The hunt for ‘Beanie Bandit’ Aubrey Broughill
When a robber walked into a Melbourne bank with a very large handgun, it left witnesses to note an unlikely aspect about his appearance. No bank robber had ever been described this way. Ray Watson reveals the extraordinary lengths it took to track down “Grandpa Harry.”
Police & Courts
Don't miss out on the headlines from Police & Courts. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Aubrey Maurice Broughill’s name sounded one that might have belonged to a bloke who served in the Legislative Council.
But Broughill’s seat was often in prison during a six-decade criminal career which began when he was 12 and ended when his remains were found in a dam in a quarry in the state’s north in 1999.
It has never been clear whether his absent testicles were the work of hungry turtles or more sinister forces.
Broughill’s stick-up work started in the early-1960s with a big payroll robbery and extended more than 20 years with some major bank jobs.
THE ‘BEANIE BANDIT’ AKA ‘GRANDPA HARRY’
In the late 1980s, I attended the scene of a bank robbery in the eastern suburbs of
Melbourne with my crew, Mr Nasty and The Gull.
It was reported one undisguised offender with a very, very large handgun had walked into the branch and committed an armed robbery.
The most unusual thing about this offender was that witnesses described him as polite and elderly.
Polite and elderly? No one who robbed a bank has ever been described as polite and elderly.
We spent a few hours at the bank obtaining statements, checking for clues and collected the bank security film which went to the photographic section for development at forensics that day.
While speaking to the witnesses, we were told by an old woman that the offender had left the scene in a car with another man.
She was the only person to mention or notice two people so her thoughts and statement were put on the bottom of the pile of witnesses, we thought with good reason.
Later that day we returned to St Kilda Rd with the statements and black and white crime scene photographs from forensics.
The detectives in the squad were generally curious about our exploits despite attending many similar robberies.
I recall Senior Detective Graham Creece asking to see the photo I was carrying and he immediately declared: “That’s the Beanie Bandit”.
He was right. The bloke was Aubrey Maurice Broughill and we were convinced we’d have him in custody by that night.
Broughill had only recently been released from jail for committing, you guessed it, a number of Melbourne bank robberies.
We determined Broughill was in the Footscray area with his much younger wife and their child.
The Footscray address was searched without success and the quest to arrest Aubrey had started.
We knew our man and knew he would be in Victoria somewhere, but were met by an avalanche of most unhelpful relatives.
Broughill continued to commit a number of fairly small bank robberies, remaining undisguised and brandishing the big gun.
The press dubbed him “Grandpa Harry” and colleagues helpfully turned up the pressure by haranguing me about my failure to find him.
I became the butt of many armed robbery squad jokes as I tried every trick in the book to catch Broughill.
THE GRAVE-SIDE STING
It later came to my notice that Aubrey’s mother had died and was to be buried at the Box Hill Cemetery.
I thought: “How lucky am I? What son wouldn’t visit his own mother’s grave?”
An undercover was called in and I asked them to attend at Box Hill graveyard, mingle with the mourners and identify Aubrey.
I secreted myself and my crew outside the cemetery and waited for a radio report from one of the undercovers.
It is reported that one of the mourners said to an undercover Detective, “Hey mate, see those grave diggers over there …. they’re f. king coppers”.
No! They were f. king grave diggers.
It wasn’t long before another radio reported Aubrey was there, dressed as a woman.
“He is wearing a dress and pretending to be mourning at the gravesite,” that observer said.
Now, Aubrey was not a handsome man by any stretch of the imagination and I asked for confirmation.
The same undercover reported back that it wasn’t our target but an ugly old woman with facial hair.
A LEAD AT LAST
During our investigation we discovered Aubrey had spent some time at the Geelong Prison where he shared a cell most of that time.
We conducted a raid on his “room-mate” and, although this person was pretty staunch, were told our man was in the Traralgon area.
The same person informed us Aubrey was not going back to jail and was prepared to shoot it out.
We travelled to the Latrobe Valley and found, via visiting a number of real estate agents, that Aubrey was renting a flat in Traralgon.
It wasn’t long before we identified the flat and staked the place out.
We decided to give Aubrey a few minutes in bed and then conduct a raid, storming the unit at about 10.30am and giving Aubrey his wake-up call.
He immediately confessed to his crimes and told us about the armed robbery which he conducted with another person from Traralgon.
The old lady was right; there was a second person assisting Aubrey at the first armed holdup who didn’t go into the bank.
That same night the second male was arrested and charged with armed robbery.
A GRISLY END
Broughill was charged with a number of bank robberies in the late 1980s.
He pleaded guilty and made full admissions.
All the exhibits were recovered, including the handgun, which originally was an Italian carbine with a revolving chamber.
It had been shortened to look like a revolver and you did not have to be a gun enthusiast to admire this firearm.
The body of Aubrey Broughill was found at a Wodonga Tip.
Parts of his body were missing when the corpse was located and the circumstances of his death remain a mystery.
Ray Watson was a member of the armed robbery squad at a time of 500 bank hold-ups a year nationwide.
He offers Herald Sun readers a unique insight into the squad’s pursuit of the bandits and killers behind the heists.
Listen to him on Andrew Rule’s Life and Crimes podcast.
READ MORE: