The last heistmeister of ‘the largest burglary in English history’ oozes charisma as he tells his wild tale. Even his contempt for his accomplices is impressive
I
t is a truth I feel should be universally acknowledged – that a headline-grabbing crime, which still has one of its charismatic perpetrators alive and willing to talk about it now on camera, must have a documentary dedicated to it.
The last one was the three-part miniseries The Diamond Heist, from Guy Ritchie’s production company, about the Millenium Dome Robbery (although the best line came not from the villains but from one of the laconic police officers responsible for trying to track down members of the gang as they put their plan together. They got a lead on one when he went back to the venue without his daughter. “No one goes to the Millenium Dome twice.” This is what I pay my taxes for.)
You can’t help but feel the latest film worked its way through to commission along an unbroken chain of whey-faced men who have had privilege and comfort foisted upon them at every turn. Hatton Garden: The Great Diamond Heist is the tale of “the largest burglary in English legal history” we are told – but to not quite as compelling an effect as you suspect the makers intended. It took place 11 years ago and although it dominated the headlines back in those halcyon days when things smaller than the destruction of the world could habitually make the cut, I suspect it has largely failed to live in the minds of the generations since.
