Signal Red Part 43

Fifty-eight.

From The Times, 17 April 1964 GREAT PUNISHMENT FOR TRAIN ROBBERS.

OBVIOUS MOTIVE OF GREED.

SEVEN SENTENCED TO 30 YEARS' IMPRISONMENT.

The heaviest series of sentences in modern British criminal history were imposed at Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, yesterday on the 12 men guilty of being involved in last August's 2,600,000 mail train robbery. The effective total amounts to 307 years. Seven of the accused were each sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment. Earlier in the trial one of the defendants, John Daly, was found to have 'no case to answer', despite his fingerprints being found on a Monopoly board at the gang's hideout. Daly claimed to have played with his brother-in-law, Bruce Reynolds, still wanted in connection with the crime, some weeks before the robbery.

Pa.s.sing sentence, the Judge, Mr Justice Edmund-Davies, said it would be positively evil if leniency were exercised. A great crime called for great punishment, not for mere retribution but to show others that crime did not pay - that the game was not worth even the most alluring candle.

FIRST AND LAST.

As well as the seven who received sentences of 30 years, two more men were sent to prison for 25 years, one for 24, another to 20 and the twelfth man received 3 years.

Pa.s.sing judgement on the twelve men, the Judge said that the crime, in its enormity, was the first of its kind in this country. 'I propose to do all within my power to ensure it will also be the last of its kind.

'Your outrageous conduct const.i.tutes an intolerable menace to the well-being of society. Let us clear out of the way any romantic notion. This is nothing less than a sordid crime of violence, which was inspired by vast greed.

'The motive of greed is obvious. As to violence, anybody who has seen that nerve-shattered engine driver can have no doubt of the terrifying effect on law-abiding citizens of a concerted a.s.sault by armed robbers.'

All with the exception of Wheater (see table below) were found Guilty of conspiring together with other persons not in custody to stop the mail train with intent to rob the mail. All with the exception of Wheater, Cordrey and the two Fields (who are not related) were found Guilty of being armed with offensive weapons, robbing Frank Dewhurst, Post Office official on the train, of 120 mail bags.

Cordrey pleaded Guilty to three charges of receiving 78,983, 56,047 and 5,901.

Wheater and the two Fields were found Guilty of conspiring together to conceal the ident.i.ty of the person who agreed to purchase Leatherslade Farm by making false statements to police officers, and thereby obstructing the course of justice.

In a separate trial, which ended on Wednesday, Ronald Arthur Biggs was found Guilty of conspiring to stop the train to rob it, and also of taking part in the armed robbery. Like the majority of the defendants, he had pleaded Not Guilty.

Police still wish to interview Bruce Reynolds, Ronald Edwards and James White in connection with the robbery.

THE MEN AND THE SENTENCES.

The men sentenced to 30 years were: Ronald Arthur Biggs, aged 34, carpenter, of Alpine Road, Redhill, Surrey; Douglas Gordon Goody, aged 34, hairdresser, of Commondale, Putney, S.W.; Charles Frederick Wilson, aged 31, market trader, of Crescent Lane, Clapham, S.W.; Thomas William Wisbey, aged 33, bookmaker, of Ayton House, Camberwell, S.E.; Robert Welch, aged 34, club proprietor, of Benyon Rd, Islington, N.; James Hussey, aged 34, painter, of Eridge House, Dog Kennel Hill, East Dulwich, S.E.; Roy John James, aged 28, racing motorist and silversmith, of Nell Gwynn House, Sloane Avenue, S.W.

The other sentences were: William Boal, aged 50, engineer, of Burnthwaite Road, Fulham, S.W. - 24 years Roger John Cordrey, aged 42, florist, of Hurst Road, East Molesey, Surrey - 20 years Brian Arthur Field, aged 29, solicitor's managing clerk, of Kabri, Bridge Road, Whitchurch Hill, Oxfordshire - 25 years Leonard Denis Field, aged 31, merchant seaman, of Green Lanes, Haringay, N. - 25 years John Denby Wheater, aged 41, solicitor, of Otways Lane, Ashtead, Surrey - three years

Fifty-nine.

