1967: Police investigate city centre payroll robbery

RUSSELL LEADBETTER

A MAN and a woman were ambushed by a gang of four men and robbed of a payroll of £1,600 in Glasgow on March 23, 1967. Uniformed police and detectives converged on the area and began questioning witnesses.

The Evening Times reported that the raid happened as the couple crossed Maxwell Street (above) from the bank in the nearby Lewis’s store to the wholesale warehouse of Gerber Brothers Ltd. “An employee in the shop who heard shouts for help chased the raiders, who vanished into a tunnel entrance leading to St Enoch Station,” the paper said. “A passing motorist stopped his car and got out and also gave chase. Once in the station, the raiders got into the street, where they had a getaway car waiting. It is believed to have been a green Mercedes.”

This was a time when the rise in violent crime was genuine cause for concern. That August, the Glasgow Herald, reflecting on the newlyreleased crime figures for the previous year, wrote: “The statistics for crimes and offences committed in Scotland in 1966 ... are alarming ... Crimes of violence rose by over 11 per cent last year and there is some indication this increase is neither peculiar to Scotland nor an isolated reversal of trends.

“It is difficult not to relate the increase in criminal activity in general, and in crimes of violence in particular, to the more liberal legislation for dealing with criminals which has been introduced in recent years.”