The Great Train Robbery (36 page)

  
4
.  HO 287/1496.

  
5
.  
Ibid
.

  
6
.  DPP 2/3719, part 2 (originally closed until 2045; redacted version opened 25/6/10).

  
7
.  J 82/420−441 (opened 1994).

  
8
.  Brian Field married Brenda Spencer on 1 March 1958 (Entry 117, Register of Marriages, Registration District of Middlesex South), and they were divorced three years later. Field married Karin Klemich on 20 January 1962 at St Marylebone Register Office (Entry 155, Register of Marriages, Registration District of St Marylebone).

  
9
.  HO 287/1496.

10
.  
Ibid
.

11
.  J 82/420−441 (opened 1994).

12
.  
Ibid
.

13
.  
Ibid
.

14
.  
Ibid
.

15
.  
Ibid
.

16
.  
Ibid
.

17
.  HO 287/1496.

18
.  J 82/420−441 (opened 1994).

19
.  DPP 2/3718, 1 of 6, part 2 (originally closed until 2045; redacted version opened 25/6/10).

20
.  
Ibid
.

21
.  DPP 2/3718, 3 of 6 (originally closed until 2045; redacted version opened 25/6/10).

22
.  The Rixon family moved to the Post Office Stores at Dunsden near Reading, where Bernard Rixon became the sub-postmaster.

23
.  DPP 2/3718/1 (originally closed until 2045; redacted version opened 25/6/10).

24
.  DPP 2/3717, Report 3 (originally closed until 2045; redacted version opened 25/6/10). Two pages of McArthur’s report on Biggs and the fingerprint evidence regarding him have been redacted under FOI exemption (s) 40 (2) and therefore remain closed until 2045.

25
.  
Ibid
.

26
.  HO 287/1496.

27
.  J 82/440 (opened 1994).

28
.  
The Daily Mail
, 17 April 1964.

29
.  In 1960 the TUC sold
The Daily Herald
, which was losing readers and advertising revenue, to the pro-Labour Mirror Group Newspapers. On 15 September 1964 MGN changed the name on the paper to
The Sun
and relaunched it as ‘a radical, independent newspaper’. It was not until 1969 that Rupert Murdoch purchased the still ailing
Sun
from MGN.

30
.  Since the 1957 Homicide Act, there had been two types of murder on the statute book – capital murder punished by the death penalty and non-capital murder punished by a life sentence in jail. The death penalty was suspended in November 1964 for a period of five years before final abolition in 1969.

31
.  
The Daily Herald
, 17 April 1964.

32
.  
Ibid
.

33
.  
The Daily Telegraph
, 17 April 1964.

34
.  
The Guardian
, 17 April 1964.

35
.  
BBC Nine O’Clock News
, 16 April 1964.

W
hile there were two months to go before the appeal hearings were scheduled at the High Court, DCS Butler continued his relentless search for the elusive Harry Smith. Finally:

At 6pm [on] Tuesday 5 May 1964 in consequence of a telephone call received at this office, I went with Detective Chief Inspector Williams to New Church Road, Camberwell SE5, and there saw Henry Thomas Smith in the company of Daniel Regan who left forthwith in a motor car.

I told him we were police officers and added, ‘Are you Henry Thomas Smith who at [one] time lived at 262 Fieldgate Mansions, Stepney?’ He replied, ‘Yes that’s right’. I said, ‘We are engaged on enquiries into the robbery of the mail train at Cheddington, Bucks in August last year and want to ask you some questions about your whereabouts at that time’. He replied, ‘Yes all right but I can tell you straight away I am making no statement’.

He was taken to Southwark police station. On arrival I said to him, ‘My information is that you lived at 262 Fieldgate Mansions, Stepney until the 14 August 1963 and then disappeared’. Smith made no reply so I added, ‘Do you recall a police officer answering the telephone that day in your flat and asking you to come home?’ Smith replied, ‘No I don’t’. I said, ‘Do you say you did not ring later on after first promising to come to the flat and telling the officer you had an idea why he wanted to see you?’ Smith replied, ‘I rang but nothing like that was said’. I said to him, ‘What do you say took place?’ He replied, ‘I’ve had advice and told to make no statement even if you charge me with something’.

