The North London Tavern on the
corner of Cavendish
Road and Kilburn
High Road was originally the North London Railway Hotel, after the railway
company that ran the service from the nearby station now called Brondesbury on
the Overground. The name was shortened to the North London Hotel in 1895.
In the early hours of the morning
of 12
June 1946, Maurice Herbert the
licensee, heard noises in the cellar and called the police. At 2.15am the pub was surrounded, and four men were
found stealing 130 bottles of gin which they were about to load into a waiting
van. PCs Ian Moir and Robert Wade saw two men climb onto the wall at the rear of
the building.
Moir said, ‘I shouted to them to come down. Davis
fired two shots and they ran towards Cavendish Road.
I followed them and Davis pointed
the pistol at me. I threw my truncheon at him and grabbed him as he was
climbing a fence. As we struggled he hit me on the head with the pistol butt’.
PC Wade arrived and they arrested Davis.
The three other men were arrested later. The pistol was a German Mauser which
had two shots fired and one had jammed in the breach.
In court PC Moir showed his bloodstained uniform and said he
had been off work since he had been attacked. The prosecution counsel believed
that Davis had not deliberately
aimed at PC Moir but fired the shots to frighten him. PCs Moir and Wade were
commended for their bravery, and each awarded £10.
Eric Charles Davis was a 21 year old sailor from Greenford.
Francis James Bloomfield, 20, was a driver from Fulham. Ernest Percival
Hawkins, 18, was a tiler from West Kensington, and
Richard Emery, 21, a soldier of no fixed address. At the Old Bailey, Davis
was sentenced to five years imprisonment, Bloomfield
and Emery received two years. Hawkins was sent to
Borstal for a period not exceeding three years. Their girlfriends screamed when
they heard the sentences and had to be led from court.
In February 1947, just six months into his sentence, Eric
Davis escaped from Wandsworth prison by using a plank
and climbing over the wall. The police issued a description of him as 5 feet 7
inches tall, black hair, grey eyes and a stocky build. After a month on the run
he was recaptured at a pub in Finsbury
Park.
In April 1953, Eric and his brother
Victor Davis were convicted of stealing £22,000 worth of National Insurance stamps
from a post office in Camberley Surrey. The brothers said they were car
dealers: Eric in Mixnams Lane Chertsey, and Victor in Chertsey Lane Staines. They were known as
the Gelignite Gang, believed to have made £50,000 in just one year from their safe
breaking raids in London and the Home Counties. Scotland Yard had suspected the brothers,
but they used fast cars and were good at spotting when they were being watched.
The Yard put in an undercover officer called Alfred ‘Chalky’ White. He
disguised himself as a down and out and grew his hair. After he told his
controller about the Camberley robbery, the police raided the brothers’
caravans in Chertsey where they found the stolen stamps, as well as gelignite
and detonators. Eric Davis, 28, was sentenced to seven years and Victor, 23, to
four years imprisonment.
In April 1958 Eric Davis now aged 33, of Hereford
Road in Bayswater, admitted to blowing up 12 safes
with gelignite, including a raid on the Odeon Cinema Edgware Road Paddington.
He was found with two firearms and two and a half pounds of gelignite. Davis
was sentenced to 10 years. But in January 1961 he was one of five men who tried
to escape from Dartmoor. They were caught after climbing
over a 20 feet wall when a prisoner told the authorities about the plan.
Davis had
graduated from burglary to safe blowing. He and his friends were career
criminals who stole goods which they could easily sell in the austerity and
rationing of post-war Britain.
They were the ‘spivs’ who could get you anything for a price.
Comments
Post a Comment