Daryl:The International Cat Burglar

Continuing with my research and interviews, I managed to catch up with what I like to call one of the 10 Percenters, a former prolific burglar and jewel thief referred to in the old days as The Cat. Daryl had a life changing moment in prison, and as a result never returned to crime. Nowadays his life couldn’t be any more different. 

During the three and a half years I was in prison I wrote over a million words by hand. Tales From The Jails is a contemporaneous account of my life, and attempts to thrive rather than merely survive, whilst incarcerated.

Most names have been changed. The events have not.

This is a Jekyll & Pride production.

Producer: Trevessa Newton

Title Music taken from The Confession, on the album Crimes Against Poetry (written and performed by The Shadow Poet, produced by Lance Thomas)

Copyright Jekyll & Pride Ltd 2025

@talesfromthejailspodcast

@jekyllandpride2023
@theshadowpoettsp

Transcript

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Hi everyone. G-Dubz here in 2025. Continuing with my research and interviews, I managed to catch up with what I like to call one of the 10 Percenters, a former prolific burglar and jewel thief referred to in the old days as The Cat. Daryl had a life-changing moment in prison and as a result, never returned to crime. Nowadays, his life couldn't be any more different. We're sat having a coffee in the hub at Sulford University, so there is a little background atmosphere at times, I'm afraid. Daryl, The Cat, George. Who was The Cat? I was The Cat, the infamous Cat when I was 27 years of age. But going back, I'm just a young boy who grew up in a middle class family with my mum and dad. And, unfortunately for me from a young age, my father's profession was a burglar. So he instilled in me his tricks of the trade and what he wanted to turn, me out to be. And the same as him. A burglar to rob the rich to help the poor, and we were the poor. So that's how my life started. From nine years of age, being taught, kept off school, put in a car, drove to Cheshire, which even after all these years, I can still point out to this day, the very first house my father took me to, which is in Knutsford, which is a part of Cheshire. I read it last night. Yeah. Still, that house is still there. You know, and it's amazing when I look back and I think, wow, I was nine years of age, nine... If, if he is looking down on me from the heavens now he'd be, I'd be thinking, what are you thinking now, Dad? Where my life has gone and the path which it's taken. I didn't see, when I was in my twenties, thirties, I could never ever see, envisage me being a, a law abiding citizen, you know? But after all these years, now I'm 60, 63 this year, for the last six, seven years, you know, crime is something I look so far away from. It's unreal. Fortunately for me, I've had some really good people to help me on my journey, because that's what I really think, when you were talking about, that question, why are people so fundamentally... fascinated... fascinated in crime. And my take, and I've always said it's because there's so many law abiding people who wouldn't dream of picking up a Mars bar in a supermarket and stealing it. It makes them fascinated, the people who would do that. So that's, that's where I look at that side. People who are fascinated in crime are usually people who wouldn't dream of doing them crimes themselves, but they're interested in the people behind it, who do those crimes. So many people love murder cases, but I'm not someone who'd commit murder and like yourself, you probably won't commit murder, but, but a lot of people love crime and murder. Yeah. Why that, that baffles me, why people want to know about murder, you know? It's like, fortunately for me, when we was in Thorn Cross, which is going back, 2018, way back, I didn't think what my path was gonna be like. You'd already had the life, it's fair to say, this life changing event and where you decided, if I remember rightly, Daryl, refresh my memory but hadn't you been on the victim support? Yeah, I did the restorative justice. That was it. Restorative justice. Thank you. Yeah, that was, that was when I was at Buckley Hall. I was in there with a prison officer called Jerry Hill, and he was a Scottish prison officer who looked at my case and he said to me, he was me offender manager, and he said to me, would I think about changing my life? And I said, how do I do that? He said, you know, you're coming up to the ripe old age of getting on for nearly late fifties, early sixties. Why don't you change your life? I said, how do I do that, Jerry? He went, have you ever thought about meeting your victims? That was the thing with me, all these years of being a famous cat burglar, I'd never seen a victim. So when he offered me the chance to meet my victims, I thought, wow. Meeting people I've stole from. And then it took me a little while. It took me all night, which I didn't sleep, but the following day I had to give him an answer. And the answer was, yes, I'll do it. And that changed my path and the way I thought about victims, meeting, families who I'd stolen from, that was the, if I could bottle that up and let you, taste the feeling what that I had, feeling going into that room and seeing people that I'd been in their homes, stole all their precious jewels was, I, to this day, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't, I can't explain what was going through my body at that time. I know I used to get adrenaline when I did what I did, but that was the same sort of feeling. I was going to say that it's interesting how it's the polar opposite from reading back these five pages we wrote Daryl, back in, in the day where, you've gone on a job, somebody rich. I'm looking for it now. Should have highlighted it. And you've done the job. You're in your tracksuit. Yeah. Let's, let's go back to those days. Yeah. The polar opposite of the person, the, the man sat in front of me today. Yeah. Whereby you weren't thinking of the victims in any... No...way. No. Other than how you may benefit almost, wasn't it? Each, each of one of those people were just, funding your life and lifestyle. Lifestyle, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it was really, it was making me smile that you'd gone on a burglary, you'd got in, you're in your track suit. You had the golf clubs on... Yeah, yeah, my golf clubs, yeah. With the tracksuits, were always the same. Yeah, they were. Yeah, always the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is out in Australia. Yeah. You are with Vanessa. Vanessa. Yeah. I mean it was, it really did take me back, Daryl. Yeah. But you've broken in the jewellery box, so you've got the, the famous jewellery, the jewellery box that had...Yeah. With all the jewels in. