An 18-year-old youth walked into the office of the Coventry Evening Telegraph and identified a pair of suspected bank robbers who had been pictured in the paper.
The paper published CCTV stills of Alan Lynch and Maria Gibson, who were suspected of carrying out Bonnie-and-Clyde-style raids on 11 banks. In the robberies Gibson would pretend to be a customer and Lynch would threaten to slit her throat with a 12-inch knife unless cash was handed over.
After walking into the office of the paper, the youth said to crime reporter Ben Griffin: “The pictures of the woman in the paper, that’s my mum and her boyfriend. What should I do?” Although the boy was too shaken to give an interview, Griffin did manage to persuade him to talk to the detectives investigating the case.
This week Lynch was sentenced to 12 years and Gibson to eight.
Griffin said: “I asked him a few questions but he wasn’t forthcoming and I didn’t want to scare him off from going to the police. It was a very strange thing to have happened.”
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