Dark Stories Sydney

Dark Stories Sydney Dark Stories the crime company. Take a walk on the dark side and return to the scenes of the crime via a True Crime Tour.

Or enjoy a dark-themed live and immersive theatre experience.

In the eighteenth century, a 'pocket' is not part of your clothing. It is a separate pouch tied around the waist beneath...
01/09/2026

In the eighteenth century, a 'pocket' is not part of your clothing. It is a separate pouch tied around the waist beneath the skirts. Steal one and you can hang for it.

John Jones learns this trade in the cramped by-alleys and blind alehouses of Holborn; hidden drinking dens where criminal plans are hatched out of sight. He is barely more than a boy: spoiled by indulgent parents, rejected by every tradesman, and drawn to the only world that will have him.

This story comes from Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, one of the earliest true crime books ever written, nearly 300 years old. We read it aloud so you do not have to decipher Georgian prose yourself.

Here is a question that still has no easy answer: when a society executes teenagers for petty theft, who is really the criminal?


https://darkstories.com.au/john-jones-the-young-pickpocket-of-holborn

Finchley Common, early 1700s. A young man on horseback waits for travellers. He has no grand plan, no criminal network, ...
25/08/2026

Finchley Common, early 1700s. A young man on horseback waits for travellers. He has no grand plan, no criminal network, no particular cunning. What Nathaniel Hawes has is nerve; enough to convince himself that boldness alone is a strategy.

Orphaned young, apprenticed out, and already stealing from his master before the ink on his indenture is dry, Hawes is one of those figures the early Georgian courts see again and again: talented, reckless, and heading for a reckoning.

His story is recorded in one of the earliest true crime books in the English language, published nearly 300 years ago. The writing is sharp, the judgement is pointed, and the ending is inevitable.

Would you have taken the risk, knowing how Georgian justice answered it?


https://darkstories.com.au/nathaniel-hawes-the-young-highwayman-of-finchley-common

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