The men who participated in the Great Train Robbery almost attained legendary status, but these were not a band of merry of men who robbed the rich to give to the poor. Far from it, they were a cacophony of hardened criminals, small timers and amateurs who had little to show for from a life of petty crime. The Men who Made up the Train Robber's Gang From the beginning, the whole operation was flawed. The plan was the brain- child of Brian Field, a solicitor’s clerk who hawked the plan around the underworld with out success. Eventually he had the basis of a gang. Led by Bruce Reynolds, an antiques dealer from London the gang included, Gordon Goody, a hairdresser from Putney, Tommy Wisbey who ran a betting shop and the most infamous of them all, Ronald Arthur Biggs, a carpenter and small time villain from Redhill, Surrey. The train, consisting of a diesel engine and twelve carriages was brought to a halt by severing the cables to the green signal and replacing it with a red light powered by a battery. The train's fireman went to investigate and was captured unharmed, the train driver Jack Mills was not so lucky. Struck from behind with a metal cosh, Mills was later hospitalized. Although he did not die from his injuries, his family blamed his premature death in 1970 on the events of that fateful day. The thieves uncoupled the secure carriage holding the ‘booty’. The mailbags were held in the second carriage which had to be separated from the rest on the train. From this point the robbery attempt became more of a shambles. The former train driver hired to move the train failed to get the engine going, so in his injured state Jack Mills was forced to drive the locomotive half a mile or so along the track to Bridego bridge. It was here that the getaway vehicles were waiting. The gang manhandled all but eight of the mailbags down the slopes of the railway embankment to the waiting vehicles and to the safety of their hideout. Within sixty minutes the gang were holed up some twenty miles away at Leatherslade farm purchased through the firm of solicitors who unwittingly employed the ‘brains’ behind the original plan, Brian Field. A huge man- hunt panned out from Cheddington, across Buckinghamshire and surrounding counties, but this was quickly switched to the sea-ports in an effort to prevent the robbers making a dash for the continent. High- ranking police officers took control of the investigation from their make shift headquarters in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. The first member of the gang to be arrested was Roger Cordrey, picked up in Bournemouth five days after the robbery. Suspicions arose when he tried to offer a large amount of cash to the widow of a police officer in an attempt to hire a lock up garage. Arrested with him was his travelling companion Gerald Boale who declared his innocence and that he was the victim of a police frame up to anyone who would listen. Cordrey’s arrest led to the recovery of £140,000 of the estimated two million pound haul. On the same day police, led by Tommy Butler of the Flying Squad, continued to tighten the net with a raid on Leatherslade farm following a tip off reportedly from an underworld informer, 1960’s armed robber Mickey Keogh. The gang had already flown the nest! Brian Field panicked, leaving his share of the cash in a suitcase left in a wood in Dorking. The suitcase also contained a hotel bill made out to Brian Field. The trial opened before Mr. Justice Davies on 20th January 1964 and from the moment the venue, the offices of the Rural District Council in Aylesbury was announced, every available room for rent was booked. Although the council offices had been the site for many a lively council debate it was quickly converted into an assize court with the construction of a witness box and dock for the defendants. The trial ran until Monday 23rd March when the jury were sequestered to a secret venue to consider their verdict. It took the jury three nights and two days to consider their verdicts. Sentencing took place a week later and within just thirty minutes the Judge had passed sentences varying from three to thirty years. Ronald Edwards was tried and convicted separately as he was still on the run at the time of the original trial. Biggs escaped from Wandsworth prison fifteen months into his sentence, and so began a cat and mouse game as he tried to keep one step ahead of the authorities, a game spanning the decades and the continents. Ronald Biggs was finally released from prison on August 8th 2009 on compassionate grounds. For many of the participants of the most famous robbery in British history their life of crime did not bring sweet rewards many refer to the curse of the train robbery. Boale died half way through his prison sentence, proclaiming his innocence to the end. Field died ten years after being released from prison, killed in a freak car accident. Charles Wilson was murdered by rival drugs dealers in Spain. Former racing driver Roy ‘the Weasel’ James died under going a revolutionary procedure in heart surgery. Ronald ‘Buster’ Edwards committed suicide by hanging himself.The Most Famous Heist in British History
The Great Train Robbery
The Getaway
Arrests Are Made
The Trail of the Great Train Robbers
Sentences Levied on the Train Robbers
The Curse of the Train Robbery
British Policeman - Michael Kowalski Fotalia.com
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