The Great Train Robbery E-Book

Andrew Cook

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 495

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

The Great Train Robbery of 1963 is one of the most infamous crimes in British history. The bulk of the money stolen (equivalent to over £40 million today) has never been recovered, and there has not been a single year since 1963 when one aspect of the crime or its participants has not been featured in the media. Despite the wealth and extent of this coverage, a host of questions have remained unanswered: Who was behind the robbery? Was it an inside job? And who got away with the crime of the century? Fifty years of selective falsehood and fantasy has obscured the reality of the story behind the robbery. The fact that a considerable number of the original investigation and prosecution files on those involved and alleged to have been involved were closed, in many cases until 2045, has only served to muddy the waters still further. Now, through Freedom of Information requests and the exclusive opening of many of these files, Andrew Cook reveals a new picture of the crime and its investigation that, at last, provides answers to many of these questions.

Leseprobe

To Alia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank all those involved in the research and development of this book, and the following people for their invaluable help:

Jordan Auslander, Bill Adams, David Baldry, Phil Tomaselli, Gavin McGuffie (BPMA), Jamie Ellal (BPMA), Sally Jennings (BPMA), Vicky Parkinson (BPMA), Helen Potter (TNA), Amelia Bayes (TNA), Lizzie Mould (Croydon Local Studies & Archives Service), Bob Askew (Southwark Council, Local History), Martin Robson Riley (National Museum of Wales), Andrew Foster (Railway History Group), Jen Parfitt (Solicitors Regulation Authority), David Capus (Records Management Branch, Metropolitan Police), Philip Barnes-Warden (The Met Historical Collection), Neil Paterson (The Met Historical Collection), Samantha Cardoo (Royal Mail Group Security), Tony Marsh (Group Security Director, Royal Mail Group), Janet Altham (DPP/CPS), John O’Connor (former Head, Flying Squad), Bob Fenton (EMCA), Philip Trendall (BTP), Edward Laxton (formerly of the Daily Express), Ray Brown (formerly of Lessor & Co.), Frank Campion (formerly of Lessor & Co.), Harry Lyons (former Assistant Controller, Post Officer IB), Bob Robertson (former Flying Squad), Edward Harris (former Flying Squad), Marlena Wilson (granddaughter of Percy Hoskins), Hazel Collinson (wife of Peter Collinson), Colin Williams (son of Frank Williams), Marian Ikin (daughter of Clifford Osmond), Roger Lemon, James Carpenter and Colin McKenzie.

Furthermore, I would like to thank Bill Locke at Lion Television (Executive Producer of the Channel 4 film The Great Train Robbery’s Missing Mastermind?), whose support and encouragement enabled me to take this project forward. I am also indebted to all those who were involved in the production of the film, in particular Matthew Whiteman, Luke Martin and Daisy Robertson.

Finally, my thanks to Chris Williamson, Beryl Rook, Alia Cook, Alison Clark, Nabeel Bashir, Simon Hamlet (who commissioned this book) and Lindsey Smith at The History Press.

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

1. The 2.25 to Brighton

2. The Hold-Up

3. The 30-Minute Clue

4. Robbers’ Roost

5. The Poppy

6. An Inside Job

7. Through the Looking Glass

8. Blind Man’s Bluff

9. And Then There Were Six

10. Operation Primrose

11. Fish on a Hook

12. Case for the Defence

13. An Act of Warfare

14. The End of the Beginning

Appendix 1 Jack Mills

Appendix 2 The Vehicles

Appendix 3 The Court

Appendix 4 Forensic Evidence on Gordon Goody’s Shoes

Appendix 5 Metropolitan Police Structure 1963

Appendix 6 Roy James’s Motor Racing Record

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Plates

Copyright

PREFACE

Just after 3 a.m. on Thursday 8 August 1963, a crime took place that still stands as the heist of the century. A gang of professional thieves made history when they held up the Glasgow to London Travelling Post Office train and seized a record-breaking haul of £2.6 million (just over £50 million in today’s money).

Much has been written about it over the past five decades in books, magazines and newspapers. A host of films and television documentaries have also ensured that not one year has passed since 1963 without coverage of the story and the characters involved.

However, despite the wealth and extent of coverage, a host of questions have remained unanswered about the Great Train Robbery: who was behind it, was it an inside job and who got away with the crime of the century? Fifty years of selective falsehood and fantasy, both deliberate and unintentional, has obscured the reality of the story behind the robbery. The fact that a good many files on the investigation and prosecution of those involved, and alleged to have been involved, are closed in many cases until 2045 has only served to muddy the waters still further. To piece together an accurate picture of the crime and those surrounding it, it is necessary to return to square one, starting from scratch in gathering together as many primary sources as possible. The ability to draw upon many formally closed, restricted or hitherto unpublished primary sources have helped in this task immeasurably.

Contemporary, primary source material undoubtedly gives the reader a totally new ‘feel’ for the case and the social attitudes of the period. The sheer volume of material also brings home just how easy it can be, without the ability to cross-reference other sources and investigations, to overlook certain details and key links. Many theories about the crime were expounded at the time, particularly in the popular press. Some of them were far-fetched; others were rooted in more reliable, off-the-record sources.

Files on the robbery held by the Metropolitan Police, the Home Office, Buckinghamshire Assizes, the British Railways Board and the Director of Public Prosecutions are vast and impossible to quote in full, as are the files held by Royal Mail, the British Transport Police and the contemporary newspaper reports held by the British Library. Therefore, a degree of selectivity has been applied, but not in such a manner as to compromise the integrity of the source material available. All the main official accounts and reports pertinent to the parallel investigations carried out by the various agencies are included in this book.

The objective of this book is to present as full and factual an account of the Great Train Robbery as is possible, chronologically presented and told by the people who played a role in the story. It is left to the reader to interpret the facts and evidence accordingly. Due to the great extent of abbreviations and initials used in the various documents, the reader is advised to periodically refer to the ‘Abbreviations used in Source Notes’ at the end of this book.

