November 4, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode, Adam Shand speaks with retired detective Ray Lambie, who joined the NSW Armed Robbery Squad at the height of the so-called “golden era.” Lambie shares stories from the front line — high-stakes takedowns, corrupt cops, close calls and the adrenaline rush of chasing Australia’s most dangerous men. Together, they explore how policing changed, why the banks resisted reform and how the myth of the Aussie outlaw continues to shape our view of crime.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Appoche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann. I'm your host,
Adam Shann. Thanks for joining us. Make sure you subscribe
to the podcast and share this with your friends for
more independent crime journalism. These days, bank robbers worked with
a PC and a phone, but once upon a time
it was Balaclaver's and sawn Off shotguns. The nineteen eighties
was the so called Golden era of armed robbers who
(00:34):
targeted banks, but also clubs, pubs, service stations anywhere that
was holding cash.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Police have confirmed another armed hold up in Sydney today.
Witnesses say the gunmen were calm, professional and heavily armed.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
It was a time of prosperity and in that time
there were thousands of armed robberies every year across Australia.
That led to a kind of cult status among criminals.
The counter jumpers, as they were known, were regarded highly
among the criminal class.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Escaped convict Ray Denning taunted for again today, boasting of
his freedom and daring them to catch him.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Names like Ray Denning, Ray Chuck Bennett, and Russell Cox
were revered in the underworld and even romanticized by some
members of the public. In reality, these men were brutal
egomaniacs with no regard for public safety as they wreaked
havoc in the community and left their victims with terrible trauma.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
By the late nineteen eighties, armed robberies in Australia had
peaked at over six thousand incidents a year.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Finally, in the nineteen nineties, technology began to catch up
with the bank robbers with bulletproof security screens, CCTV and
other developments that put an end to this trade. My
guest today, retired Detective Ray Lamby, joined the Armed Robbery
Squad of New South Wales Police in nineteen eighty five,
at the height of this so called golden age of
(01:58):
armed robberies, and he's agreed to share some memories of
those heady and dangerous times.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Gid I rap, good morning, Adam, how are you good?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Thank you so you joined the arm robbers ninety eighty five.
It was a hectic time.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It was a very hectic time and it was very
much a new experience for me. I was the first
detective to go into the arm table up squad as
a permanent transfer who had not completed their designation as
a detective, so it was very much a steep learning
curve for me, and what.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Were you faced with what was the daily task of
the squad at the time.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So it's important to understand at this stage that the
squad itself comprised about sixty men. And when I say
sixty men, we didn't have any women in the squad
at that stage. So it was a system of pairs
where you'd have a senior man and a junior man,
and across the group, you know, you would have geographically
based people who would take care of the informants, et cetera,
(02:52):
or the crimes that were taking place in those areas.
It was not a geographically determined situation, but a lot
of people who came from places like I do, from
the Solent Shot or from the Northern Beaches area, had
their own network of informants. They had their own network
of contacts, businesses, etc. That they would use to stay
ahead of the game or in fact go after the
criminals that were in the area at the time.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Right, it seems like you want to stay ahead of
the game. It's always the object of policing. But it
seems like there was a lot of reactive work going
on as well, because it was just so many robberies
going off, and it wasn't just banks, it was a
whole range of any outlet holding cash.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Absolutely, And what you actually have here is in an
arm robber you have the most classic serialized offender. It's
the most classic serialized offense, and it's also a serialized investigation.
So in a day's work at the armhold up squad,
you would actually have a briefing on what had occurred
in the past twenty four hours, and one of the
things that we would have is swift access to, say,
(03:48):
for instance, the bank photographs that were taken during the
commission of the offenses. So there needed to be a
chain of continuity for those photographs to make sure that
they were of evidentiary value, So within twenty four hours
we would have those from the following day, and then
we would take care of assessing with firstly as this
serialized defender was, if we'd seen him before in images
(04:09):
from another bank propering, you know, if it wasn't a
bank robbery, who was the victim, what type of business
was it, where was it, what type of car was used,
what types of words were said, how many people were
in the crew, the types of weapons that were used
and the words were actually said. These were all parts
of them of the offender that we used to assess
in order to be able to look at that serialized investigation,
(04:31):
because much like a gesaw puzzle, each one of those
offenses would actually provide more information about the offenders, not
specifically enough for the one offense, but when you looked
at them collectively, you'd be able to actually determine what
evidence may be available from the range of offenses these
people had committed.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We had a cohort in Victoria of experienced arm robbers,
if you like. Did you have the same sort of
thing in New South Wales? Were you dealing with a
small pool of people or was it something that the
crooks were seeing as an opportunity The banks were soft
targets and amateurs could get base, anybody with a balaclava
and a weapon could get in or what was the situation?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Well, absolutely, but we need to look at the get
back to the grassroots for the bad guys here the
criminal fraternity, and basically what is actually happening is that
I can use the example of their motivation. So the
motivation for an arm robber in the eighties and early
nineties may have actually been the fact that they were
drug addicted and they needed large amounts of cash daily
(05:31):
in order to actually facilitate.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Their drug habits.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
And bear in mind that behind every man there's a
good woman, so there may have been a double addiction
involved as well. If you had a crew of three
or four, then you actually had needs for large amounts
of cash on a daily basis. So the frequency of
your drug addiction would actually determine the amount of crimes
that you would actually have to commit to not go
(05:54):
out and fill euphoric but in order not just to
fell sick. So we have seen some changes in recent
times into the motivations of these people, whether they be
career criminals, and in particular in the nineties, we saw
people change from what they were doing in a different
type of crime into becoming lifestyle type criminals.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And the lifestyle criminals they.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Were encouraged everything from drug addiction, alcohol, sex workers and
just living it up. And those referred to it as
the fast and furious type of offender.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So how would you go about developing human sources to
work out who and what was going to happen.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Well, if you think closely about this as the type
of offender that an arm robber is.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And this is not me saying that it is.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
My experience, but the Australian Institute of Criminology have identified
that arm robbers are the most classic precuitus offenders. So
what you actually have is people who are recycled. They
become recycled. Whatever that motivation is that gets and become
an arm robber and accept the risk of getting caught
and going to jail or even worse, getting killed on
the spot, it is a continuing motivation. So basically, when
(06:57):
you have that, you can meet these people, you see
them being recycled, you can actually recognize them, which happened
on many times through the bank photos. It said for
all the other victim photographs that were taken and see
them recycle. Now, if you treat them properly at the
time of your first meeting with them, you can actually
encourage a relationship and sooner or later those types of
people will come to you and say, look, I need
(07:18):
a hand, can you help me out? So that's how
we would basically encourage that unofficial liaison or informer type
base for these people to come forward and assist in
the future.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, because I guess you talk about recipibus criminals being
arm robbers, but you've also got, if they're drug addicts,
a coored of often malleable informants who are prepared to
give them up. Was that part of the strategy, just
trying to work out who these guys were and where
to get them.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, that's correct, and basically you know, so these guys
may have been the guys who are going out and
robbing places in order to get the money and then
spending it with drug dealers, but drug dealers would also
need a hand. So if the drug dealers we're looking
for some type of letter of comfort through the court system,
then they would be prepared to assist in providing intelligence
information in relation to any specific crime or the persons
(08:08):
who they believe may have been doing that.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So it's a cycle.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yes, Bertie Kidd recruited a number of police officers under
his payroll who were prepared to almost go ahead of
him and do reconnoiter of places where he could cut safe.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Or even do our robberies.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Did you have a bit of that issue as well,
that the people in the force might have been willing
to assist some of these guys for cash and fund
as well.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, just as a leading I met Bertie Kid on
a number of occasions up here in Sydney. He's a
very cunning criminal. He was a very engaging person as well.
