The Great Train Robbery (33 page)

Welch, Hussey and Wisbey had banded together to concoct a joint defence. According to Hussey’s statement on 10 August, a friend known as ‘Dark Ronnie’ wanted help in delivering some groceries. When ‘Dark Ronnie’ arrived at Hussey’s flat, Wisbey and Welch arrived about the same time to see if Hussey wanted to go for a drink:

Hussey said a friend of his, a Mr Dark, had to take a lorry to somewhere in Oxford and whilst they were discussing as to how he would get back, Hussey, innocently put his hand on the tailboard. At that time, which was lunch time on Saturday 10 August 1963, Welch, who was in his own car and accompanied by Wisbey arrived on the scene. Hussey asked Welch if he would follow Dark in the lorry to where he had to deliver it, and then bring him back. Welch agreed and Wisbey went along for the ride. Hussey himself remained at home in London.

Welch accompanied by Wisbey, then followed Dark into Oxfordshire where they met a Land Rover and the three vehicles continued on to a house in the country which both Welch and Wisbey later identified as Leatherslade Farm. Upon arrival they unloaded the lorry which contained vegetables etc., and the driver of the Land Rover took them into the house where Wisbey washed his hands and innocently left his palm impression on the bath rail. Welch was offered a drink from ‘Pipkin’ can of beer but he refused. He did, however, take hold of the can out of curiosity and examined it and thus his palm impressions, quite innocently, remained upon it. Dark attended Court the following day and gave evidence for Welch, Wisbey and Hussey.
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While Dark fully corroborated this story in the witness box, he did not perform well under cross-examination and was not the type of witness to impress a jury.

On 19 February 1964, the defence of Roy James commenced. One of the witnesses called was Derek Brown, who swore under oath that at 10.30 p.m. on 7 August he had picked up James from his flat at Nell Gwyn House in Chelsea and taken him to the Bagatelle Club. He also claimed to have picked up James from the club at 2.30 a.m. and taken him back to his flat where the two stayed up talking and drinking tea until 4 a.m. He went on to say that he visited James on seven occasions at Aylesbury Prison but that he had not discussed the case with him because of the presence of two warders at each visit. Like Ronnie Dark, Brown did not go down well in the witness box when cross-examined by Niall MacDermot QC for the prosecution. Brown admitted that he was a cab driver employed by the same company as a man who was an associate of James. He also admitted that he paid not seven visits to James in prison but seventeen. James, however, offered no explanation for how his fingerprints came to be on a cat dish, a first aid kit and a tin of salt.
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While it was not disclosed at the time, the DPP had a witness statement from one Arthur Eeles, who had previously made a statement about seeing the lorry used in the robbery on 8 August. According to Eeles, at around 2 p.m. he was driving between Ashendon and Brill when he saw a Vauxhall motor car and a green six-wheel lorry facing each other in the middle of the road. He saw two men and a woman standing by the vehicle. One of the men got into the lorry and the woman got into the car. The second man walked across the field towards Dorton. On 11 September, after photographs of the wanted men had been published in the press, he approached the police and gave the following statement:

I would like to say that I have seen several photographs in the daily newspapers of Roy John James. There is definitely no doubt in my mind that he was one of the two men I saw with the lorry in Westcott Brill Road, on 8 August 1963; in fact he was the man [who] walked away across the fields. I am prepared to give evidence if necessary.
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The DPP, being satisfied that James’s fingerprints constituted a sufficiently strong case on their own to establish his guilt, decided not to use Eeles’s statement as evidence.

On 20 February Mr Sebag Shaw QC presented the defence case for Gordon Goody. His contention that Goody was in Ireland smuggling watches was very much a compromise defence following the downfall of Goody’s Irish alibi. It also involved admitting to dishonesty, which in turn allowed the prosecution to imply that Goody had been fortunate to avoid prosecution for the London Airport robbery the previous year. The following day Goody, who was immaculately dressed and wearing a Royal Artillery tie, was recalled to the witness box. He was cross-examined about the shoes that had been taken by police from The Windmill public house and the evidence given by landlord Charles Alexander. Justice Edmund Davies interjected during the cross-examination:

