HE was known as the ‘Gentleman Thief’, masterminded the ‘Heist of the Century’….. and was played by Michael Caine in the film King of Thieves.
And Hatton Garden raid ringleader Brian Reader’s death, aged 84, means he takes to the grave secrets of some of the millions in missing loot from the audacious 2015 safe deposit blag.
It also brings down the curtain on the life of a career criminal, who was an associate of Kenny Noye and leader of the gang of villains – dubbed the ‘Diamond Wheezers’ – after the £14million Hatton Garden raid.
We can reveal that Reader – freed from prison on health grounds in 2018 after serving just over three years for the notorious Easter 2015 burglary – died in secret at the end of last year.
Relatives and associates of south Londoner Reader have sought to keep his death a closely-guarded secret.
However a death certificate, which lists his profession as a retired gardener, reveals he passed away in September 2023 at his home in Dartford, Kent.
His devoted daughter Joanne Reader, 58, was with him when he died.
Reader, who suffered a series of strokes while behind bars, succumbed to cancer of the colon and prostate cancer.
And last night, a source said: “Brian was not a well man in his final years, and he was able to slip away peacefully at home.
“It was one of his final wishes that he could spend his last months at home in Dartford, which was where he died.
“His daughter, Joanne, and other friends and family were with him in his final weeks and his death came as no surprise.
“His spell in prison took its toll on him, and he never really recovered once he was out.
“But for some reason, his family and the criminal fraternity have been desperate to keep his death a secret.
“They did not want it reported on and didn’t want any fuss around the time of the death and the funeral. But it has all now been dealt with privately.
“And it stayed a secret for so long precisely because of the nature Brian and his allies – utterly ruthless and used to getting their way.
“Nobody wanted to cross them by revealing the secret – but it was bound to come out in the fullness of time.”
Born in Southwark, south London in February 1939 – months before World War Two started – to parents Henry and Doris, it would not take Reader long to graduate into a life of crime.
Brian Henry Reader first appeared in court in 1950, and received a criminal discharge for stealing from five shops.
He worked as a butcher’s boy and a gardener and joined British Rail when he left school at 16.
But his real vocation was crime – and by the 1960s Reader was working with some of Britian’s most feared robbers and burglars.
He also established himself as a “fence” – someone who would sell on stolen goods – and often passed them through dodgy traders in London’s Hatton Garden district.
Reader met his future wife, bookies assistant Lynn Kidd, in 1963 and he remained devoted to her until her death in 2009.
They had two children, Paul – born in 1964 – and Joanne, who followed a year later and remained close to their father until his death.
Despite being a family man – said to have carried a photo of his wife wherever he went – Reader’s life of crime escalated in the 1980s.
He fenced gold with underworld villain Kenny Noye – the Brink’s Mat robber later jailed for the road rage killing of Stephen Cameron, 21 – and planned heists.
Nobody wanted to cross them by revealing the secret – but it was bound to come out in the fullness of time.
Reader was accused of a string of robberies with an accomplice, but their trial collapsed amid accusations of jury-tampering.
And although he prided himself on being a “gentleman” bandit, Reader was suspected of pinning down DC John Fordham as Kenny Noye stabbed him to death in 1985.
One of DC Fordham’s colleagues gave evidence that Reader also kicked the undercover officer as he lay dying on the snow-covered ground of Noye’s 20-acre home in West Kingsdown, Kent.
The killing happened as Dad-of-three Fordham, 45, was keeping watch on Noye’s palatial Hollywood Cottage home during the investigation into the £26million Brink’s-Mat robbery at Heathrow in November 1983.
Noye and Reader – on the run over a string of burglaries worth £1.25million – were acquitted of murder, after claiming self-defence.
But the pair were later convicted of handling stolen Brink’s-Mat gold and Reader was jailed for nine years.
What was the Hatton Garden raid?
CARRIED out over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, the motley crew entered through a lift shaft and made their way to the basement where they used heavy cutting equipment to gain access to the outside of the 1940s vault.
A diamond-tipped drill was then used to bore through the 20in-thick reinforced concrete wall.
Once inside the gang ransacked 73 safe deposit boxes, containing jewellery, gems and gold with an estimated value of just under £14million before escaping in a waiting transit van.
Most of the gems have still not been recovered and are feared to have been leaked onto the black market and sold abroad.
The value of the loot was also re-valued at £29million in 2019.
The OAP raiders – all with a combined aged of 442 – were previously collectively ordered to pay back £8.2million.
Reader is the second Hatton Garden robber to die after Terry Perkins passed away in prison in 2018.