He was quite charismatic. He was someone you could actually
have a conversation with, but the conversation was always to
be in his benefit. And in fact I spoke to
him one night I think it was the night, I
can't remember who it was, but he was virtually trying
(08:51):
to give himself an alibi.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It was an alibi for murder.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
So with Bertie Kidd, a very cunning criminal, a very
skillful criminal and had been around for a long time
and was known in the trade as in criminal investigation
as one of the old killers. But yes, corruption is
always something which could occur. I mean it's historically documented
about the corruption in New South Wales as.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Well, it is.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And that would have been either the murder of Desi
Lewis or roy Therger imagine.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I'm pretty sure it was Desi Lewis outside of the
tea out and say Telebonne dijunction.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
And he'd been I think at a restaurant or something
or even another puble where he'd actually ducked out of
the function, gone and killed Lewis and then come back
and was actually engaged in conversation with some cops to
give himself a really good alibi. He was one of
those guys who was a real all rounder, and I
guess it was interesting his final downfall up in Queensland
night in ninety seven. I believe he goes in league
(09:47):
with a ex prison officer and a couple of Likelis
from Sydney, and they'd tried to knock over a chemical
company in search of pseudoephdron And you see how much
he's sixty three at this time, and you see how
much he slipped from his heydays. He's working with the
next screw who actually I think gives him up board
that does some stupid things on the phone, the whole thing.
So these people had a limited lifespan that you could
(10:09):
say he was well passed his time, did a lot
of jail after that. But we did see this period
in the mid eighties where there were some really willing
robbers who were the people that you identified as been
the greatest threats.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Well, you mentioned earlier on about Victoria and the Victorian
police and I'll take my hat off to the Victorian
Armed Robbery Squad. They were by far, in my experience,
they were the most professional group of detectives I ever
worked with. And I worked across Australia with every state
and territory police and they were black and white. If
you were a crooked, they hated you. There was no
(10:43):
gray in it. If on the other side of it,
you're a criminal and you're a jack, as they used
to call them the cops, the crims.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Hated you too. But I think their professionalism was.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Actually born out of the fact that they had the
worst crooks in Australia in Victoria as well. So there's
not too many other places in Australia or in fact
the world that could say that they've had their police
headquarters blown up with a bomb, or the fact that
they've had two young uniform constables brought into an area
to be executed. So that's the type of criminal they're
dealing with. And in fact, in the eighties here in Sydney,
(11:14):
we actually had a number of Victorian criminals come and
visit US patters and dockers, etc. Who, because of their
own ristpanagement as robbers, they were leaving the state because
at that stage there was a spate of shootings by
the arm ropery squad. So you know, up here in
Sydney criminal fraternity, we had our home grown ones, you know,
and if you're in Victoria, they would basically just be
(11:36):
referred to as shipman. They're out every day and they
were doing their best. You know, we had crimes where
you know, it was high volume convenience store, petrol station
and it was virtually endless, so the people could go
out and commit crime after crime after crime every day
of their working life, and their working life was criminality.
But up here, you know, of course we had our
(11:58):
very own Nettie Smith as one of the major cashing
transit armored car type robbers and his crew. They were
fragmented at different stages with different crooks who came along.
But you know, there's I would refrain from calling them
good criminals. They were good at their task, but they
were very dangerous people. Because what you need to understand
(12:18):
is that most human beings, their primary instinct, whether you're
a crook or a cop or either, your primary instinct
to see human being is for survival. And that's unfortunately
why we had so many people who were suffering at
the hands of armed robbers, because as an armed robber,
you want to go in and achieve control of your
victims as quickly as possible. If they offer a threat
(12:39):
to you, that's when the worst can happen. And a
lot of people don't understand. But the fact of homicides
in Australia that one in ten of those homicides actually
starts out as a robbery.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
You mentioned Eddie Smith, he only had success because of
his relationship with one Roger calib Rogerson, the so called
green Light. How true was the Blue Murder Show about
how Roger was setting up targets for Nettie and his cohort.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Well, I've got to say that I never met Roger
when I was in the place, and if you go back,
I think he left the police in nine eighty four,
and that was a year before I went to the
armed hold Up Squad. I did meet him after when
he actually did me a favor. So I know a
lot of people were in Roger's corner, but he'd gone
around the corner and up the bend at one stage
there where he actually had that relationship with Ned which
(13:26):
was like a symbiotic relationship. I've got no experience in it.
In fact, I'm not sure about the green light. I
know that when I was in the arm robbery squad,
the green light didn't exist, particularly from me and the
other people that I worked with. And in fact I
pinched Eddie Smith outside the Botany Council doing an arm
robby on an armored car in nine and eighty eight.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
It was exciting for the arm robbers.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
What was it like for the detectives who were sometimes
on the scene like that.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
It must have been a high adrenaline job.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Absolutely, and I don't think I've heard other people describe it,
but there is no greater experience than hunting a man
or a group of men. And basically that is because
you know the clock is ticking every time one of
these offenses is coming. There's potential for real harm, not
just on the victims, but on members of the public
who may be around and know up to an including fatality.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So it's an interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
But we talk about catching killers, and you know, I
appreciate homicide and this might be a little bit controversial
a few of my friends in our criminal investigation game,
but homicide was where robbery squad detectives weren't for arrest.
We were having around six thousand hold ups a year
and there was around about thirty on an average homicides
a year. So the difference in skills is an application
(14:38):
within the criminal fraternity. Is a very interesting way to
think of it. But we obviously have issues with adrenaline,
and when I went to the armhold up Squad in
nineteen eighty five, we actually were doing our own assaults
and interventions. We were part of the Special Weapons not
Operations Squad and trained to do those types of issues.
At the same time, the benefit of that was that
(14:59):
we also had a lot of experience in the courts,
so I won't say professional witnesses, but we were actually
practiced with assistant could see a lot of the traps
that were being set by barristers along the way, as
opposed to now when you see the police give evidence.
It's a different game to what it was in our days.
But outside Botany counsel in nine eighty eight, when we
pinched Ned Smith, Glenn Flack and Harry Harris, I thought
(15:22):
my head was going to explode.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
The dreadom was that hard?
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Tell us about that day.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Well, it was a very interesting day because I'm sure,
as you can understand, there's a lot of surveillance that
takes place in this type of the game which never
comes to fruition. You know, intelligence comes in and there's
been some suspicious looking characters watching an armor car deliver cash.
So we were bound to go out and do those
every week. But on this occasion, what had happened was
I was driving home south along Botany Rail at Mascot
(15:50):
and I noticed that there was one of another police
car in front of me, which included a number of
blacks from the Special Breaking Squad, and I noticed that
they actually ducked off the main drag very very quickly
and took a detour, and well, I just kept going.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I got home. I've got a call to.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Say that you'll have to be the sea in the
morning at four am, and we've spotted something outside the
Botany Council Chambers that we think may be of interest
to ourselves and to you guys. So at that stage,
what had actually happened. When we got there the next morning,
we were briefed on the fact that the Special Breaking Squad,
and in particular a detective inspector by the name of
John Davidson, who's quite legendary up here, had spotted Ned
(16:29):
Smith and another criminal by the name of Glenn Flack
and a third person who was at that stage unidentified
outside of the Botany Council Chambers, and what they were
actually doing was their rehearsal for the following morning, and
the rehearsal was watched a distance by Davidson and his crew.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And so the following morning what.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
We do was get back into position and be ready
to see what was actually occurring. And around about seven
am that morning, a van was driven to the front
of the council chambers and the person actually driving the
van was wearing gloves.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So the little bongo style van that was noticed.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
We had actually set up an observation post with inside
the council chambers up on I think it was level three.
One of our detectives was watching the street front and
he was briefing us on what was actually going on.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
At that point in time. We obviously thought that well,
this could be a goer.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
So as we were watching via the observation post eyes
the man in the driver's seat wiped down the inside
of the car, got out and walked off and left
the van parked out the front, so basically we were
then in weight. He then returned in another car and
parked opposite the council chambers at the back of a
bank car park where he had a clear view up
(17:40):
and down Coward Street and across to the council chambers,
and as it turned out, the armored car when it arrived,
we actually delayed the council from handing out the Christmas payroll.
