Gold Bullion Robbery: 1935 Part II

Robin Dewell continues his story of the Goild Bullion robbery at Croydon Airport in 1935 in the stye of the newspapers at the time:

GOLD THEFT CONVICTION.

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SEVEN YEARS FOR     | THREE DAYS' TRIAL

“DANGEROUS MAN.” |           IN   CROYDON.

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After a trial lasting three days and occupying seventeen hours, Cecil Swanland, a forty-seven years old artist, of no fixed abode, was sentenced to seven years' penal servitude by the Recorder of Croydon, when the jury found him guilty of complicity in the in the theft of bullion from the strong room at Croydon Aerodrome.

Two other men originally charged had been discharged at different stages of the trial.

£21,000 BULLION ROBBERY: 1935

A post from U3A member Robin Dewell written in the style of a 1930s newspaper:

£21,000 BULLION ROBBERY

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EARLY MORNING TAXI RIDE

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''Little Harry'', Shonk and 'This is Gold'!

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The hearing of evidence against three men charged with being concerned in the theft of £21,000 worth of gold bars, gold sovereigns and gold US dollars from 'The Strong Room' of Imperial Airways at Croydon Aerodrome continued at Croydon Borough Police Court on Tuesday March 21st. It was described as ''a very clever and carefully thought out crime''. An early morning taxicab ride from King's Cross to Purley Way, a wait, and then a drive back to North London with three heavy boxes, followed by a chimney set on fire by what was being burned in the grate in the lodgings of one of the accused. There was also a complaint that the landlady of the lodgings had been approached by a man ''If you take my advice you will have nothing to do with it''. The presiding magistrate then issued a stern warning against any further intimidation of witnesses.