A bank robber who was the first crook to be dubbed a supergrass has died peacefully at his home aged 72 - after surviving more than 30 years with a price on his head.
Gang bosses including the Kray twins offered a £1million bounty in the 1970s to anyone who killed Bertie Smalls after he shopped 28 underworld mates.
Smalls, whose name became a slang term for an informer, agreed to testify against fellow villains after he was arrested following two bank raids in which his gang snatched £437,000.
Charges against him were dropped - the only time a criminal informer has been spared jail in return for his evidence. His evidence led to the 28 being jailed for a total of 414 years.
At one 1974 Old Bailey trial where he gave evidence, members of his former gang pointed their fingers at him like guns and sang: "We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when."
During the trials Smalls was guarded 24 hours a day after receiving death threats. Scotland Yard's Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper, who died in 2005, said at the time: "Smalls is the greatest weapon the police have ever had against the underworld.
"He will have to spend the rest of his life with a £1million price on his head because so many people want to get even with him."
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After the trials Smalls went into hiding but turned down Scotland Yard's offer of plastic surgery and a new identity.
He also refused the chance of a new life in Australia, preferring to stay in Britain.
Within a few years he had returned to his old haunts in north London - drinking openly in the pubs around Hornsey and often boasting he was paid £25 a week by Scotland Yard for his betrayal.
Despite taking such a huge risk he survived - dying last week at his home in Croydon, South London.
RAT FACT
Make-up artist Michelle Hogg, who helped convict the £53million Securitas raid gang last month, is said to have a £7million contract on her head and lives in hiding.
