In 2004, a meticulously planned robbery at a NatWest bank in Whitefield, Greater Manchester, saw a bank manager's family taken hostage and up to £300,000 stolen. The culprits were never caught.
The Night of the Robbery
On September 21, 2004, at 8pm, two armed men wearing masks, wigs, and false beards arrived at the family home of bank manager Jonathan Diggle in Leigh. They held him, his wife Lynne, and their two young daughters hostage. The intruders communicated via a walkie-talkie with a third person called "Andy".
The family were held at gunpoint for one hour before the gang forced Mr Diggle to drive his family in their own car, a pale blue Fiat Brava, to Schofield Lane in Leigh. They were then ordered into a silver Renault Megane Scenic with false registration plates P351 BGW and driven for around 30 minutes to a warehouse-style building in an unknown area.
Inside the Warehouse
The warehouse was described as having a white or concrete roof support, with a bar going through the support with coat hangers over it. The family were tied up and had hoods put over their heads as Mr Diggle was interrogated about the security systems at the branch.
The family were kept in the van until 7.30am the following morning when they were separated, and Mr Diggle was taken to the bank in the family's Fiat Brava by two of the robbers.
The Bank Raid
The men drove the family from the warehouse to the car park at Fountain Place in Whitefield, where John's Fiat was waiting. They then drove to the Elms Bank Community Centre, and Jonathan was forced to wait until the timelocks opened before going to the bank.
He was forced to open the bank with his keys, but the robbers were interrupted when four members of staff arrived to start their shifts. Brandishing a gun, the robbers locked the staff, along with Mr Diggle, in the vault before fleeing with between £220,000 and £300,000 - the equivalent of up to £550,000 today.
Aftermath and Investigation
Mrs Diggle, 45, and her children aged 12 and 14, had been driven to Ringley Old Brow in Stoneclough, where they were handcuffed together with plastic cable ties, tied to a lamp post down a secluded lane and abandoned. Mrs Diggle managed to free herself two hours later and raised the alarm from a nearby house. At the same time, police were alerted to a personal attack alarm activated within the bank, and a team of 20 armed officers arrived at the scene to free the hostages.
The Renault Megane Scenic was later found torched behind the Esso garage on Manchester Road, Kearsley, at 9.30am. The vehicle had been reported stolen from Preston in the previous July with the registration T161 PBA.
Speaking of his ordeal, Jonathan said: "The whole incident has left us extremely traumatised and we will never forget those fearful moments. We were enjoying a family night in, just like any normal evening, when the men burst in. To say we were terrified is an understatement. I never imagined being a bank manager would put me and my family through such hell."
NatWest offered a reward of £50,000 to identify the gang - the equivalent of £99,600 today. A year after the robbery, Detective Inspector Simon Collier from Whitefield CID told the MEN: "In the last 12 months we have pieced together all the evidence that we have so far. We are now asking the public for their help so we can catch the men responsible for this terrifying incident. In particular, we are extremely interested in locating the warehouse where the family were kept overnight. The family have described this as much as they can, however we still need to find where this lock-up is."
The family described the offenders as three white men, two of them with false beards and short black wigs that covered their ears. They both wore suits, with a shirt and tie, and one of the men was believed to be aged between 30 and 40 years, 5ft 6in tall and of slim build. He spoke with a Manchester/Salford accent. The second man was described as being aged in his early 30s, 5ft 8in tall and of a stockier build.
Police later confirmed that Jonathan had returned to work but at a different branch. In March 2015 the bank closed after NatWest said the number of customers using it had dwindled. In the same year the police investigation into the heist was also closed. No one was ever charged in connection with the crime, which happened at a time when bank robberies and cash-in-transit raids were rife in Greater Manchester. As a senior detective said just hours after the robbery: "This was a highly professional raid carried out with military precision."