INTRODUCTION

The term ‘The Great Train Robbery’ was neither born as a result of the 1963 mail train hold-up, nor indeed the 1855 train robbery immortalised by Michael Crichton in his 1975 novel The Great Train Robbery (which was later filmed by MGM in 1978 as The First Great Train Robbery starring Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland).

While Crichton’s book was a work of fiction, it drew heavily upon real-life events that took place on the night of 15 May 1855 when the London Bridge to Paris mail train was robbed of 200lb of gold bars. Crichton took something of a historical liberty by retrospectively re-christening it the Great Train Robbery. At the time, and for over a century afterwards, it was commonly known as the ‘Great Gold Robbery’.

The term ‘The Great Train Robbery’ has, in fact, no basis at all in any real-life event; it is instead the title of a 1903 American western movie written, produced and directed by Edwin S. Porter. Lasting only twelve minutes, it is still regarded by film historians as a milestone in movie-making. Shot not in Hollywood but in Milltown, New Jersey, its groundbreaking features include cross-cutting, double exposure composite editing and camera movement.

When, within twenty-four hours of the 1963 mail train robbery, the enormity of the heist began to sink in and the British press frantically searched for a suitable iconic headline, Edwin Porter’s 60-year-old movie title fitted the bill perfectly. Ironically, Fleet Street went one stage further the following week when, on the discovery of Leatherslade Farm, they dubbed it ‘Robbers’ Roost’. This secluded location in southern Utah was, in fact, a favourite hideout of the American outlaw and train robber Butch Cassidy and his ‘Hole in the Wall Gang’ back in the 1890s.

Mail was first carried in Britain by train in November 1830, following an agreement between the General Post Office and the Liverpool & Manchester Railway. Eight years later, Parliament passed the Railways (Conveyance of Mails) Act, which required railway companies to carry mail as and when demanded by the postmaster general. Trains carrying mail eventually became known as TPOs (Travelling Post Offices). Mail was sorted on a moving train for the first time in January 1838 in a converted horsebox on the Grand Junction Railway. The first special postal train was operated by the Great Western Railway on the Paddington to Bristol route, making its inaugural journey on 1 February 1855.

Because of the wide expanse of territory in the American West and Mid-West, train robbers tended to stop trains by placing obstructions on the track to halt the locomotive, or by boarding the train, jumping into the back of the locomotive and holding up the engineer and fireman.

The location chosen was usually a desolate or isolated stretch of line, miles away from the nearest town, where plenty of time would be available to rob the train and make a getaway well before the alarm was raised. Unlike the 1855 ‘Great Gold Robbery’ in England, there was no need to rob the train while it was in motion. Train robberies carried out by the likes of Jesse James and Butch Cassidy would have been impractical, if not near impossible, in Victorian England due to the short distance between stations and the observant signal box system.

By the time Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch hit the Union Pacific train at Tipton on 29 August 1900, the writing was already on the wall for American train robbers. The Board of the Union Pacific Railroad Company had resolved to spend money to save money - by employing the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Their agents, such as the legendary Joe Lefors, were usually well paid, well armed and mandated to take the fight directly to the train robbers. This they did by tracking them, sometimes for months on end, until they were arrested or forced into a gunfight. Unlike US law officers, Pinkertons were not constrained by state boundaries, which escaping robbers had previously exploited by criss-crossing. Pinkertons’ strategy, although criticised in many quarters as a shoot-to-kill policy, was to prove particularly effective in combating railroad robberies.

Unlike America, the regional railway companies in Britain (GWR, LMS, LNER and SR) were permitted by Parliament to employ their own railway police constabularies. With the nationalisation of the railways in 1948 and the creation of one sole state-owned company, British Railways, these private-company police forces became one constabulary known as the British Transport Commission Police. In Britain there was no need to employ the likes of Pinkertons to investigate mail crime, as a highly effective official force had operated in the shadows for over 300 years.

The Post Office Investigation Branch (IB) has a just claim to be the world’s oldest criminal investigation department, tracing its origins back to 1683, when King Charles II appointed Attorney Richard Swift to the General Post Office (GPO) with specific responsibility for ‘the detection and carrying on of all prosecutions against persons for robbing the mails and other fraudulent practices’. On a salary of £200 per year Swift was, according to GPO records, an effective bulwark against post office crime. A Treasury department letter of 1713 affirms that, ‘Richard Swift has been Solicitor to the General Post Office for about thirty years in which he has all along acted with great diligence, faithfulness and success.’1

During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, reports of the apprehension and sentencing of post office offenders appeared regularly in local and national newspapers. The Evening Mail of 8 May 1795, for example, reported in some detail on the case of a letter sorter by the name of Evan Morgan, who had been arrested and charged with ‘secreting a letter at the Post Office’. He was hung on 20 May at Newgate Prison. Of particular note was the fact that three of the six men hung that day were postmen.

The sentences for post office crimes were historically harsh, as demonstrated by the records from that era, which show that both capital punishment and transportation to the colonies were common. In 1765, Parliament passed an act that set down the death penalty for ‘theft of the mail’, ‘secretion’ and ‘embezzlement or destruction of mail’. A further twenty-nine postmen were hung between that date and the passing of the 1837 Post Office Act, which abolished the death penalty for post office offences, replacing it with transportation for terms of seven years to life.

