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Harry Maurice Roberts (born 21 July 1936) is an English career criminal who in 1966 instigated the Shepherd's Bush murders, in which three police officers were shot dead. The killings happened after the plain-clothes officers approached the van in which Roberts and two other men were sitting in Braybrook Street, near Wormwood Scrubs prison in London. Roberts opened fire on the officers when he feared they would discover the firearms his gang were planning to use in an armed robbery. He shot dead two of the officers, while one of his accomplices fatally shot the third. After Roberts had spent nearly 48 years in jail, in 2014 the Parole Board for England and Wales approved his release, at the age of 78. Having exceeded by far his minimum term of 30 years imprisonment, Roberts was one of the United Kingdom's longest-serving prisoners, remaining in custody from 1966 until his 2014 release. ==Early life== Roberts was born in Wanstead, Essex, on 21 July 1936 where his parents ran the George public house.〔 As a child he became involved in crime by helping his mother sell stolen goods on the black market. Roberts later described how the family owned a café in north London where his mother was "...selling on mostly food—tea and sugar—and sometimes ration books. Anything she could get her hands on". In his late teens, he was sentenced to detention after using an iron bar to attack a shopkeeper during a robbery.〔 Roberts served a 19-month sentence inside Gaynes Hall borstal, and was released in January 1956.〔 One week after leaving the borstal, Roberts was called up for national service and joined the Rifle Brigade (Prince Consort's Own), with whom he saw action during the Mau Mau Uprising and Malayan Emergency. Of his service in the jungle he said that this was where he learned to kill and that he had "personally killed at least four". Roberts has claimed that he reached the rank of Sergeant while in the Army although others have given his rank as Lance Corporal.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Capitalising on Terror )〕 Journalist and former armed robber John McVicar has said that Roberts "gloated" about his killings while in prison, and had "acquired a taste for killing prisoners (war ) on the orders of his officers" in the Army. After leaving the Army, Roberts returned to his criminal activities, and in partnership with Jack Witney carried out "dozens" of armed robberies, targeting bookmakers, post offices and banks. He said, "The most I earned was £1,000 from a single job. Witney was the eldest, the boss: he knew the best places to rob. () Duddy joined us later."〔 In 1959 Roberts and an accomplice posed as tax inspectors to gain entry into the home of an elderly man. The man was bound, robbed, and beaten about the head with a glass decanter. Roberts was arrested, and at his trial the judge, Mr Justice Maude, said, "You are a brutal thug. You came very near the rope this time. It is to be hoped you do not appear before us again." Roberts received a sentence of seven years, and the victim, who never recovered from his injuries, died one year and three days after the attack. Had the victim died two days earlier, Roberts could have been tried for his murder under the year and a day rule. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Harry Roberts (criminal)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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