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was supposed to do, it would never have gone wrong. But Sean’s only concern was the gun. He was really pissed off at me that it didn’t work. He had really wanted to kill the copper. Andy ended up getting twenty-one years.
    ‘Sean was going crazy, it was like he was addicted. There were times when he’d get a gun and go out on his own, riding a mountain bike, looking for somewhere to rob, looking for trouble. I couldn’t help thinking that he was just itching to kill someone and I didn’t want any part of that.
    ‘One time soon after the incident with the gun I was watching Britain’s Most Wanted and a bit of CCTV footage came up of a recent robbery in some building society. The men in the film were wearing masks but I could tell straight away that it was Sean and Vincent, I could just tell. They grabbed the money, and Sean let a shot off at a guard as he was lying on the floor. It was totally unnecessary, there was no need for it at all.’
    Tensions within the gang grew but it was only after a bungled attempt to raid Barclays Bank in Greenford, west London that Roberts realised the time had come to go straight: ‘We had just got inside when I saw two men in suits jump out of a car and go to the boot. They were CID, who just happened to be in the area for a shoplifter, but my first thought was that they were Flying Squad and they were going to the back of the car to get their guns out. I screamed at Sean and we legged it out of there and round the corner to the alleyway where our motorbike was parked. I didn’t want them to see the registration of the bike.
    ‘He threw me the shotgun and as they came around the corner I told them to get their hands up and get against the wall. Then Sean came up on the bike, I hopped on the back and we sped away.
    ‘Afterwards our nerves were shattered. We parked the bike, booked into a Holiday Inn in Croydon and went out on a major drink-and-drugs bender. Although we had only been in the bank a few seconds, we still managed to get four thousand pounds. We didn’t have time to empty the tills but one customer had just been given an envelope and we took that. But I knew it had to stop. I knew that if Sean had been holding the shotgun instead of me, he would have let one go.’
    During the escape, however, Roberts had lost his hat. It was later found, and he was identified from DNA in a hair found inside. Roberts was now firmly in the sights of the Flying Squad, who launched Operation Odie in a bid to put him and the rest of the gang out of business. But although the squad had masses of evidence, they decided to wait and catch the gang red-handed to ensure they had little chance of escaping conviction.
    In the meantime, all too aware of just how close the police were getting, Roberts decided to retire and leave the Bradish brothers to their own devices. ‘I had lost a lot of friends, either murdered or ending up in prison for the rest of their lives. I could see myself going the same way. I was also fed up with being followed by the police all the time, day and night, so I went back to being a bricklayer.
    ‘Once I gave up on the robberies, it wasn’t like I decided to go straight or anything. I thought I’d try my hand at buying and selling drugs, but that turned out to be the worst idea in the world because I would just end up taking all the drugs myself or sharing them with friends. One weekend, just before my birthday, I bought five hundred ecstasy tablets. I thought I’d have a few but mostly sell them and make a bit of extra money. But I ended up having a bit of a party and a bunch of friends came over to the house and we started taking them all. We just stayed inside, ordered takeaway food and necked the tablets the whole time. We were at it for days and days. There was so much rubbish in the house that in the end we brought the wheelie-bin from outside into the living room and just chucked stuff in that. It took a week to recover but the next weekend we did it all over