In terms of investigating such offences, responsibility remained with the solicitor to the Post Office until 1816, when much of it was transferred to the Secretary’s Office, where the team of investigators were to become known as the Missing Letter Branch. By 1823 the investigators were supplemented and supported by Bow Street Runners. Founded by Henry Fielding in 1750, the Runners (or Robin Redbreasts, on account of their scarlet waistcoats) were London’s first band of constables who travelled up and down the country serving writs and pursuing criminals. In 1829, on the founding of the Metropolitan Police by Sir Robert Peel, the Missing Letter Branch used seconded police officers instead.2

In 1840 the introduction of the first postage stamp, the penny black, led to a massive increase in the volume of postal traffic. This inevitably meant a consequent rise in the amount of post office-related crime. The Post Office reacted to this by recruiting more investigators who, from 1848, were placed under the supervision of the Post Office inspector general in a separate department. In 1883, the Missing Letter Branch was renamed the Confidential Enquiry Branch and the officer in charge given the title of director. In 1908 the unit once again changed its name to the Investigation Branch, usually shortened to the IB. In 1934 the GPO underwent a radical reorganisation, and in 1935 the Investigation Branch became one of the administrative departments of the new headquarters structure of the GPO. In 1946 the title of the head of the Investigation Branch changed from director to controller. At the time of the 1963 train robbery, Clifford Osmond was controller, having taken over the post in 1957. Formally deputy controller from 1948, Osmond, a native of the West Country, had joined the Post Office at the age of 18 before successfully applying to join the Investigation Branch in March 1934.3

In retrospect, the Post Office was most fortunate in having Osmond, a highly motivated, resourceful and effective investigator, at the head of the organisation during a period in which mail crime was to rise significantly and, indeed, culminate in the Great Train Robbery of 1963.

Notes

1. Sources for the early history of the IB and its predecessors: POST 23/13-66; Missing Letter Branch case papers, 1839−1859; POST 30/1492 Confidential Enquiry Branch (GPO): Revision, 1907; Historical summaries of Branch workings and grades employed, 1793−1907; POST 74 Solicitor’s Department; POST 74/199−203 Prosecutions in England and Scotland, 1800−1896; POST 74/204−344; Prosecution Briefs in England, Ireland and Wales, 1774−1934; POST 122/13084 Investigation Branch Annual Reports 1957/58−1966/67.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

1

THE 2.25 TO BRIGHTON

In the 1950s and early ‘60s Percy Hoskins was considered by his peers, and indeed many senior police officers up and down the country, to be Britain’s foremost crime reporter. As chief crime reporter for Lord Beaverbrook’s mass circulation Daily Express, he had an almost sixth sense when it came to spotting a unique story angle and a second-to-none ability to get down to its bedrock.

Hoskins was famed for the friendships and acquaintances he cultivated over the years, not only in Britain but also in America, such as Hollywood film director Alfred Hitchcock and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. He also had some of the best sources in the criminal fraternity, the Metropolitan Police and the outlying county forces. According to Victor Davis, writing in the British Journalism Review, ‘Hoskins kept open house for senior police officers at his flat at 55 Park Lane; if you were in trouble with the police you rang Percy before your lawyer.’

According to Davis, Hoskins avoided having a desk at the Daily Express HQ at 120 Fleet Street, in the City of London (known unofficially at the time as the ‘Black Lubyianka’), so as to avoid Beaverbrook executives keeping a tab on his working hours. During his fifty years working for Beaverbrook newspapers, Hoskins became a personal friend of Lord Beaverbrook and earned a mixture of notoriety and admiration in Fleet Street for the stance he took in his stories. The most noteworthy example being the landmark case of suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams in 1956, on which Hoskins was the lone voice in Fleet Street not assuming Adams’s guilt.

Initially seen by Beaverbrook as an almost suicidal position for the newspaper to be taking, he phoned Hoskins after Adams was found not guilty by an Old Bailey jury and told him, ‘Two people were acquitted today’ – meaning that Hoskins would keep his job and his reputation. The Daily Express was also highly fortunate to have a second-to-none team of crack crime reporters who worked with Hoskins during the 1950s and ‘60s, comprised of Edward Laxton, Arnold Latchman, Rodney Hallworth and Frank Howitt.

The Daily Express team first got wind of an escalating number of mail thefts on the London to Brighton main line in the late summer of 1960. The first incident occurred in August and resulted in the loss of £7,500 from nine mailbags. The Daily Express reported the following day that three hooded men tied up the guard of the 2.25 p.m. London to Brighton express and escaped with the cash that had been taken from High Value Packets (HVPs) in the mailbags.

Hoskins was a regular passenger on the line, having a weekend home near Brighton, and had good contacts with a number of Sussex police officers. He soon picked up on the second incident the following month, ‘when a train was halted outside Patcham Tunnel, Preston Park, by a rigged signal’. The Daily Express report went on to tell readers that, ‘masked bandits over-powered the guard and snatched £9,000 from mailbags’.

By now the Post Office Investigation Branch had become involved and was particularly concerned that the robbers appeared to have a degree of technical know-how in being able to halt trains by manipulating the signals. This is clear from a memo sent by IB controller Clifford Osmond to his Royal Mail security counterparts, Postal Services Department (HMB), on 21 September 1960:

TPO SECURITY

(1) It was reported last night that a passenger train London to Brighton was brought to a halt by thieves who interfered with the railway signals and who stole six bags of mail containing HVPs valued about £9,000 together with a large number of registered letters. It is alleged that the thieves left the train after attacking the guard and escaped by car which was waiting for them at a predetermined spot.

(2) The full facts are not yet available but whether or not they turn out to be as stated I am most anxious that urgent attention should be given to a further review of security precautions that are taken generally on each TPO and sorting carriage particularly when the train is brought to a halt (genuine or otherwise) outside a station. The IB is aware that these are overhauled from time to time.

(3) The IB considers that this exercise could be confined to TPOs and we would be ready to have any discussion on the matter or give any security advice that we might be in a position to offer on TPO routine security measures.1

Despite such high-level attention, it seems that nothing much in reality was done to review, let alone improve, TPO security on the Brighton line and, in April 1961, the Express told its readers of a further audacious robbery not far from the scene of the Patcham Tunnel hold-up, in which, ‘Bandits disguised as railwaymen walked on to the platform at Brighton and got away with a registered bag containing £15,000.’

Bearing in mind that, to the uneducated eye, mailbags containing money in High Value Packets were indistinguishable from regular mailbags, Hoskins became convinced that the men behind these precision raids must have a good deal of knowledge about post office and railway procedures.

