How London’s Docklands became the Eton of the crime world

When Hatton Garden Heist ‘mastermind’ Brian Reader died aged 84 in 2023, it was estimated that he had made £200 million during his long criminal career. Reader shared his origins with other members of British criminal royalty, such as those behind the great train, Brink’s Mat, Security Express and Tonbridge cash depot heists – robbers who were all part of a long standing and highly resilient culture of skulduggery. For many of these men, a childhood in and around London’s pre-gentrified Docklands was like going to Eton.

The Docklands and its adjacent surroundings have long been centres of excellence for criminal practice. Self-employment and casual labour typified early industrial London and marked out its workforce as a breed apart, unfettered by the rigid, shift-based grind of heavy industry. When all else failed, casual labouring in the docks was the last resort; it was unreliable, poorly paid and dangerous. But the wharves and warehouses of London’s waterfront provided ample opportunities for thieving, dealing, ducking and diving.

It was quite normal to enliven an otherwise mundane existence with the odd roll of stolen cloth, a box of shirts or a prime piece of recently imported meat from Argentina or New Zealand.