The Great Train Robbery (34 page)

Despite rulings to the contrary in the cases of Charles Wilson and Gordon Goody, Judge Edmund Davies declared that whilst he ruled that part of the evidence given by police was contrary to Judges’ Rules, he would, in fact, use his discretion to admit it. This was not only a setback to Biggs’s case but flew in the face of established judicial protocol.

The prosecution relied to a very large extent on the answers Biggs allegedly gave when interviewed by DCS Butler at Scotland Yard, and on the comments he supposedly made to DCI Frank Williams when arrested. Williams’s statement dated 6 September 1963 claims that when he arrested Biggs at his home on 4 September and told him he would be taken to Scotland Yard for further questioning ‘in connection with the train robbery in Buckinghamshire recently’, Biggs had replied, ‘that don’t sound too good. What are my chances of creeping out of this?’
19

According to the interview statement signed by Butler on the same day (6 September), he had asked Biggs on the evening of his arrest if he knew Leatherslade Farm, to which Biggs had allegedly replied, ‘No, never heard of it. I’ve got no interest in fucking farms.’ According to Biggs, he had in fact replied, ‘I think everybody in the country must know it. It’s been on television, on the radio and in all the newspapers for weeks.’ When the statement was written up Biggs had refused to sign it on the grounds of these inaccuracies.
20

Before the opening of the original trial in January 1964, Butler had deleted the word ‘fucking’ from the statement, but the rest of the account he had written up of his interview with Biggs on 4 September stood. This evidence was clearly highly prejudicial to Biggs’s case when put to the jury by the prosecution, who finally completed their case at 4 p.m. on 10 April.

Michael Argyle QC then made an opening speech for the defence and declared that Biggs’s evidence would be that he went to Leatherslade Farm with a man named Norman Bickers, to caretake the premises in connection with an unlawful purpose that was unknown to them both. They arrived there at about 1.30 p.m. on 6 August 1963 and stayed until 8 a.m. on 7 August 1963. During this time, they prepared and ate meals from foodstuffs stored at the farm, thus accounting for the fingerprints of Biggs on the Heinz tomato ketchup bottle and a Pyrex plate. He also said that Biggs had handled the Monopoly set, which would account for his fingerprints on that.

With regard to the fingerprint evidence, the prosecution had contended throughout the main trial — of all seven defendants on whom fingerprint evidence had been put before the court — that when the Rixon family had moved out of Leatherslade Farm, they had entirely removed all of their possessions. Therefore, the objects on which fingerprints were found were either immovable (such as the window sill or bathroom rail) or had been brought to the farm by the defendants themselves. This meant that none of them could argue that they had been at the farm prior to the robbery and had inadvertently handled or touched an object that had been left at the farm by the Rixons. Indeed, a police statement had been secured from Hilda Rixon who stated:

This summer we all moved from Leatherslade Farm to where we are living now. My son moved a month before me and my husband. We moved on Monday 28 July or 29 July. When my son moved he moved just a few things that he really needed. When the final move took place my son came up to help. The furniture was moved. We took the curtains down. Everything was cleared out because I looked everywhere.
21

DS Ray had taken fingerprint samples from all members of the Rixon family for elimination purposes. Not long after he and his team had begun work they discovered a Kilner jar with Pauline Rixon’s fingerprints on. Because of this, all members of the Rixon family were asked to report back to Aylesbury Police Station, where they were all closely questioned again about the possibility that they had, after all, left some objects behind at the farm when they moved out.

As a result of this, Hilda Rixon recanted and made the following statement: ‘I had a Pyrex plate with a blue border which I used to feed the cat. I think I left it behind because when I got to Dunsden,
22
and unpacked I found I was one short with a blue border.’
23

Furthermore, it soon became apparent that the ketchup bottle was probably not brought to the farm by the robbers either. In a report from DS McArthur to DCS Butler on 11 September 1963, he stated that:

... impressions found by Detective Superintendent Ray on a blue edged pyrex plate and a bottle of ketchup at the farmhouse can be identified as those of Biggs. The pyrex plate is undoubtedly one left behind at the farm by Hilda Hannah Rixon. The bottle of ketchup may be one left behind by Lily Elise Rixon.
24

McArthur continued:

Detective Superintendent Ray is forwarding details of the evidence he has in his possession by hand to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and for that reason, at present, his statement and that of his colleague from the Photography Section are not attached to these papers.
25

This report about the fact that the Rixons had, after all, left a number of items at the farm (including two on which Biggs’s fingerprints were found) does not appear to have been disclosed to Biggs’s defence. Had such a disclosure been made, it would no doubt have been a key part of Michael Argyle’s defence, and may well have been relevant to other defendants whose prints were also found on these two objects.