A decade before, in May 1952, he had covered the Eastcastle Street robbery with fellow Express journalist Tom Clayton, and was sure that it too had resulted from inside information. Someone within the post office must have passed on details to the gang, a view that only hardened when he discovered from a police source that the mail van’s alarm bell had been disabled before it had set out to collect its payload. Returning to the City from London’s Paddington station, where it had collected High Value Packets from the Great Western Region Travelling Post Office, the van had been ambushed in Eastcastle Street by seven masked men in two stolen cars. At the time, the theft of these eighteen mail sacks, containing £287,000 (£6,150,000 in today’s money), was Britain’s largest ever robbery.

While the 1952 hold-up remained officially unsolved, Hoskins was led to believe that the police were reasonably sure who was behind it and knew the identity of the seven masked men. To their extreme frustration, a complete lack of tangible evidence that could be presented in court prevented them from making arrests.

Hoskins’s sources were proved correct five decades later when the extensive investigation files on the Eastcastle Street robbery were finally opened. In a detailed report dated 20 March 1953, Clifford Osmond, then deputy controller of the IB, noted:

Within a day or so Supt. Lee (Flying Squad) told me that as the result of information received he considered that the robbery had been planned and executed by the under mentioned team:

Billy Hill (organiser)

Jim Clark

Joe Price

Jock Gwillim

Michael Donovan

Patsy Murphy

George Chatham

George (Billy) Benstead

Teddy Tibbs

Teddy Machin

Sonny Sullivan

… of the six or seven men who were seen (by witnesses), the under mentioned criminals of the suspect team would fit the descriptions given: -

Jock Gwillim

Teddy Machin

Joe Price

Billy Benstead

George Chatham

Mike Donovan

Patsy Murphy2

While the investigation failed to identify the source of the inside information, Osmond addressed the matter of who he believed acted as the link man between the post office insider and the gang:

Inquiry and observation finally proved that Billy Howard is (a) a close associate of Billy Hill; (b) lives in the Walworth area where he meets Billy Benstead who also lives there; (c) was, for a time, running a gambling club in partnership with Billy Hill from the rear of canteen premises used by the Meat Porters Union of Smithfield Market and (d) frequents the Red Cow PH, a pub much used by post office staff. It is significant that PHG’s sent to the LPR School for training in all branches of registered letter work, sometimes use the meat porters’ canteen concerned. Billy Howard was therefore in a position to operate as a ‘contact man’ and I believe he did so.3

In another IB file on the Eastcastle Street robbery, which contains photographs and extracts from the suspects’ Criminal Record Office (CRO) files, Billy Howard is shown as residing in East Street, Walworth. Sixteen known associates of his are listed, several of whom will enter our story later in this book.4

While the Eastcastle Street robbery was very much seen as a one-off, these new raids on the Brighton main line seemed to fit a pattern and showed no sign of abating. Indeed, each successive incident seemed to be bolder and more lucrative than the last.

After some months, however, it seemed as though the Brighton line raids had petered out. By the late summer of 1961, the Daily Express crime team, and indeed the rest of Fleet Street, had become preoccupied by the police manhunt launched on 23 August for the A6 murderer who had shot dead Michael Gregsten and raped and shot his mistress, Valerie Storie. James Hanratty was eventually arrested and charged; his trial opened at Bedford Assizes on Monday 22 January 1962 amid a flurry of media coverage. In the early hours of Friday 26 January, the day the Hanratty case was adjourned for the weekend, an event occurred that caused the Daily Express to prematurely use what would, in a year’s time, become an iconic headline by presumptuously declaring …

GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY FOILED

A Jesse James-style mail train robbery by moonlight on a lonely stretch of track in Essex failed, it is believed, only because a delayed freight train came along first. The goods train exploded a military-type detonator placed on the line between Colchester and Marks Tey and jolted to an emergency stop. The detonator - the first of 14 found by the driver - was meant for the mail train, police think.

The gang is believed to have been poised to strike, grab mail bags containing thousands of pounds, and escape by car on the A12 London-Ipswich road. Yesterday, police were searching the area of Stanway Woods, alongside the line, for clues. Signalman George Drinkell, on duty at Marks Tey signal box at the time, said: ‘Just after 2.30 am Colchester rang to say the goods train had passed through. But it never reached me. Then I heard from Colchester that the driver had phoned to say he had been stopped by detonators. A few minutes later the train arrived at my box. The driver told me he was very frightened when he stopped the train - he thought he would be coshed as he got out’.

‘This was no hoax. Whoever put the detonators on the track was obviously after the mail train’.

Minutes after the goods train had gone on, the mail train from Peterborough and Norwich flashed by, unmolested, for London. Three of the ten coaches were travelling sorting offices. British Railways Police and Essex detectives met yesterday to discuss the Great Train Robbery that never was.5

Apart from failing in its objective, the Marks Tey incident differed in another significant way from the Brighton line hold-ups: it seemed that the gang responsible did not have the knowledge or ability to stop the train by manipulating the signals. Instead, they employed a rather clumsy and imprecise method of doing so, which had the added disadvantage of attracting unwanted attention. In spite of this, the hold-up location had been well chosen on a lonely stretch of the line, where the railway crossed over a country lane by way of a low bridge. From the lane, the main A12 trunk road was only a minute or two away, giving a fast and direct route of escape from Marks Tey into the heart of East London.

Although the overnight events at Marks Tey were covered in perfunctory fashion by other Fleet Street papers, the Daily Express reported in greater detail, making it a major headline story. Uniquely, Express reporter Frank Howitt had been sent to Essex to get first-hand accounts from railway officials. Whilst the glare of the media spotlight was on the small Essex village between Braintree and Colchester, the Post Office Investigation Branch launched their own secret investigation:

SECURITY – TPOs

PSD/HMB

(1) In view of the publicity given in the press on the 27th January 1962 (particularly in the Daily Express) about a suspected attempt to hold up the East Anglia T.P.O, I think we should urgently ensure that TPO security is as good as it should be – particularly when the train is brought to a halt on some pretext.

(2) The question of access by corridor on part passenger part TPO trains and of window/door security on all TPOs are matters which might be reviewed. The IB would send a representative if required.

(3) It may well be that all reasonable steps have already been taken as the result of the IB minute dated 21 September 1960 (copy enclosed) – but risk now is, perhaps, sufficient to warrant this suggested review.

(C G OSMOND)

29 January 19626

Despite this second request to Royal Mail security, it seems that, yet again, no meaningful review of TPO security was undertaken. Four months later, Osmond fired off yet another missive to the PSD/PMB security department, this time as a result of a spate of robberies carried out on mail vans and sub-post offices, which again had all the hallmarks of inside information:

PSD/PMB (Security)

17 May 1962

SECURITY OF THE MAILS, AND OF POST OFFICE PREMISES, CASH AND STOCKS

Postal security arrangements have been under review following on the general intensification of attacks on post offices and on the mails which started just over a year ago. Many additional precautions have been and are being taken which, when fully implemented, should lead to a considerable improvement in our defences against thieves and robbers.

This circular:-

(a) Brings together information and instructions about security which have been issued in various ways but which have not yet been carried into the permanent rule book;

(b) Draws attention to points in the permanent rule books that are of special importance at the present time;

(c) Contains some new instructions, which are sidelined for ease of reference, and

(d) Makes proposals for obtaining, through discussion or local Whitley Committees, the fullest measures of staff co-operation in making local security arrangements effective.

Whilst it is not desired to disturb authorised and long-standing arrangements which are satisfactory and which may have been introduced to avoid irksome attendances, the position in such cases should be reviewed to ensure that the safeguarding arrangements are defensible and that the unavoidable ‘waiting period’ is as short as possible (POR B3 II 3(a)).

Branch and Sub Offices. Imposters, dressed as postmen, have presented themselves at Branch or Sub Post Offices as the official collector and have been given the registered despatch. Officers making up registered despatches at Branch or Sub Offices should, if the collector is not personally known to them, always insist on the production of one of the means of identification listed in POR B4 XIV 1 and B 4a I 9. They must not release the despatch before the appointed time.

Collections. Where it can be arranged without disproportionate cost, steps should be taken to avoid important collections of registered mail from Branch and Sub Branch Offices or private firms being followed by ordinary collections from firms’ or public posting boxes.7

As a result of follow-up enquiries, the Express men established that there had indeed been a dramatic escalation in post office crime during the past two years, as can be seen from the statistics they obtained:

1955-56

17 offences

1958-59

67 offences

1959-60

76 offences

1961-62

91 offences

It seemed that inside information on when post office vans would leave certain sorting offices, their routes and the amounts of money on board was being supplied to criminals, along with knowledge to assist them in identifying the High Value Packet mailbags from regular ones. In addition to cash, hauls included bulk supplies of postage and National Insurance stamps, which could be sold on in pubs, clubs and indeed to business firms for considerably less than their face value.

A source within the Flying Squad, Chief Inspector Peter Vibart, told the Express team, off the record, that the criminals concerned almost certainly had the advantage of floor plans and security details of certain post offices and sorting offices, and knew the location of strongrooms. It was also apparent that keys or copy keys were being used in such raids, as there was never any sign of forced entry. Vibart was an important source, as most Flying Squad detectives (especially Tommy Butler, who would eventually be promoted to lead the squad the following year) had a reputation of remaining tight-lipped.

Vibart had apparently been grateful to the Express for not using a story that came their way concerning a highly embarrassing situation he had found himself in not long before. He believed that there were several gangs at work specialising in mail crime, all benefiting to a greater or lesser extent from inside information. Furthermore, he indicated that one James Bryan, who was renowned in the criminal underworld as one of the best ‘locksmiths’ in the business, was believed to be making and supplying keys for post office jobs to at least one of these gangs, if not more.8

Sources on the court circuit also proved useful. Convictions for mail crime were rare, although on 7 July 1962, three men - William Robertson, Michael O’Leary and Arthur Atkins - were remanded at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court in connection with receiving £3,740 19s 2d of stolen National Insurance stamps and £1,540 16s of postage stamps. Whether these men were part of a mail crime gang or merely receivers was not apparent at the time. Suspicions remained, however, that at least one of them had a deeper involvement.9

At the end of August 1962 the mail crime spree took a more dramatic turn. Even The Times began to take more notice, although its coverage was invariably buried deep within the paper:

MAILBAG ROBBERY IN TRAIN FIRE

A mailbag robbery which appeared to have been carried out under cover of a fire in a Victoria to Brighton train on Wednesday evening was being investigated last night by Sussex Police and British Transport Commission officers. Two mailbags, one of them containing more than 20 registered packets, were missing from the train.

The fire, in an empty compartment, was noticed when the train reached Preston Park Station, two miles from Brighton. A porter attempted to control it with a fire extinguisher, but was unsuccessful and the fire brigade was called. The robbery is believed to have taken place when the guard left his van to fight the fire. The value of the contents of the bags was not known last night.

In April this year five men in railway type peaked caps made a £15,000 mailbag haul in Brighton as a train was being unloaded just before midnight.10

Once more the Daily Express crime team were at the forefront of the story. Unlike The Times and other press reports that day, theirs was a front page story that was again derived from on-the-spot interviews at the scene:

MAIL BANDITS START LONDON TRAIN FIRE

The mailbag bandits operating on the Victoria to Brighton Line have pulled off a brand new kind of snatch, it was discovered yesterday.

To get at the van carrying the registered mail they set the train on fire. Coshing a lone, unprotected guard is out. It is old hat to dress up as a railwayman to rob the mails. Tampering with the signals to hold up the train – a technique used twice before – is more complicated than luring the guard away from his van by setting a compartment alight with petrol soaked rags. That was what they did on the 10.28 pm train arriving just on midnight at Preston Park on the outskirts of Brighton from Victoria. Old style bandits over the last two years have got away with a total of £32,000.

The post office could not estimate last night the value of the registered mail in two bags now missing. Railway porter George Kay was standing in the booking office at Preston Park when the 10.28 pulled in 18 minutes late. He said last night: ‘I saw smoke coming from an empty carriage and ran the length of the platform to warn the motorman. He jumped from the engine and came to help and at the same time the guard came running from his van as the platform roof was getting scorched. I thought the fire was getting worse so I called the fire brigade. I had no idea that while all this was going on somebody was getting at the mail.’

