Robert Honey Fabian (31 January 1901 – 14 June 1978) was an English police officer, who rose to the rank of Detective Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police.

Biography

Fabian was born in

Lewisham Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in the London Plan as one o ...

in 1901. He joined the police in 1921. One biographical account of Fabian credits him with the capture of Robert Augustus Delaney, the first known cat burglar. He was described as "small but wiry, carefully dressed and with sharp features and piercing eyes... He was always good‐natured and polite." After retirement from the force in 1949, he worked as crime writer. His work was dramatised in the BBC drama series, 1954–56, ''

Fabian of the Yard ''Fabian of the Yard'' is a British police procedural television series based on the real-life memoirs of Scotland Yard detective Robert Fabian, made by the BBC and broadcast between November 1954 and February 1956. It is considered the earlie ...

'', based on his book of the same name (in reference to New Scotland Yard). Each episode ended with an epilogue in which Fabian described the real-life case on which the preceding story had been based. It is written that Fabian took up gardening after his retirement from the Metropolitan Police. He subsequently wrote a somewhat salacious but revelatory account of

Soho Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century. The area was develo ...

's vice trade in ''London After Dark''. On 12 March 1957, he appeared on the game show '' To Tell the Truth'' – he was correctly identified by the entire panel, with the exception of Carl Reiner. Fabian also appeared as a castaway on the

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...

programme ''

Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (us ...

'' on 20 February 1956. He died in an Epsom, Surrey hospital on 14 June 1978 at the age of 77.

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Biography

Bibliography

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Further reading