Surrey, May 1992 Our feet crunched on the gravel as we opened the gate and I started my second journey up the drive to the house. Above us the moon was sagging in the sky, as if tired of the effort of staying aloft. I knew how it felt.

'How is he?' Bill Naughton asked, huffing slightly, his cheeks glowing from the cold night air.

'Roy? Up and down.'

'Personally, I don't think he was ever the same once he came out. I think that thirty-year jolt disturbed the balance of his mind,' Naughton said. 'Roy's, I mean. Even though none of them served the full whack, it must've been a psychological blow.'

'Devastating.' I remembered the outrage at the sentences - including my own numb sense of shock, especially as I could so nearly have been in that dock - and the instinctive, widespread feeling that they were disproportionate to the crime, the coshed driver notwithstanding. The Judge had intended to show the public that the country wouldn't tolerate such banditry, that there was no room for Robin Hoods. But it had the opposite effect to the one intended: it created a wave of sympathy for the robbers that a ten- or fifteen-year term would not have generated. The thirty years made them martyrs.

The Establishment, of course, must have felt besieged from all sides at that point in history, and the hefty sentences were part of it blindly lashing out at changes it couldn't understand. The ancien regime ancien regime didn't know it, but the full force of the 1960s was about to burst over them. The robbery must have seemed just yet another worrying signifier - along with Peter Cook and the contraceptive Pill, Mick Jagger and miniskirts, Marlon Brando and Lenny Bruce - of a descent into anarchy. Baffled, out-of-touch authorities would make similar mistakes a few years later and over-react by busting the Rolling Stones and prosecuting gormless hippy magazines. didn't know it, but the full force of the 1960s was about to burst over them. The robbery must have seemed just yet another worrying signifier - along with Peter Cook and the contraceptive Pill, Mick Jagger and miniskirts, Marlon Brando and Lenny Bruce - of a descent into anarchy. Baffled, out-of-touch authorities would make similar mistakes a few years later and over-react by busting the Rolling Stones and prosecuting gormless hippy magazines.

'Of course,' Bill continued, 'those with wives or girlfriends who stood by them managed the best. Roy never had that.'

'You ever get married, Mr Naughton?' I asked as we walked nearer the entrance.

'Yes. To a WPC. Patti. She pa.s.sed away last year.'

'Sorry to hear that.'

'Yeah. Good while it lasted, though. Very good. What about you? Your missus ever come back?'

We reached the front door of Roy's house, which I had left open. 'Only us. Don't shoot!' I shouted, only half-joking, then turned back to the copper who had once saved my bacon. 'No. She was disgusted that I couldn't even manage thieving properly. Divorced me. I've got a son out there somewhere who I last saw when he was just a couple of months old. Alfie.'

'Must hurt.'

It was a lot worse than that, but the pain had numbed over the years. It was a wicked thing to do though, to keep me away from my boy. I sometimes felt I'd been punished worse than the train robbers for not doing the crime. I had heard that Marie had recently moved to Dubai or some other G.o.dforsaken sandbox.

'Yeah, but I remarried,' I sighed. 'Did a Bruce and Roy. Chose a younger woman.'

Naughton dropped his voice as we neared the kitchen. 'Bruce struck lucky with Franny, but I hope you made a better job of it than Roy.'

I thought of Jane, still in bed at that hour, curled up, the echo of her perfume still on my skin. 'I did, I think.'

Bill walked ahead of me into the kitchen and sniffed the air. 'Ah, still a menace to society I see, gentlemen. Should I call the Drugs Squad?'

'Not unless we need fresh supplies. Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds are the biggest dealers in London. You want some first?' Bruce asked, holding out the joint. He had moved to sit next to Roy, at the opposite side of the table from where I was standing with Bill Naughton.

Bill shook his head. 'No, not for me. I'll have a drop of whisky, though.'

