Flying Squad - Notable Investigations

Notable Investigations

In July 1948, the Squad learned of a plan to steal £250,000 of bullion from a warehouse at Heathrow Airport by drugging the guards. Squad officers replaced the guards and pretended to be drugged, with other officers stationed around the warehouse. When the thieves removed the keys to the safe from Detective Sergeant Charles Hewett the Squad announced their presence and a violent struggle ensued with many on both sides suffering serious injuries. The offenders received an average sentence of 10 years' imprisonment.

In the 1960s, the squad undertook the role of capturing, and gathering evidence on the Kray twins, with many officers giving evidence in court.

The squad took up investigating the Great Train Robbery (which had no firearms involved), but did not catch all of the robbers.

Some of the most dangerous work undertaken by the Flying Squad, is "Pavement Ambush", where police ambush armed robbers during the offence. During "Operation Yamoto" in November 1990, and "Operation Char" in 1987, this approach saw three armed robbers shot dead by police.

In August 1993, an armed robbery occurred at a Barclays Bank, in Blackfen, South East London. This made the headlines as being the first time police were fired upon by a machine gun in mainland Britain; one officer was struck in the head by a ricochet. This officer subsequently received the George Medal. The two robbers were later arrested. Both were sentenced at the Old Bailey.

In November 2000, five men set out to rob the Millennium Dome of the flawless 777 carats (155 g) Millennium Star, valued at over 200 million pounds. Originally, police were unsure of the intended location of the robbery, but after months of surveillance, they realised that the target was the Millennium Dome. On the 7th of November, the robbers armed with smoke bombs, ammonia, and a nail gun, crashed into the Dome with a stolen JCB Excavator and smashed through to the vault. The robbers planned to escape on the River Thames by using a speedboat. The police operation to catch the robbers was codenamed "Operation Magician", and involved 200 officers, including forty Specialist Firearms Officers from SO19. Some of the officers were positioned behind a dummy wall, and others were dressed as cleaners with their firearms hidden in black bin bags, or rubbish bins, along with officers in Dome employee uniforms. A further sixty armed Flying Squad officers were stationed around the Thames, and 20 on the river itself, to hamper any escape attempts. Five men were caught and sentenced on various robbery charges. The officer in command of the operation was Detective Superintendent Jon Shatford.

On 13 September 2007, the Flying Squad was involved in an incident outside a bank in the village of Chandler's Ford, near Southampton. Two suspected armed robbers were shot dead by members of CO19, in support of a Flying Squad operation, who had been lying in wait after receiving a tip off that an armed robbery was imminent. The thieves were attempting armed robbery on a G4S security van outside the HSBC branch when they were killed by the CO19 SFOs.