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not here to go into detail about that necessarily, but the difference between the man who took that and had no conscience and the man who's sat in front of me now, with a conscience. Yeah, with a conscience. Especially after the restorative justice. Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel now that the lady I stole that from in Sydney, Australia, because there was so many trinkets in that box of value. Large amounts of value, but many years of... memories to that person is really lost. Yeah. And I feel so guilty that I took them and looked at the jewellery and had them broken up by my jewellery friend so he could resell them. I think Christ, what I caused that woman, the, the pain that I must have caused her, and looking back now, I mean, I was a rip old age of 27 when I was doing that. She was probably in her late forties, fifties. So after all these years, 30 on years now she's probably not here. But I mean, if there was an opportunity for them to be able to meet, do restorative justice to the people in Australia, I would do that. To say I'm sorry for what I did after all these years. So, looking back, I think, I would've changed things if I could. And like I said to a lot of people, if, if my dad would've been a plumber, electrician or a brick layer, and he would've taught me those trades, I'd be sitting back now thinking, I've, I've done a good life. But that's the way, that's how my life panned. My dad was a burgler. So what was the turning point? I always look... like to look at these in terms of there's been a life changing moment, an epiphany. You, you received the 10 years, didn't you? Yeah, I did back in, I'm trying to think, Chester 20 14. 2014. Yeah. Was that the beginning? Was that the sort of line in the sand when you thought, no more? No, not really. Not, not then because I've not had that, that, change of life meeting the people who offered me a way out, because as a criminal, criminals are criminals usually because that's the life they chose and choose. But if you get someone who wants to change your life, you need, you need that help because you can't do it on your own. Criminal minded people usually think like that all the time. I did. I must admit, when it got me 10 years, I thought to myself, well, I'm gonna do five years, but the world's me oyster. I'm still gonna do what I did... until I met Jerry Hill. That was two years into my sentence at Buckley Hall. I met Jerry Hill and he changed my way of thinking, and then I thought, you know what? I've had it. I don't want to carry on. I really want to change because I, I couldn't see a picture of me not being a burgler, because to do it for 40 odd years, from nine years of age, it's very difficult to say, I'm not gonna do that anymore because it's instilled in you. When I used to drive down the road in a car, wherever I was anywhere, I'd be weighing up the properties, looking on the, the streets and thinking, that looks easy, that looks easy. I don't do that anymore now. I never do that anymore. You know, notice buildings without alarm systems and think, oh, they're vulnerable. And now, after all these years, I tell people and help people, to prevent being victims. You know, my, my ethos now is because I know a lot about crime and a lot about breaking in properties, I'm an expert when it comes to, giving advice, you know, and just recently, which is a big, you know, a big, a shout out for me in a sense that they must believe I've changed me ways because to go on national TV and give headline news my opinion about the big Louvre robbery in Paris. It was a big, big thing for me. I'm smiling at that because I did see it, it was on Talk TV...Yeah...for any of you that may want to catch it, I think Collins, it was Ian Collins wasn't it? Ian Collins, yeah. The presenter... Yeah, yeah, yeah. He missed a bit of a trick I thought in some ways. I didn't know whether we were gonna talk about the Louvre, but while we're on that topic now, I think what people are maybe fascinated by, and I think as I say, where Ian missed a trick was to ask you... whoever's been involved by way of an inside job or not an inside job, whatever we think of that, I think what we're all maybe fascinated by, I think two have been arrested, haven't they? That was still 48, 72 hours, wasn't it after? Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. I can't even keep a straight face because it was T... Yeah... my missus who Daryl knows really well, who said, you wanna know what happened to the gear? Oh, exactly. Yeah. So, in comparison to those days when you might have done something that had a bit of weight and credibility to it. Yeah. Back in the day. Yeah. Could you give us a walkthrough or an idea of what's happened to, have the goods been disbanded? Have they been, first of all, what's happened, Daryl? Yeah. I think first of all, the guys who are involved in the Louvre would've done their homework first of all. They would've weighed up what they were taking and they would've had to find a mark for that to take such, such jewellery, which is not only priceless, but it's so recognizable as items. So you can never sell'em as the items, it's, it comes as the Mona Lisa. You could never sell them. Or get rid of them, they have to be broken up. So they would've probably got that jewellery, the same night they got that jewellery probably out of France and into Belgium or Holland where the main cutters of stones are based in Antwerp or Amsterdam, where the specialists are there for cutting stones. So they would've had a mark who's a criminal minded jeweller who wants to attempt to break all those stones down. But all they're thinking about is getting the money from it. Maybe, I was listening to a guy in America. He said what they probably will do is keep one actual piece to lever with, with the authorities. If they get caught, they can say, if you want that piece back, we've got it there. So what, what sentence are you gonna give us? Give us a light sentence and we'll let you have that piece back. Cause they were Napoleon's jewellery, you know? His wife's jewellery. Do you think we're ever going to see any of it? No. Back? No. Not myself. No. No. I think it's all broke... more than two people, two people may have been arrested, but there's more