1816: Betrayed by the Same Informer Twice: Hugh McLarie Hanged in Sydney for Highway Robbery
Hugh McLarie and his gang lay in wait on the Parramatta Road one morning in July 1816, ambushing a line of carts before dawn, knocking the drivers to the ground and making off with a keg of spirits, bolts of cloth and a haul of clothing from the cart of John Andrews. The robbery unravelled when Edward Dempsey, one of the raiders, turned King’s evidence and gave the court a detailed account of the ambush.
It was not the first time Dempsey’s testimony had put McLarie in the dock. Weeks earlier the same informer had helped convict him over a break in at a Sydney shop, naming him as one of the men who carried off baskets of tobacco, coin and clothing hidden in the bush beyond the town.
McLarie was hanged in Sydney on 1 November 1816 for the Parramatta Road robbery.
He confessed his crime before the scaffold and, the record states, died penitent.
