Bertie Smalls
Encyclopedia
Derek Creighton "Bertie" Smalls (1935 – 31 January 2008) is considered by many as Britain
's first supergrass
. Although there have been informers throughout history - the Kray twins
were partly convicted two years before Smalls on evidence given by Leslie Payne - the Smalls case was significant for three reasons: the first informer to give the police volume names of his associates and provide the evidence that would send dozens of them to prison to serve long sentences; the first criminal informer to strike a written deal with the Director of Public Prosecutions
; the only criminal informer to serve no time for his crime in return for providing Queen's evidence.
became Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
. That year, the annual total of armed robberies in the Metropolitan district was 380 - partly because the culture was rife with bribe-taking, sharing in the proceeds of crime and "verballing", or fabricating evidence against suspects. Sir Robert felt compelled to remind his detectives which side of the law they were supposed to be on, he told them in his inaugural address: "A good police force is one that catches more criminals than it employs."
At the centre of Sir Robert's focus was Criminal Investigation Department
, and its pinnacle the Flying Squad
- Ken Drury, commander of the Flying Squad and one of his inspectors, Alistair Ingram, later went to prison for corruption.
Sir Robert pushed such investigation - of names such as Mehmet Arif, George Davis
, Ronnie Knight, Freddie Foreman
, Micky McAvoy
- out to the suburban regions, who needed to employ new tactics to catch the bigger criminals they were now faced with.
and was a career criminal.
, on an insider-led raid on a branch of Barclays Bank at 144 High Road, Ilford
. The gang successfully got away with £237,736 - a record at the time.
Most of the team left England via various routes - Smalls via ferry from Newhaven
to Dieppe
, train to Paris
and then flight to Torremolinos
- for the Costa del Sol
, where they read the English
newspapers for updates on the police search for them.
After making an early breakthrough where an informant provided the names of every member of the gang, the police case cooled until the robbers slowly returned to Britain. Smalls was caught in a suburb of Northampton
, and spent the Christmas
period in jail in police custody in London
.
that he would be serving at least 25 years if convicted) offered the police a deal to name and incriminate those involved not only in the Barclays Bank job but in every piece of criminal activity he had ever been involved with or known of.
An agreement was drawn up between Smalls and the Director of Public Prosecutions
, Sir Norman Skelhorn
, that gave Smalls complete immunity from prosecution in exchange for his help. Jack Slipper
was involved in his debriefing and subsequent handling.
On 11 February 1974 the trial commenced at the Old Bailey
, Court No.2 of the Wembley Mob in relation to the Barclays Bank robbery. Smalls duly gave evidence and assisted the authorities. As he concluded his evidence against some of his former friends in one of the committal hearings, they sang to him the Vera Lynn
song: We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...
On 20 May the trial finished, with the jury
returning guilty verdicts on all participants on 22 May. In total the judge handed out sentences totalling 106 years, with Green alone jailed for 18 years.
In the following 14months, Smalls evidence convicted a further 21 associates for a total of 308 years. Smalls also later ensured the release of Jimmy Saunders, jailed by DCI Bert Wickstead for his part in the 1970 Ilford robbery, after a statement in which he said Saunders was not part of the gang.
Later supergrasses, such as Maurice O'Mahoney, in 1974 then one of Britain's most violent armed robbers, who turned in more than 150 names in exchange for a much-reduced sentence, couldn't escape prison if they had committed serious crimes. O'Mahoney faced a minimum of 20 years, but was sentenced eventually to 5 years.
The supergrass system was taken to its pinnacle by a Metropolitan Police officer named the "supergrass master", running the system from Finchley
- DCI Tony Lundy
. From 1977, Lundy often had four trials per week running, but met his match in the Michael "Skinny" Gervaise, the leader of the 24 March 1980 silver bullion robbery - the then largest in the UK. The team got away with 321 ingots of silver valued at £3.4 million, being transferred from Samuel Montagu & Co. Bank to Germany
. But after interviewing Gervaise the team were led on 4 June 1980 to a stack of 309 silver ingots. Gervaise later alleged that Lundy was close to Lennie Gibson (the pair were members of the same Boxing club), who had supplied police uniforms for the raid via Lundy. Lundy was returned to the reformed Flying Squad, and after a two-year investigation fully cleared.
