Gangland Oz by James Morton

Author:James Morton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780522868647
Publisher: Melbourne University Publishing
Published: 2017-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

When thieves fall out

8

It was Chinese–Australian Leslie Woon, known as ‘The Professor’, who planned Sydney’s Mayne Nickless robbery on 4 March 1970, which would ultimately prove disastrous for the perps and fatal for one of them. Woon had started his career at the age of nineteen with a series of armed robberies, including one at the Mutual Cash Order Company in Melbourne in October 1938. Masked-up, he and another youth had held up the cashiers.

Dobbed in, when Woon was arrested he told the police he had lost his share of the money on Cup Day: ‘This is the first and last job I’ll ever be in.’ No part of that statement was accurate. It was, however, taken up by his counsel, who told the court, ‘Had he not taken liquor for the first time in his life on the night of the raid it was doubtful that he would have taken part.’ Woon was remanded for sentencing but by the time he next appeared he had pleaded guilty to two more robberies, which rather undermined the earlier mitigation. On 16 December Judge McIndoe sentenced him to three years and ten strokes of the birch.

It had been an unsuccessful start to what is generally thought of as a brilliant career, and Woon was highly regarded by both his peers and the police. The Victoria Police Gazette described him as, ‘Not afraid to dirty his hands when planning a job. He doesn’t mix with the criminal element; using different names for his flat, car and telephone.’

In 1952 Woon had been charged alongside William Stuart with having broken into Melbourne’s Victorian Club and the Queen Street branch of the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney. It was a typical, well-organised heist by Woon and the evidence against the pair was thin.

James Alexander McDiarmid, the Victorian Club manager, said that when he went to the club at 8 am on 23 March he saw that a door in the basement had been forced: ‘I saw three men through the glass door fumbling with a key trying to get out. Two of them ran past shielding their faces, but I had a quick look at them. I do not think either of the defendants was among them.’ What really counted was that McDiarmid said he had known Stuart for three years, and felt he would have recognised him had he been one of the men. The magistrate declined to send either Woon or Stuart for trial.

Generally regarded as a highly successful putter-up, Woon now organised a number of successful bank robberies in both Melbourne and Sydney often using inside information and help. On 1 December 1957 there was a break-in at the City Tattersalls Club in Sydney, when the strongboxes belonging to bookmakers were forced open. At one time it was thought that £100,000 had been stolen but the figure was later greatly reduced. The robbery had the hallmark of a Woon job but he was never charged.

He did come a cropper, however, when £34,967 was removed from the ES&A Bank in Russell Street in May 1962.

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