THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY

 

See Also: ROBBERY; MENU

The seventeen Great Train Robbers included: James Big Jim Hussey (1933-2012) (muscle), Frank Monroe, and Tommy Wisbey.

The gang members received sentences that totalled 307 years. The majority of the money was not recovered.

Location: 65a Eaton Square, SW1W 9BQ. Where John Daly was arrested. (orange, brown)

14 Ryders Terrace, St John s Wood, NW8 0EE. Where Roy The Weasel James was arrested.

 

Bruce Reynolds

Bruce Reynolds (1931-2013) did not come from a criminal family. He worked in the accounts department of The Daily Mail newspaper. He became dissatisfied and left. He went to work at the Claud Butler bicycle factory in Clapham/Battersea. While there a youth called Cobby introduced him to petty crime. He regarded a spell in the adult section of H.M.P. Wandsworth in the early 1950s as having been his university . He then specialised in robbing country houses and provincial department stores. This was because their old fa ades made them easier to break into. In the early 1960s he had an income of about 1000 a week. He spent the money on maintaining an affluent and fashionable lifestyle. He drove an Aston Martin and had his clothes made in Jermyn Streets and Savile Row.

Following another spell in Wandsworth Reynolds appreciated that the large jobs were being executed by large unit. With Gordon Goody, who acted as his No. 2, Buster Edwards, and Charlie Wilson, he established the nucleus of what was to evolve into being the Great Train Robbery gang. The group carried out a series of robberies. These included the theft of B.O.A.C. s staff wages at Heathrow. The police were sure that the crime had the hallmarks of Reynolds. However, it was unable to find evidence. Goody and Wilson were tried but both men were acquitted.

Richardson had come to know Ronald Biggs (1929-2013) while serving a sentence in H.M.P. Lewes in the late 1940s. Biggs was a carpenter-turned-inept petty criminal. However, he had repaired some windows for a disillusioned, retired train driver. Richardson recruited him on condition that he could furnish the man so that the train could rendezvous with the lorries at Bridego railway bridge at Ledburn in Buckinghamshire. Biggs had never been part of a firm that carried out a big job . His lack of standing within the criminal world meant that he was regarded as being the tea boy of the gang.

Reynolds took pleasure in the artistry if his work. He became ambitious to execute a career defining robbery. He regarded the train robbery as being his Sistine Chapel . Biggs nicknamed him Napoleon .

The Glasgow-Euston postal train carried large amounts of cash. An unidentified figure known as the Ulsterman informed Goody of the fact in 1963.

Usually, the train carried 300,000 of cash. However, there had been a Bank Holiday in Scotland. Therefore, 2.6m was being transported in 121 sacks. It weighed 2.5 tons

The gang used a red light to halt the train.

Biggs s pensioner had only driven shunters and therefore did not known how to operate a diesel-electric locomotive. Therefore, the driver Jack Mills was beaten until he would co-operate.

The gang withdrew to Leatherslade Farm at Oakley in Buckinghamshire.

It had been agreed that they would hide out there until matters had quietened down. However, once Biggs had received his share he fled. Subsequently, the gang dispersed. A neighbouring farmer informed the police of his suspicions about the property. It was searched. The gang members had left numerous fingerprints, therefore, it was easy for them to identified.

Among the mistakes that the gang made was to tell the people on the train not to move for half an hour. The investigators concluded that there must a hide-out within 30 minutes drive of the bridge.

The investigation into the crime was led by Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Butler.

Thirteen members of the seventeen-member gang were caught. Eight of them were charged with armed robbery. In 1964 nine them were given 30-year sentences by Mr Justice Edmund Davies. The draconian nature of the sentences stemmed in large part from how they had assaulted Mills. Paradoxically, it was to lead to a degree of public sympathy for the criminals.

In 1964 Wilson escaped from H.M.P. Winson Green.

The harshness of the sentences prompted Reynolds to leave the country. That Christmas he spent with Biggs and Charlie Wilson in Mexico.

In 1965 Biggs escaped from HMP Wandsworth with the aid of his wife Charmian (n e Powell).

In 1966 Jimmy White was arrested.

In 1967 Buster Edwards gave himself up.

The movie Robbery was released in 1967. Reynolds s role was played by Stanley Baker.

In 1968 Reynolds was arrested in Torquay. He was tried and convicted. He was given a 25-year-long sentence. He was placed with other members of the gang in a maximum-security unit that had been built at Durham Prison.