One of the ugliest issues in this case is the assertion by Mr Alexander that on 23 August 1963, when Dr Holden came, there were no marks on the shoes. Therefore, the suggestion is implicit that after the shoes were collected somebody had applied khaki paint and somebody had applied yellow paint to those shoes after they got into the hands of the police. There is no bucking that issue. The defence are not as I gather withdrawing any suggestion which the jury might like to draw from that evidence of Mr Alexander.
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Mr Sebag Shaw QC, defending Goody, agreed that the judge had represented the position accurately. After the prosecution’s cross-examination, he re-examined Goody at some length, and one of the questions he asked was if he had any idea of how the paint came to be on the shoes. Goody replied that he had no idea. Sebag Shaw then called Raymond Brown, of Lessor & Co., Goody’s solicitor, to the witness box. Brown confirmed that on Goody’s arrest DCS Butler had refused to allow Goody to try on the suede shoes and that he had not disclosed that there was any paint on them. Sebag Shaw then gave notice that expert evidence regarding the paint would be presented to the court on a later date.

On 6 March 1964, the expert evidence on behalf of Goody was presented to the court. Cecil Robbins BSc FRIC, a director of Hehner & Cox Ltd, took the stand to confirm that his company was an established firm of analytical chemists. He summarised his evidence by saying that the paint on the Land Rover and the paint on the shoes were two different paints. The defence then called Douglas Nicholas of the Fulmer Research Institute. He also took the view that there were differences in the compositions of the paint on the shoes and that taken from the Land Rover.

Arthur James QC for the prosecution then asked for permission to call Dr Holden to give evidence of rebuttal. Holden reiterated his previous conclusions made in his statement of 24 October 1963, in which he asserted that the khaki paints came from the same source and that the yellow paints could also have come from the same source. These expert testimonies can be seen in Appendix 4.

On 24 February the defence for Brian Field commenced:

Field’s QC, Lewis Hawser, agreed that two of the four bags found at Dorking Woods, containing £100,900 of stolen money were his but that he did not put the bags there and had indeed lost them sometime before. He admitted that he had lied to Detective Chief Superintendent Butler when he said it was not Leonard Field who went to the farm with him. Another witness, Brenda Field,
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a secretary at TW James and Wheater, gave evidence to show that he had left the two bags in the office at 3 New Quebec Street, W1 and that he discovered them to be missing from that office before the robbery. The remainder of the evidence was an attempt to prove an alibi.
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On 28 February the defence for Leonard Field began, led by Michael Argyle QC. Unlike previous defences, Argyle chose not to make an opening address but immediately called Field into the witness box, where he remained for most of the day:

He immediately told the Court that in certain matters he had lied and that in fact he learnt from Brian Field on 9 August 1963 that Leatherslade Farm had been used by the robbers. He said that on that date Brian Field told him that the farm had been bought in his [Leonard Field’s] name, that it had been used by the robbers and that he [Leonard Field] would get a considerable sum of money if he would just stay away from the office. Brian Field added that Wheater and he would take care of everything and see that he [Leonard Field] was not involved. When he heard Wheater and Brian Field deny his identity he was satisfied that they were keeping to their agreement not to disclose he was the person who bought the farm. He continued by saying that he had not bought the farm, knew nothing of the conspiracy or the robbery and that his only error was in refusing to disclose to police the true position, and that he had entered an agreement with Wheater and Field not to disclose the information.
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According to Leonard Field, Brian Field had told him that he would get £5,000 if he kept his mouth shut about his involvement in the Leatherslade purchase, but as it turned out he was never in fact paid a penny:

I knew I wasn’t doing this for nothing, and that something would be involved. I asked him [Brian Field] there and then what would happen if anything came about the police. I was assured that I couldn’t be implicated. I was told to stay away from the office and that Mr Wheater would take care of everything.
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Brian Field, brought back to the witness box by his QC, denied every word of Field’s new story.

