‘A’ wing was home to top security prisoners, mainly armed robbers, facing very long sentences. Needless to say, everyone was under a lot of stress. Many had been put away by informers, so were virulently intolerant of anyone they didn’t know or trust. The effeminate Dave was still very much an unknown quantity. Once again, he was regarded as being ‘only a pouf’. The vast majority ignored him.
On the wing, waiting to go to trial, was the notorious and prolific ‘Wembley Mob’. These were exclusively premier division ‘chaps’ who, apart from a string of major bank robberies, had robbed one bank of over £250,000. They were innovative and had a certain organisational flair. Some were natural leaders. Soon they had a viable escape plot going.
There were several linked elements to the plan and, for it to work, each had to be carried out smoothly. The most audacious element was to overpower all the warders and take control of the wing. Then, using a key taken from a warder, they would let themselves out into a side yard where dustmen were emptying bins into their dustcart. The exit from this particular yard was through double wooden gates. The dustcart would be driven at and through these. Once into the street outside, some would get away in waiting cars, others would take their chances on foot.
The essence of this plan was timing. Once the warders were overpowered there would be only a short time before the general alarm was raised and police rushed to block off roads surrounding the jail. Further, the dustcart was in the yard for only a short time too.
Breaking the various elements down further, the plotters were confident they had everything covered. There were certainly enough ‘heavies’ to overpower the warders and the ‘Wembley Mob’s’ driver, Dan, was one of the best ‘wheelmen’ in the business. He was confident he could drive the dustcart through the wooden gates. However, opening the wing gate to the yard with the captured keys was problematic. There were quite a few keys on the warders’ key rings. It could take some time to find the right one to open the yard gate. Precious seconds could be lost and these precious seconds could mean the failure of the plot. The ultimate nightmare would be for the wrong key to jam in the lock.
By coincidence, there were a couple of ‘chaps’ on ‘A’ wing who knew of Dave’s abilities with keys and locks. Had he made the approach himself he would have been rejected out of hand. With their recommendation though he was in on the plot.
It was May of 1973 that the plan was put into action. By now 30 or so people were involved and everyone took their positions. The first move was to be made by a leading member of the ‘Wembley Mob’. Henry was to jump on the wing’s Principal Officer in his office and take his keys. That would be the signal for everybody else to overpower the rest of the warders.
There had been no doubt that Henry was equal to the task. At six feet tall and fifteen stones, he was facing a twenty-year sentence. Henry hovered near the doorway to the P.O.’s office. Then he hovered some more. Other people standing about started to get uneasy. They couldn’t understand why Henry hadn’t jumped on the P.O.
To Dave, standing very close to Henry, it was all too clear. The pasty white face spoke volumes. Taking the initiative, Dave threw himself at the P.O. Both fell to the floor of the office with a resounding crash. Other inmates piled in and helped him subdue the P.O. Elsewhere on the wing, desperate inmates threw themselves upon the nearest warder.
With the P.O.’s keys now in his hand Dave led the charge down to the yard gate. He had already identified the key he would need. He thrust it into the lock and swung the gate open, all in one smooth movement. The mob behind him brushed him aside as it thundered into the yard where battle immediately commenced.
This was all too much for the dustmen. Terrified, they fled to the far corners of the yard. The two warders guarding them fought back though, as more warders poured through the gate behind the escaping mob. With the inmates armed with the dustmen’s brooms and shovels and the warders with their riot sticks, the battle raged around the dustcart.
Dan, the ‘Wembley Mob’s’ ‘wheelman’, had jumped behind the wheel of the dustcart. Dave had jumped in beside him. Dan froze, puzzled by the unfamiliar controls. The lifting arm of the dustcart was up, holding an un-emptied bin. It would have to be lowered to pass under the brick arch over the wooden gates. He tugged at various controls with no effect.
Suddenly, Dave pushed him aside. Taking the wheel, he started the cart and drove it straight at the wooden gates. The gates shattered as the front of the cab smashed through, but the upraised lifting arm and dustbin collided with the brick arch and the cart came to an abrupt stop. There was a path to freedom though, either side of the cart though. Battling inmates broke free to run past the cart and into the street.
The ‘Wembley Mob’ had arranged for a large van to be left in the street. Now they fought their way towards it. This was to be their mistake, for, by now, more and more warders were arriving on the scene. With the windscreen smashed and a warder lying across the wheel, the van was going nowhere. Then the police cars started to arrive. Soon the escapers were lying battered and bloody in the road.
But not Dave. He had taken one look at the situation with the van and decided that it was a poor prospect. With another escaper following, he ran through the door of one house, into a back garden, through another house and into another street. They repeated this process several times. Within minutes they were a quarter of a mile away. Dave hailed a passing taxi and they piled in.
This was his fatal mistake. Black taxis are part of the police radio net. The driver heard news about the escape on his radio. Surreptitiously, he called the police and said that he thought he had two of the escapers on board. Police cars quickly surrounded the taxi and Dave and the other escaper were both arrested. By some considerable irony, the other, nearly successful, escaper was also openly gay.