Following his release, Reader promised his wife Lynn and public school-educated daughter Jo, that he would go straight.
Reader sold cars with son Paul in Dartford, Kent, before going into retirement – but he apparently could not resist the lure of “one last job”.
Then, after his beloved Lynn passed away in 2009, Reader turned his mind to plotting a “final hurrah”.
Theory #1 – Finding the Brink’s-Mat gold
Underworld associates say Reader was obsessed with finding the missing Brink’s-Mat gold that he had handled – and set about finding it.
The 1983 bank robbery saw £26m in bullion disappear into the criminal economy and half of the gold remains missing.
He is said to have been convinced a crooked Hatton Garden diamond dealer had hidden the bullion in boxes at the safety deposit box centre.
One former associate said: “Brian was desperate to find the gold and the word is that he managed to find out which boxes the gold was hidden in.
“He did know every inch of Hatton Garden, after all. It had always been his manor and his contacts there were formidable.
For some reason, his family and the criminal fraternity have been desperate to keep his death a secret
“There was nothing that happened in Hatton Garden without him knowing about it.
Theory #2 – It was something else
If it wasn’t the gold Reader was after, then it might have been something else more specific that has never been released.
The lock boxes contained a lot of jewellery and some of it may have been rare enough to catch Reader’s interest.
“The suspicion is that on the raid itself he knew all along exactly what boxes he wanted to break into, and only went back again after the initial break-in to muddy the waters and disguise the true target.”
Reader began to assemble a cast of ageing villains to plan the last caper that would finance a luxury retirement – and the infamous Hatton Garden plot was born.
The gang – including Terry Perkins, John ‘Kenny’ Collins and Danny Jones and Reader would meet at The Castle Pub in Islington, north London to plot the audacious raid.
They later recruited Michael Seed, known as ‘Basil’ and an alarm specialist.
And a mole helped them obtain blueprints to the seventh-storey building at 88-90 Hatton Garden where safety deposit boxes were housed in a basement.
Gang-members watched the building for months and studied its CCTV operation.
And when they broke in, over the Easter bank holiday, the elderly gang – dressed like construction workers to blend in with Crossrail crew – carried wheelie bin filled with tools and disabled a lift.
The gang were thwarted on the first night by a large heavy metal cabinet.
But Jones hired a replacement hydraulic pump and battering ram on the Saturday.
Theory #3 – Reader quit mid-job
Reader would not return on the second night, while four of his cronies – Perkins, Jones, Collins and ‘Basil’ – did go back.
A prosecutor said in 2015 that Reader was “nowhere to be seen” on the second night and had apparently quit the heist despite being instrumental in planning it.
It became the biggest heist in British legal history.
A Met spokesperson said police have recovered “£4,467,566.74” of the £14m worth of stolen cash, jewellery, precious stones, precious metals, and other valuable items.
Specific outstanding amounts haven’t been made public, but there are some hints about what makes up the lost millions.
Police have recovered Cartier watches, loose gems, large quantities of cash and various items of jewellery.
One woman claimed to Sky News in 2017 she had £7m in gold still missing from the lock boxes.
Prosecutor Philip Evans QC said during the trial in 2018: “Somewhere in the world is £5.7 million worth of stolen jewellery.”
Some details about the items stolen also emerged in court, including a £55,000 necklace and Breitling, Omega, TAG Heuer and Rolex watches.
Sapphires, diamonds and whole display cases of rings were also taken.
After the heist, though, detectives were soon on the trail of the ‘Diamond Wheezers’ – tracing a Mercedes and bugging vehicles and a pub where they discussed the heist.
I will shed no tears for the loss of Brian Reader.
Peter Bleksley
Reader, who had been too ill to attend earlier hearings, was eventually jailed in March 2016 – handed six years after appearing at Woolwich Crown Court via video link.
We revealed he had been freed in July 2018, when Reader was pictured walking with the aid of sticks.
He was released with remission and was able to enjoy the sunshine in the garden of his home in Dartford.
Reader also enjoyed outings in his son’s red Porsche sports car.
But his health never recovered and the death of one of Britain’s most notorious villains was certified by his doctor on September 2, 2023.
Last night, former Met Detective Peter Bleksley said: “I will shed no tears for the loss of Brian Reader.
“All this stuff about being a ‘gentleman thief’ is a complete nonsense.
“Reader, Noye and other south London gangsters of that era were the most unpleasant criminals imaginable.
“A lot of detectives and ex-detectives will feel no sadness at his passing.”
