-outer. I had to crew up, but unfortunately most of the crews I’d worked with were either dead or in prison. The only guy who was still out and about was “the Pom”, a stand-up bloke, with ice water running through his veins.

The Pom’s breeding came straight from the pages of a criminal Debrett’s. His uncle, Freddy Foreman, was the brother-in-law of Buster Edwards, who held up the Glasgow to London mail train with Ronnie Biggs during the 1960s.

We’d been mates since the early 1980s, but there was a catch. The little Pom had retired years ago. I rang him anyway, just on spec.

The Pom trusted my judgment. When I told him the Eagle Street job was a walk-up start he put his retirement on hold. We teamed up for that last big score - every bank robber’s dream - that pot of gold at the end of criminality’s rainbow.

The plan was simple. We would hit the bank just before peak-hour and take it over. I was the “collector” or the “money man” whose job was to jump the counter and scoop all the notes from the cashiers’ drawers. If there was enough time to take the vault then that would go too.

The Pom, who acted as “crowd controller” inside the bank, had an ear-piece connected to a scanner on his belt - our early warning device tuned into the police wavelength.

We had a pre-arranged signal. At the first hint of trouble we would leave immediately with the money already jammed into the bag I was carrying. If the alarm was raised the police would lose valuable time getting to a bank in the heart of the city in peak hour traffic, giving us valuable time to make our escape.

Our getaway tactic was equally simple. We adopted the chameleon deception of blending into our surroundings. Decked out like cleaners or mechanics in boiler-suits enabled us to walk the city streets without attracting undue attention. And suits and ties underneath would enable us to blend in and disappear among the Brisbane office workers cascading onto the streets at knock-off time.

At just on 4.30pm we hit the bank. The Pom took over crowd control near the entrance as I hurdled the counter. Shocked surprise was evident on the faces of staff and customers alike.

I ordered everyone to the floor and began quickly and methodically emptying all the cash drawers. I had finished emptying the last teller’s cage when I glanced at the Pom - no signal. I still had time.

I went to the vault and ordered a teller to open it.

He was a young guy, early to mid-20s, tall and lanky and wearing a short-sleeved shirt. He began fumbling with the keys, and looked at me as he tried to get the keys to work. Then he did a strange thing: he smiled, then giggled - and continued giggling as he fumbled with the keys.

He was wasting valuable time, but instinct told me he was going into shock. Stressful situations create unpredictable reactions. The complexity of bank robbery is being able to manage those situations without resorting to violence in the heat of the moment.

A female teller lay on the floor near the vault.

“He can’t open it,” she said.

“Can you?” I asked. It was more a question than a demand.

“Yes sir,” she replied.

I threw her the keys, and the male teller crumpled to the floor like a wet dish rag, his nerves gone. The female teller calmly opened each drawer and stuffed the notes into my bag. She was methodical, quick, and calm.

I glanced at the Pom. Still no warning signal. We had been in the bank over three minutes - an incredible amount of time for a bank robbery. And the alarm still hadn’t gone up.

My preoccupation was shattered by the female teller.

“That’s all the money from the vault sir,” she said, cramming the notes from the last drawer into my bag. She remained calm and waited for me to order her back onto the floor.

“Thanks,” I mumbled as I headed towards the Pom.

You have to respect courage, and that female teller had it with a capital C. She had the heart of an elephant. Her employers probably wouldn’t appreciate her emptying the vault for me, but as a victim she took control of the situation from her side of the fence.

The Pom and I peeled off our balaclavas as we walked briskly from the bank to a city church where there was a lavatory. As we neared the church, sirens screamed through the streets. The alarm had gone up.

Inside the lavatory we peeled off our boiler-suits. We had pulled off the last big score. Bundles of cash piled into the carry bag attested to that.

The Pom was first dressed and grabbed some money out of the bag before he opened the door. Then he froze. I continued dressing and crammed my boiler-suit into the bag.

Then I noticed the Pom, who was looking at me strangely. He then handed me the pistol to put in the bag.

“I don’t think we’ll be needing this,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll be ready in a minute,” I replied, stuffing the 9mm Glock into the bag.

“I don’t think you understand, Bern,” the Pom said quietly. “I think we’re pinched, mate.”

“Bullshit!” I said, pushing past the Pom and opening the door.

It’s a strange feeling looking down the barrel of a police issue .38 calibre revolver -and there were over two dozen barrels pointing at the lavatory door, each looking like a gigantic cannon.

It has to be the same feeling customers and staff endure when they look down the barrel of a bank robber’s gun. As they say, what goes around comes around. We were cornered like rats in a trap.

As the best plans of mice and men went up in smoke that sunny afternoon in Brisbane one question kept niggling in my brain. How? How did we come unstuck? How could such a perfectly planned bank robbery dissolve into disaster?

The answer was simple: never rob a bank on Police Remembrance Day!

While the Pom and I were chasing our pot of gold at the end of criminality’s rainbow, the cream of Queensland’s police force were attending Police Remembrance Day marches two streets away. When the alarm went up they literally fell out of the sky. And of course we were pinched.

I got double digits for that little episode, and the Pom got six years. They were prison sentences that underscored the futility of a bank robbing career.

If there is a moral to this story for any aspiring bank robbers who think they can beat the odds, then all I can say is: expect the unexpected. Be prepared to do jail, because prison is one occupational hazard that goes hand-in-hand with bank robbery.

And finally, never rob a bank on Police Remembrance Day.

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Article edited by Allan Sharp.
If you'd like to be a volunteer editor too, click here.

First published in the Bulletin in January 2006.



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About the Author

Bernie Matthews is a convicted bank robber and prison escapee who has served time for armed robbery and prison escapes in NSW (1969-1980) and Queensland (1996-2000). He is now a journalist. He is the author of Intractable published by Pan Macmillan in November 2006.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Bernie Matthews

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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