It’s been described as the biggest burglary in English history and had the public gripped as old fashioned thieves appeared to have out-witted the police and security guards.

The £14m Hatton Garden heist last year may have happened in London, but its roots were in Kent.

In One Last Job, investigative journalists Tom Pettifor and Nick Sommerlad lift the lid on the preparations, the police operation and the life of ringleader Brian Reader, from Dartford who, at 76 when he was sentenced, was the eldest of the gang involved.

Their book includes details of Reader’s criminal life through the decades before, including the nine-year prison stretch he did for helping to launder the proceeds of the infamous Brink’s-Mat bullion job, and his connections with Kenneth Noye, the gangster from West Kingsdown serving a life sentence for the killing of 21-year-old Stephen Cameron in 1996 on the M25 slip road at Swanley.

Cutting through the myth surrounding the gang and the robbery itself, the writers spoke to gang insiders, family, friends and detectives about Reader’s six-decade career, which even includes mixing with the Krays and new details about ‘Basil’, the only gang member to escape justice.

In their prologue they write: “The history of Brian Reader is, more or less, the history of spectacular, acquisitive British crime over the last 70 years. We asked Reader to help us tell his story. As is quite right and proper, he refused. A true criminal of Reader’s calibre never brags, never rats. Not publicly anyway,” adding: “You really couldn’t make it up. There’s simply no need.”

Among the many details in the book, the pair have uncovered plenty of character testimony on their subject.

One retired detective, who investigated Reader and Noye together, is quoted as saying of him: “Reader is the last of the gentleman thieves.

“He was a likeable bloke, not arrogant or aggressive like Noye and many other villains.

“He was a humble man and he listened to you and gave you respect when you spoke to him. He never did a straight day’s work in his life so he had lots of time with his kids and wife. He was a family man.”

Judge Christopher Kinch QC, in sentencing the gang, said: “The burglary of the Hatton Garden Safe deposit has been labelled by many as the biggest in English history.

“Whether that assertion is capable of proof I don’t know.

“However, it is clear that the burglary at the heart of this case stands in a class of its own in the scale of the ambition, the detail of the planning, the level of preparation and the organisation of the team carrying it out and in terms of the value of the property stolen.”

One Last Job: the extraordinary life story of Brian Reader by Tom Pettifor and Nick Sommerlad costs £8.99 and is published by Mirror Books.