King of the Conmen Trivia Quiz

Answer: Richard

At this time Doug was a law-abiding citizen, with no thought whatsoever of defrauding anybody.

Answer: Buchenwald

This was in early April 1945; George Patten had contacted them asking if they could come and record the scenes at the camp he had just liberated, and Richard asked Doug to go along with him.

Answer: Mercedes

The radio crew had found this abandoned staff car near Weimar, probably because the previous owner had run out of fuel. Doug recalls that this was a real luxury, although the scenes they drove through were not as palatable.

Answer: watch

It seemed that the Russian soldiers valued a watch by the noise of the tick, and smashed Richard's expensive Swiss watch because they could not hear a tick. Doug's cheap watch, however, they delighted over and paid what amounted to over £1,000 for it (it had cost him somewhere in the region of half a crown (twelve and a half pence).

Answer: Brussels

There Doug spent the money he had been given for his old watch on over one hundred timepieces with loud ticks. This transaction was to net him over £30,000 profit within an hour of his return to Berlin.

Answer: 216 days

Doug's experiences as driver to the BBC unit were to remain in his memory his entire life - from the horrors of Buchenwald to the graphic testimony of Nuremburg. And his easy-money experiences in Berlin were also to remain, and colour the next fifty years of his life.

Answer: gambling

His first 'gamble' was an insider tip on a fixed race - and it started Doug off on a lifetime of gambling and the frauds which were to feed his habit.

Answer: they had the same serial numbers

He bought ten notes, and tried betting on a horse with all ten of them at once. The bookie noticed that the serial numbers were identical and Doug had to make a run for it.

Answer: Charlie

When Doug was caught about six months later, he had over four hundred Post Office Savings Books, all illegal, in the boot of his car, and had drawn many thousands of pounds from the Post Office in order to gamble on the horses.

Answer: army paybooks

He would go to an army camp with a spare paybook, pretend to be the person named on the front and collect the wages!

Answer: 470

. . . each of these was a Post Office Account he had opened illegally. It was the sheer number of additional charges that led to his harsh sentence - defrauding the Post Office was, apparently, quite a thing in the country at the time, and following Doug Hartman's arrest, trial and sentencing, the Post Office closed the loophole which made it possible.

Answer: True

Doug corresponded regularly with Richard Dimbleby and also with Frank Gillard. He did not stay in touch with his mother as he vowed never to be in touch with his family again after his sentencing, feeling that he had disgraced them.

Answer: Leyhill

It was in Leyhill that Doug met Klaus Fuchs, the German physicist who worked on the A-Bomb for the Allies in the war, and later defected to East Germany.

Answer: soap powder

They would use imitation 'Persil' and 'Rinso' packets, fill them with soda and a little soap powder, and sell them to housewives. The more packets Doug sold, the more commission he received, and he continued in this racket for many months, selling door-to-door across the country.

When they were caught in 1952, Doug received a two-year sentence as he had a record, while the other men were put on probation (where they were effectively free but had to report regularly).

Answer: reception

It was while he was here that Doug came across Derek Bentley, who was hanged for murder - at the age of 19. His partner in crime, Christopher Craig, was only 16 and served a sentence, being released in 1963. The murder actually took place while Bentley was being detained by police and Craig was trying to escape - Craig fired the shot which killed the policeman. Bentley's hanging sparked a public outcry which eventually led to the abolition of hanging in the UK.

Answer: eight years

With remission this could be reduced to just six years, but this was by far the longest sentence he had received to date.

Answer: Alfie Hinds

It was the testimony of the other escapee, Walkington, which reinstated Doug's 'red-band' (trustee) status. The content of the article in the 'News of the World' had caused the prison authorites to demote him in the prison, but when Walkington was recaptured he cleared Doug of involvement. Hinds was to write a book, in which he described Doug's part in his escape, although this time he did not name him.

Answer: the union would not give him membership

Doug had learnt the typesetting trade in prison, but the union would not give him membership because it was not an apprenticeship. He got a similar job in a firm without union membership in Norwich, but that fell through when the owner died and his son, who had the firm join the union, took over. Two printing jobs behind him, Doug had to find other employment or go back to crime.

Answer: a mini-cab firm

One thing about Doug - whatever he did, he put his heart and soul into it! The mini-cab firm was an instant success, and all totally legal and above-board. Doug pushed himself too hard, however, and suffered a nervous breakdown in 1970.

Answer: a dodgy tax-disk

Needing a new tax disk, Doug allowed someone else to get it for him - not knowing he was getting an adapted out-of-date disk, highly illegal. Caught for speeding while taking a client to the train station, the tax disk was noticed and Doug was given a sentence of twelve months.

This was later overturned with a Queen's Pardon when Tom, the man who supplied the disk, turned up and confessed. However, the Hartman's mini-cab firm had folded, never to be revived, as the publicity lost them their customers.

Answer: £100,000

There was a loophole in the banking system by which anyone could sign the back of a cheque made out to someone else and have that cheque either cashed or paid into their bank account. Doug would steal cheques from the post and cash them. It was for this crime that Doug earned the title 'King of the Conmen' and it was through him that cheques are no longer able to be paid to anyone other than the name mentioned on the cheque - cheques are now printed with the double lines (crossed) on them so this can no longer happen. Before this, the writer of the cheque had to draw the two lines themselves.

Answer: Stoke Manderville

The British had just four months to prepare for this event, after it was moved to Stoke Manderville from an American venue. Doug and other prisoners worked on the village, where Doug was part of the catering team.

Answer: Christianity

Doug became interested in Christianity while in prison, and Val, who came to see him regularly, waited for him once again.

Answer: John Bevan

Eddie Harvey was a friend, who, with Val, agreed to stand as sureties. Monroe Davis was another judge and Charlie Crane was a member of the church Doug and Val had attended after his release from prison the time before.

Answer: none

Doug was never in trouble with the police again. He and Val remarried in November 1988, both Christians now. Doug has visited prisons all over the country to tell his story and shares the salvation news of Jesus Christ, and wrote the book 'King of the Conmen' with the help of Roger Day. It was from this book I learned of Doug Hartman and developed this quiz.