The-dial

Roy Saunders was said by many to have been the world’s greatest safe cracker, a claim that he would certainly be in no hurry to dispel. Yet a single act of bravery; a spontaneous moment of heroism, began a chain of events that would lead this otherwise honest man finding himself in the dead of night, standing on the roof of one of the world’s most famous jewellers, preparing to cross the line into criminality.

By many accounts, Saunders was the standard by which the quality of safes was measured. The goal was to have safes be "Saunders-proof." He did some good, though, as he often helped local police squads in England by cracking open safes that were part of investigations. His good work went for naught, as he was found guilty of "conspiracy to burgle" in connection with an attempted 1-million-pound jewelry-store robbery in the early 1960s.