It was a double payroll, so they'd done their homework
to get the maximum reward out of one job rather
than having to do it twice, so we actually delayed
that and then it divened and took on the assault
(18:01):
upon the car. First with the cockatoo watching, we pulled
him out of the car in a very smart tactic
operation before he could actually brief Need Smith and Glenn
Flack in the back of that van outside the council
chambers that something was up. We pulled him out and
I was quite surprised. He was very big mother and
(18:22):
he was in fact the new South Wales state heavyweight
boxing champion at the time, and we had to put
some cuffs struggle together in.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Order to put his hands beyond his back.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
At that point we discovered that he was actually sitting
on a revolver when we pulled him out. Then we
actually had to negotiate with the needed flak to come
out with their hands up.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Exciting moment, absolutely, how do you celebrate those sort of
moments back in the day, But it was obviously a
lot of planning from your side. You're dealing with good
crooks who were doing their due diligence. They were prepared
to shoot it up with cops. How would you celebrate
at the end of those sort of moments.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Well, that day was twenty second of December, so it
was in fact the Special Weapons and Operations called Christmas Party,
so we actually was although it wasn't planned, we actually
had a place to be in a place to celebrate.
So it was a red letter day in so far
as criminal investigation is concerned, because Ned was, in fact,
you know, one of the what we considered to be
one of the master criminals in a very bad guy
great a off the streets.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Indeed, and where did he run?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
He was obviously close to the top of the other
characters that you dealt with along the way that you
had respect for. I mean, that's a strange word to use,
I guess, but in those situations there is a certain
amount of regard for each other. Some of the crooks
don't want to be go up against some formidable coppers.
Was there the same sort of regard for some of
these crooks.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Absolutely, And it was much like the cartoons he used
to see where the sheep Dog and the coyat.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
He would that clock on.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
You know, there was a respect, Shane, but when they
were on the clock doing a job, they were very
dangerous criminals. Much like the movie which is one of
my favorite movies, between the relationship between De Niro and Bacino,
there is that respect, and you know, it's a respect
which is earned. And one of those that I spoke
about earlier, John Davison had that respect to the point
that he would go around the criminal melium and he
(20:09):
would talk to Purple and they would know that he
was serious about what his intentions were as in the
investigation of certain crimes, and basically, if he was after you,
then he was.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Likely to gets you.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And in that case, I worked on an armored car
task force with him back in nineteen ninety one and
we actually had the criminals who are leaving the state
to try and get away from him.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Tell me how did your family deal with the risks
that you were facing each day. We just had a
terrible incident down here in Victoria, two police officers murdered,
just doing a normal search warrant. But when you're going
out into the field where you know these desperate crooks
are looking for an opportunity and you're standing between them
and the bag of money, how does your family deal
(20:55):
with that?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Well, it's obviously an issue, and like most cops, we
experienced that isolation. You know, it's in fact something that
members of you found me don't understand. So we try
and stay at arm's length and try and maintain that
brave face when there's potentially anxiety being caused, not necessarily
(21:17):
facing the criminals on the street, but by things like
high impact court cases, etc. So there is an anxiety
which comes in the association of the pursuit of justice.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
It's one of those things.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
And I remember that I was in a criminal trial
for a series of armed robberies upon banks where I
had a criminal arrested. He was a jail list pert
the time we found him hiding in the roof cavity
of his mother's house. He virtually signed up on six
separate records of interview for all the series of robberies.
(21:51):
I think I had about twenty four signatures off him,
bank photographs, et cetera. And then when we got to trial,
he was found not guilty, and I thought to myself, well,
you know, I was losing sleep over that court case.
What could I possibly have done that would have made
it easier? And the fact was I with a conclusion
that there's nothing more that I could have done. It
was up to the jury, and if the jury of
(22:11):
his peers wanted him on the street, then they could
deal with him. All I had to do is my
piece of the justice puzzle, and they was to find
the person. And he was no doubt the right person.
But if he wasn't convicted, then that was not my problem.
So basically the acceptance of those things, you know, me
being sleepless over that issue became like a like old
moment in my mind that I could actually fulfill my
(22:33):
part but not be upset about the actual justice system
if it wasn't delivered properly. When you do those sorts
of things, you know there is an impact upon the
family because you do become anxious and on tenderhooks with
the rest of your family as well.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Were there certain things you didn't want to share that
you have to wait till your retirement to talk about.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Look, it's probably part and parcel.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
The fact that you wouldn't share that with your family
is because of the respect that you have for your family.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
You don't want them to be concerned.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
The guy was comfortable that I could handle myself on
the street and not only with the crooks. And you know,
whilst I was in the police and I resigned in
nineteen ninety eight, I would carry a gun at all
times because you know, there were people who I didn't
consider to be friendly, whether they were robbers or in
the organized crime fear where I ended up working. I
(23:25):
carried a gun at all times just in case I
needed to defend myself at some stage. But yeah, Look,
that's why a lot of cops seek solace with other cops,
because they understand what it's about.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
We saw a famous case in you South Wales of
Michael Drury who was shot by Christopher Dael Flannery. So
the story goes, Yes, I think that was a message
to all your cohort of the kind of people you
were dealing with.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Absolutely, and I know Michael quite well. You know, for
him to survive that was a wonderful situation for us
that we can have him still with us nowadays to
tell the stories about what he did and how he
did it, and how he survived and not only survived,
but thrived obviously with significant mental and physical injuries. But yes,
(24:12):
it's a good story to see how Nik is nowadays.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
But also indicative of I guess the war that was
taking place at that time between the crooks and the
cops and in the area of banks. You certainly weren't
helped by the attitude of the banks, which were making
a fortune back then and seemed reluctant to accept the
risks that they're tellers in particular, were facing. I have
a friend who was a bank teller who has robbed
(24:36):
not once, but twice, looking up and seeing a shotgun
in his face twice, and to this day he suffers
PTSD from those occasions. What was going on with the banks?
Why were they so slow to change their practices?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, well I understand.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
You know, Look, I've met people who have been victimized
by our robbery. You know, more than a dozen times
and basically it becomes an acceptance for them. But banks
in the seventies, eighties, and nine nineties had to be
dragged kicking and screaming into the current day. So if
you think back, it was nineteen sixty seven when the
(25:13):
Armed hold Up Squad was formed in response to thirty
five armed robberies happening that year. The public were so
outraged and so with the government that you actually had
them take the countermeasure of forming a dedicated.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Squad of men to actually look after that type of crime.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
As it transpired, we ended up having over six thousand
robberies a year into the nineties, and we actually had
gone through a devolution of dedicated task forces at that
stage to actually look into armed robbery. But the banks
themselves had been born from facilities management. The security at
the banks, they'd come from facilities management and real estate background,
(25:52):
not in fact and understanding the type of critical incident
that they were trying to manage, which was robbery. And
every time you invided someone into the bank potentially as
a robber, you were looking at really dangerous situations not
only for your banks, but for the customers as a
static target for a bank. They sit there on the
street every day, open to members of the public and
(26:12):
also members.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Of the criminal fraternity.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
So to have open banks as encounters only it was
just inviting these people in to see what they could
actually achieve. And it was very, very dangerous all the time.
You know, they would actually work to the point inside
the banks where the staff would be so terrified of
not following instructions that they would put themselves at physical
risk from the bandits because they were doing exactly what
(26:36):
the bandits had told them not to do, ie don't
hit the alarms and don't hit the cameras. But the
bank instructions were in the event of a robbery, you
must activate the alarms and you must activate the cameras.
So the relationship between the victimers the bank teller or
the other numbers of bank tellers has become at a
critical point right at that time because you're actually doing
(26:57):
what they've told you not to do, so it creates
you as the focus of the attack.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And it was easy to work out.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Because the banks had cleverly worked out that to alert
the other people in the area if it was a
discreet type of probably like a loaded note, that if
you hit an alarm, we'd have a strange phone ring
in the back of the building which would sound different,
you know, so the bear that's do that, and they
could also hear the thirty five mili black on white
still cameras going firing off at the same time. So
(27:27):
it actually created that problem in the relationship between the
teller as the victim and the criminal who was not
getting what he actually wanted by you working actively against them.
One of the worst ones was the bank would tell
you to hand over the small notes.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
First.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
He's saying give me the big notes, and you're saying,
he's the ones and twos, and you're really pissing him
off at that stage.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So the bank's surprise, surprise, were thinking about money first.
