Postscript

The extraordinary lengths the figures behind some of Scotland’s biggest heists have gone to have been well documented in the pages of this book. What has only been touched upon in passing is the answer to a very simple question: why?

Why have so many people taken it upon themselves to kill, torture, threaten and plot to get their hands on other people’s money and possessions? And remember, the cases featured in this book are only a tiny proportion of the raids and robberies conducted in Scotland in modern times. Many, many more have been carried out with varying results.

It would be wrong to suggest there is one underlying factor running through the cases outlined – each was very different – but, when boiled down and analysed, there is a clutch of common motives behind these incredible crimes and many of those have been outlined by those who know best – the raiders themselves. At various stages, usually during court proceedings, pleas of mitigation have been made and the driving forces behind particular episodes have been relayed either in person or by legal counsel. Some appear more plausible than others but most have been repeated at one stage or another during the course of completely unrelated cases.

The first of those is quite simple – desperation. The need to access large sums of money quickly may seem an obvious motivation but, in fact, a ‘desperate’ need is only occasionally cited. In the case of Howard Wilson, the policeman who turned armed robber and murderer, it was, of course, business troubles, leading to debt, which prompted his move into a new and illicit line of work. In more recent times, for example in the failed ram raid on the HSBC premises in Lanarkshire, the same explanation was offered up. And, in the case of the Bowers brothers, their crimes were said to have been prompted by a desire to save their gym business.

Desperation can take many forms and addiction is part of that problem, as demonstrated by the Perth museum thefts which saw ancient coins sold off for a fraction of their true worth as a means to service the culprit’s heroin dependency. Albeit on a different scale to the type of major heists featured in this book, a brief glimpse at any newspaper on any given day will tell the story of the frequency of armed raids and robberies for relatively small returns by addicts in need of quick and convenient cash.

Of course, greed is another of the big motivators for those with a mind to pull off major heists. There was no suggestion that Alexander Gray, a bookmaker and apparently successful gambling club operator, desperately needed cash when he pulled together the team required to pull off the ‘Plasticine’ robbery at Shettleston bank but he did desperately want that money.

The same could be said of those behind the black market which supports the art and antiquities thefts which have left many innocent people heartbroken and have deprived the public of some significant works. Those who target rhino horn to profit from its medicinal uses are interested purely in the proceeds, not in the heritage and culture behind it. Those who stole the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece The Madonna of the Yarnwinder from Drumlanrig Castle had pound signs in their eyes, not any concern for the owner who was left devastated by its disappearance and who died before it had been safely found and recovered, thankfully, having escaped any damage during the regrettable incident.

The influence of a criminal lifestyle has undoubtedly been a major contributing factor to many cases too. Going right back to 1806 and the murder of William Begbie, if James Mackcoull was indeed the killer, all of the evidence suggests the robbery was just the latest in a long line of crimes which has become a way of life for the Londoner. Whether picking pockets, robbing banks or slaying innocent people he saw it purely as a means to an end. It is what a habit that he couldn’t, or perhaps wouldn’t, shake.

In more recent times, the heist from the Asda store at The Jewel in Edinburgh was another which appeared to be born from a trend in the underworld. Ram-raiding was a 1990s phenomenon and that particular version of the criminal trend simply took it to a whole new level. There was clear evidence to suggest that the passion for ram-raiding was spreading through criminal gangs in certain parts of the country, the north of England being a hotspot, and it demonstrated the almost contagious nature some types of crime can have. It was no surprise to many in law enforcement circles when it transpired that those suspected of the raid on the store in Scotland’s capital originated from what at the time was the ram-raiding capital of England – Newcastle.

Every now again, an example of a very unusual motive comes along and the act prompted by that motive gives its perpetrators the chance to make a statement. The story behind the Stone of Destiny demonstrated that – not least because those responsible had no intention of keeping their ‘loot’. Instead, they hand-delivered it back to the authorities in a manner which was guaranteed to grab headlines and gain vital exposure for their nationalist cause. It was an intricate plot by intelligent people and it served its purpose well. The very fact it is still being spoken and written about more than 60 years on is testament to that. Could the Stone of Destiny theft be the one crime examined here that is, indeed, victimless? After all, nationalists would argue that it was already stolen property when it was installed in Westminster Abbey in the first place – according to their own claim, they were simply taking back what was already theirs.