But in its conclusion to the Lundy report, the Police Authority concluded Lundy's team had got too close to the criminals. Evidence came for this from the statistics for armed robbery in the Metropolitan area. In 1972, the annual total of armed robberies in the Metropolitan district was 380 - the year after Smalls, it had reduced to 168. By 1978, it had risen to 734 and by 1982 it had more than doubled, to 1,772 - a 366 per cent increase in a decade. The Flying Squad was revived to centralise specialist robbery squads, and to improve technical surveillance and the provision of police tactical firearms units.
As part of his deal with the police, Smalls received a new identity. Within a few years of the trial he had returned to his old haunts in north London, drinking openly in the pubs around Hornsey and often boasting he was paid £25 a week by Scotland Yard for his betrayal. He died in January 2008 at his home in Croydon, south London. Bobby King, one of the robbers his evidence convicted and who was later held up as an example of the positive side of prison, once saw him in Crouch End
, but said he saw it as a test of his rehabilitation that he didn't whack Smalls.
In 1988 DCSI Tony Lundy retired aged 49 to the Costa del Sol
for a quiet retirement; where one of his neighbours was Mickey Green
- by then Britain's most wanted criminal, and biggest drug dealer. In 2005 the UK Government passed the Serious Organised Crime Act, which includes a "tariff" for informants. Even today, people who grass about minor things are said to be "a Bertie Smalls" due to the actions of the man himself.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
's first supergrass
Supergrass (informer)
Supergrass is a slang term for an informer, which originated in London. Informers had been referred to as "grasses" since the late-1930s, and the "super" prefix was coined by journalists in the early 1970s to describe those informers from the city's underworld who testified against former...
. Although there have been informers throughout history - the Kray twins
Kray twins
Reginald "Reggie" Kray and his twin brother Ronald "Ronnie" Kray were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in London's East End during the 1950s and 1960s...
were partly convicted two years before Smalls on evidence given by Leslie Payne - the Smalls case was significant for three reasons: the first informer to give the police volume names of his associates and provide the evidence that would send dozens of them to prison to serve long sentences; the first criminal informer to strike a written deal with the Director of Public Prosecutions
Director of Public Prosecutions
The Director of Public Prosecutions is the officer charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world...
; the only criminal informer to serve no time for his crime in return for providing Queen's evidence.
Background
In 1972, Sir Robert MarkRobert Mark
Sir Robert Mark, GBE, QPM was an English police officer who served as Chief Constable of Leicester City Police, and later as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1972 to 1977....
became Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
. That year, the annual total of armed robberies in the Metropolitan district was 380 - partly because the culture was rife with bribe-taking, sharing in the proceeds of crime and "verballing", or fabricating evidence against suspects. Sir Robert felt compelled to remind his detectives which side of the law they were supposed to be on, he told them in his inaugural address: "A good police force is one that catches more criminals than it employs."
At the centre of Sir Robert's focus was Criminal Investigation Department
Criminal Investigation Department
The Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
, and its pinnacle the Flying Squad
Flying Squad
The Flying Squad is a branch of the Specialist Crime Directorate, within London's Metropolitan Police Service. The Squad's purpose is to investigate commercial armed robberies, along with the prevention and investigation of other serious armed crime...
- Ken Drury, commander of the Flying Squad and one of his inspectors, Alistair Ingram, later went to prison for corruption.
Sir Robert pushed such investigation - of names such as Mehmet Arif, George Davis
George Davis (armed robber)
George Davis is an ex-armed robber in the United Kingdom, who became widely known through a very successful campaign by friends and supporters to free him from prison after his wrongful conviction in March 1975 for an armed payroll robbery at the London Electricity Board offices in Ilford on 4...
, Ronnie Knight, Freddie Foreman
Freddie Foreman
Frederick Foreman is a convicted British criminal involved in the disposal of the body Jack “the Hat” McVitie and for which he served 16 years in prison....
, Micky McAvoy
Micky McAvoy
"Mad" Micky McAvoy is a convicted English armed robber who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 1984 for heading up the Brink's-MAT robbery. He was captured ten days after the robbery. The robbery is considered one of the most notorious ever committed, at the time being labelled "the crime of the...