The guard, Mr Thomas Guile, said: ‘It seems obvious that one of the gang set a compartment ablaze at Haywards Heath, jumped out and got into another. At Preston Park a porter told me that there was a compartment on fire. I grabbed an extinguisher and ran. There was a small fire in the corner but as soon as I pulled the door open it blazed up and out of the compartment. The top of the station canopy started to catch fire and I shouted to my driver, Percy Shepherd, to pull the train out of the station. I would think that the gang then got into my carriage while I was fighting the fire and grabbed the mailbags. I was out of my van for about eight to 10 minutes.’11

So far, no clues had been found that might provide any lead whatsoever on any of the mail hold-ups. None of the raiders had ever been seen without masks and no informants had come forward with names or even the merest of possibilities. However, in January 1963 an informant began passing on a series of snippets to Chief Inspector Walker of Scotland Yard’s Criminal Intelligence Branch (C11). Early the following month, Walker received information that a big robbery was imminent and a train leaving Weymouth was the target:

The train was said to travel to London via Woking, that it made four to six stops en-route and at each stop collected surplus monies received at banks. According to the informant each bank carried a certain float and when the bank takings exceeded this float the balance was conveyed on the same train each day. At Woking this surplus money was conveyed from the railway platform onto the train itself by two men who wore yellow around a uniform cap. The precise point of the alleged attack was not known, but it was expected that it would occur en-route and that Woking was the probable point.12

Further investigations by C11 concluded that the train in question was the South West TPO Night Up and, as a result, Walker liaised with W.J. Edwards, the assistant controller of the Post Office IB, with a view to strengthening security on the train. Walker also sent out a warning message to all chief constables, who as a result increased the number of police officers present at each of the stations en route.

In Edwards’s report he noted that, ‘Walker informed me that he learned that about the time of the proposed attack on the train, Robert A. Welch, CRO 61730/58, who was believed to be a member of the gang concerned was attempting to obtain suits of postmen’s clothing and hats.’13

As February wore on, the attack on the South West TPO failed to materialise. While C11 and the IB were focused on the Weymouth to Waterloo line, a headline-grabbing mail raid on the opposite side of London took everyone by complete surprise:

BATTLE ON MAIL TRAIN

Eight masked bandits battled with dining car attendants along the corridors of the Irish Mail express last night after overpowering a guard and ransacking the mail van. The fight spilled over into first class compartments.

One of the gang pulled the communication cord as the Euston to Holyhead express neared Boxmoor, Hemel Hempstead. After the train jerked to a halt at the station, the raiders jumped to the track, taking with them a bag of stolen packages. The bandits scrambled up a snow-covered banking. An attendant who chased them told police he saw a car waiting in the road. He heard doors banging and a second car move off.

A railway spokesman said early today: ‘We do not know yet just what is missing, but I think it must be a fair haul. The raid came at 9.25, 45 minutes after the train left Euston. It picked up speed outside Watford on its 260-mile journey. White-coated attendants prepared to serve the first sitting of dinner. The bandits, who are thought to have split up among other passengers when they boarded the train at Euston, converged on the guard’s van.

Six of the gang wore nylon stockings over their faces and carried coshes. They attacked the guard, Mr Owen from Holyhead, and tied him up. They began to rifle the 50 bags of mail. The ticket collector was called into an empty compartment further along the train and coshed. But his cries for help were heard by two dining car attendants. They fought with the bandits in compartments and along the corridor and were joined by two more waiters. But the six bandits barred the way to the guard’s van at the rear where two accomplices were steadily going through the mail. Bags were ripped open. A detective said: ‘They obviously knew what they were looking for.’

Then the communication cord was pulled at Boxmoor. Night duty porter Peter George, of Ridgeley, Hemel Hempstead, said: ‘I had the shock of my life when I saw the Irish Mail train pulling up. There was a terrible hollering and shouting. I ran across the line and the guard, ticket collector and dining car men were tumbling out of the train. A couple of them had blood streaming down their faces and one yelled to the foreman to call the police.’

Five of the train crew had cuts and bruises, but refused to go to hospital for treatment. Police sealed off surrounding roads. Patrol cars throughout the area – West Herts, Beds and Buckinghamshire – were alerted by radio. The mail van was taken off the express at Bletchley. After an hour’s delay the Irish Mail continued on to Holyhead – with Guard Owen, the dining car men, and local detectives.14

Was this the work of the same gang that had been planning the Woking hold-up? Was the Boxmoor raid carried out because it was obvious to the gang that the police were aware of their plan, or was it a completely different gang and its close proximity to the Woking tip-off a complete coincidence?

C11 and certain Flying Squad officers were also, at this time, beginning to pick up word that a ‘big job’ was being planned by a specially assembled gang. Other than that, they had little to go on and resolved to keep their respective ears to the ground.

As bold, calculating and successful as this raid was, sceptics at Scotland Yard doubted that this was the ‘big job’ that was apparently in the offing. While the Daily Express crime team were later told by the Flying Squad’s Peter Vibart that one of the mail crime gangs might be responsible for the Paul Street bullion job, so far as the paper was concerned it was only a theory and, if true, might suggest that this particular gang were now moving on to bigger things away from mail crime. However, the Daily Express, the rest of Fleet Street and, indeed, the general public were - unlike the Post Office IB and Royal Mail security - blissfully unaware of how much money was actually being transported around the country by the Post Office, particularly by train. According to the IB’s own official figures, the Post Office was carrying over £4,000 million a year at this point in time.15

The Brighton line raids, while being characterised by cunning, boldness and a good degree of technical know-how, seemed somewhat hit-and-miss in terms of sums stolen, which tended to suggest that the inside knowledge they had was not so precise as to be able to target trains carrying the major sums of money. If the Brighton line gang was behind the aborted Woking job, this at least suggested that they were now, by early 1963, better able to identify targets. However, at this stage there seemed to be little awareness by Scotland Yard, the British Transport Police or the IB as to the identities of those who had taken part in any of the hold-ups or attempted hold-ups. Although a number of individuals had been brought in for routine questioning over a three-year period, nothing conclusive was ever discovered.16 Despite previous IB warnings, and indeed the Woking tip-off, TPO security was still somewhat lacking to say the least. For the likes of C11’s Chief Inspector Walker and George Hatherill, head of CID, the question now was whether or not one of the mail crime gangs was planning the ‘big job’ and, if so, where and when they would strike.