In virtually every other crime detailed in these pages, there was a very real victim – in some cases, they paid the ultimate price, losing their life for no other reason that they stood between a thief and their chosen haul. In anyone’s eyes, the use of such force and terror can never be justified. And who could claim the trauma caused for victims of an armed raid could be worthwhile simply to satisfy a craving? Bizarrely, among a certain section of the criminal fraternity, that craving is, indeed, the overwhelming motive behind their life of crime. It sounds incredible but some who have indulged in the dark arts of the armed robbery have cited the thrill generated by being in the midst of a major heist as their incentive.

James Crosbie is held up as one of the most obvious and best-known examples for whom this was true. He had success in business but still he went back to what he knew best – robbing banks. Crosbie had the type of life many of his peers growing up in Glasgow could only have dreamt of. He earned his pilot’s licence and experienced life in Africa during some of his many adventures but it wasn’t enough. Nothing could replicate the buzz he got from planning and executing the armed robberies which made him infamous. Even today, with his life on a different path, he is known for his books chronicling the types of episodes which landed him in prison.

This was, after all, the man who made one of his getaway dashes by bicycle – not because he had to but because he could. He thought about it, set the plan in motion and then carried it through to see if it would succeed. And it did – he pedalled away with the cash from his latest bank job in a rucksack and left police trailing in his wake. It was the type of game of cat and mouse that Crosbie appeared to thrive on although, ultimately, it ended in defeat as he was convicted and jailed. Perhaps in his mind that was just one of the results of the game he played – nothing ventured, nothing gained.

In so much as he turned it into a profitable enterprise for a period of time, Crosbie, in some ways, could be seen as successful in what he did. Much of the cash stolen was never recovered and, for large periods during his criminal career, he remained at large and able to enjoy the fruits of his efforts.

Others were less proficient but were driven by a similar craving that Crosbie had demonstrated throughout his life. That has been exemplified by a man not featured in the preceding 16 chapters but with a story worth recounting now as the motivations for those responsible for some of Scotland’s heists are chewed over.

His name is Paul Macklin, and late in 2013 he walked free from prison after serving eight years in prison following an attempted £300,000 payroll robbery. Macklin was not desperate for money. He was not that concerned about the potential profit from his plot so could not be considered to be acting purely through greed. He was not steeped in a criminal lifestyle – far from it – and nor was he in any way trying to make a statement. What he did have was a craving for the adrenaline rush that, in his mind, only an armed robbery could bring.

To put his actions in context, it should be explained that Macklin came from a privileged background. His father was a high-flying executive in the booming multi-billion-pound North Sea oil industry and, as such, could afford the finer things in life for his son. That included the type of education that only plenty of money can buy. Macklin spent most of his latter school years at the prestigious Gordonstoun School in Moray. Its sprawling 200-acre campus, amid rolling glens and scenic woodland, is an idyllic location in which to live and learn. Macklin followed in the footsteps of royalty, with Prince Charles among the best-known alumni of the boarding establishment. Prince Phillip too was a former pupil so it was little surprise that Charles and his brothers, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward, were also enrolled there.

The school attracts pupils from all over the world and promotes what is described as a ‘fully inclusive’ educational programme based on the four distinct educational principles of ‘Challenge, Service, Internationalism and Responsibility’. Parents are promised that students will be ‘challenged academically, physically and emotionally’ and told that the opportunities available to pupils provide them with ‘significant life-shaping experiences’. But it was whilst growing up as a Gordonstoun pupil that Macklin claims the seeds for his criminal future were first sown, as he opted not to follow the traditional path of his contemporaries and pursue a career in the familiar fields of finance, law and medicine. He had different plans and they did not involve conformity in any shape or form.

By the age of 21 he was preparing for life behind bars. That was his punishment for a failed heist in 1994 in which he and Robert Cadiz, another former public school pupil, attempted to raid an Aberdeen City Council depot in the city’s Kittybrewster district. They were armed with guns and wire cutters as they chased the potential reward of a £300,000 haul – cash intended to pay wages. But Macklin and Cadiz did not net a single penny, despite months of planning.

The pair had met at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen, the fee-paying school Macklin attended after being expelled from Gordonstoun during his fifth-year studies. Its FP list reads like a sporting Who’s Who, with everything from Olympic gold medal winners to Scotland rugby stars, not to mention a plethora of old boys who have gone on to make it big in business. Macklin and Cadiz were not the archetypal Gordon’s boys and had their hearts set on different achievements, if you can use that term. But, before they had carried out their big-money plot, they were stopped and searched by police who discovered a pump-action shotgun in one of their holdalls. They threatened officers with what was believed to be a gun in their other bag before making off on foot and then hijacking a passing car to continue their getaway.