People Second, absolutely, what were there discussions between the police
and the banks about these practices and how they were
really their own worst enemies and they were putting their
staff at risk.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Yes, there was, there was always a forum which went
on between the Australian Bankers Association and in particular the
different banks, the different brand banks as well, so we
always speak to them and basically at that stage, once
we got to the point where not just the banks themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
But it was like groundhog day.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Every day we would go out and we talked to
victims of arm robbery and it'd be the same critical
elements of the offense. And what we came to understand
at that stage is that, you know, whilst we did
our criminal investigation, in order to put an end to
the serial offender that was this particular bank robber or
hotel robber, etc. We needed to actually get the message
across to the victims or the potential victims, whether it's
(28:44):
the corporate victims as in the banks, all the face
to face victims of the arm robbery crime that this
was a harm minimization system that we had to adopt
through the use of body language and the use of
verbal communication skills, that we would actually be able to
get the best out of the relationship. That was a
force relationship that we wanted to get out of as
quickly as possible. It was like that McDonald's principle of
(29:06):
would you like fries with that? Now get out of here.
So that was where we dealt with the harm minimization
strategies for victims of crime.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Because you think about those tellers, they're just out of school,
No experience. They're being faced with very tough, ruthless arm robbers,
the banks giving them the wrong advice. Who would have
been a bank teller back then, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I met many, many many bank tellers over the years,
and I did know a couple personally through my other community.
I wouldn't recommend, you know, it's quite an interesting situation.
But once the banks tightened their security, the criminals were
flashed out into different areas such as pubs and clubs,
and if they were willing enough, and mind you, armed
(29:50):
robbers are always willing, but if they're willing and skillful enough,
they'd take on people like the armored car industry, which
only asserts the fact that the criminals that you're going
to get into that are people who were actually armed
and prepared to use the firearms that they actually have
in going up against armed CA cruise with their own firearms.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
When did you start to see the tide urn against
the arm robbers.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Well, I think that I don't study statistics much at
the moment in relation to robbery, whether it be armed
robbery or robbery with a firearm, or robbery real the
weapon other than a firearm. But I think we're still
doing around about fifteen hundred to two thousand a year
in the state of New South Wales. But basically we're
always going to have robbery, you know, and it may
be robbery of John citizen on the street who gets
(30:33):
smacked over their head for his Apple iPhone or whatever
he carries, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Even on speculation.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
But the tide basically turned in armed robbery when cash
flow started to remove. So the cash flow from these
places and the upscilling of people like pubs and clubs
in order to deal with cash flow saw them driven down.
So it's not as if these criminals have actually gone
out of business, but they actually may have gone into
a different part of business and potentially drug dealing or fraud,
(31:01):
et cetera, which has much less risk associated with it.
Think it was the Godfather, the Mario Puzo who wrote
that a man with a briefcase was still ten times
as much as a man with a gun.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
We've also seen where the bulletproof shutters came in and
that certainly added a lot of risk to the robbers
then even killed a few of them back in the day.
You probably recall a few of those incidents.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, I remember the first time I saw it was
in nineteen eighty five at the Cornwath Bank and a
horse Straet at Bondi and we had an attempted robbery
there with three Romanian criminals who went in masked out.
Two went to go over the top of the counter
and both got caught by the screen as it went up.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Those screens go off like a gun.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
They pop up in I think it's about point eight
of a second with two thousand pounds of force behind them,
and they're ballistic, so they are a very strong deployment
from the counter level. So in this case the two criminals,
one got hung up by his arm and the other
one got hit in the head and broke his jaw
at the same time. So by the time we got there,
the third offender had actually walked out back onto Hall
(32:08):
Street and taken off, but the two that were there
were still hum The bank staff left them there for
us to actually come and deal with them, and rightly
say more at the time that the bad guy that
was caught with his left arm, he had actually had
the gun on the counter side of the bank and
was actually firing shots across at the bank staff telling
him to let him down.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So a very dangerous situation. I knew of another one up.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
On the North side of Sydney where the bad guy
who got caught while the pneumatic screen was actually killed
on the spot. So they do create that's that risk
factor and that deterrent effect to looking for a different
target like a bank that hadn't been fitted with ballistic
sperience yet, or a different motus operandi where the band
guys would actually look for a chick in the armor
(32:54):
of the bank branch in particular or the bank brand
in particular. So say, for instance, Kiosks or ATMs. You know,
the delivery of cash to the ATMs will be serviced
ATM's being serviced by a third party location who's actually
recycling their own business cash through that ATM and back out.
So it's an interesting situation. But it's like a game
(33:17):
of chess. If you make a move to actually count
the criminals, the criminals will make a counter move to
actually make their opportunities.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
And remarkably enough, maybe it's because of Australia's background is
a penal colony in the beginning, but there was a
certain romanticizing of these figures. Was that frustrating to you?
People like Raymond John Denning was suddenly a celebrity of
the left if you like doing that sort of an
interesting phenomenon for you.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah, well, look, I remember Ray Denning and I remember
at the time where he came and placed his handprint
on the front of the doors of the cob and
did an actual interview I think it was with Current
Affair or something like that. But he was a recipivvers
arm robber and ultimately a jail escapee who managed to
track down Peter melvil Schnitzeling or Russell Cox within like
(34:04):
seven him being out and they came to grief down
in Melbourne at the hands of the armed robbery squad
where they were sprung doing a surveillance on an armed
car crew. But go back to the Australian culture, and
you know, everybody likes to have a fair go, and
the culture of the Australian Alarican maybe an anti establishment
type perspective. But in all the training that I've done
(34:25):
with potential victims of crimes like armed robbery, I will
ask them a question and say, as we start this,
I just want to ask you something, you know, can
you give me an Australian folk hero, and quite quickly
everybody comes up with the same Australian folk hero and
it never varies. It's always need Kelly. And I said,
so you're a potential victim of an armed robbery, but
(34:46):
in your mind, an Australian folk hero is an armed
robber who shoots it out with police. You can see
it's like a light bulb moment for them. We have
this culture that accepts the fact that, you know, the
Alarican or the criminal may be something that I'm not
suggesting that we aspire to it, but we understand the fight.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Again, it's injustice.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
It's kind of confusing, isn't it, because because the Kelly
gang killed police in cold blood. Yes, and yet they
are romanticized and these guys are comes to mind that
the film butchcasting The Something's Kid, which was again about
the end of an era in the wild West. There
and Butchcasidy goes into the bank and they've got all
these screens and security things and he says to the guard,
he says, what.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Happened to the old bank?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
People kept robbing it but it was beautiful, you know,
And there was that sort of I think we grew
up with that film maybe the media was partly to blame.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Do you think that these guys were good.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Copy and they were desperate and they were quite charismatic
some of them.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, look, you still see it now.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
It's not so much for romanticization of you know, even nowadays.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
You know, like I was reading.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
News media as in online papers in recent years, and
they talk about these robberies being magnificent masterpieces of criminal conduct,
and the reality is they're not. You know, there's a
ton of front involved in these types of things in
public spaces to actually go and attack an armored car crew.
(36:13):
But the fact is that they're not particularly smart, they're
not particularly cunning, and they all just revolve around that
brazenness of being in this public place at the time,
and they're very dangerous.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
You know. It's not the sort of thing that we
should be trying to glorify as this guy is the worst.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Ray, Well, so I'm very glad that you worked hard.
You thank you for your service, and you kept us
safe in that period of time. And by nineteen ninety eight,
I guess you were ready to finish up and do
something else.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Absolutely, and I took the opportunity and the lead up
to the Sydney Olympic Games to start my own security
consultancy and that kept me going for the next twenty years.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
All right, well, thanks for your time today as a pleasure,
nice to talk to you. Fantastic. That's retired Detective Ray
Lamby on the Golden are so called. It wasn't very
golden for those who were having the guns shoved in
their faces robberies. But if you've been a victim of
crime or even a perpetrator, and you've got a story
to share, please get in touch here with Adam Shann
(37:16):
at Real Crime. You can send me an email at
Adam Shanned writer at gmail dot com. And if you've
got any information that could solve past crimes, get in
touch with crime Stoppers one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero.
Thanks for listening today. If you've enjoyed the content, please
subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Thanks for listening.