Biggs gave serious consideration to returning to Britain. In 1974 he set up an interview with The Daily Express newspaper. The paper informed Scotland Yard that Biggs was in Brazil. Detective Superintendent Jack Slipper flew to the country. When he presented himself to the unsuspecting Biggs, he declared It s been a long time. An attempt to deport was frustrated by the fact that his girlfriend Raimunda de Castro was pregnant and that under Brazilian law the parent of a Brazilian citizen could not be deported. Subsequently, he traded upon his notoriety, charging tourists to attend barbecues that he hosted and selling them T-shirts that bore the logo Rio - A Great Place To Escape To . He was to savour teasing the British legal authorities. (His son Michael grew up to be become a member of the Magic Balloon Gang, a successful child pop group.) Sir Robert Mark, a Metropolitan Police Commissioner was to comment in his 1978 memoirs that Biggs had added a rare and welcome touch of humour to the history of crime.

Reynolds was released in 1978. The final two years of his sentence had been served in Maidstone. He regarded them as being the happiest time of his life.

In 1978 Biggs was featured on the Sex Pistols single No One Is Innocent.

In 1981 three former Scots Guards soldiers kidnapped Biggs. The Bajan authorities intervened and Biggs was allowed to return to Brazil on the grounds that he had been seized illegally.

In 1990 Charlie Wilson was shot dead in Spain.

Biggs suffered a series of strokes. In 2001 he returned to the UK. He was placed in a cell in the hospital section of H.M.P. Belmarsh. His son Michael had accompanied him back to Britain and stayed in the country in order to be close to him. The following year Biggs married Raimunda. Subsequently, Michael secured British citizen.

In 2009 Biggs was released from prison on compassionate grounds. That the Home Office had not done so before derived from the fact that the reprobate had not been repentant about his actions and their consequences.

 

Ronnie Biggs

In 1965 Biggs escaped from prison.

Within the Flying Squad, an lite unit was set up to address the robbery. Its members included: (Stanley) Steve Moore (1927-2015).

Biggs fled to Australia in 1966. His wife Charmian (n e Powell) (1939-2014) joined him there. The couple settled in Melbourne, where he worked as a carpenter. They had a third son together.

In 1969 the Biggses read a newspaper report that Interpol was closing in on them. He went into hiding. Charmian was taken into custody. The Australian media magnate Kerry Packer brokered her release. One of his companies paid her a fee for her story. The money financed Biggs s escape to Brazil. Charmian and the boys remained in Australia.

In 1970 one of the Biggs s sons was killed in a traffic accident. His the crowd at his funeral was composed in large part of police officers and journalists.

In 1974 Biggs was about to be deported from Brazil back to Britain when it emerged that his girlfriend was pregnant. Under Brazilian law, his legal duty to provide for his unborn child took precedent over the deportation proceedings. The child was named Michael. The mother left Biggs eleven months after the birth. Biggs raised his son by himself.

The Brazilian military junta offered Biggs to the Wilson government but wanted Brazilian dissidents in return.

In 1981 Biggs was kidnapped. Michael went on television and pleaded, I know the Queen wants my Daddy, but I want him, too. Biggs was released. He had been held for 40 days. Michael s television appearance was seen by an executive of c.B.S. Records s Brazilian subsidiary. The company s The Magic Balloon Gang was a children s pop group that had a television show. The child was a member of the troupe from the age of six until thirteen.

Michael Biggs followed his father to Britain. It was to be three years until his young family joined him. Mrs Biggs took a job with Royal Mail.

 

Gordon Goody

In 1962 Reynolds, Goody, Wilson, and Roy James stole the 62,000 payroll from B.O.A.C. s headquarters at Heathrow. Goody bribed his way out of two trials.

The D326. The gang unloaded 120 mailbags

(Douglas) Gordon Goody (1930-2016) was of the view that the sentences were so long because the Establishment was seeking to reacquire its hold on society in the wake of the Profumo Scandal.

With time the public became concerned about the length of the Great Train robbers sentences. In the mid-1970s Goody was paroled. He had served a dozen years.

 

Tommy Wisbey

Tommy Wisbey (1930-2016) was a heavy who had worked with Buster Edwards and Freddie Foreman. With Bob Welch, he had been part the South Coast Raiders gang that had been led by Roger Cordery. This had specialised in fixing signals to stop trains so that they could be robbed.

Wisbey seems to have retained more of his share of the proceeds than did most of his colleagues.

David Backhouse 2024