I said, ‘Perhaps at least you will tell us why you did not go to live with your wife and child at the address at Barking Road that was bought on your behalf’. He replied, ‘No I’m saying nothing except I am innocent of any robbery’.

He was asked whether he had any objection to his finger and palm prints being taken by police. He replied, ‘No, have as many as you want’. Palm prints were taken by Detective Chief Inspector Williams. He [Henry Smith] was later detained at Cannon Row police station where he gave his name as John Smith of no fixed address. His palm prints were compared with those left at Leatherslade Farm but no identification was made. On Wednesday the 6 May 1964 Smith was taken to Aylesbury police station and detained whilst arrangements were made for witnesses to attend an Identification Parade.

On Thursday the 7 May 1964 Smith was placed with a number of other men on an Identification Parade. Ten witnesses who either saw or had dealings with the strangers in the Oakley or Brill districts of Buckinghamshire at the material time were introduced to the Parade but none made an identification. Smith was accordingly released on his personal undertaking to present himself at New Scotland Yard in fourteen days’ time. Smith carried out his undertaking but no further evidence being available he was allowed to leave.’
1

Smith’s address at 496 Barking Road, Plaistow was also re-searched:

A pair of boots, some shoes and sandals which were not present at the earlier search were seized. It was thought possible that markings and blemishes on the soles might correspond with impressions found in the soft earth at Leatherslade Farm. An examination carried out at the Forensic Laboratory dashed this hope. The position we reached at this juncture was that there was not the slightest doubt in our minds of police that Smith (whose name had been given to me only a few days after the commission of the offence) was one of the robbers actually at the scene and taking a very active part in the commission of the offence. Because of our failure to trace him earlier, he has received advice from one or more solicitors regarding his demeanour when interrogated by police. We have been defeated on the question of physical identification, whilst any palm and finger impressions he may have left at the Farm were erased before the arrival [of] the officers from the Fingerprint Department.
2

At the same time as the Barking Road address was being searched on 6 May, DS Slipper and DS Suter travelled to Gosport in Hampshire where they searched two properties that had recently been purchased by Smith’s friend Daniel Regan. At 32 Palmerston Way, in the wardrobe in Regan’s bedroom, Slipper found two sheets of paper giving details of addresses and figures appertaining to the purchase of property. According to the schedule, Regan, with his associates:

… bought thirty-two houses (including a row of eleven), a drinking club and a hotel in the Portsmouth and Gosport districts. In addition, there is the house in Barking Road in which Smith has been living and which has now been sumptuously furnished.
3

DCS Butler informed Commander Hatherill that, ‘It can, however, be said with virtual certainty that the cash expended on all the property is the proceeds of Smith’s share of the proceeds of the Train Robbery.’
4

While little hope was held out, the appeals on behalf of all those convicted at the Buckinghamshire Assize trial in April had been lodged and commenced on Monday 6 July 1964. They were held at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Central London before Justice Widgery, Justice Fenton Atkinson and Justice Lawton. Every prisoner, apart from Charles Wilson, who did not wish to attend, was brought under close police escort to the courts.

When deliberating the appeals, the judges held that though none of the robbers were identified at the scene of the crime, the fingerprint evidence against the six was sufficient for the trial jury to infer they were plotters who also took part in the raid.

Mr Justice Atkinson said, ‘Last year’s £2,500,000 raid was warfare against society and an act of organised banditry touching new depths of lawlessness. In our judgement, severe deterrent sentences are necessary to protect the community against these men for a long time.’
5

Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused to the six. The next appeal against conviction and sentence was that of Gordon Goody. Having reviewed his case, the Court of Criminal Appeal criticised prosecution counsel Niall MacDermot QC for the ‘irrelevant’ questions he asked Goody at the trial concerning the 1962 London Airport robbery. Mr Justice Lawton said:

No questions should have been asked about this matter. Still less should Mr MacDermot have asked questions which had the effects of suggesting, even if he did not intend to do so, that Goody had been lucky to be acquitted.
6

However, Lawton went on to conclude that: ‘Even if the Court was satisfied there was such gross impropriety by Mr MacDermot, as to be likely to interfere with the trial, the conviction would not have been set aside.’
7

Both of Goody’s appeals were therefore dismissed and leave for him to appeal to the House of Lords was also refused.