Appoche Production.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome to Real Crime with Adam Shann. I'm your host,
Adam Shann. Thanks for joining us. Make sure you subscribe
to the podcast and share this with your friends for
more independent crime journalism. These days, bank robbers worked with
a PC and a phone, but once upon a time
it was Balaclaver's and sawn Off shotguns. The nineteen eighties
was the so called Golden era of armed robbers who
(00:34):
targeted banks, but also clubs, pubs, service stations anywhere that
was holding cash.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Police have confirmed another armed hold up in Sydney today.
Witnesses say the gunmen were calm, professional and heavily armed.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
It was a time of prosperity and in that time
there were thousands of armed robberies every year across Australia.
That led to a kind of cult status among criminals.
The counter jumpers, as they were known, were regarded highly
among the criminal class.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Escaped convict Ray Denning taunted for again today, boasting of
his freedom and daring them to catch him.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Names like Ray Denning, Ray Chuck Bennett, and Russell Cox
were revered in the underworld and even romanticized by some
members of the public. In reality, these men were brutal
egomaniacs with no regard for public safety as they wreaked
havoc in the community and left their victims with terrible trauma.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
By the late nineteen eighties, armed robberies in Australia had
peaked at over six thousand incidents a year.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Finally, in the nineteen nineties, technology began to catch up
with the bank robbers with bulletproof security screens, CCTV and
other developments that put an end to this trade. My
guest today, retired Detective Ray Lamby, joined the Armed Robbery
Squad of New South Wales Police in nineteen eighty five,
at the height of this so called golden age of
(01:58):
armed robberies, and he's agreed to share some memories of
those heady and dangerous times.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Gid I rap, good morning, Adam, how are you good?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Thank you so you joined the arm robbers ninety eighty five.
It was a hectic time.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
It was a very hectic time and it was very
much a new experience for me. I was the first
detective to go into the arm table up squad as
a permanent transfer who had not completed their designation as
a detective, so it was very much a steep learning
curve for me, and what.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Were you faced with what was the daily task of
the squad at the time.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So it's important to understand at this stage that the
squad itself comprised about sixty men. And when I say
sixty men, we didn't have any women in the squad
at that stage. So it was a system of pairs
where you'd have a senior man and a junior man,
and across the group, you know, you would have geographically
based people who would take care of the informants, et cetera,
(02:52):
or the crimes that were taking place in those areas.
It was not a geographically determined situation, but a lot
of people who came from places like I do, from
the Solent Shot or from the Northern Beaches area, had
their own network of informants. They had their own network
of contacts, businesses, etc. That they would use to stay
ahead of the game or in fact go after the
criminals that were in the area at the time.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Right, it seems like you want to stay ahead of
the game. It's always the object of policing. But it
seems like there was a lot of reactive work going
on as well, because it was just so many robberies
going off, and it wasn't just banks, it was a
whole range of any outlet holding cash.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Absolutely, And what you actually have here is in an
arm robber you have the most classic serialized offender. It's
the most classic serialized offense, and it's also a serialized investigation.
So in a day's work at the armhold up squad,
you would actually have a briefing on what had occurred
in the past twenty four hours, and one of the
things that we would have is swift access to, say,
(03:48):
for instance, the bank photographs that were taken during the
commission of the offenses. So there needed to be a
chain of continuity for those photographs to make sure that
they were of evidentiary value, So within twenty four hours
we would have those from the following day, and then
we would take care of assessing with firstly as this
serialized defender was, if we'd seen him before in images
(04:09):
from another bank propering, you know, if it wasn't a
bank robbery, who was the victim, what type of business
was it, where was it, what type of car was used,
what types of words were said, how many people were
in the crew, the types of weapons that were used
and the words were actually said. These were all parts
of them of the offender that we used to assess
in order to be able to look at that serialized investigation,
(04:31):
because much like a gesaw puzzle, each one of those
offenses would actually provide more information about the offenders, not
specifically enough for the one offense, but when you looked
at them collectively, you'd be able to actually determine what
evidence may be available from the range of offenses these
people had committed.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
We had a cohort in Victoria of experienced arm robbers,
if you like. Did you have the same sort of
thing in New South Wales? Were you dealing with a
small pool of people or was it something that the
crooks were seeing as an opportunity The banks were soft
targets and amateurs could get base, anybody with a balaclava
and a weapon could get in or what was the situation?
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Well, absolutely, but we need to look at the get
back to the grassroots for the bad guys here the
criminal fraternity, and basically what is actually happening is that
I can use the example of their motivation. So the
motivation for an arm robber in the eighties and early
nineties may have actually been the fact that they were
drug addicted and they needed large amounts of cash daily
(05:31):
in order to actually facilitate.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Their drug habits.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
And bear in mind that behind every man there's a
good woman, so there may have been a double addiction
involved as well. If you had a crew of three
or four, then you actually had needs for large amounts
of cash on a daily basis. So the frequency of
your drug addiction would actually determine the amount of crimes
that you would actually have to commit to not go
(05:54):
out and fill euphoric but in order not just to
fell sick. So we have seen some changes in recent
times into the motivations of these people, whether they be
career criminals, and in particular in the nineties, we saw
people change from what they were doing in a different
type of crime into becoming lifestyle type criminals.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And the lifestyle criminals they.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Were encouraged everything from drug addiction, alcohol, sex workers and
just living it up. And those referred to it as
the fast and furious type of offender.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
So how would you go about developing human sources to
work out who and what was going to happen.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Well, if you think closely about this as the type
of offender that an arm robber is.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
And this is not me saying that it is.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
My experience, but the Australian Institute of Criminology have identified
that arm robbers are the most classic precuitus offenders. So
what you actually have is people who are recycled. They
become recycled. Whatever that motivation is that gets and become
an arm robber and accept the risk of getting caught
and going to jail or even worse, getting killed on
the spot, it is a continuing motivation. So basically, when
(06:57):
you have that, you can meet these people, you see
them being recycled, you can actually recognize them, which happened
on many times through the bank photos. It said for
all the other victim photographs that were taken and see
them recycle. Now, if you treat them properly at the
time of your first meeting with them, you can actually
encourage a relationship and sooner or later those types of
people will come to you and say, look, I need
(07:18):
a hand, can you help me out? So that's how
we would basically encourage that unofficial liaison or informer type
base for these people to come forward and assist in
the future.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Yeah, because I guess you talk about recipibus criminals being
arm robbers, but you've also got, if they're drug addicts,
a coored of often malleable informants who are prepared to
give them up. Was that part of the strategy, just
trying to work out who these guys were and where
to get them.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, that's correct, and basically you know, so these guys
may have been the guys who are going out and
robbing places in order to get the money and then
spending it with drug dealers, but drug dealers would also
need a hand. So if the drug dealers we're looking
for some type of letter of comfort through the court system,
then they would be prepared to assist in providing intelligence
information in relation to any specific crime or the persons
(08:08):
who they believe may have been doing that.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So it's a cycle.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yes, Bertie Kidd recruited a number of police officers under
his payroll who were prepared to almost go ahead of
him and do reconnoiter of places where he could cut safe.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
Or even do our robberies.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Did you have a bit of that issue as well,
that the people in the force might have been willing
to assist some of these guys for cash and fund
as well.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, just as a leading I met Bertie Kid on
a number of occasions up here in Sydney. He's a
very cunning criminal. He was a very engaging person as well.
He was quite charismatic. He was someone you could actually
have a conversation with, but the conversation was always to
be in his benefit. And in fact I spoke to
him one night I think it was the night, I
can't remember who it was, but he was virtually trying
(08:51):
to give himself an alibi.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
It was an alibi for murder.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
So with Bertie Kidd, a very cunning criminal, a very
skillful criminal and had been around for a long time
and was known in the trade as in criminal investigation
as one of the old killers. But yes, corruption is
always something which could occur. I mean it's historically documented
about the corruption in New South Wales as.
Speaker 4 (09:13):
Well, it is.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And that would have been either the murder of Desi
Lewis or roy Therger imagine.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I'm pretty sure it was Desi Lewis outside of the
tea out and say Telebonne dijunction.
