On 7 June 1932, John Arthur Philpot, who also went by the names Smith and Heath, aged twenty-six and a metal worker from Camden Town, London, pleaded guilty at Leicestershire Assizes to stealing jewellery. Two months earlier, on 16 April 1932, the house of Cecil Burton on Stoughton Drive South in Oadby was broken into. A large sum of jewellery, valued at £60, was stolen in the robbery. Mr Justice Acton sentenced Philpott to eighteen months imprisonment with hard labour.

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At approximately 2.30 a.m on a dark morning in October 1932, Harry Gamble of Fairhurst Street, Leicester, was cycling to work when he saw a rope made of mailbags hanging from the 40-foot wall of the prison. Almost immediately, someone at the bottom of the rope leapt up, joined another man, and then the two of them sprinted along Newton Street before disappearing. Harry Gamble ran as fast as possible to the Fire Station and called the police using the phone there.  The man Harry saw was John Arthur Philpot, the jewel thief sentenced just three months earlier.  A hue and cry was immediately raised.

The prison warders went out on bicycles and in motor cars to try and find the escaped prisoner. They sent messages to Captain Hempton, the Governor of the prison, as well as to both the city and county police.

The City Police flying squad was immediately dispatched to conduct a systematic search of the city, while Superintendent Hall took charge of operations in the county. Within an hour of the escape, every main road, by lane, and the field was searched by motor patrols and village constables. Harry Gamble, the only witness to the escape, was employed as a paper packer at W.H Smith and Son's warehouse on Campbell Street at the time.

There was an incident that occurred about three weeks before Philpot's escape. A young girl who was sleeping was awakened by the shattering of her window at around 7.15 am in the morning. The street was quiet at the time, and, upon investigation, it was found the glass had been broken by a freshly peeled potato that had rolled under the bed. It was thought to have come over the wall of the prison. The potato was returned to the gaol, where the authorities examined it to see if any messages were concealed in it. Even though a search came up empty, it's possible the potato was some sort of pre-arranged signal from someone inside the prison to someone on the outside. Some months before the 'Potato Gate' incident, a large piece of coal was thrown over the prison wall, and it narrowly missed the driver of a lorry who was driving on Lancaster Road. The suggestion was then made that it was a signal.

After Philpot's escape, he became known as the “India rubber man” because, after wrenching back the bars of his cell and climbing through a remarkably small aperture, he was able to get into the prison yard. Then, in a daring escape, he scaled a forty-foot wall to get to liberty.

It wasn't until eighteen months later, in March 1934, that he was finally apprehended in Eastleigh using the name John Arthur Gibbs. The authorities had been looking for him since his escape from prison in 1932. After making the arrest, the Eastleigh police discovered their prisoner was actually John Arthur Philpot.

Superintendent Pragnell of the Eastleigh – Hampshire Constabulary said there had been recent raids targeting houses in both the Southampton and Eastleigh districts. On the night in question, two men were discovered trying to load a sidecar of a motorcycle combination with various suitcases. One man managed to escape, while the other, Arthur Philpot, was arrested by the police.

After his arrest and before his trial in Winchester, John Philpott was kept naked in his cell to prevent further escape attempts.

John Philpot's criminal career dates back to when he was just sixteen years old. He was a native of Tunbridge Wells, was sent to Borstal twice, but had escaped both times. At his trial, John, with his hair brushed back and neatly dressed in a blue suit, handed the bench a written statement. In the course of this statement, he said he had no excuse to offer but thought in some justification he must make some explanation.

‘When his mother died in 1921, he said he was left friendless and took the crooked paths in life. He was given chances of going straight, but he did not want them. He wanted adventure. He was too young then to realise that he would spend the best years of his life in gaol. 

“I did not care what became of me”, he said, “although if I had wanted to go straight there as no means of doing so”.

“I was sent to Leicester prison and escaped from there because I was worried about my wife getting destitute. I kept straight for some time, but my wife had a baby and wanted some money. I know my record must be a bad one, and you must send me to prison for a long time, but I ask you to be as merciful as possible, as I have some employment offered to me when I come out”.

 

Judge Barnard Lailey, who was presiding over the court, told Philpot that not a year had gone by since he was sixteen, that he had not been in prison.

“Your calling in life seems to have been wholesale housebreaking,” he said. “You have had chance after chance, and you were bound over four times. You were sent to Borstal twice, and you promptly absconded, and now you plead guilty to nearly fifty charges involving over £2,000 worth of property. We have listed to your appeal, which is aptly worded, but we can find no redeeming feature in the case except one, and that is that in this orgy of crime you have not been guilty of violence. That is the only thing that can be said for you. Your activities must be stopped for a considerable time. You will go to prison for five years penal servitude”.

 

John Philpott asked permission to see his wife before going down, and this was granted.

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John Arthur Philpott spent the first two months of his sentence in Winchester gaol and then taken to Dartmoor.

 

In 1946, ten years after serving his time, John Arthur Heath, now aged forty, pleaded guilty at the Northampton Assizes to stealing jewels belonging to the Dutchess of Norfolk totalling £14, 808. Only £150 worth was recovered.