- out to the suburban regions, who needed to employ new tactics to catch the bigger criminals they were now faced with.
Bertie Smalls a.k.a. Lion over the river
Derek Creighton "Bertie" Smalls was born in the East End of LondonEast End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
and was a career criminal.
Barclays
On 9 February 1970 Smalls led a team of robbers from The Wembley Mob, including Mickey GreenMickey Green
Mickey Green is an English criminal, who has also held Irish nationality. A convicted armed robber he has allegedly been one of Britain's leading drug dealers for many years and is said to be worth at least £75 million....
, on an insider-led raid on a branch of Barclays Bank at 144 High Road, Ilford
Ilford
Ilford is a large cosmopolitan town in East London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It forms a significant commercial and retail...
. The gang successfully got away with £237,736 - a record at the time.
Most of the team left England via various routes - Smalls via ferry from Newhaven
Newhaven, East Sussex
Newhaven is a town in the Lewes District of East Sussex in England. It lies at the mouth of the River Ouse, on the English Channel coast, and is a ferry port for services to France.-Origins:...
to Dieppe
Dieppe, Seine-Maritime
Dieppe is a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in France. In 1999, the population of the whole Dieppe urban area was 81,419.A port on the English Channel, famous for its scallops, and with a regular ferry service from the Gare Maritime to Newhaven in England, Dieppe also has a popular pebbled...
, train to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and then flight to Torremolinos
Torremolinos
Torremolinos is a municipality on the Costa del Sol of the Mediterranean, immediately to the west of the city of Málaga, in the province of Málaga in the autonomous region of Andalusia in southern Spain...
- for the Costa del Sol
Costa del Sol
The Costa del Sol is a region in the south of Spain, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, comprising the coastal towns and communities along the Mediterranean coastline of the Málaga province. The Costa del Sol is situated between two lesser known costas: Costa de la Luz and Costa Tropical...
, where they read the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
newspapers for updates on the police search for them.
After making an early breakthrough where an informant provided the names of every member of the gang, the police case cooled until the robbers slowly returned to Britain. Smalls was caught in a suburb of Northampton
Northampton
Northampton is a large market town and local government district in the East Midlands region of England. Situated about north-west of London and around south-east of Birmingham, Northampton lies on the River Nene and is the county town of Northamptonshire. The demonym of Northampton is...
, and spent the Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
period in jail in police custody in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
Informant
On 2 January, Smalls asked for a meeting with the lead Inspector. In the conversation, Smalls (having been informed by his solicitorSolicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
that he would be serving at least 25 years if convicted) offered the police a deal to name and incriminate those involved not only in the Barclays Bank job but in every piece of criminal activity he had ever been involved with or known of.
An agreement was drawn up between Smalls and the Director of Public Prosecutions
Director of Public Prosecutions
The Director of Public Prosecutions is the officer charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world...
, Sir Norman Skelhorn
Norman Skelhorn
Sir Norman Skelhorn KBE QC was the Director of Public Prosecutions for England and Wales from 1964 to 1977.. The son of a clergyman, he was educated at Shrewsbury School. He was called to the Bar in 1931...
, that gave Smalls complete immunity from prosecution in exchange for his help. Jack Slipper
Jack Slipper
Jack Kenneth Slipper was a Detective Chief Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police in London. He was known as "Slipper of the Yard"...
was involved in his debriefing and subsequent handling.
On 11 February 1974 the trial commenced at the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
, Court No.2 of the Wembley Mob in relation to the Barclays Bank robbery. Smalls duly gave evidence and assisted the authorities. As he concluded his evidence against some of his former friends in one of the committal hearings, they sang to him the Vera Lynn
Vera Lynn
Dame Vera Lynn, DBE is an English singer-songwriter and actress whose musical recordings and performances were enormously popular during World War II. During the war she toured Egypt, India and Burma, giving outdoor concerts for the troops...
song: We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when...
We'll Meet Again (song)
"We'll Meet Again" is a 1939 song made famous by British singer Vera Lynn with music and lyrics written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles ....
