Every year on 1 January, hundreds of Victorian archival records are made public through the Public Record Office Victoria, from historical court documents to hospital admissions.
Among this year’s release was the 1949 criminal trial brief for Albert Edward Skeggs, a man said to have committed a ‘daring’ bank robbery in Ferntree Gully.
On Saturday 23 October 1948 the E.S&A Bank in Ferntree Gully closed at midday.
Bank manager Victor Thomas Scott and his colleague Mr Naylor secured the bank safe and strongroom, then locked the front door as they knocked off for the day. When they returned Monday morning, immediately they knew something was amiss, the brief read.
“We noticed the two glass doors wide open and held back by two chairs…there was a smell of burnt gas of some type. We went to the strongroom door (and) noticed oxy-acetylene bottles and a hole in the door of the strongroom. We eventually opened the strongroom,” Scott said.
“There was a big hole cut in the safe…After we opened the safe we saw that the drawers were burnt away…We looked at the ante room and saw a rope hanging through the manhole which was open.”
A police audit found that £2139/8/7 was missing along with three revolvers, one automatic pistol and safe custody envelopes containing certificates of £50 each.
Detectives Newton and Tremewen soon arrived. Seeing the rope hanging from the ceiling led Newton to the manhole where he found two sheets of galvanised iron had been pulled up several feet which “left a hole big enough for a man to get through.”
The papers called it a “daring” robbery that “must have taken them six or seven hours.”
In early November, Skeggs visited an acquaintance at work, a Leonard Joseph Robertson, and offered “a little job I want you to do for me. I’ll make it worth your while.”
Robertson supposedly didn’t ask questions as he’d been struggling financially and the promise of some extra cash saw him meet Skeggs the following day, Tuesday 9 November, outside Fink’s Buildings in Elizabeth Street.
Skeggs handed Robertson a certificate for £50, asking him to cash it, and he would give him £5 for his troubles.
“He handed me a certificate. I looked at the back and saw it was signed J. Wilson. There were also the principal and interest on the back. The certificate had Oct 1952 on it. I entered the bank and presented it to teller at the War Savings counter and cashed the certificate…I met accused outside the bank and handed him the full amount. He gave me a £5 note,” Robertson said.
They continued to numerous other banks around Melbourne. Skeggs waiting outside each time Robertson was tasked with cashing in the certificates.
“I did not ask him why he did not go into the bank himself, I thought he was being generous to me. I knew of no reason why he should give me £5 of each £50 unless he knew that I was struggling along early last year,” Robertson said.
The final two certificates Skeggs left with Robertson, planning to meet him later on.
“I went across road to Nat. Bank. I presented two certificates to the teller at the counter. He examined the certs with a list of Nos. The teller left and entered a room and then served two ladies. A man came along and he took me to a room at the rear. A police patrol arrived…”
Robertson was caught red-handed with two of the certificates stolen from Ferntree Gully. It wasn’t long before police tracked down the other cashed certificates. Robertson was quick to tell police who had set him up.
Meanwhile, when Robertson didn’t show up to meet Skeggs as planned, he assumed the worst and went straight to the home of friend Kathleen Veronica Sutton.
“…Mr Skeggs came to my home. Before that it was 12 months since I saw him. He came into the flat. He had a conversation. He was there half an hour to one hour,” she said in the brief.
“Before he went he said “I am in a spot of trouble”. We did not ask him what it was. I (said) ‘I’m sure you’re only imagining it. Go home and forget about it.’ He handed two pens to me. He (said) ‘Would you
mind minding these for me. I don’t want to lose them. One is mine. One is Norman’s’. He left the pens and went away.”
Eventually, Detectives Newton and Tremewen caught up with Skeggs at home where he admitted he’d seen Robertson and that he’d received a £50 certificate at a Mornington race meeting from a man named Snowy.
The Detectives then searched Skeggs’ flat to find a nervous wife inside, but no stolen goods. They took him into custody regardless, his Mornington races excuse not holding much weight once the Detectives looked up the dates of the race meets, the last one at least two days prior to the bank robbery.
Skeggs responded “You think you’ve got me trapped but I have a bad memory.” The bad memory included not being able to remember anything about Snowy, or how many certificates he got off him.
Skeggs admitted to filling in the name J Wilson with the pens he had left with his friend Sutton. He also obliged by giving the detectives a handwriting sample.
He maintained, however, that he did not break into the bank.
His story about Snowy and the Mornington races, held on a date that didn’t make sense, seemed to have swayed the jury at trial. Or perhaps they just weren’t impressed with the Detectives’ evidence. Skeggs was found not guilty.
