Most of us will keep in mind becoming told by our teachers and elders to focus on enhancing our handwriting and it appears like a man from England chose to rather unwittingly ignore it. But years later, his illegible handwriting came to haunt him in the midst of a peculiar job — that of robbing a bank. Alan Slattery, a resident of St Leonards in Hastings, likely believed that he would be creating away with a couple of hundred pounds when he entered a bank in Eastbourne on March 18. However, items did not go as planned as he went up to an employee and handed them a threatening note. There was one catch- the employee could not recognize Mr Slattery’s handwriting and so he did practically nothing.
Faced with this rather uncommon predicament, Mr Slattery had no alternative but to return empty-handed, Sussex police mentioned in a report published on its web page. The employees at the Nationwide Building Society later managed to recognize what the 67-year-old had scribbled and contacted the police concerning the exact same. The note, which was seized by the police study, “Your screen won’t stop what I’ve got, just hand over the 10s and the 20s. Think about the other customers”. In addition to the note, CCTV footage from inside the bank was also reviewed by the police.
The note fiasco did not deter Mr Slattery, who targeted yet another branch of the bank on March 26. This time about, his note did the trick and the cashier handed more than £2,400 in money. “Slattery did not say anything, but left with the money,” the report mentioned. CCTV from the bank shows a particular person that matched Mr Slattery’s look, although he was also captured boarding a bus just moments soon after the robbery.
Following this, he made yet another try at a third bank, the NatWest ban. But he had to leave empty-handed on account of the cashier standing up to him.
He was quickly arrested from the vicinity of his home on suspicion of robbery as nicely as two counts of attempted robbery.
Regarding the arrest, a police spokesperson was quoted by LADbible as saying, “A search of his address found some sticky labels identical to the label that had been handed to staff at NatWest bank, and a jacket that matched that of the man seen in CCTV from NatWest.”
Upon arrest, Mr Slattery pleaded guilty to all 3 offences. He was offered a six-year extended sentence, consisting of “four years in custody and two years on licence”.