Did Brink’s Mat robber take bloody revenge on fellow gangsters after they refused to hand over his share of £26m haul?
THE Brink's Mat robbery was one of the largest in British history, but the aftermath proved there is no honour amongst thieves.
Strained relations between the robbers after some were convicted may have led to acts of bloody revenge against some of the group.
In November 1983 a gang including Micky McAvoy and Brian Robinson broke into the Brink's Mat warehouse at the Heathrow International Trading Estate in West .
From the unit they stole £26 million worth of gold bullion, cash and diamonds, equivalent to over £93 million today.
Robinson and McAvoy were each sentenced to 25 years in prison for armed robbery in 1984, while other members of the gang, like Anthony Black and Kenneth Noye, receiving lesser sentences.
It seems, though, that there was some kind of falling out in the wake of the arrests, centring on how the money was shared out.
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After they were convicted, McAvoy and Robinson contacted the gang and asked for their share of the gold.
They had hoped to return their ill-gotten gains in exchange for a reduced sentence.
However, their request was refused and they were told that the money was no longer theirs to control.
In a furious letter smuggled out of prison, Micky McAvoy, who was known in the underworld as 'The Nutter, wrote: "I have no intention of being f****d for my money."
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But the threat was ignored and McAvoy, who , served out his full sentence in a rage, only being released in 2000.
Commander Roy Ramm, former head of Specialist Operations at Scotland Yard, told : "Their [McAvoy and Robinson's] anger was truly icy and killed the notion there was any honour amongst these particular thieves."
Ramm, who interviewed both robbers in Leicester Prison, said of McAvoy: "In my conversations with him he was a cold and considered individual.
"But once he knew he'd been cheated, there was also a smouldering rage."
He added that it is "possible" that McAvoy directed his anger at John 'Goldfinger' Palmer, a jeweller who had been arrested over the robbery but cleared of all charges.
Palmer had insisted that he was innocent and had no idea that the gold he had been melting down in a furnace in his back garden was linked to the theft.
He was murdered in June 2015, when he was shot six times in his home in South Weald, , aged 64.