I poured him one and handed it over. His eyes went to the gun on the table, still lying in front of Roy. 'Cheers.'

'Bruce here wanted the griff on who gra.s.sed them up, Bill,' I said.

'Well, as you know, lads, I never did get to see it through to the end. I was taken off the Flying Squad well before the trial and moved to CID Uxbridge. Didn't get back on the Sweeney for another - oh, twelve years.'

'They shift you because you was too clean?' Bruce asked. 'Because you wouldn't bundle us up like the others?'

Bill sighed. 'Not that old tune, Bruce. You were done fair and square.'

'I was.' Bruce had been caught in Torquay, down on his luck and with the remaining money dwindling fast, after five years on the run following spells in the South of France and Mexico. Rumour had it he simply shrugged when "tommy Butler had turned up at the door, as if he had been expecting him, almost relieved it was over. He had just three grand to give back. He received twenty-five years.

'But Bill Boal was just a mug who helped Roger out after the event and he died in prison, the poor sod. And Charlie never said anything about "poppy" when arrested. Buder made that up.'

'I can't say,' said Bill, as if reluctant to speak ill of the Squad that had disowned him. I wondered if they had done so because he would have no part in fitting me up. 'It's Butler's word against Wilson's.'

Charlie Wilson always maintained that the line he was meant to have spoken to Butler, 'I don't see how you can make it stick without the poppy and you won't find that' - the 'poppy red' (bread) being a convoluted rhyming slang for money - was a total fabrication. Maybe. I, for one, had never heard any of them use that particular phrase. But Butler didn't need to make anything up; he had prints at the farm.

'OK.' Bruce wagged a finger at the policeman. 'And you lot fitted up Gordy, good and proper.'

'He was there, Bruce,' Bill said. 'Gordy was at it, you all were. It was all part of the game back then.'

'Not for you,' I reminded him.

His face drooped a little. Did he regret once being quite so right and proper? 'I was out of step.'

'What happened to your mate? Haslam, was it?' I asked, knowing full well it was.

'Len? Went in one of the anti-corruption purges in the early seventies. Jumped before he was pushed. Frank Williams was head of security for Qantas by then. Gave him a job, I believe.'

'All right for some,' muttered Bruce.

The robbers had not fared well. Most were broke or dead, like Charlie, who escaped, was recaptured by Buder, served his time, then ended up in the drugs trade that killed him. Ronnie escaped from Wandsworth and was still at large in Rio, despite Jack Slipper's various attempts over the years to get him back. But everyone knew that what Ronnie craved most of all was a pint in Redhill, not c.o.c.ktails on the Copacabana. He was not so much a fugitive as an exile, banished from his beloved homeland.

Roy spoke up for the first time. 'So - was there a gra.s.s?'

My heart began to beat a little faster. Geoff's role in this - and Marie's - had never come to light. It wasn't my fault, not really, although I had stupidly broken the rule about keeping the wives in the dark. Between them, Geoff and my missus had helped put Butler onto Bruce.

'Ah, that'd be telling. Was there a Mr Big?' Bill asked mockingly.

Bruce laughed. 'Now who is playing an old tune?' Bruce maintained he had never denied the Mr Big concept simply because it helpfully diminished his own role in things. He had hoped for a lighter sentence or earlier release if they thought he was a mere lieutenant. It might have helped, too; he only served nine of his twenty-five. Or perhaps att.i.tudes had changed by the time he came to do his time. 'You can tell me now, Bill. If there was a snitch, it's not like I am in a position to do anything about it.'

Laughton sighed. 'You know we had anonymous calls. About you.'

Bruce's head snapped round and he glared at him. 'Who from?'

'Anonymous people. By definition we don't know who they are. One of them mentioned you, Bruce. And you, Tony. That's why we were so sure you'd had something to do with setting it up.'

Me? This was the first I had heard about that. Who could or would finger me?

But really, I knew immediately. Janie Riley. Beautiful, s.e.xy, unstable Janie Riley.

