The anatomy of a bank robber

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.