Dave was returned to Brixton and promptly beaten up by the warders, then placed in solitary. A further charge of escaping was added to the other charges he was already facing.
At his trial Dave refused to recognize the court. Again, from a professional criminal’s point of view, this was sheer stupidity. The ‘chaps’ were well aware that the legal process was something like a game. Both sides made various manoevers to try to influence the jury one way or another. One well-known ‘chap’ had a ploy of bursting into tears at a crucial point in his trials. It had won him several unwarranted acquittals and no one condemned him for it. It was all part of the ‘game’.
Only political prisoners, like the IRA, ever refused to recognize courts. By doing so Dave could only have antagonised the judge. As a result he was sentenced to ten and a half years, probably double what he would have got if he had behaved sensibly.
I had learned none of the above from Dave personally. A likeable aspect of his personality was that he never bragged about his achievements. This impressed me all the more.
However, if Dave had thought that his latest, gutsy exploits would lead to him being fully accepted, he would have been disappointed. Unfortunately for him, the category ‘pouf’ cancelled out all the other factors in many people’s eyes. This was further compounded by the fact that Dave couldn’t have a fight to save his life. If he had been violent his gayness could well have been ignored. Ronnie Kray was gay and no one ever called him a pouf.
Even though I was now aware of Dave’s abilities, I had no intention of asking him to join in our escape plan. We didn’t need him, or anyone else for that matter. Quite obviously, the more people involved, the greater the difficulty in getting away unseen or, at least, with a decent start. And if we were going to include someone quite gratuitously, then we would have chosen them from our immediate circle of friends.
But Jeff had heard about the forced delay in handing out the impression of the key. Normally our security was tight, but another failing of Mick’s, apart from his dithering, was that he told too many people about his business. We guessed that Mick must have told him, because Jeff pulled me to one side and asked if, in view of the delay, Dave could have a go at making a key from the impression.
I, personally, was against the idea. Although I quite liked Dave as an individual, I still wasn’t over-impressed by his professionalism. My fear was that he would damage the impression, or worse, lose it. Then we would be back to square one again.
John, Stewart and Mick though were of the opinion that it was worth a chance. Dave assured us that he knew what he was doing and that, not only would he make a working key, but that he would hand the impression back completely undamaged. I duly handed the impression over, saying that I wanted it back as soon as possible.
To my great surprise, Dave gave me it back the following day. At the same time he showed me the key he had made. I was immediately impressed. It actually looked like a proper key, the shiny metal silver-soldered together, but with the rectangular ‘flag’ blank and blackened with candle soot.
He had a further request of me. As he was in ‘patches’ and worked in the top-security mail-bag shop, Dave would never get the opportunity to try the key out in a gate. He knew that I worked in the tin shop, which had several sets of gates in obscure corners. He asked me to take the key into the shop and try it out.
I was committed to help him now, although, secretly, I still doubted that he would be able to make a key that worked. Once again, it was down to his ‘image’. He was so far from what I considered a capable, professional criminal to be.
There was a room called the spray shop that was attached to the tin shop. It was separated from the tin shop by double, unlocked doors. Two cons worked in there on their own, although all workers in the tin shop had easy access to it. A civilian instructor would go in occasionally, but the warders, sitting in set posts in the main shop, never did.
I didn’t know either of the two cons personally, but once again the ‘Parkhurst solidarity’ factor kicked in. I entered the spray shop and approached both of them. “Do either of you two fellas mind if I try a key out in that gate in the corner”, I asked. One immediately jumped up from where he had been sitting and replied, “You go right ahead, mate. I’ll watch the door for you.”
I turned the key in the lock and, being a ‘blank’ of course, it struck against something inside and wouldn’t open the gate. But where it had struck the lock’s levers, there were now scratches and scuff marks on the blackened ‘flag’. I took the key back to Dave.
He worked on it over the dinner-time ‘lock-up’ period and handed it back to me as we unlocked. The flag was completely blackened again, but he had cut shallow notches along one edge. I took it into the shop and tried it in the lock again. Once again it didn’t turn the lock, but there were now another set of scratch marks on the ‘flag’.
Over the next several days, deeper notches were cut. Each time I would try it in the spray shop gate. Each time it wouldn’t turn the lock. I was now rapidly running out of patience. Trying the key out each time wasn’t without risk, both for myself and the two fellas who were looking out for me. Further, I was on the top security, Category ‘A’ list myself. Should I be singled out for one of the special searches that ‘A’ men regularly had, the key would be found. That would be the end of me and this particular plot.
Nine times I tried the key and nine times it wouldn’t open the gate. On the tenth time I had resolved to tell Dave that was enough. To my great surprise, on the tenth try the key turned smoothly in the lock and the gate opened. Just to make sure, I repeated the process several times. I hurried back from work that tea-time to tell the others in the escape that we didn’t have to send the impression out now. We had our key.
This immediately put us on an action footing. It meant that we could have a go within a couple of weeks. However, we would have to decide where we would go from. I was the only one of the group who worked in the tin shop, so that wasn’t an option. We still had a lot of planning to do.....
to be continued