The cat crept in Why the public is still intrigued by high-end burglars

It was one of the stories of Christmas: the audacious theft of more than £10m worth of jewellery, designer handbags and cash from a mansion in St John's Wood, north London.

- Duncan Campbell

Carried out by a man who climbed in through a second-floor window and "moved like a cat" around the five-storey house, he managed to avoid seven people before leaving with his haul.

It was a reminder of a time before security cameras and sophisticated alarms when cat burglars were often at work in the richer parts of London, stealing millions in jewels, artworks and cash.

Peter Scott, nicknamed "King of the Cat Burglars" and "the Human Fly", who died in 2013, was the most notorious and active of the trade. From a middle-class Belfast family, his teenage apprenticeship involved climbing into houses in the wealthy suburbs with his Belfast Royal Academy scarf and his self-confident manner as cover.

He carried out more than 150 such thefts by the time he was finally arrested in 1952 and jailed for six months. He moved speedily to London and for many years would continue his activities, which he would later justify in Gentleman Thief, his 1994 memoir.

"I have an inbuilt suspicion that I was sent by God to take back some of the wealth that the outrageously rich had taken from the rest of us," he wrote.

His most famous burglary was from Sophia Loren when she was making