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Friday, February 24, 2006
Woman arrested at building society over £50m cash robbery
By Times Online and Steve Bird, Will Pavia and Stewart Tendler
Detectives investigating Britain’s biggest ever cash robbery have arrested a third person in connection with the armed heist in which a gang escaped with up to £50 million. A 41-year-old woman was held yesterday at a branch of the Portman building society in Bromley, South London. She has been taken to a police station in Kent for questioning on suspicion of handling stolen goods.
A report in the Daily Mirror said that a woman had been arrested after trying to open a building society account with bundles of cash. Staff at the branch allegedly kept her talking as they called police after she pulled out around £6,000 in used notes that was bound with tape marked Tonbridge, the newspaper reported.
A gang of armed robbers escaped with the cash haul after taking hostage the family of the manager of the Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent. The robbers made their getaway in the early hours of Wednesday. Police were today planning to question a man, aged 29, and a woman, aged 31, who were arrested separately yesterday in South London on charges of conspiracy to commit robbery. Detectives and forensic teams have been searching two addresses in Forest Hill.
Senior officers described the first two arrests - hours after insurers offered Britain’s biggest reward of £2 million - as "a significant breakthrough". Adrian Leppard, the assistant chief constable of Kent, said: "These arrests show our commitment to bring the members of this criminal gang to justice." Mr Leppard said that the arrests were very positive and directly related to the investigation.
Mr Leppard said that police had also discovered a red former Parcel Force van that might have been used during the kidnapping of the wife of the manager of the Securitas cash depot. The van was abandoned in a car park at the Hook and Hatchet pub at Hucking, near Maidstone, but was linked to the raid only after police had interviewed the woman.
Timothy Clark, 44, the pub landlord, said that he suspected that the vehicle had been involved in the raid. "We are the only building in the vicinity and we couldn’t understand why the vehicle had been abandoned," he added. Last night police said that so far none of the cash had been recovered and that it could have been smuggled across the Channel hours after the raid.
Speaking at a press conference before the arrests, Mr Leppard, who is leading a team of 100 investigators, confirmed that police were looking at the possibility that the gang had fled across the Channel. Officers have already seized security camera footage and computer numberplate records of vehicles going through the Channel Tunnel and on the Dover ferries after the raid early on Wednesday morning.
Mr Leppard also confirmed that detectives were looking into the possibility that the gang had inside information for an operation that had been "executed with military precision". He said that detectives were keeping an open mind about an insider at Securitas, whose depot in Tonbridge, Kent, was the robbers’ target, but said that the gang must have carried out "extensive reconnaissance".
There are about 60 staff at the depot. A special group of officers will already have begun checking their background, lifestyles, relatives and friends for any suspicious links. Police believe that the gang must have known that the depot would hold unusually large amounts of money after the January sales. They suspect that the leader may have decided to limit the haul so that their escape would not be delayed. Steel cages of cash were wheeled by raiders dressed in overalls and masks into a 7.5-tonne lorry before it was driven away. The lorry and three other vehicles used in the robbery have not been found.
Mr Leppard said that the loss "could be as high as forty or fifty million pounds", but that the final figure would not be known until forensic scientists had finished their work and an audit had been completed. Detectives disclosed yesterday the full extent of the ruthless tactics used by the robbers. Mr Leppard said that the gang were top-flight criminals and were "a serious organised criminal gang that is armed and extremely callous". "They have taken hostage a young woman and her eight-year-old son and terrorised 14 members of staff. It was a meticulously planned operation and a lot of people were involved. If you are one of those people then please ring," he said.
"This reward is being offered because we know that someone out there will have seen or heard information that could be vital to our investigation. "It may be that people involved in crime know something and we would urge them to come forward. This is a significant reward that reflects the serious nature of this robbery."
Colin Dixon, the manager who was forced to let the gang into the depot while his wife, Lynn, and his young son were held hostage, and the 14 staff who were seized, were still being questioned. Mr Leppard said that the boy had been traumatised by the ordeal. Mr Dixon, who was threatened at gunpoint, was told that his child and wife would be "executed" unless he co-operated.
At 1am on Wednesday they were all taken to the depot, where the robbers, who were wearing balaclavas and paintball masks, tied up the staff and packed the cash into the lorry. Police are in contact with their colleagues in Northern Ireland for advice on how they handled the raid on Northern Bank’s Belfast headquarters in 2004, in which £26.5 million cash was stolen.
Detectives have also appealed to the public for help in finding the manager’s silver Nissan Almera car, registration WP52 KPV, which they believe was left in the layby on the A249 near Stockbury and then removed by one of the gang. The disappearance of the vehicle raises the prospect that it has been burnt out to remove clues to the identity of the kidnappers.
The Times February 24, 2006
Robbery
The hostage ordeal of manager's wife and son
IN a small cul-de-sac in Herne Bay, overlooking the Thames estuary, a children’s birthday party was drawing to a rowdy close. As a magician packed up his equipment and parents arrived to pick up 17 children at 6.30pm on Tuesday, few, if any, noticed two men knock on Lynn Dixon’s front door five houses away. Within minutes, the mother of three was ushering her youngest son, 8, from her home and into the back of the men’s car.
Mrs Dixon believed she was in the capable and caring hands of two policemen who had just calmly told her that her husband of 26 years had been involved in a car crash. It was only when the car was clear of the street and heading north that she realised that they were being kidnapped by two members of a gang who had already abducted her husband, Colin.
As the mother and child huddled against each other, they embarked on a six-hour drive during which they were threatened at gunpoint and told that they would be killed unless they obeyed their captors’ orders. The terrified pair were eventually driven to a farm and reunited with Mr Dixon, the manager of a Securitas depot who had been tied up and brutalised by the gang.
It was there he was told that unless he helped the armed gang to raid the cash depot where he worked in Tonbridge, Kent, he would see his wife and child shot dead. As the full horror of the family’s ordeal emerged yesterday, residents in the street where the couple have lived for 18 years and made lifelong friends were distraught.
Michael Pout, 64, a surveyor who lives next door to the Dixons, said that the couple had three sons: Daniel, in his mid-20s, had followed his father into banking, while Dominic, in his early 20s, had been well known because he did a paper round in the street. The youngest son attends Herne Bay Junior School half a mile away, where he is in Year 4. “They are the sort of family that everyone would like to have living next door,” Mr Pout said.
“She was a civil servant for a while but gave that up to look after their youngest. Lynn walks the youngest to school every day. “He’s a very nice kid. I think Mr Dixon’s been commuting to Tonbridge for several years. I think he got seconded there from his job at Barclays Bank. Colin didn’t really say. He would leave the house about 6.30 every morning and get back around 7 in the evening. Obviously I’m amazed and shocked.”
Charlie
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