Caine’s a dodgy codger
Michael Caine & his old pals start filming third version of Hatton Garden blag
FOUR of Britain’s best loved stars are almost lookalikes for ageing crooks they play in a new movie about the Hatton Garden gems heist.
Captured on the set of the new blockbuster film about the “Diamond Wheezers” are Michael Caine, 84, Ray Winstone, 60, Jim Broadbent, 68, and comedian Paul Whitehouse, 59.
Sir Michael is believed play the £ 25million raid’s leader Brian Reader, 77, who used his bus pass to get to the raid in London’s jewellery quarter.
Winstone is believed to be William “Billy the Fish” Lincoln, also 60, who was claiming disability living allowance.
Broadbent is said to play John Collins, 75, who acted as lookout as the gang drilled through concrete to empy a vault of jewellery and cash over Easter in 2015. Whitehouse is believed to play plumber Hugh Doyle, 49, who helped the gang transfer the haul. Our exclusive pictures show the veteran stars alongside Netflix’s Daredevil Charlie Cox, 34, as shooting got under way this week in the real Hatton Garden. Reckless actress Francesca Annis, 72, and Michael Gambon, 76, complete the stellar line-up in the film Night In Hatton Garden. One onlooker said: “I did a real double take when I saw them there in the middle of Hatton Garden. They looked like the men we saw in CC CCTV V images ages ofo thet e robbery.”o e y. It will the third version of the story to hit the screen, including The Hatton Garden Job, starring Larry Lamb and Phil Daniels, which was released last month to patchy reviews. The stars’ characters drilled through thick concrete to climb into a vault at the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit Company.
They cracked open 73 boxes containing cash, diamonds, sapphires and gold.
The gang was brought down by CCTV, number plate recognition cameras and phone evidence.
Reader, Collins and Terry Perkins, 67, were also caught out after boasting during a drinking session at the Castle pub in Islington.
Perkins, Collins, Lincoln and Daniel Jones, 61, were all jailed for seven years while Reader got six years and three months.
Tough
Carl Wood, 59, who quit the gang halfway through the raid because he thought they’d get caught, got six years. Doyle got a suspended term.
A seventh thief, known only as Basil, remains at large more than two years after the robbery.
Some £10million of the Hatton Garden haul has been thought to be still missing.
Daniel Jones took police to a cemetery in Edmonton, North London, where gems were hidden under a gravestone.
CCTV then showed a larger cache was under another gravestone that
Jones hadn’t mentioned to police. South London-born Sir Michael Caine has made no secret of wanting to appear in a film about the robbery, revealing last year that he’d sign up “in an instant”. He said: “That story, the four guys in Hatton Garden, they are very, very tough.”
The gang drew on experiences from two crimes – the £26million Brink’sMat gold heist at Heathrow in 1983 and the £6million Security Express cash robbery, in East London, also in 1983.
Perkins was involved in the Security Express robbery when 15 masked men with pistols and shotguns stole almost £20million in today’s money. Reader was involved in the Brink’s-Mat heist, when three tons of gold was stolen. Most has never been found.
The new movie from Working Title Films is directed by James Marsh, best known for Man on Wire and The Theory of Everything.
It is based on a screenplay by Joe Penhall, which is in turn adapted from a Mark Seal Vanity Fair article.
Sir Michael Caine is no stranger to heist movies, having played Charlie Croker in The Italian Job.
Winstone played a gangster in Sexy Beast and Gambon was a memorable villain in Layer Cake. Broadbent, however, is best known for playing more gentle- natured characters, including Bridget Jones’s dad.
Last September Reader’s lawyers made a failed bid to reduce his jail term at the Appeal Court in London.
They asked judges to show “mercy”, saying his health had deteriorated rapidly during his incarceration at Belmarsh prison in South East London.
The court heard he has prostate cancer and has also suffered a stroke while in custody.
But the appeal was rejected by Mr Justice Flaux, who said that Reader’s health has not declined because of the fact he is in jail.
He said: “We recognise that he is suffering from serious health problems and that it may well be that he will not survive this sentence.
“However, there is no evidence that being in prison has caused his health to deteriorate.
“Some of his conditions pre-dated his commission of this offence.
“It cannot be said that the very fact of his imprisonment has endangered his life. This is a case in which an elderly man with health problems chose to commit this extremely serious offence in 2015.”