Caught by a nose

It was not until Douglas Robertson was in jail, serving 15 years for manslaughter that it was discovered that was not his name.
Robertson and Francis Perkins went into the Commercial Bank in Hampton, Melbourne in December 1924 just as the bank was closing.
Behind the desk was clerk William Charles Almeida, working alone and about to shut the bank.
One of the men pointed a revolver at him telling him to put his hands up. Almeida jumped behind a partition and grabbed a gun himself. He was immediately shot and lay injured while the two men robbed the bank. He managed to get up and grab hold of Perkins as help arrived.
Perkins was tried first and found guilty.
But it would be another year for police to find Robertson.
He had lept onto the running board of a moving car and been taken out to St Kilda where he proceeded to hide out for three months, barely going out into daylight.
He grew suspicious, even of the men who were helping him hide and fled to Sydney then on the mail train to Brisbane then on to Innisfail.
There he gambled for money to make a living then moved on to smaller towns, using small time swindles to survive.
But he became worried about his nose - it was badly crooked - and a description of the man from the bank robbery mentioned this. He decided to see if it could be fixed and went to Sydney to St Vincent’s hospital to have an operation before intending to flee the country.
But by then police had noticed him and nabbed him, well before the operation took place.
He was found guilty of manslaughter and jailed.
Then he was recognised. He was in fact James Francis McMahon - an escaped prisoner from New Zealand whose description included his very crooked nose.
McMahon had served in the army, going to war with a man called Douglas Robertson who he befriended. Indeed it was Robertson he fled to after the robbery.
The real Robertson - a nice chap who had little idea he was being used - was a hairdresser from Napier, New Zealand now living in Australia, who had taken McMahon to the St Kilda house, little knowing he was helping a killer.
After his prison term he seems to have vanished - possibly with yet another name.
Almeida, who was only 22, is buried in the Ballarat Old Cemetery.
Picture by Braydon Anderson.​