Brian Field’s was the next appeal to be heard. He had originally been sentenced to twenty-five years’ imprisonment and five years’ imprisonment to run concurrently for conspiracy to rob and conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice. His conviction and sentence in relation to the conspiracy to rob charge was quashed.

Giving judgement, Mr Justice Fenton Atkinson said the trial jury at the Assize Court had acquitted Field of receiving stolen money, even though two bags belonging to him were found full of banknotes in Dorking. Once dissociated from possession of any stolen money, the remaining facts against him were therefore insufficient to enable the jury to infer he was guilty of conspiring to rob the mail train.

The appeal of Leonard Field, whom Mr Justice Fenton Atkinson described as ‘a ready liar at the trial’, reached the same conclusion as ‘No facts had been established that he knew of the intention to stop and rob the train.’

John Wheater, who was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice, appealed against his conviction and sentence. The appeals against both were dismissed.

The final appeals were those of William Boal and Roger Cordrey. Boal was originally sentenced to twenty-four years’ imprisonment. Arthur James QC for the Crown admitted to the court that the prosecution was now ‘unhappy’ about Boal’s case. Scientific evidence at the trial, he said, had turned out to be inconclusive. This in itself was a major revelation, for surely if the scientific evidence against Boal was not conclusive, how could the same evidence put forward by Dr Holden against Goody at the earlier trial not also be so?

Arthur James QC further went on to say, ‘Looking back on it now, I should have invited the jury not to convict Boal of being one of the actual robbers. If Boal had pleaded not guilty to armed robbery but, like Cordrey, guilty to receiving £151,000, the prosecution would have accepted the pleas.’
8

Mr Justice Widgery agreed that ‘Boal’s conviction of armed robbery might result in a miscarriage of justice’ and so quashed the conviction. The court then substituted a fourteen-year sentence of imprisonment for conspiracy to rob for three charges of receiving. Mr Justice Widgery commented that, ‘a significant difference in sentence is justified for those who were not the inner-circle of plotters’. Boal was to die of a brain tumour in prison on 25 June 1970 a broken man.
9

Roger Cordrey, who had pleaded guilty at the Buckinghamshire Assize Court to conspiracy to rob and three charges of receiving, and had been sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment had his sentence reduced to one of fourteen years, the same sentence as Boal, a man who had no involvement at all in the crime and nothing like the same degree of involvement as others who were handed down sentences of no more than three years for receiving.

On Monday 20 July 1964 the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed the appeals of Brian Field, Leonard Field and John Wheater against their sentences for conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice. Mr Justice Lawton said that the five-year sentences on Brian Field and Leonard Field, and a three-year sentence on Wheater, were not wrong in law.

By the time the appeal process had come to an end, Charlie Wilson was already in the later stages of his escape preparations. Just over two weeks after the appeal, he made headlines all over the world with a daring escape that further fuelled the public’s fascination for the train robbers.

It was just after 3 a.m. on 12 August that Wilson was freed from the maximum security Winson Green Prison in Birmingham by three men who had broken into the jail. In one of two Metropolitan Police files on his escape is a report by Flying Squad officers summarising the facts relating to the jailbreak, written on 12 and 13 August.
10

The three men who rescued Wilson were believed to have stolen a ladder from a nearby builders’ yard to break into the grounds of a psychiatric hospital situated next to the prison. They then used a rope-ladder to climb the 20ft prison wall and proceeded to knock out William Nicholls, one of two patrolling prison officers, and tie him up. They next opened the outside door to C Block and unlocked a steel grille door, before making for Landing No 2 where they silently opened Wilson’s cell door before retracing their steps out of the prison.