On 20 May the trial finished, with the jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
returning guilty verdicts on all participants on 22 May. In total the judge handed out sentences totalling 106 years, with Green alone jailed for 18 years.
In the following 14months, Smalls evidence convicted a further 21 associates for a total of 308 years. Smalls also later ensured the release of Jimmy Saunders, jailed by DCI Bert Wickstead for his part in the 1970 Ilford robbery, after a statement in which he said Saunders was not part of the gang.
After Smalls confession
In the aftermath and reflection of the Smalls deal, the Law Lords told the Director of Public Prosecutions that they found the arrangement with Smalls an "unholy deal."Later supergrasses, such as Maurice O'Mahoney, in 1974 then one of Britain's most violent armed robbers, who turned in more than 150 names in exchange for a much-reduced sentence, couldn't escape prison if they had committed serious crimes. O'Mahoney faced a minimum of 20 years, but was sentenced eventually to 5 years.
The supergrass system was taken to its pinnacle by a Metropolitan Police officer named the "supergrass master", running the system from Finchley
Finchley
Finchley is a district in Barnet in north London, England. Finchley is on high ground, about north of Charing Cross. It formed an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, becoming a municipal borough in 1933, and has formed part of Greater London since 1965...
- DCI Tony Lundy
Tony Lundy
Tony Lundy was a Detective Superintendent within the Metropolitan Police Service, most famous for his involvement in the 'supergrass' trials of criminals in the 1970s and 1980s.- Supergrasses :...
. From 1977, Lundy often had four trials per week running, but met his match in the Michael "Skinny" Gervaise, the leader of the 24 March 1980 silver bullion robbery - the then largest in the UK. The team got away with 321 ingots of silver valued at £3.4 million, being transferred from Samuel Montagu & Co. Bank to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. But after interviewing Gervaise the team were led on 4 June 1980 to a stack of 309 silver ingots. Gervaise later alleged that Lundy was close to Lennie Gibson (the pair were members of the same Boxing club), who had supplied police uniforms for the raid via Lundy. Lundy was returned to the reformed Flying Squad, and after a two-year investigation fully cleared.
But in its conclusion to the Lundy report, the Police Authority concluded Lundy's team had got too close to the criminals. Evidence came for this from the statistics for armed robbery in the Metropolitan area. In 1972, the annual total of armed robberies in the Metropolitan district was 380 - the year after Smalls, it had reduced to 168. By 1978, it had risen to 734 and by 1982 it had more than doubled, to 1,772 - a 366 per cent increase in a decade. The Flying Squad was revived to centralise specialist robbery squads, and to improve technical surveillance and the provision of police tactical firearms units.
As part of his deal with the police, Smalls received a new identity. Within a few years of the trial he had returned to his old haunts in north London, drinking openly in the pubs around Hornsey and often boasting he was paid £25 a week by Scotland Yard for his betrayal. He died in January 2008 at his home in Croydon, south London. Bobby King, one of the robbers his evidence convicted and who was later held up as an example of the positive side of prison, once saw him in Crouch End
Crouch End
Crouch End is an area of north London, in the London Borough of Haringey.- Location :Crouch End is in a valley between Harringay to the east, Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green to the north, Finsbury Park and Archway to the south and Highgate to the west...
, but said he saw it as a test of his rehabilitation that he didn't whack Smalls.
In 1988 DCSI Tony Lundy retired aged 49 to the Costa del Sol
Costa del Sol
The Costa del Sol is a region in the south of Spain, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, comprising the coastal towns and communities along the Mediterranean coastline of the Málaga province. The Costa del Sol is situated between two lesser known costas: Costa de la Luz and Costa Tropical...
for a quiet retirement; where one of his neighbours was Mickey Green
Mickey Green
Mickey Green is an English criminal, who has also held Irish nationality. A convicted armed robber he has allegedly been one of Britain's leading drug dealers for many years and is said to be worth at least £75 million....
- by then Britain's most wanted criminal, and biggest drug dealer. In 2005 the UK Government passed the Serious Organised Crime Act, which includes a "tariff" for informants. Even today, people who grass about minor things are said to be "a Bertie Smalls" due to the actions of the man himself.