The mastermind of the Hatton Garden heist Brian ‘The Guvnor’ Reader is dead aged 84 after a cancer battle.
The notorious career criminal, who was the ringleader of one of the most famous raids in British history, died in September last year after a fight with colon and prostate cancer.
Reader made more than £200million from a string of hits, including the 1983 Brink’s-Matt robbery where armed robbers stole £26million in gold bullion from a warehouse near London’s Heathrow Airport.
He was the oldest member of the ‘Diamond Wheezers’ heist which stole £14million worth of gems and bullion in a bank deposit heist in Hatton Garden in 2015. The famous raid has been the subject of three feature films, including 2018’s King of Thieves starring Michael Caine.
The robber was jailed for six years and three months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary. He was released halfway through his sentence in 2018 following a series of health battles.
Reader also stood trial along with Kenneth Noye for the murder of undercover police officer Detective Constable John Fordham in 1985. Both Reader and Noye were acquitted.
The mastermind of the Hatton Garden heist Brian ‘The Guvnor’ Reader has died, aged 84
He was jailed for six years and three months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit burglary but was released halfway through his sentence in 2018 following a series of health battles
In June, revealed Reader was set to make £2.5million after selling three homes in his Kent estate.
In 2016 Reader was moved from Belmarsh Prison to an intensive care unit at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Woolwich, south east London.
In appeared in court a year later in wheelchair having suffered a stroke as well as battling prostate cancer.
Four years later a judge ruled he was too unwell and would not have to return to prison for failing to pay back his £6.6million.
Reader had handed over just 6 percent of his multi-million pound cut of the £13.7million raid despite a confiscation order.
The crook, along with fellow raid ringleaders John ‘Kenny’ Collins, Daniel Jones, and Terry Perkins, who died in prison aged 69, were slapped with one of the biggest confiscation orders in Scotland Yard’s history.
The burglars worked through the four-day weekend of the Easter and Passover Bank Holiday, when many of the nearby businesses were closed.
John Collins, Terry Perkins, and Brian Reader in the Castle Public House pub
The burglars worked through the four-day weekend of the Easter and Passover Bank Holiday, when many of the nearby businesses were closed
The interior view of the vault at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit company which was robbed by six men in 2015
Gold ingots found by the police at the home of co-conspirator Michael Seed in Islington
Hatton Garden heist gang: John Collins (top left), Daniel Jones (top centre), Terry Perkins (top right). Bottom row, left to right: Carl Wood, William Lincoln, and Hugh Doyle
It was reported that the burglars had entered the premises through a lift shaft, then drilled through the 50cm thick vault walls with a Hilti power drill.
The theft was so significant that the investigation was assigned to the Flying Squad, a branch of the MPS’ Specialist, Organised and Economic Crime Command.
The infamous Hatton Garden criminals
Brian Reader
Brian Reader
‘Career criminal’ Brian Reader was known as ‘the Guv’nor’ and was a partner in crime of notorious gangland figure Kenneth Noye – despite the fact the pair were like ‘chalk and cheese’.
Reader was the oldest of the gang and he even travelled to the robbery on a bus using a pensioner’s ‘Freedom Pass’.
One police officer even described him as ‘the last of the gentlemen thieves.’
Reader was released from jail in 2018 and avoided paying back his £6.6million share after a judge found him too unwell.
He avoided jail due to his ‘mental and physical’ health.
Terry Perkins
Terry Perkins
Terry Perkins was one of those involved from start to finish and entered the safety deposit premises on both nights of the heist.
He did not go through the drilled holes into the vault and is thought to have stayed outside being handed the stolen goods.
He was later recorded by police saying he wished he’d taken a photo during the raid.
Police have described him as a career criminal and he was also involved in the well-known Security Express heist in east London in 1985.
Perkins died in prison on February 5, 2018 at the age of 69 while watching rugby on television.
He was due to stand trial for the Chatila heist while serving seven years for the Hatton Garden raid.
Daniel Jones
Danny Jones
Daniel Jones was described as an ‘eccentric Walter Mitty’ character during the trial when one of the accused men told of his strange habits.
He is one of the two men who actually got through the small hole the gang drilled into the vault and went through safety deposit boxes before handing out the loot.
He was caught on CCTV wearing an eccentric outfit during the raid, complete with striped trousers, a hi-viz waistcoat, red trainers and a navy baseball cap.
Police found a box of dust masks, the book ‘Forensics for Dummies’, a drill, balaclavas and a walkie-talkie at his house.
Jones has a lengthy criminal record dating back to 1975, with convictions for robbery, handling stolen goods and and burglary.
He was initially jailed for seven years in March 2016 after admitting conspiracy to commit burglary however a further six years and 287 days was later added to this after he failed to pay back £6,599,021.
John ‘Kenny’ Collins
John ‘Kenny’ Collins
John ‘Kenny’ Collins was part of the Islington side of the gang and has a long string of convictions for crimes including robbery, handling stolen goods and fraud dating back to 1961.
He was the driver for the gang waited in vehicles outside the safety deposit company on both nights of the Hatton Garden raid and acted as a lookout. It was his link to the white Mercedes which the first step in police tracking down the raiders.
He also drove the white Ford Transit van which was used in the heist.
The court heard he was described as ‘wombat-thick’ by his accomplices and prosecutors said he ‘lost the plot’ in the weeks after the raid.
During the raid, he was caught on CCTV wearing a smart green quilted cap and carrying a briefcase as he took up a look-out post in the building opposite.
He was released from prison in 2019 after serving half of his seven-year sentence .
However after failing to pay back the millions of pounds he stole he was jailed for another 2,309 days.
William ‘Billy’ Lincoln
William ‘Billy The Fish’ Lincoln
William ‘Billy’ Lincoln was recruited by ringleader John ‘Kenny’ Collins as a trusted family member to control a large part of the loot following the heist.
Lincoln’s aunt Milly Garrett lived with Collins as his common law wife in Islington.
He has a string of convictions for attempted burglary, burglary and attempted theft between 1975 and 1985, but his most recent conviction was for battery in 2013.
The married father-of-two was a well known character at the famous Billingsgate fish market where he would buy haddock, kippers, eels and salmon to sell on to friends and family members.
Lincoln was instrumental in organising the exchange of the bags of loot and was arrested after police boxed in his black Audi A3 before smashing the window and dragging him out of the car.
He was given a seven-year sentence.
Carl Wood
Carl Wood
Carl Wood was a trusted associate of the ringleaders, recruited as an ‘extra pair of hands’ to pull off the heist.
Wood grew up in Hackney and has two adult daughters who have children of their own.
He was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in his early 20s, an inflammatory bowel disease which he claimed often left him bed-ridden and in agony.
In conversations recorded by police bugs, Terry Perkins suggests Wood was vouched for by his old friend Billy Hickson, who stood trial alongside Perkins over the £6million Security Express heist.
Wood was around £20,000 in debt, but in January 2015 attended the Adventure Travel Show, at the Kensington Olympia, featuring ‘once-in-a-lifetime travel experiences’ in apparent anticipation of his future wealth.
He did not attend the planning meetings, but was regularly updated by his friend of 30 years, Daniel Jones.
The pair would regularly meet for walks followed by sandwiches and coffee at their local gardening centre.
Dressed in dark clothing, hi-visibility waistcoat and navy baseball cap and wearing a white surgeon’s style mask dark gloves and glasses, Wood was one of the men who entered 88-90 Hatton Garden on the first night of the raid.
He was jailed for six years for the crime.