An elderly pensioner, 67, who tried to rob three banks using a threatening hand-written stick-up note has been jailed.
Shameful Alan Slattery, shoved a threatening note under the counter which ordered staff to hand over wads of cash so ‘no one will get hurt’.
He targeted a National Building Society in St Leonards and in Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, and at Natwest in Bexhill, all between 2pm and 3.20pm on February 10.
The note read: ‘I’M NOT F*****G ABOUT, JUST PASS ME THE 10’S AND 20’S NOW AND NO ONE WILL GET HURT.’
But bank clerks at all three branches shut the retiree’s ‘shameless’ request down as he left empty-handed, Sussex Police said.
CCTV footage released last week showed him strolling into the banks on February 10 and slipping a piece of paper across the counter and under the Perspex barrier.
This isn’t the first time Slattery has tried to rob a bank, Inspector Olivia Carroll, of the Hastings and Rother Neighbourhood Policing Team, said.
‘Slattery is well-known for his previous offences in the area and could therefore be easily identified by staff who reported the incidents to us,’ she said.
‘This led to him being quickly arrested by officers and charged within just 12 hours.
‘He was also remanded in custody to prevent him from re-offending and causing further harm to our communities.’
Appearing at Lewes Crown Court on April 5, Slattery was sentenced to two.
In 2021, Slattery once again used scruffy hand-written notes to threaten banks in Hastings and Eastbourne into handing over money.
‘Your screen won’t stop what I’ve got, just hand over the 10s and the 20s. Think about the other customers,’ the note said, according to police at the time.
At least, that’s what the police think it said; the clerk at the Nationwide Building Society on Terminus Road, Bexhill, couldn’t read the note on March 18 that year.
But on April 1, Slattery botched yet another bank robbery when the teller at the NatWest bank in Havelock Road, Hastings, refused to give him the money.
Using CCTV and his bus pass to match Slattery to the suspect, officers found a raft of sticky notes in his home that matched the messages passed to cashiers.
Slattery pleaded guilty to two charges of robbery and two counts of attempted robbery.