Notes

1. POST 120/95 (originally closed until 2001; opened 2002).

2. POST 120/90 (originally closed until 1985; opened 1986).

3. Ibid.

4. POST 120/93 (originally closed until 1985; opened 1986).

5. Daily Express, 27/1/62, p. 7.

6. POST 120/95 (originally closed until 2002; opened 2002).

7. POST 68/849.

8. POST 120/102 (originally closed until 1996; opened 1997).

9. The Times, 9/7/62, p. 6.

10. The Times, 31/8/62, p. 8.

11. Daily Express, 31/8/62, p. 1.

12. POST 120/129 (originally closed until 2014; opened 2011).

13. Ibid.

14. Daily Express, 21/2/63, p. 1.

15. POST 120/95 (originally closed until 2001; opened 2002).

16. Among those questioned but released without charge during this three-year period included Roger Cordrey and Robert Welch, who would later be charged and convicted in connection with the Great Train Robbery of 8 August 1963.

2

THE HOLD-UP

The Glasgow to Euston Travelling Post Office was a night train often referred to as the ‘Up’ Special or the ‘Up’ Postal. At the time of the Great Train Robbery it consisted of an English Electric Class 40 diesel locomotive and twelve coaches, none of which carried passengers.1 The second coach from the locomotive was known as the HVP coach as it carried only High Value Packets. All the packets in this coach originated from banks and were being transported to the East Central District Post Office, in King Edward Street, London EC1, for delivery to the head offices of the various banks concerned. The sorting of these bags and packets into mailbags and sacks was carried out by GPO staff. Altogether there were seventy-seven post office employees on the train sorting mail, under the supervision of a post office inspector who was in the fifth coach.

The Travelling Post Office was comprised of coaches collected on its journey to Euston. The engine and first five coaches left Glasgow at 6.50 p.m. on 7 August 1963, arriving at Carstairs at 7.32 p.m. There it was joined by four more coaches that left Aberdeen at 3.30 p.m. and arrived at Carstairs at 7.15 p.m. These coaches were attached to the rear of the Glasgow train. The engine and nine coaches then left Carstairs at 7.45 p.m., arriving at Carlisle at 8.54 p.m. There, three further coaches were added to the train. These again were attached to the rear. At Carlisle, the original guard on the train was relieved by James Miller, who was with the train until it was attacked.2

The train left Carlisle at 9.04 p.m. and stopped at Preston from 10.53 p.m. to 11.03 p.m., Warrington 11.36 p.m. to 11.43 p.m. and Crewe 12.12 a.m. to 12.30 a.m. At Crewe, the original driver and fireman of the train were relieved by Jack Mills and David Whitby respectively. They then drove the train on the remainder of the journey, stopping at Tamworth from 1.23 a.m. to 1.30 a.m., at Rugby from 2.12 a.m. to 2.17 a.m. and, finally, passed Bletchley at 2.53 a.m. The journey continued until, at 3.03 a.m., the train stopped just before the Sears Crossing home signal as it showed red. It was there that the robbery took place.

Thomas Kett was the assistant inspector in charge of the train from Carlisle to Euston. His main duty was to supervise the staff in the second to fourth coaches behind the engine. Frank Dewhurst, a postman higher grade, was in charge of the High Value Packets coach from Carlisle to Euston. Leslie Penn, a postman higher grade, was also employed in the High Value Packets coach from Carlisle to Euston. Joseph Ware, a postman higher grade, joined the train at Tamworth at about 1.30 a.m. on 8 August 1963. Employed throughout the train sorting mail, Ware was in the fifth coach from the engine until just before 3 a.m. when he was instructed to report to the High Value Packets coach. John O’Connor, a postman higher grade, joined the train at Tamworth at about 1.30 a.m. He was employed throughout the train sorting mail. Just a few minutes before the robbery he was instructed to report to the High Value Packets coach for duty.

The stretch of railway line on which the robbery occurred consists of four tracks (two in each direction). The train was travelling on the ‘up’ fast lane. As the engine approached the dwarf signal that is situated 1,300 yards before the home signal at Sears Crossing, the driver, Mills, saw the light was at ‘caution’. He immediately began to apply his brakes. He then noticed that the home signal was red, so he brought the train to a standstill about 5 or 6 yards in front of the signal gantry.3

Jack Mills’s own statement best captures the events that followed the train stopping at the Sears Crossing signal:

When I stop in that way it is my duty to tell the fireman to get out and telephone to the signal box. David Whitby was my fireman. He got down on the left hand side. I saw him go to the telephone box. He shouted, ‘The wires have been cut’. He then walked back towards the cabin of the train. After David had gone back towards the coaches I saw two men come from the verge on the left hand side. I thought they were railway men. I could not see how they were dressed. It was too dark. I was looking at the controls of the engine and when I looked round I saw a masked man entering the cab on the same side as David Whitby got out; the left side. He had on a blue boiler suit and a balaclava helmet with just his eyes showing. I think the balaclava was green. He was carrying a large staff wrapped in white cloth. It was about 2 feet long. He was holding it ready to strike me, up in the air. I grappled with the man and almost forced him off the foot plate. I was struck from behind. Someone came in from the other cab door. I do not know how many times I was struck. When I came to I was on my knees. The next I remember the cab was full of men. I was very frightened. One man wiped my forehead with a piece of rag. I could not see who they were; the blood was running in my eyes. They took me into the passage leading to the boiler room. They told me not to look round, not to look on the footplate. They told me to look that way, I would get some more if I did not. David was in the passage with a masked man. He had a balaclava helmet on his head – the masked man. It was dark in the passage but there was some light coming from the cab. There is a light over my seat and a light over David’s seat. They were both on. I think someone had tried to move the engine. Someone said, ‘Well fetch the driver’. They put me in the driving seat and told me to move the engine. They told me to move the engine and get going and when we shout stop, stop or you will get some more. The cab was full; I would imagine there were eight or nine. I did not notice anything about their hands. They had all got staffs. They told me to keep my head down while I was driving. I did as I was told and moved the engine off. I thought I had got all the train. Nothing happened just then. I had to put the rear ejector on as I thought they had not put the stopper on the back. I had had no similar trouble during the journey. It is the large ejector. I drove the train on until I was told to stop. They just shouted ‘stop’. I did not look out of the front of the cab as they told me to keep my head down. I saw no marking flags at the side of the track. When I stopped they pulled me into the engine room again and handcuffed me to the fireman. There was one with David and one pulled me towards him. All the others jumped off the footplate. They took us on to the ground on to the track. They told us to lay face downwards on the grass. I had to walk through the men who were unloading the mailbags. There were only two coaches behind the engine. The men unloading the mailbags were all dressed in boiler suits and balaclava helmets. The men had formed a chain down the bank passing the bags from hand to hand. I should imagine there were about 15 men. One man was standing over us when we were on the grass. He was in a boiler suit and balaclava. He said, ‘I’ll get your address when this is all over and send you a few quid’. He said, ‘Keep your mouth shut. They are right bastards here’. After seven or eight minutes on the grass he told us to climb in the back of the GPO van. I told him I could not climb in so they lifted us both in. In the van I saw four GPO men lying in the corner. I lay on the mailbags. One of the raiders said ‘Stay here for half an hour, we shall be back’. Just after he had gone I heard the noise of a motor car engine. It appeared to be one engine. I waited for a few minutes. We stopped in the van until the guard came up. After the guard came another train came up on the slow line and the fireman of this train took my train to Cheddington Station for assistance.4

The sequence of events described by Mills is essentially corroborated by fireman David Whitby:

I had an uneventful journey until the train was held up at Sears Crossing by a red signal. I got down from the left hand side of the cab in order to telephone the Leighton Buzzard signal box. I could not get through to the signal box. I looked under the box and saw that the wires had been cut. I wanted to tell the driver Mr Mills about this. There was a man looking between the second and third coach. I thought he was a postman or somebody out of the train. He had a slop, a cloth jacket on, the same as railway men wear. He had an overall on underneath. The jacket was reasonably light blue. It had been washed a lot. I walked in his direction. I said, ‘What’s up mate?’ He said nothing then. He walked across the line to the down slow. He beckoned me to follow him and said, ‘Come here’. The up slow line is on the edge of the embankment. There is a fairly steep embankment at that point. I followed him. I thought he was going to tell me there was something wrong, the train or the signals. He grabbed hold of me just above the elbows, swung me round and pushed me down the embankment. There were two men down the embankment. One of them rolled on to his left hand side and I went underneath him and he came on top of me. He put his hands over my mouth and showed me a cosh. There was white tape bound round the cosh. He said, ‘If you shout, I’ll kill you’. I was very frightened. He took his hand away from my mouth. I said ‘You are all right mate. I am on your side’. I said that to save him hitting me with the cosh. He asked me where I came from. I said Crewe. He said, ‘I’ll send you some money’. I could not see how this man was dressed. He made me get up and walk towards the engine. I did not see the man who had been looking between the coaches nor anyone else on my way back to the engine. There were five or six men in the cab. They had the same type of overall on as I saw before. They had balaclavas on with just their eyes showing. The one I saw looking between the coaches had a piece of rag round his head. I did not notice any other sort of headgear that they had. I had a view of the man’s face who I thought was a railwayman. It was a round face.

They made me get into the cab and turned me towards the engine room and put a handcuff on my left wrist. I was then pushed into the engine room passage. Mr Mills was already there. His head was covered in blood. I could not see anything the men were holding. There was a man behind Mr Mills; the man had a cosh in his hand. It was about 18 inches or two feet long. It had white tape round it. They put me in the engine room and then pulled me out again and pulled Mr Mills out and then pushed me back again. Soon after that the engine started to move. One train went by on the down fast line. One man stood holding the other end of the handcuffs. I could not see his face or very much because of the light. There was a light. There was a light at the other end of the engine room. It looked like a torch light. I saw no-one but the torch light. The train stopped and I was handcuffed to Mr Mills. I could not see if the men had gloves on. Mr Mills and I were made to get down from the engine. I was taken down towards the other coaches. There were then two coaches on the train. I did not see anyone at the back of the coach; I was looking at the ground. We had been told by the man that was guarding us to keep our eyes shut. We were made to lie on the grass. I had a cigarette and tried to light one for Mr Mills. One of the raiders said, ‘I’ll have one if you have one to spare’. I gave him one. I have a cigarette lighter which I got out of my pocket. I lit my cigarette. A hand came down for my cigarette lighter. The hand had a glove on it. When he gave me the lighter back the glove looked extra large and as if it had something else underneath it. It was a leather kid glove with stitches round it. While I was on the grass I saw no vehicles but as I was walking I looked down by the side of the bridge. There was a lorry down there. I only saw the side of it. It was flat sided. The back was flat and there were beams on it for a canvas top. My view was from the top of the embankment downwards. I nearly stumbled as I walked along. It was a mailbag which caused me to do that. I could not see how the mailbags were being unloaded. Mr Mills and I were put into the Post Office coach. Mr Mills had to be assisted but I was not.5

In Detective Superintendent (DS) Gerald McArthur’s report,6 he relates the statement of Assistant Inspector Thomas Kett who recalled that:

The train stopped between Leighton Buzzard and Cheddington and he estimates the time at 3.15 am. This time is incorrect as will be seen later. A few minutes later the train began to move and he heard steam escaping from the rear of his coach and he formed the opinion that coupling between his coach and the next had broken. Someone pulled the communication cord and others shouted through the windows to attract the attention of the driver. No further action could be taken by them to draw the driver’s attention to the position because there was no corridor communication between the High Valued Packets Coach and the parcels van which separates the former from the diesel engine.