Speaker 4 (09:23):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
And he'd been I think at a restaurant or something
or even another puble where he'd actually ducked out of
the function, gone and killed Lewis and then come back
and was actually engaged in conversation with some cops to
give himself a really good alibi. He was one of
those guys who was a real all rounder, and I
guess it was interesting his final downfall up in Queensland
night in ninety seven. I believe he goes in league
(09:47):
with a ex prison officer and a couple of Likelis
from Sydney, and they'd tried to knock over a chemical
company in search of pseudoephdron And you see how much
he's sixty three at this time, and you see how
much he slipped from his heydays. He's working with the
next screw who actually I think gives him up board
that does some stupid things on the phone, the whole thing.
So these people had a limited lifespan that you could
(10:09):
say he was well passed his time, did a lot
of jail after that. But we did see this period
in the mid eighties where there were some really willing
robbers who were the people that you identified as been
the greatest threats.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Well, you mentioned earlier on about Victoria and the Victorian
police and I'll take my hat off to the Victorian
Armed Robbery Squad. They were by far, in my experience,
they were the most professional group of detectives I ever
worked with. And I worked across Australia with every state
and territory police and they were black and white. If
you were a crooked, they hated you. There was no
(10:43):
gray in it. If on the other side of it,
you're a criminal and you're a jack, as they used
to call them the cops, the crims.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Hated you too. But I think their professionalism was.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Actually born out of the fact that they had the
worst crooks in Australia in Victoria as well. So there's
not too many other places in Australia or in fact
the world that could say that they've had their police
headquarters blown up with a bomb, or the fact that
they've had two young uniform constables brought into an area
to be executed. So that's the type of criminal they're
dealing with. And in fact, in the eighties here in Sydney,
(11:14):
we actually had a number of Victorian criminals come and
visit US patters and dockers, etc. Who, because of their
own ristpanagement as robbers, they were leaving the state because
at that stage there was a spate of shootings by
the arm ropery squad. So you know, up here in
Sydney criminal fraternity, we had our home grown ones, you know,
and if you're in Victoria, they would basically just be
(11:36):
referred to as shipman. They're out every day and they
were doing their best. You know, we had crimes where
you know, it was high volume convenience store, petrol station
and it was virtually endless, so the people could go
out and commit crime after crime after crime every day
of their working life, and their working life was criminality.
But up here, you know, of course we had our
(11:58):
very own Nettie Smith as one of the major cashing
transit armored car type robbers and his crew. They were
fragmented at different stages with different crooks who came along.
But you know, there's I would refrain from calling them
good criminals. They were good at their task, but they
were very dangerous people. Because what you need to understand
(12:18):
is that most human beings, their primary instinct, whether you're
a crook or a cop or either, your primary instinct
to see human being is for survival. And that's unfortunately
why we had so many people who were suffering at
the hands of armed robbers, because as an armed robber,
you want to go in and achieve control of your
victims as quickly as possible. If they offer a threat
(12:39):
to you, that's when the worst can happen. And a
lot of people don't understand. But the fact of homicides
in Australia that one in ten of those homicides actually
starts out as a robbery.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
You mentioned Eddie Smith, he only had success because of
his relationship with one Roger calib Rogerson, the so called
green Light. How true was the Blue Murder Show about
how Roger was setting up targets for Nettie and his cohort.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
Well, I've got to say that I never met Roger
when I was in the place, and if you go back,
I think he left the police in nine eighty four,
and that was a year before I went to the
armed hold Up Squad. I did meet him after when
he actually did me a favor. So I know a
lot of people were in Roger's corner, but he'd gone
around the corner and up the bend at one stage
there where he actually had that relationship with Ned which
(13:26):
was like a symbiotic relationship. I've got no experience in it.
In fact, I'm not sure about the green light. I
know that when I was in the arm robbery squad,
the green light didn't exist, particularly from me and the
other people that I worked with. And in fact I
pinched Eddie Smith outside the Botany Council doing an arm
robby on an armored car in nine and eighty eight.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
It was exciting for the arm robbers.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
What was it like for the detectives who were sometimes
on the scene like that.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
It must have been a high adrenaline job.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
Absolutely, and I don't think I've heard other people describe it,
but there is no greater experience than hunting a man
or a group of men. And basically that is because
you know the clock is ticking every time one of
these offenses is coming. There's potential for real harm, not
just on the victims, but on members of the public
who may be around and know up to an including fatality.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
So it's an interesting thing.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
But we talk about catching killers, and you know, I
appreciate homicide and this might be a little bit controversial
a few of my friends in our criminal investigation game,
but homicide was where robbery squad detectives weren't for arrest.
We were having around six thousand hold ups a year
and there was around about thirty on an average homicides
a year. So the difference in skills is an application
(14:38):
within the criminal fraternity. Is a very interesting way to
think of it. But we obviously have issues with adrenaline,
and when I went to the armhold up Squad in
nineteen eighty five, we actually were doing our own assaults
and interventions. We were part of the Special Weapons not
Operations Squad and trained to do those types of issues.
At the same time, the benefit of that was that
(14:59):
we also had a lot of experience in the courts,
so I won't say professional witnesses, but we were actually
practiced with assistant could see a lot of the traps
that were being set by barristers along the way, as
opposed to now when you see the police give evidence.
It's a different game to what it was in our days.
But outside Botany counsel in nine eighty eight, when we
pinched Ned Smith, Glenn Flack and Harry Harris, I thought
(15:22):
my head was going to explode.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
The dreadom was that hard?
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Tell us about that day.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Well, it was a very interesting day because I'm sure,
as you can understand, there's a lot of surveillance that
takes place in this type of the game which never
comes to fruition. You know, intelligence comes in and there's
been some suspicious looking characters watching an armor car deliver cash.
So we were bound to go out and do those
every week. But on this occasion, what had happened was
I was driving home south along Botany Rail at Mascot
(15:50):
and I noticed that there was one of another police
car in front of me, which included a number of
blacks from the Special Breaking Squad, and I noticed that
they actually ducked off the main drag very very quickly
and took a detour, and well, I just kept going.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
I got home. I've got a call to.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Say that you'll have to be the sea in the
morning at four am, and we've spotted something outside the
Botany Council Chambers that we think may be of interest
to ourselves and to you guys. So at that stage,
what had actually happened. When we got there the next morning,
we were briefed on the fact that the Special Breaking Squad,
and in particular a detective inspector by the name of
John Davidson, who's quite legendary up here, had spotted Ned
(16:29):
Smith and another criminal by the name of Glenn Flack
and a third person who was at that stage unidentified
outside of the Botany Council Chambers, and what they were
actually doing was their rehearsal for the following morning, and
the rehearsal was watched a distance by Davidson and his crew.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And so the following morning what.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
We do was get back into position and be ready
to see what was actually occurring. And around about seven
am that morning, a van was driven to the front
of the council chambers and the person actually driving the
van was wearing gloves.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
So the little bongo style van that was noticed.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
We had actually set up an observation post with inside
the council chambers up on I think it was level three.
One of our detectives was watching the street front and
he was briefing us on what was actually going on.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
At that point in time. We obviously thought that well,
this could be a goer.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
So as we were watching via the observation post eyes
the man in the driver's seat wiped down the inside
of the car, got out and walked off and left
the van parked out the front, so basically we were
then in weight. He then returned in another car and
parked opposite the council chambers at the back of a
bank car park where he had a clear view up
(17:40):
and down Coward Street and across to the council chambers,
and as it turned out, the armored car when it arrived,
we actually delayed the council from handing out the Christmas payroll.
It was a double payroll, so they'd done their homework
to get the maximum reward out of one job rather
than having to do it twice, so we actually delayed
that and then it divened and took on the assault
(18:01):
upon the car. First with the cockatoo watching, we pulled
him out of the car in a very smart tactic
operation before he could actually brief Need Smith and Glenn
Flack in the back of that van outside the council
chambers that something was up. We pulled him out and
I was quite surprised. He was very big mother and
(18:22):
he was in fact the new South Wales state heavyweight
boxing champion at the time, and we had to put
some cuffs struggle together in.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Order to put his hands beyond his back.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
At that point we discovered that he was actually sitting
on a revolver when we pulled him out. Then we
actually had to negotiate with the needed flak to come
out with their hands up.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Exciting moment, absolutely, how do you celebrate those sort of
moments back in the day, But it was obviously a
lot of planning from your side. You're dealing with good
crooks who were doing their due diligence. They were prepared
to shoot it up with cops. How would you celebrate
at the end of those sort of moments.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
Well, that day was twenty second of December, so it
was in fact the Special Weapons and Operations called Christmas Party,
so we actually was although it wasn't planned, we actually
had a place to be in a place to celebrate.