On 3 March 1964 the defence of John Wheater commenced. Mr G.R. Swanwick QC did not address the court himself but called witnesses to testify to Wheater’s good character. These included Paul Bryan MC, vice-chairman of the Conservative Party and MP for Howden. Bryan had been Wheater’s commanding officer in Italy during the Second World War. Wheater was, Bryan told the court, ‘certainly brave, certainly loyal, and liked by the men. His honour and integrity could not be questioned.’ Brigadier Geoffrey Barratt, another of Wheater’s wartime superiors, told the court that he was ‘a real fighting soldier’.
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When it became time for Wheater to again go into battle, this time to fight for his innocence, he was the picture of composure and confidence. He told the court that the first time he had heard about the Leatherslade Farm purchase was when Brian Field had brought Lenny Field into his office:

Brian Field said Leonard Field wished to purchase the property and asked if I would deal with it. Leonard Field produced particulars of the sale. He merely said he was interested in buying the property and that he wanted to try to get it for less than the advertised price. He said he wanted it as quickly as possible.
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Wheater’s case to the court was succinctly cued up by his QC, who asked him, ‘Do you feel that you are a person who is by nature particularly cut out to be a solicitor or not?’ Wheater replied, ‘I decided some time ago that I was not, and I feel that a lot of our clients have suffered through my carelessness.’ By the time Wheater finished his evidence on 6 March, his stance of integrity, naivety and an inability to realise what was going on under his nose had been very succinctly put across to the jury.
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Probably the most damning piece of evidence presented to counter the defence of Wisbey, Welch and Hussey was that of the farmer John Maris, who was called back to the witness box by Arthur James QC:

He was milking in the cow sheds at the bottom of the lane leading to Leatherslade Farm from 3.15 pm to 5 pm on Saturday 10 August 1963 and that if a convoy of vehicles as suggested by the accused Wisbey and Welch, and the defence witness Darke, had entered the lane he would have heard them and been so interested as to have looked through the window of the cowshed and seen them. He did not hear or see such a convoy.
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Three days later on 9 March, the evidence of both the prosecution and the defence came to an end on what was the thirty-sixth day of the trial. Arthur James QC then outlined the points he would put to the jury and announced that the Crown would now drop the charge against Brian Field of aggravated robbery.

With all the closing addresses to the jury having been completed, the court was adjourned until 17 March 1964, when Justice Edmund Davies delivered his summing up. This lasted until Monday 23 March and was over a quarter of a million words long. The jury then retired. On the third day of their deliberations, after sixty-six hours of confinement - the longest in British legal history - they finally reached verdicts on all the charges and returned to court at 10.30 a.m. on Thursday 26 March.

‘Are you agreed on your verdicts?’ asked Judge Edmund Davies.

‘We are,’ replied the foreman of the jury. The foreman then proceeded to tell the clerk to the court that the jury found all the remaining defendants guilty as charged, apart from Brian Field who, although found guilty of conspiracy to rob and obstructing the course of justice, was found not guilty of aggravated robbery or of receiving £100,900. John Wheater was found not guilty of conspiracy to rob.

Judge Edmund Davies told the court that the sentencing would be held over until the remaining trial of Ronald Biggs had been held.
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On Wednesday 8 April 1964 the retrial of Ronald Biggs commenced at the Buckinghamshire Assizes, held this time at the Crown Court at Aylesbury, and not at the RDC building. Before Judge Edmund Davies sat a new jury of twelve, alongside the two legal teams from the previous case (see Appendix 3).

On 9 April 1964 DCI Frank Williams, New Scotland Yard, commenced his evidence. Michael Argyle QC immediately asked Justice Edmund Davies for the jury to be withdrawn to enable him to make a submission. This was granted and Argyle made his submission that:

... once Biggs had been taken from his home by Detective Inspector Williams he was in custody and he should have been cautioned. Anything he said after that to a police officer in reply to questions was inadmissible in evidence being contrary to Judges’ Rules.
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Argyle then asserted that certain police statements put before the court were either ‘mistaken or false’.
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DCI Williams and DCS Butler were then called to the witness box and were cross-examined by Argyle, who put this charge to them directly. Both officers denied this. The prosecution then called DS Moore (who had been present when Williams arrested Biggs and at the interview conducted by Butler) to the witness box. Moore supported the answers and statements given by Williams and Butler. Michael Argyle QC then called upon Biggs to give his account.