Personalities > Darcy Dugan

Darcy Ezekiel Dugan (1920-1990)

Darcy Dugan, Sydney’s most famous bank robber and prison escapee, was born and spent his early years in Inner West suburbs of Sydney.  He was well into his career in 1950 when he and an accomplice robbed the Ultimo branch of the Commonwealth Bank.  Shots were fired, wounding the bank manager and a customer: the tellers were armed, and the robbers fled, by car to Glebe, where they had placed a second car.  The police had a brilliant idea, visiting Dugan’s Pyrmont home. There they found his father who had no idea where Darcy had gone.  His other relatives in the Inner West were equally unable to help. 

A month later the pair robbed a payroll truck at Mort’s Dock; but they were soon captured and sent to trial on multiple charges including attempted murder.  On this occasion Dugan was described as a tiler, with an address in Macarthur Street, Ultimo.

Dugan was sentenced to death, but Cabinet commuted this to life in prison.

Dugan’s second career was much more successful than his first (he was always recaptured, and spent half of his long life in gaol). First he began rehabilitating other prisoners, then he gave evidence of the barbarous treatment gaolers meted out to prisoners; and he advocated humane treatment. In 1984, afflicted by Parkinson’s disease, he was paroled, and devoted much of his remaining time to the rehabilitation of other criminals. His evidence attracted serious attention and made him a celebrity. He died in a halfway house in Glebe in 1991, survived by his wife, Jan Simmonds, the sister of another famous bank robber and prison escapee.  His autobiography, Bloodhouse, was published in 2012.

Related Items

• Crime

Further Reading

• Darcy Dugan, Bloodhouse

• Who Lived in Your Street?: Darcy Ezekiel Dugan (1920 – 1991) - The Glebe Society