So it was a red letter day in so far
as criminal investigation is concerned, because Ned was, in fact,
you know, one of the what we considered to be
one of the master criminals in a very bad guy
great a off the streets.
Speaker 4 (19:19):
Indeed, and where did he run?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
He was obviously close to the top of the other
characters that you dealt with along the way that you
had respect for. I mean, that's a strange word to use,
I guess, but in those situations there is a certain
amount of regard for each other. Some of the crooks
don't want to be go up against some formidable coppers.
Was there the same sort of regard for some of
these crooks.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
Absolutely, And it was much like the cartoons he used
to see where the sheep Dog and the coyat.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
He would that clock on.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
You know, there was a respect, Shane, but when they
were on the clock doing a job, they were very
dangerous criminals. Much like the movie which is one of
my favorite movies, between the relationship between De Niro and Bacino,
there is that respect, and you know, it's a respect
which is earned. And one of those that I spoke
about earlier, John Davison had that respect to the point
that he would go around the criminal melium and he
(20:09):
would talk to Purple and they would know that he
was serious about what his intentions were as in the
investigation of certain crimes, and basically, if he was after you,
then he was.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Likely to gets you.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
And in that case, I worked on an armored car
task force with him back in nineteen ninety one and
we actually had the criminals who are leaving the state
to try and get away from him.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Tell me how did your family deal with the risks
that you were facing each day. We just had a
terrible incident down here in Victoria, two police officers murdered,
just doing a normal search warrant. But when you're going
out into the field where you know these desperate crooks
are looking for an opportunity and you're standing between them
and the bag of money, how does your family deal
(20:55):
with that?
Speaker 3 (20:57):
Well, it's obviously an issue, and like most cops, we
experienced that isolation. You know, it's in fact something that
members of you found me don't understand. So we try
and stay at arm's length and try and maintain that
brave face when there's potentially anxiety being caused, not necessarily
(21:17):
facing the criminals on the street, but by things like
high impact court cases, etc. So there is an anxiety
which comes in the association of the pursuit of justice.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
It's one of those things.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
And I remember that I was in a criminal trial
for a series of armed robberies upon banks where I
had a criminal arrested. He was a jail list pert
the time we found him hiding in the roof cavity
of his mother's house. He virtually signed up on six
separate records of interview for all the series of robberies.
(21:51):
I think I had about twenty four signatures off him,
bank photographs, et cetera. And then when we got to trial,
he was found not guilty, and I thought to myself, well,
you know, I was losing sleep over that court case.
What could I possibly have done that would have made
it easier? And the fact was I with a conclusion
that there's nothing more that I could have done. It
was up to the jury, and if the jury of
(22:11):
his peers wanted him on the street, then they could
deal with him. All I had to do is my
piece of the justice puzzle, and they was to find
the person. And he was no doubt the right person.
But if he wasn't convicted, then that was not my problem.
So basically the acceptance of those things, you know, me
being sleepless over that issue became like a like old
moment in my mind that I could actually fulfill my
(22:33):
part but not be upset about the actual justice system
if it wasn't delivered properly. When you do those sorts
of things, you know there is an impact upon the
family because you do become anxious and on tenderhooks with
the rest of your family as well.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Were there certain things you didn't want to share that
you have to wait till your retirement to talk about.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Look, it's probably part and parcel.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
The fact that you wouldn't share that with your family
is because of the respect that you have for your family.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
You don't want them to be concerned.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
The guy was comfortable that I could handle myself on
the street and not only with the crooks. And you know,
whilst I was in the police and I resigned in
nineteen ninety eight, I would carry a gun at all
times because you know, there were people who I didn't
consider to be friendly, whether they were robbers or in
the organized crime fear where I ended up working. I
(23:25):
carried a gun at all times just in case I
needed to defend myself at some stage. But yeah, Look,
that's why a lot of cops seek solace with other cops,
because they understand what it's about.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
We saw a famous case in you South Wales of
Michael Drury who was shot by Christopher Dael Flannery. So
the story goes, Yes, I think that was a message
to all your cohort of the kind of people you
were dealing with.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Absolutely, and I know Michael quite well. You know, for
him to survive that was a wonderful situation for us
that we can have him still with us nowadays to
tell the stories about what he did and how he
did it, and how he survived and not only survived,
but thrived obviously with significant mental and physical injuries. But yes,
(24:12):
it's a good story to see how Nik is nowadays.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
But also indicative of I guess the war that was
taking place at that time between the crooks and the
cops and in the area of banks. You certainly weren't
helped by the attitude of the banks, which were making
a fortune back then and seemed reluctant to accept the
risks that they're tellers in particular, were facing. I have
a friend who was a bank teller who has robbed
(24:36):
not once, but twice, looking up and seeing a shotgun
in his face twice, and to this day he suffers
PTSD from those occasions. What was going on with the banks?
Why were they so slow to change their practices?
Speaker 1 (24:50):
Yeah, well I understand.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
You know, Look, I've met people who have been victimized
by our robbery. You know, more than a dozen times
and basically it becomes an acceptance for them. But banks
in the seventies, eighties, and nine nineties had to be
dragged kicking and screaming into the current day. So if
you think back, it was nineteen sixty seven when the
(25:13):
Armed hold Up Squad was formed in response to thirty
five armed robberies happening that year. The public were so
outraged and so with the government that you actually had
them take the countermeasure of forming a dedicated.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Squad of men to actually look after that type of crime.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
As it transpired, we ended up having over six thousand
robberies a year into the nineties, and we actually had
gone through a devolution of dedicated task forces at that
stage to actually look into armed robbery. But the banks
themselves had been born from facilities management. The security at
the banks, they'd come from facilities management and real estate background,
(25:52):
not in fact and understanding the type of critical incident
that they were trying to manage, which was robbery. And
every time you invided someone into the bank potentially as
a robber, you were looking at really dangerous situations not
only for your banks, but for the customers as a
static target for a bank. They sit there on the
street every day, open to members of the public and
(26:12):
also members.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Of the criminal fraternity.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
So to have open banks as encounters only it was
just inviting these people in to see what they could
actually achieve. And it was very, very dangerous all the time.
You know, they would actually work to the point inside
the banks where the staff would be so terrified of
not following instructions that they would put themselves at physical
risk from the bandits because they were doing exactly what
(26:36):
the bandits had told them not to do, ie don't
hit the alarms and don't hit the cameras. But the
bank instructions were in the event of a robbery, you
must activate the alarms and you must activate the cameras.
So the relationship between the victimers the bank teller or
the other numbers of bank tellers has become at a
critical point right at that time because you're actually doing
(26:57):
what they've told you not to do, so it creates
you as the focus of the attack.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
And it was easy to work out.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Because the banks had cleverly worked out that to alert
the other people in the area if it was a
discreet type of probably like a loaded note, that if
you hit an alarm, we'd have a strange phone ring
in the back of the building which would sound different,
you know, so the bear that's do that, and they
could also hear the thirty five mili black on white
still cameras going firing off at the same time. So
(27:27):
it actually created that problem in the relationship between the
teller as the victim and the criminal who was not
getting what he actually wanted by you working actively against them.
One of the worst ones was the bank would tell
you to hand over the small notes.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
First.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
He's saying give me the big notes, and you're saying,
he's the ones and twos, and you're really pissing him
off at that stage.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
So the bank's surprise, surprise, were thinking about money first.