The duo were later arrested and, despite a legal fight, Macklin was sentenced to eight years in jail for his part in the attempted robbery and for threatening four police officers and the motorist. Cadiz received a three-year sentence but was also jailed for six years for an armed robbery on a branch of the Clydesdale Bank in an Aberdeen suburb. On that occasion, he had acted with an accomplice but steadfastly refused to name that individual.

After being released from his first sentence, having served six years, Macklin was jailed again when he was found guilty of threatening police officers with a gun during an incident in 2003. It followed a robbery on a property used as a safe house by drug dealers in the Printfield area of Aberdeen – a crime he maintains to this day he was not involved in. Macklin, upon his release from prison in 2013, vowed to clear his name by challenging his most recent conviction in the Supreme Court.

Now in his 40s, he also took the opportunity to talk at length about the reason for his initial armed raid plans. In an interview with the Press and Journal newspaper, Macklin said: ‘It is almost embarrassing to say this now, but when I was 18 I was into adrenalin and extreme sports – skiing, gliding, sky-diving, bungee jumping. Then I saw Point Break, which presents an armed robbery like an extreme sport. I thought to myself: “I’m going to have a bit of this”. It was kind of an adrenalin thing doing these robberies, at the time I was only concerned with my own selfish motivations.’

Point Break is the 1991 Hollywood blockbuster starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. Swayze plays the role of the leader of a gang of surfers who, as a profitable sideline, have been pulling off a string of armed robberies and are pursued by the FBI. It was something of a film icon in its era and, despite Macklin’s protestations of embarrassment, it is not difficult to see the connection between glamorous big-screen portrayals and the actions of impressionable individuals.

The cinema industry has been arguably the biggest beneficiary of heists through the years with many box-office hits being born from the true-crime genre. From the 1955 film-noir movie Rififi to mainstream offerings such as The Italian Job, Ocean’s Eleven and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, there has never been a shortage of offerings which have glamorised the heist. There is no denying that there is something enthralling and captivating about the plots of such films. The planning, clockwork precision, elaborate execution and the suspense of the getaway have all been captured in glorious Technicolor to be enjoyed by audiences intent on two hours of escapism. If you have picked up this book, the chances are you, like me, will have enjoyed at least some of those films. What the research and writing involved in this project has reinforced is that the fiction is far more palatable than the brutal, honest truth.

Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves were chosen for roles in Point Break to add glamour to the story and the same is also true of George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon in Ocean’s Eleven and Mark Wahlberg in the 2003 remake of The Italian Job. It is fair to say that Scotland’s real-life equivalents were not cut from the same cloth as their Hollywood counterparts and their airbrushed versions of the epic heists but many chased the rush that has been portrayed so often in the movies. Macklin was one of those and, to this day, he insists he does not wish he had ignored his urge to attempt to rob the Kittybrewster depot, believing it was all part of growing up for him. He said: ‘I was 21 years old and I took a shot at hundreds of thousands of pounds. To have missed the years 21 to 26 was not the end of the world. If there are people out there who I have hurt, I definitely regret any part in that and I apologise.’

Macklin outlined his hope to indulge his love of skiing by finding employment on the slopes of the French Alps, clearly hoping a new life abroad will allow him to put his chequered past behind him. He was not perturbed by his experiences in the prison system either and, in fact, he claimed: ‘I never found prison particularly hard. It was just like Gordonstoun. I remember one disgraced aristocrat, who had been to Eton, was asked how he survived when he came home from prison. He said that any man who had been to a public school or in the Army will be quite at home. For me, that’s how it was.’

Speaking of his time at Gordonstoun, he added: ‘You are living there eight months a year with around 50 to 60 other boys. Obviously, there is not a lot of parental supervision and you have a culture of 13- to 18-year-olds who live among themselves and police themselves. It creates a very independent child from an early age.’

It should be stressed that the principal of Gordonstoun was quick to denounce those claims, stating: ‘We do not recognise the school that Paul Macklin is describing. Pastoral care is highly structured at Gordonstoun and is at the heart of everything we do. Gordonstoun works hard to make sure a culture of mutual support and kindness is fostered in every member of the school community.’

What Macklin’s life of wealth and opportunity proves is that there is no stereotypical perpetrator. Each heist will have its own story, with peculiarities and twists in the tale. Prevention will always be better than the cure but curbing the plentiful motivating factors will, in reality, be impossible.

There will always be desperation, greed, criminal lifestyles, people intent on making political statements and those who crave the thrill of the chase. The challenge facing businesses, individuals and the police is to be ready and waiting to ensure those who do choose to travel that path are met with the steely resistance which has thwarted so many attempts in the past.