than two people involved. Absolutely. There's probably about four or five. Yeah. Yeah. And secondly, I was thinking, they've either got to lie low, the, the goods themselves, someone's had to take responsibility. Move them as quickly as possible, haven't they? Not connected to the perpetrators, the people involved. Yeah. Do you think you'll see that stuff back or do you think it's potentially it's gone and it's cut? You could envisage that a jeweller who gets his hands on that jewellery and he has to appraise them to what he's gonna pay them for that jewellery. He might be thinking because it's priceless, the government in Paris, Macron, the actual Prime Minister, might put a reward out for that jewllery, so substantial that it will take over the amount of money that the jeweller has paid for it and with him basically thinking, I can hand this jewellery back. And make considerable amount of money. Someone's gonna make money out of it... because there's no honour amongst.... No, there's not. No. No... thieves, is there? That's a fair, not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. You might find that the two who have been arrested now, and I think there was three or four who were involved, from those two being arrested now, they might be, at the end of the day they might be, um... the main victims who are gonna get such a large sentence for what they've done, they might bargain with the authorities to tell who the rest is involved. Maybe? I, can I ask you this, Daryl, are they going to receive such a big sentence?'Cause burglery doesn't come with the heaviest of sentences. Not in the UK. The Hatton Gardens robbery, they only received five years, didn't they? Do you remember? And that was worth several millions. Yeah, the Hatton Gardens. I thought, I don't know how they, the law stands.... I think it's often in France... political will plays a big part in this, doesn't it? Of course, absolutely. If you're on the News at Ten...yeah...then you're probably going to expect a big sentence. A tougher time and a bigger sentence. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the guidelines, you can only go to the guidelines and it is only a burglary, no one's been killed, no one's hurt. I think my friend told me yesterday, the most photographed, the most photographed part of the Louvre now is the window they went in, isn't it? That's gone viral. So funny. Honest, you couldn't write it, could you? No, no, but in some reasons... I take it... Do you look back at those days? I know this sounds maybe a little, trying to not be cliched about it here maybe, but do you look back with a twinkle in your eye or is it really, oh my, good riddance and I'm glad I'm, because there's a difference is that, can you give us an insight when, when you are on the run? Yeah. It's different when you're younger for starters, isn't it, let's be perfectly honest. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. But being on the run. Yeah. You've, you've been on your toes over the years. I have. Yeah. I have. Yes. Yes. Maybe not on this scale, but big enough, big, as I said, they're Interpol. Yeah. Well it's, it's like... your name. It's like, being 27, living in Sydney, Australia and having the reputation of the cat burglar of Sydney, the North Shore cat burgler. Yeah, that was a big thing because I knew all along, I had to be very, very careful because I thought if I get implicated as that person while I was doing what I was doing, I would've been, kind of, um, used as a a, um, a way of like showing people that this man's been caught. He is the Sydney cat burglar. We'll make an example of him, which that would've happened to me. But when you were on your toes, I think again, I was, I was reading it. I think you had only... from the riches and the rewards, I think you ended up on your toes with a thousand dollars or a thousand pounds, didn't you? Yeah, I did. I left Australia, left Australia with a thousand dollars and a Bible in my hand. And the Bible, that's right, I did read that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bible and a thousand dollars. Left the airport, flew outta Sydney when I was in the boot of the car to the, the airport, got out of the airport. And I had to pretend that I was Australian,'cause I had an Australian passport, which was, it was, wasn't a genuine one, it was a fake one. I had to pretend that I was Australian. So as an Englishman and with a deep English voice, it was very difficult,'cause I thought, I can't say too much because it'll give it away. So I remember the words I used to say to people all the time I used to meet people is, gday mate, gday mate, gday, gday. And that was all I ever did. You know, and then flying into Heathrow from Sydney, I thought, I've gotta get through here. And luckily for me, the customs guy took my passport, the Australian passport and said, oh, first time in the UK. And I said, yes. I thought, I can't even carry on there. And he just let me go through, which was so lucky because if you, you've struck a conversation up with me, there was no way you'd say that you've just come from Australia, you've never been in the UK. So yeah, that was a, that was a, a bit of a, mind blowing situation...but being on, on your toes at that level, when the stakes are so high, there's an element of when does it stop being the thrill then, and it becomes, it's really serious because if you caught, you're gonna do a long time, a long, a proper stretch. Yeah, I did. Yeah. It was very nervous for me'cause I thought, well, I've committed so many crimes out in Australia. If I get caught in the UK, they're gonna take me back there handcuffed on a flight all the way back to Australia with officers. I thought that would be a nightmare, you know? And then I would have to face justice in Australia, which they would've given me... They don't have a light sentence for burglary over there. It would've been a 10, 15 year sentence, you know? And you serve that time in Australia. It's not like England giving you half the sentence to do. In Australia you do the sentence you get given. So, yeah. So when it finally all caught up with you and you received the 10... Yeah, we met somewhere along the way. Yes. You'd already done the restorative justice by then, hadn't you? Yeah, I had. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I was with, getting interviewed at the time by the BBC. You were, that's hence... Sally Chatsworth from the BBC. That was it. That's coming flooding back now. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. She come to visit me. Yeah. Because at one time they were really keen, weren't they? To... yeah, they were to do a story. To do the story. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I ended up writing a few pages T said to me, should read it out on one of the TFJ episodes because it's, it's only five pages, but really enthralling. Really? Yeah. It's really good. Really? Yeah. It really is. Yeah, I was surprised that seven years down the line...yeah...but I was thinking, oh, my writing must be awful from seven years ago. It was actually, I was quietly thrilled myself that it stood up. Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. Yeah. What's the impact it's had on, before we come up more up to speed with you, Daryl, what's the impact, you think that life of crime has had, had upon you in later life? The impact on the family? It's, it's had a big impact on my family because my first two children who, when I was, 17, when I got married, from a young age, my daughter now my first daughter Rebecca, she has nothing to do with me. It really has affected her and she's not that way inclined of thinking she can, can forgive me for what I've done in life. My son is a little bit different, Christian. He's coming around to think people can change their lives and a lot to do with what happens to you when you are young can affect the rest of your life, which is a fact. What goes on in your life when you are a young child, can have a big bearing on your life. So yeah, I, I'm just now meeting my son. He's very successful. He's done really well in his life. And I think, funny enough, I'd said to him on the phone the other night, I said, isn't it good son, that you didn't follow your dad's footsteps? And he started laughing. He went, absolutely, because my son's an engineer. He's into telecommunications. So I'm proud of him. He's done really, really well for himself. But he, he says, Dad, you can't change what you've done now. He said, what you doing now? You're doing universities, you're teaching officers. You're doing a lot of different things now. I can understand that. So he's giving me that little bit of a, a door opener. That must bring a lot of comfort and... yeah, it does... Joy. Yes, it does. To your life at this stage? Yes. What I was going to highlight if, if we can, Daryl, is this idea of the people that don't go back to prison, try the hardest not to go back. Yeah. I think for me, and we've only skirted upon your background, and I, I sort of don't want to swim in that. I don't wish to glorify it. As you said, in all fairness. Yeah. The restorative justice, I think that comes across really sincerely from you. Yeah, absolutely. We can't sit here and have laughs and gags about the good old days, can we? No. But I think for me there's a, there's a, a far more interesting story since you left prison, because none of it's been easy, has it? No. And I think, if you don't mind, I'd like you to talk about some of that because it's not as straightforward is it that we just leave or you can almost pick your life back up,can you, and I don't mean criminally if that's where you think. I just mean... trying to start. Yeah. Trying to adjust. Trying to integrate. Yeah. Trying to pick up relationships with families. Trying to work. Yeah. Trying to find somewhere to live. Live, yeah. Trying to be accepted within the community. Starting again. Starting again. I mean, that, that, that, that stems from Thorn Cross, because once I'd gone to Thorn Cross, which, you know, it's, when you get in there, you, you, you're full of meeting people. I mean, all criminals are in there or criminals in there. But I wanted to try and integrate with the people of who was outside the prison. The people who work in the prison, like the prison officers, the staff, you know, they have a big bearing on your life while you're in there for so long. And that was when I was asked to go working at the Rebuild with Hope, in Thorn Cross. The Marks and Spencer's... I remember that... foundation business workshop where I was cutting the labels day in, day out, day in, day out of Marks and Spencer's labels. And, that changed my life because I met the guy called Adrian Potts, and Adrian was the guy who was the founder of Rebuild With Hope. And I met that man in there and he took an interest in my life. And from there I thought you're just a very wealthy businessman who probably looks at me as the scum of the earth. But that was far from that. That man said, I would help you, and that's what he's done all these years. And even today I have his phone number. I phone him,I speech with him on a regular basis, and he's the man who really does care about prisoners and what his organization's about. Because the foundation of Rebuild with Hope, not only are they based in Wigan, Wrexham, Runcorn, with businesses there. He employs he, he's employed since I left there, he's employed 50, prisoners, found work for them. He's employed 10 full-time prisoners in his organization on a full-time wage. So he is really changed lives of people and I'm one of them, I'm one of the people he's changed, you know, and if I could ever, anyone said to me, who's changed your life the most since you left prison, it'd be Adrian. Without a shadow of a doubt. He's been behind me, you know, on the days... I don't know if I can say that, but you, George, have, have helped me in many ways. Adrian has, you know, gone out of his way to help me financially and, you know, educationally wise, the way some of the things he's done for me, and to this day, he still tries to help me. Because it really was tough when you came out, wasn't it? Absolutely. Yeah. Can you walk us through any of it, or is it too raw? No, no, no. I came, I came out, I had to go into a hostel. I don't want, if people want to know that I, I suffered several years ago with bipolar, which affected my life because when I came out and I was thrown into a hostel, the environment of being in a hostel with drug addicts, heroin addicts and different kinds of people. My mind couldn't stand that. I, I, I think I went on a, a bit of a turn. I was unwell for a period of time. There was, what's the phrase I can use to be polite? Playing with your meds? Not... Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. What's the phrase you would use? Playing's not the right word, Daryl, what were they? Well, it was inconsistent wasn't, wasn't it? It was inconsistent. Yeah. They weren't giving me the medication, what I should have had at the time. And that was having a, yeah. An injection, a depo. But that was having a big impact, wasn't it? Absolutely. The consequences for you... Yes, yes... Of not receiving that... medication is, is... really, were almost as life changing as... Absolutely. Absolutely...as restorative justice... they did. I saw what happened. I...you've seen me... You seen... I saw it, yeah. You've seen me, you seen... In your own words... absolutely...what, what happened? Or what happens? No, no one knows a hundred percent how the brain works to a point. So I'm someone who have gone through the mental health system and I know a lot about the mental health system, but for myself, from suffering from bipolar, manic depression for many years, me manic side of it where I go very high, there's no, there's no control of it. It just, you've got to have your medication to bring you down and I didn't have it, and I was up so high, I thought, I'm never gonna change from this. Luckily for me, get me medication, got me back on the level. And then I thought, I've, I've got to get outta this situation. And Adrian was there. I got to a point where, I'd got behind in the hostel paying the weekly money they used to charge me, which I think was, if I look back, I think it was about 20 pound a week. I used to have to give them. I don't know, that, that's not a lot of money in real terms. Not really, but when you let it... but when you haven't got it, when you haven't got it and you leave, you leave it for five or six weeks and they wanted 140 pound off you and things like that, it, it was down to Ade who came to see me. I never forget when he came to see me, he brought me, an Indian meal, from a takeaway, food, and he paid the bill and that was a big relief for me. I thought, wow, he's paid my bill. To the hostel, what I owe, because it was playing on my mind. I owe them, they're gonna throw me out, I'm gonna be on the street. There's a lot of people on the street'cause they've got nowhere to live. And I thought, I can't, I can't cope with that. I'd be better off back in prison. I remember there were times, oh, when you, and you were in the flat, the hostel, remember? Sat in the dark. Yeah, absolutely. No electric, no nothing. No electric. Electric. Absolutely. That wasn't once or twice. That was regular. On a regular basis. Regular, regular basis. Yeah. Yeah. No food in the cupboards, no food at all in the cupboards. I just thought, is this life? Is this, is this what it's come to? I thought, have I really come to the bottom of the road and when people say you've got to hitch... it's worse than prison in lots of places. Oh yes. It's worse than prison. Absolutely. Absolutely. In prison at least they get three meals a day. They've got no electric bill, no gas bill. They've got electric and heating. When you are out there and you've got to survive yourself, it's, it's a nightmare. The times I used to look at my phone and think, who can I phone for help? And you know yourself. You was there for me. He was like, me, guardian angel, George. Are you okay? T more than myself. Yeah. Yeah. T. Absolutely. Absolutely. The times when I used to be laying on me bed and thinking, no electric, I thought, wow, and then unbelievable for me, I'd look at my phone and there'd be 50 pound there. Now, there were times when it was like the only phone call you could almost make. Absolutely...'cause there was no credit. No. In the dark. No, I used to walk into T. I remember walking in a lot, quite a lot of times. But she'd be cooking in the kitchen, T, and we were up north, we weren't 10 minutes away. Yeah, we were as far up north as we could get. But I'd be saying to T, Daryl's called and Mm-hmm...he's just sat in the dark. Yeah. And listen, it was tough for us, but yeah. Yours was tough on a whole different level. Yeah. Yeah. And I used to say there are, there are, there are people, hundreds and thousands of the Daryls out there. Absolutely. It's, it's only a couple of years ago. Yeah, it was, yeah. Really, isn't it? Yeah. Only a couple. This, this went on, no, about three. Three. About three, three and a half years ago. It went on for, but maybe, yeah, maybe before I left uni. But yeah, it's, it went on for quite some time, didn't it? Trying to find that stability and some traction. Traction, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Where did that traction come from,'cause I've got a funny feeling it really came from... ken, was it? We got some work there. Yes. Well, I, yeah, with Ken. Yeah, that come from Ken, but it also come from the the Asian friend, Mabs, because where I lived at the time in that little flat, the little shopping centre, it was near me. He owned a shop called Save A Lot. And I remember going in that shop because it was a shop that sold really cheap things. And I went in there and I remember picking up a few, few items of things and then I, I remember speaking to Jimmy who was Mabs's, partner in the back of the shop, and I just said to him, I said, do you buy things for the shop? You know, he said, yes, I do. I said, well, I can get you some stuff, Marks and Spencer's stuff. So it stemmed from there, introducing them to the Marks and Spencers, which Ade, who had helped me, get stuff. He supplied me and I would sell them the stuff in the shop, and I used to make money from it, and then it, it stemmed from there. But Mabs himself, he was now his sole partner himself in the shop. He's helped me ever since. Because even, even though it's years later. This is survival money. Survival, survival, yeah. This is when you're talking about you made some money, we're not talking about thousands and... No, no, no, no, no. This is still at the survival level, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. 50 pound, a hundred pound. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Survival money. Live, living money. Yeah. I'd hate people to start... making thousands. Making thousands. No, no... lottery winning cheques every week. No, no, no. Far from it. Far from it. Far from it. Far from it. You're still feet firmly in the real world and... Yeah.... it's tough, isn't it? It is. It's really, it's tough for all of us. Absolutely. Do you think there's a stigma with us since we... It is something I would say, George, what, what I've, I've learned from all this. And the fact is that 50 pound in my, in my day of when I was a criminal to a degree, 50,000 pound was the equivalent of 50 pound because I respected the 50 pound just as much as I used to respect the 50,000 pound because... Money means something to me now. So to have 10, 20, 30, 40 pound in my pocket means I can do things with feed myself, drink, go out, bus, whatever I've gotta do. But when I had 50,000 pound, it was... we didn't value and appreciate anything.... I'd buy a watch, what was that kind of money, and wear it on my wrist, a 50,000 pound watch. And then I, I look back to this day and I think, where was I? I don't, I don't live for money like I did then. There were, when you look back, there were things, weren't they? Yeah. Materialistic. Materialistic. Status. Yeah. Status in money. Yeah. Trying to be a somebody, yeah. Or feel a somebody, or trying to show off to other people. Or look at me. I'm wearing a 50,000 pound watch here. What bearing did them people have in my life? None. None whatsoever. So why in your head, as much as you say about the people who go back to prison and who offend again and who stay outta prison. It's like, why do these people want to, on TikTok to this day, want to show off their wealth to other people? What do they get from doing that? You don't get anything from it. Nothing. Feel important? Nothing. Exactly. Feel a somebody? Yeah. Feel as though they're, they're doing better than the next person, to be looked at. Yes. But we can all have a touch of the ball. Yeah. On that, can't we? Yeah. Especially growing up because we're trying to discover who we are. Yeah. Who matters and what's important. Absolutely. Maybe in those younger years we haven't quite worked that out. Worked that out. Yeah. We're sitting here with years on us now, Daryl. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And the benefit of hindsight. Yeah. Yeah. If old Daryl like this was talking to young Daryl with a bit of wisdom, what do you think young Daryl might have thought of him? Yeah. He'd have probably have thought you're past it. Not, I'm not listening to you. Not listening to you. Not listening to you, not listening to you, fella. Come on. That's, that's the way it works, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can impart as much wisdom as you want. If I, if I was the Daryl now, looking at the 27-year-old or the 20, 20-year-old Daryl, I'd be saying to him, change your life. Put something away for a rainy day because I look back and my mum, who used to always say to me, son, when you go out today, whatever you earn today, make sure you put at least 10 pound away from today. But it wasn't your mother who was misguiding you, was it? No, it was my dad...it was your father. Yeah, it was my dad. Yeah. Sadly. Where did it end with your father in the, well, he was 37 when he died. I was 17. Yeah. He died at 39 of lung cancer. Wow. And I remember that I can, I can see a picture of his face now when I met him in the cafe, it was called the Full Monty Cafe in Middleton. And we sat there and had breakfast together and he just said to me, son, will you forgive me? He said, I haven't got long. He said, but I just want your forgiveness before I go. I said, Dad, you've got nothing to, to get my forgiveness for at the end of the day, you're me dad. You know, in all fairness though, I don't think at that age you were unhappy with your career. No. Not at all. Were you, in all fairness. No, I was excited. Excited. Yeah. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed my career. I enjoyed it. It brought a lot of, a lot of good things to me. I travelled the world. I had my own house. I lived comfortably. I always had money in my pocket. Never had any worries, but I always thought that life would never end, you know? And that's a long time ago. Can I ask you this Daryl? Sort of wondering, a little off piste but...Was... is, is there always almost a lurking thought of the one big deal that's gonna come your way. I don't mean now. I mean back then. Yeah. Was there always the idea of this...the big, the big one? The big, big job? The big one. The big job, yeah. Yeah. It was, yeah. Yeah. The big one. Deluding, deluding yourself that maybe you would retire off the back of that. Absolutely. It was never going to be any retirement in the youth was there but we delude ourselves, don't we especially when we're younger? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always thought I'd do one job, which would completely retire me. I'd make that much money from... they thought that at the Louvre, didn't they? Well, yeah. You realize what comes with it. Yeah. Yeah. That one big job comes with a lot more to lose, doesn't it? To lose, yeah, absolutely. The thing is, with those people who do a job that big, they would never be able to rest afterwards because the authorities would never let them... see... live a luxury life of living in Monte Carlo or... any, anywhere around the world with the, the trappings... it's almost the attitude you may have it, but you're not spending it. Exactly. I did some big jobs and got some large amounts of cash from jobs. Luckily I was on my own. I was independent. I only worked on my own. These are working together. It's difficult when you work with other people, because there's three different, if it was three men or four men who have done that, they will all separate and do their own lives. What they do. And one might be doing something the other one's jealous of. So you can never be settled at what you're doing. With me, I had no one to look over my shoulder about. It was me who did the job and only me so I could spend it the way I wanted. It's all right agreeing, isn't it? Yeah. Age plays a big part in all of this Daryl, of course. I could think about it, if there's four or five of them...Mm-hmm... i'm sure they're all agreeing that if anyone gets lifted, yeah, no one will say anything. It's, tight lips, all the rest of it, but if you're a particular age. Yeah. And then you're potentially facing one of those big sentences... I think it changes a lot of...Absolutely... a lot of people. Yeah, it does. It does. And you got to understand when you do something with other people, you can't control the other person's mouth. And the thing about this is now they've got two of the criminals who've committed the, the Louvre robbery. All the police and the authorities will do now is look over CCTV cameras of who their associates are and they will get the other people a hundred percent. A hundred percent. When I went on TV, they did ask me, did I think it was a professional job? Of course it's a professional job and I state my life on it, that there someone in the Louvre also involved in that robbery, guaranteed, whether it's a security guard, whether it's a cleaner, there will be someone who is involved in that jewellery theft. It was only a few days later, Another, another museum in Paris was done