People Second, absolutely, what were there discussions between the police
and the banks about these practices and how they were
really their own worst enemies and they were putting their
staff at risk.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Yes, there was, there was always a forum which went
on between the Australian Bankers Association and in particular the
different banks, the different brand banks as well, so we
always speak to them and basically at that stage, once
we got to the point where not just the banks themselves.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
But it was like groundhog day.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Every day we would go out and we talked to
victims of arm robbery and it'd be the same critical
elements of the offense. And what we came to understand
at that stage is that, you know, whilst we did
our criminal investigation, in order to put an end to
the serial offender that was this particular bank robber or
hotel robber, etc. We needed to actually get the message
across to the victims or the potential victims, whether it's
(28:44):
the corporate victims as in the banks, all the face
to face victims of the arm robbery crime that this
was a harm minimization system that we had to adopt
through the use of body language and the use of
verbal communication skills, that we would actually be able to
get the best out of the relationship. That was a
force relationship that we wanted to get out of as
quickly as possible. It was like that McDonald's principle of
(29:06):
would you like fries with that? Now get out of here.
So that was where we dealt with the harm minimization
strategies for victims of crime.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Because you think about those tellers, they're just out of school,
No experience. They're being faced with very tough, ruthless arm robbers,
the banks giving them the wrong advice. Who would have
been a bank teller back then, my goodness.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
I met many, many many bank tellers over the years,
and I did know a couple personally through my other community.
I wouldn't recommend, you know, it's quite an interesting situation.
But once the banks tightened their security, the criminals were
flashed out into different areas such as pubs and clubs,
and if they were willing enough, and mind you, armed
(29:50):
robbers are always willing, but if they're willing and skillful enough,
they'd take on people like the armored car industry, which
only asserts the fact that the criminals that you're going
to get into that are people who were actually armed
and prepared to use the firearms that they actually have
in going up against armed CA cruise with their own firearms.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
When did you start to see the tide urn against
the arm robbers.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Well, I think that I don't study statistics much at
the moment in relation to robbery, whether it be armed
robbery or robbery with a firearm, or robbery real the
weapon other than a firearm. But I think we're still
doing around about fifteen hundred to two thousand a year
in the state of New South Wales. But basically we're
always going to have robbery, you know, and it may
be robbery of John citizen on the street who gets
(30:33):
smacked over their head for his Apple iPhone or whatever
he carries, you know.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Even on speculation.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
But the tide basically turned in armed robbery when cash
flow started to remove. So the cash flow from these
places and the upscilling of people like pubs and clubs
in order to deal with cash flow saw them driven down.
So it's not as if these criminals have actually gone
out of business, but they actually may have gone into
a different part of business and potentially drug dealing or fraud,
(31:01):
et cetera, which has much less risk associated with it.
Think it was the Godfather, the Mario Puzo who wrote
that a man with a briefcase was still ten times
as much as a man with a gun.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
We've also seen where the bulletproof shutters came in and
that certainly added a lot of risk to the robbers
then even killed a few of them back in the day.
You probably recall a few of those incidents.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Yeah, I remember the first time I saw it was
in nineteen eighty five at the Cornwath Bank and a
horse Straet at Bondi and we had an attempted robbery
there with three Romanian criminals who went in masked out.
Two went to go over the top of the counter
and both got caught by the screen as it went up.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Those screens go off like a gun.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
They pop up in I think it's about point eight
of a second with two thousand pounds of force behind them,
and they're ballistic, so they are a very strong deployment
from the counter level. So in this case the two criminals,
one got hung up by his arm and the other
one got hit in the head and broke his jaw
at the same time. So by the time we got there,
the third offender had actually walked out back onto Hall
(32:08):
Street and taken off, but the two that were there
were still hum The bank staff left them there for
us to actually come and deal with them, and rightly
say more at the time that the bad guy that
was caught with his left arm, he had actually had
the gun on the counter side of the bank and
was actually firing shots across at the bank staff telling
him to let him down.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
So a very dangerous situation. I knew of another one up.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
On the North side of Sydney where the bad guy
who got caught while the pneumatic screen was actually killed
on the spot. So they do create that's that risk
factor and that deterrent effect to looking for a different
target like a bank that hadn't been fitted with ballistic
sperience yet, or a different motus operandi where the band
guys would actually look for a chick in the armor
(32:54):
of the bank branch in particular or the bank brand
in particular. So say, for instance, Kiosks or ATMs. You know,
the delivery of cash to the ATMs will be serviced
ATM's being serviced by a third party location who's actually
recycling their own business cash through that ATM and back out.
So it's an interesting situation. But it's like a game
(33:17):
of chess. If you make a move to actually count
the criminals, the criminals will make a counter move to
actually make their opportunities.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
And remarkably enough, maybe it's because of Australia's background is
a penal colony in the beginning, but there was a
certain romanticizing of these figures. Was that frustrating to you?
People like Raymond John Denning was suddenly a celebrity of
the left if you like doing that sort of an
interesting phenomenon for you.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
Yeah, well, look, I remember Ray Denning and I remember
at the time where he came and placed his handprint
on the front of the doors of the cob and
did an actual interview I think it was with Current
Affair or something like that. But he was a recipivvers
arm robber and ultimately a jail escapee who managed to
track down Peter melvil Schnitzeling or Russell Cox within like
(34:04):
seven him being out and they came to grief down
in Melbourne at the hands of the armed robbery squad
where they were sprung doing a surveillance on an armed
car crew. But go back to the Australian culture, and
you know, everybody likes to have a fair go, and
the culture of the Australian Alarican maybe an anti establishment
type perspective. But in all the training that I've done
(34:25):
with potential victims of crimes like armed robbery, I will
ask them a question and say, as we start this,
I just want to ask you something, you know, can
you give me an Australian folk hero, and quite quickly
everybody comes up with the same Australian folk hero and
it never varies. It's always need Kelly. And I said,
so you're a potential victim of an armed robbery, but
(34:46):
in your mind, an Australian folk hero is an armed
robber who shoots it out with police. You can see
it's like a light bulb moment for them. We have
this culture that accepts the fact that, you know, the
Alarican or the criminal may be something that I'm not
suggesting that we aspire to it, but we understand the fight.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Again, it's injustice.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
It's kind of confusing, isn't it, because because the Kelly
gang killed police in cold blood. Yes, and yet they
are romanticized and these guys are comes to mind that
the film butchcasting The Something's Kid, which was again about
the end of an era in the wild West. There
and Butchcasidy goes into the bank and they've got all
these screens and security things and he says to the guard,
he says, what.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Happened to the old bank?
Speaker 2 (35:29):
People kept robbing it but it was beautiful, you know,
And there was that sort of I think we grew
up with that film maybe the media was partly to blame.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Do you think that these guys were good.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Copy and they were desperate and they were quite charismatic
some of them.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
Yeah, look, you still see it now.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
It's not so much for romanticization of you know, even nowadays.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
You know, like I was reading.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
News media as in online papers in recent years, and
they talk about these robberies being magnificent masterpieces of criminal conduct,
and the reality is they're not. You know, there's a
ton of front involved in these types of things in
public spaces to actually go and attack an armored car crew.
(36:13):
But the fact is that they're not particularly smart, they're
not particularly cunning, and they all just revolve around that
brazenness of being in this public place at the time,
and they're very dangerous.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
You know. It's not the sort of thing that we
should be trying to glorify as this guy is the worst.
Speaker 4 (36:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Ray, Well, so I'm very glad that you worked hard.
You thank you for your service, and you kept us
safe in that period of time. And by nineteen ninety eight,
I guess you were ready to finish up and do
something else.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Absolutely, and I took the opportunity and the lead up
to the Sydney Olympic Games to start my own security
consultancy and that kept me going for the next twenty years.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
All right, well, thanks for your time today as a pleasure,
nice to talk to you. Fantastic. That's retired Detective Ray
Lamby on the Golden are so called. It wasn't very
golden for those who were having the guns shoved in
their faces robberies. But if you've been a victim of
crime or even a perpetrator, and you've got a story
to share, please get in touch here with Adam Shann
(37:16):
at Real Crime. You can send me an email at
Adam Shanned writer at gmail dot com. And if you've
got any information that could solve past crimes, get in
touch with crime Stoppers one eight hundred, triple three, triple zero.
Thanks for listening today. If you've enjoyed the content, please
subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends.
Speaker 4 (37:33):
Thanks for listening.
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