Bill saw certainty forming on my face and moved quickly on. 'But we were already onto both of you. There was no big gra.s.s in the firm, Bruce, there didn't need to be. Just a lot of little mistakes on your part. I don't believe there was a Mr Big, either. Only some bloke on the inside we never caught. Eh, Bruce?'

Bruce remained impa.s.sive, brooding on it all. I hoped he didn't come up with Janie as the snitch. Not after all this time.

Then he surprised us all by saying, apparently a propos of nothing: 'You know Janie Riley topped herself? Pills. Well, pills and a bottle of vodka. It happened while Jack and I were in Mexico. Buster, I mean. He was Jack in Mexico. Shame.'

n.o.body spoke until Roy put his head in his hands. 'What jolt will I get for all this, Mr Naughton?'

'I don't know, Roy. Four? Six, tops.'

He groaned. 'Don't talk to me about six. I can't do six.'

"Course you can,' said Bruce, placing a hand on his shoulder. 'You're still a young bloke.'

The movement was so quick, the arm a blur, it was as if Roy was demonstrating that he still had the reflexes of a twenty-eight year old. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the pistol and had it in his mouth before any of us could stop him 'No!' I managed to shout as I lunged forward, but Bruce was there before me, grappling with Roy. I threw myself backwards as the gun went off, the discharge filling the room and traumatising my eardrums. A slow trickle of plaster came down from the ceiling, as if it had escaped from a snow-globe.

A graceful curl of blue smoke spiralled slowly above the table. We all watched it, transfixed, for a moment.

Bruce stared down at the weapon in his hands and tossed it to Bill, who caught it and slotted it into his overcoat pocket.

We all then looked at Roy, and at the thin trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. Bruce must have caught the foresight on the skin as he wrenched it from his mouth.

'I f.u.c.kin' hate guns,' said Bruce, handing him an immaculate, folded handkerchief. 'What you doin' with one, Roy? You could hurt yourself, you know?'

Roy dabbed at the wound and gave a small, hollow laugh. 'I bought that from a mate of Charlie's when I got out. I was going to shoot Dennis for p.i.s.sing all my money away. Good, solid Dennis, stand-up bloke, developed a taste for the gee- gees and bimbo women. Who would have thought it?' He looked up at Bill. 'Only thing I got to show for the whole kit and caboodle was a house for my mum.'

'Must be easier ways of getting one of those,' said Bill.

'I should have stuck to motor-racing.'

'We all should have,' said Bruce. 'You're still bleeding, mate. Sorry about that. Keep the handkerchief.'

'We have to go,' said Bill. 'Someone outside will have heard the shot. They'll be in here like Bruce b.l.o.o.d.y Willis any minute.'

I shook my head and my ears popped and I was fully back in the room. 'We'll lock up,' I promised. 'Turn out the lights.'

'Thanks. And can you leave a dish of milk outside for next door's cat?' Roy asked.

This tickled Bruce and his thin frame shook as he laughed. 'f.u.c.k me, Roy. Don't you ever learn?'

I remembered then that one of the prints that incriminated Roy had been on the cat's bowl at the farm.

Roy gave a lascivious wink. 'You haven't seen the neighbour.'

He stood, and first I, then Bruce shook his hand, a solemn moment with a strange feeling of finality, of the curtain coming down one last time.

'Thank you for your time, gents,' said Bill. 'I'll be in touch.'

'I'll always stand character witness,' said Bruce, breaking the gloomy atmosphere. 'I'm good for it.'

'Christ, only if Peter Sutcliffe's not free,' said Roy, with a grin that seemed to come from the old Roy James.

Bill Naughton smiled, placed a hand on the small of Roy's back and propelled him into the hallway. As they headed for the front door, Roy's arms were already going up above his head in the traditional gesture of surrender.

Bruce and I sat in silence for a few minutes. I poured the remains of Bill's whisky into my own gla.s.s and pulled back the curtains. The sky was growing lighter now, a very tentative dawn, no more than a few spirals of burnished copper in the east.