as well with so many gold coins stolen from a univer... from a museum over in Paris. Again, another robbery, which has took place. So, life now. You've done Talk TV, I know that. You've been doing the rounds for, you've been... university, you've been up on your feet, haven't you? Yeah. Giving the lived experience and... Yeah. Yeah... I'm in, I'm in Lancaster University on the third of November, which is next week. Students or police cadets? No, criminology students. Okay. I think they're second year students. I've done a few of those. Yeah. Yeah. They're tough audience. Oh yeah. Tough audience. I've done, this is my, my third year that I've been there. I've been... the last two years I've been the same university, same time of the year, and the same, same lecturer, Camilla. Camilla's a really nice lecturer. She's had me there for the last two years and she said, I'm not losing you. I'm having you here this year. I enjoy that. The universities. Yeah. I really enjoy it. But yeah, the first years can be tough. Yeah. Yeah. Because they give you nothing. No, there's nothing to get, there's no feedback. And I'm very pro, I really do. I'm asking them more questions, really trying to encourage them to speak up and speak out. But it's a tough gig. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so lively from doing theatre and drama. They're not like that. Criminology students are not like the ones that I know. No, no. Theatre and drama and acting and musical theater, etc. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was an experience though, the one at West Westminster in London. I did that last year and that was a difficult one'cause that was all their foreign students who were studying in Westminster on criminology. And it was funny enough that the questions I were receiving was from countries that I'd done a lot of work in, and I was mentioning places where people said, oh, I'm from Germany. Can I ask you a question? I said, yeah, certainly. Which part of Germany did you come and do what you did? And I was telling them that I was in Munich, in Frankfurt, in Gothenburg, different places of Germany, and they went, wow, did you go to prison in Germany? I said, no, never did. Is it Switzerland? Switzerland. Yeah, I went to prison in Switzerland, in Basel. Not for long though, was it? No, no. Only, only a month. A month. Yeah. Yeah. Long weekend that. It's, it's amazing though, Switzerland because I was in the prison there and because I had a little bit of money with me in the prisons accounts they used to come to me each day and say to me, what would you like to eat today? So I'd give them a shopping list. Amazing. And they'd go out with my money, what they already was holding, and they'd do the shopping list for me. I'd say... That's a different type of prison. Oh, different type of prison. They'd... different, different, different, different. They treat, they treat people differently. Holland's the same. Yeah. Holland's the same. Yeah. Yeah. You may, you may, you know, but, I was just reading in the newspaper the last couple of days about prisoners in Strangeways, Manchester, who are now locked up 23 hours a day and sometimes they forget to even let'em out for food. So I'm thinking, wow, is that, is that really happening? Well, I was going to say... my writings the Tale From The Jails...Yeah... from that period between 2016 and 19, even the academics, the data, the evidence we'd call it, refers to it as the worst period in prison history around then. So we were in... we were in cutbacks. If you remember, they'd done the cutbacks on the officers, hadn't they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cut to the bone. Yeah. It wasn't good on... no, it wasn't. It was very violent. It was everything. Drones. Well, what, what I find fascinating, I'm trying to get to Daryl, is the topics that I talk about and highlight with the TFJs are as pertinent now, it's as if... oh yeah, definitely it's gone worse. Worse. And you think it couldn't be any worse than it was when we were there, but why is it failing all of the time Daryl, in your eyes? I think the main government people, the ministers who are involved in the, in the prison service and who have the bearing on the prison service are the wrong people. I don't think they really, really know how to cope with the mass of prisoners they've got. I don't think there's enough prisons in the UK to cope with the demand. There's also, when you're in there, you see that there's as many people that shouldn't really be in there, should there... yes, absolutely. A lot of people have got either mental health issues. Yeah. Some form of emotional or mental health... Yep...problems maybe. Yep. That they've ended up inside and they're not really criminal... criminals... but then inside it's... they can be bullied, can't they? Yeah... they can be... the meds could either not be served or inconsistent, isn't it? So they may not be administered, the med, the meds, they could be locked up 23 hours behind the door. All of it, it's a melting pot that makes people who shouldn't be there in the very place, it makes their lives more miserable. Miserable. Yeah. They go backwards, that's the really...yeah, of course...the point I'd like to highlight, I saw so many people that went backwards. Yeah, yeah. There is no rehabilitation is there? No, no. At all. We didn't see it, did we? No, I didn't see any of it. I think I met a few people who surely should never have been sent to prison in the first place, and that's why I felt sorry for all those people, being taken out of society when things could have been done for them better on the outside than locking them away in the establishments of prisons. If there's people who can get the treatment outside and not go to prison, I think that's far better than sending them and spending them money, what it costs to keep criminals.'Cause these criminals who, for me, this country has is a, is a melting pot at the moment because you've got so many illegal immigrants coming into this country now who are taking over the prisons. The last few days about the, the guy who, who was let outta prison early... he was an illegal boat person. Assaulted a... he's come over on a boat and they let him out early. Yeah. When he shouldn't have been let out. But there's people like him who, who are in these detention centres and these hotels around the country from countries, war torn countries, who are criminally minded. So what's this country gonna do? Because they've let so many in, the prisons are gonna just fill, fill, fill, fill, fill. I think another one of those startling statistics that's revealed as a byproduct of the heightened attention in the news is, what was it, 260 prisoners a year are released by mistake. By mistake. By mistake. Yeah. Yeah. Never happened to us, Daryl. No, never happened to us. No, no. It's almost one every day. Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. Absolutely crazy. You get your papers when you get into prison telling you how many days you've got and your release date. So surely that's all on the computer systems. So how does someone get released when they're in a sentence, doing a sentence, how does their name come up with a, a lesser date to be released on? I just don't understand it. You know, that's just error to a prison officer who makes the mistake. And I think, well, if you can't read what's on a computer, what else? Information's on there because... Why, why are you in the job? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I just, I, I've always thought about the, the, the, the law in this country that the wrong people are in power down in London, and did the ministers... I believe, when you was in Thorn Cross, the, the guy from, is it, is it, is it from, the...the shoe place? Timpson. Timpson. But he's the prison czar now or something, isn't he? He is. Yeah. He hasn't really made an impact, has he? No. No. Not at all. In all fairness, he's gone AWOL. Yeah, he has, he has definitely, definitely. James Timpson, isn't it. James Timpson. He's, he's, he's been using the prison service and the prisons for his gains for many years, and now he's in power. That's a bit... What, what's he doing? What's he doing for that? That's a bit harsh Daryl... just saying it how it is. Appreciate it. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm looking here at the five pages. I'm trying to bring this to an end and I'm just thinking, let's squeeze in one, music is the soundtrack to a person's life? This is what we've written here, Daryl. Yeah. And songs often remind me of jobs that stick out in particular. I used to always play Madonna when I would be... look, it's...that's lit the fuse straight away, hasn't it? Yeah. Has, yeah. I was playing Madonna. Which one? Which ones? I used to have so many. I used to like, oh yeah, we've got them. Duran Duran was playing on the radio here... was a huge, we were off to a mansion that was better than Lake Como, blah, blah, blah. Team of servants pampering them. I remember writing this Daryl. My goodness. But you, you opened the jewellery box and knew it was something very special. So you're in the tracksuit. Tell us about the, we've got to end on the tracksuit Daryl, the tracksuit. I, I used to have a few tracksuits, what were all like night black tracksuits and me trainers,and me balaclava and me screwdriver. And on a Friday and a Saturday night, they were my favourite nights in Sydney to go working. I'd go to somewhere like Mossman or Double Bay or north, the north side of Manley. Um, I used to go out there jogging, looking at my victims, what I was going to choose in them days. Going back... before we have halcyon days, looking back, was the track suit... I'm trying to think... I haven't read it all. Was the tracksuit comfort? Did, was it, did it blend in? What was the, yeah. Where did the tracksuit... I used to see... uniform come from?'Cause I used to see a lot of people in Australia jogging, a lot of joggers in Australia. A lot of'em had tracksuits on. So I thought, I'll blend in as a jogger and I'll get myself a nice tracksuit. So I got a few tracksuits and, and that became the standard...what I used to do... Yeah. Yeah. I used to just be jogging around and I looked the part and then, you know, once I found somewhere I was going to go over the wall, I'd be over that, like a, a cat, you know, like a, a panther. I'd seek out my victims and the house, what I was doing and climbing. And while they were eating dinner, I'd be rifling their jewel boxes. Yeah. You know, they say on the internet, it says, I was elusive. I was elusive. No one ever seen me. You know, no one ever had a description of me, I was good at what I did. And that was it. That was the, the eighties and the early nineties. One final one. You know me, I say final and we'll still be here for another hour. Give us a few tips for people that may be tuning in, how they can improve on some of the security. Let's give them the basics'cause they're still making the same mistakes. Absolutely. Absolutely. My, my... give them a good telling off Daryl and tell to get their act together, what to do. I say to the majority of people in this day and age, now you need a few vital things in your property. You need CCTV, you need composite doors, which is a rock door, which is very difficult for anybody to get through. Even the police don't like them. You can't get through, which are expensive. They're about 1500 quid, but...you've perked up here Daryl I can see... Well worth... and the next thing is, basically I would go for an online kit from a company down in Shropshire called Deter Tech, and they have a special thing that you can buy for your house and that will deter every burglar. It's called Smart Water. I've seen that. I've seen you... That is vital. That's vital. The future. That's the future. You know, as long as you've got Smart Water in your property and you've got the stickers on your windows, any burglar, or potential burglar'll look at it and say... he's not gonna like that. Not gonna... forget that. Forget that we're not going there.'Cause that's just DNA, you can't get away from it. Smart water is DNA, the same in makeup as human DNA. That's a chemical which has got a DNA profile. You can't get away from it. One speck, one minute speck on you. How come they're not a household name then Daryl? Well, they're very big in the industry of building sites and commercial buildings. Very big. They are these couple of villages down Shropshire where the whole villages are Smart Watered...yeah... which believe it or not, their percentage of break-ins is very little compared to other parts of the country. I don't work for Deter Tech, but I try and promote them. I've done a conference for them and I, I would hope that one day they might use me to try and publicize their... ambassadorial? Ambassadorial, yeah. Their, their, their product in the, in the in general public,'cause I think everyone should get it, you can, you know, Google Deter Tech, but that's it. It's time to say checking out. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome, George...you're a star.