Michael Argyle then continued with his defence, submitting that both Bickers and Biggs examined the contents of the farm and Biggs saw a large amount of army uniforms stored in one room. Biggs had commented to Bickers that if the unlawful purpose was to be a raid on an army depot he could ‘count him out’. Bickers agreed but said that he had to meet someone in Oxford when he could find out more details. At 8.30 a.m. on 7 August 1963 they left the farm and went to Oxford. Bickers left Biggs to keep the ‘meet’ and afterwards rejoined him. He then told Biggs that he had ‘counted both of them out’ because the farm was to be used to stop a mail train. Biggs agreed that it was madness and said he was going home. Bickers insisted that Biggs stayed with him to prevent Biggs from communicating with anyone, adding that if anything went wrong on the raid the robbers would put the responsibility for it at their feet. Argyle concluded his speech by saying that whilst Biggs went to Leatherslade Farm originally with the idea of committing an unlawful act, when he found out it was to be robbery of a mail train he immediately withdrew from it and was not guilty of either the conspiracy or the robbery with aggravation. At 10.30 a.m. on Monday 13 April 1964 Biggs was called into the witness box and cross-examined by Arthur James QC. Biggs admitted he had lied to his wife, to a witness called for the prosecution and to the police. He agreed that he lied if he considered it expedient.
26

On 14 April Judge Edmund Davies commenced his summing up, which lasted for the remainder of the day and part of the following morning, after which the jury then retired. It took them but ninety minutes to reach a guilty verdict on both the charges against Biggs.

At 10.30 a.m. on 16 April 1964 the court was reconvened and Judge Edmund Davies passed sentence on all prisoners one by one:

ROGER CORDREY

Roger John Cordrey, you are the first to be sentenced out of certainly eleven greedy men whom hope of gain allured. You and your co-accused have been convicted of complicity, in one way or another, of a crime which in its impudence and enormity is 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; outrageous conduct constitutes an intolerable menace to the wellbeing of society.

Let us clear out of the way any romantic notions of dare-devilry. This is nothing less than a sordid crime of violence 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 assault by masked and armed robbers in lonely darkness. To deal with this case leniently would be a positively evil thing. When grave crime is committed it calls for grave punishment, not for the purpose of mere retribution but so that others similarly tempted shall be brought to the sharp realisation that crime does not pay and that the crime is most certainly not worth even the most alluring candle. As the higher the price the greater the temptation, potential criminals who may be dazzled by the enormity of the price must be taught that the punishment they risk will be proportionately greater.

I therefore find myself faced with the unenviable duty of pronouncing grave sentences. You, Cordrey, and the other accused vary widely in intelligence, strength of personality, in antecedent history, in age and in many other ways. Some convicted on this indictment have absolutely clean characters up to the present. Some have previous convictions of a comparatively minor character and others have previous convictions of gravity which could now lead to sentences of corrective training or even of preventive detention.

To some the degradation to which you have all now sunk will bring consequences vastly more cruel than to the other. I have anxiously sought to bear in mind everything that has been urged on behalf of all the accused by your learned Counsel, to whom I am so greatly indebted, but whatever the past of a particular accused and whatever his position, all else pales into insignificance in the light of his present offences. Furthermore, the evidence, or rather the lack of it, renders it impossible to determine exactly what part was played by each of the eleven accused convicted of the larger conspiracy or the eight convicted of the actual robbery. I therefore propose, after mature deliberation, to treat you all in the same manner with but two exceptions.

You, Cordrey, are the first of the exceptions. On your own confession you stand convicted on the first count of conspiracy to rob the mail and on counts 3, 4 and 5 of receiving in all nearly £141,000 of the stolen money, but when arrested you immediately gave information to the police which enabled them to put their hands on nearly £80,000 and the remainder was eventually recovered. Furthermore, at the outset of this trial you confessed your guilt and I feel I should give recognition to that fact in determining your sentence. I do this because it is greatly in the public interest that the guilty should confess their guilt. This massive trial is the best demonstration of the truth of that proposition. In respect of the four counts you must go to prison for concurrent terms of 20 years.

WILLIAM BOAL

William Gerald Boal, you, who are substantially the oldest of the accused, have been convicted of conspiracy to rob the mail and of armed robbery itself. You have expressed no repentance for your wrong-doing, indeed, you continue to assert your innocence but you beg for mercy. I propose to extend to you some measure of mercy and I do it on two grounds. Firstly, on account of your age, you being a man of 50 and, secondly, because, having seen and heard you, I cannot believe that you were one of the originators of the conspiracy or that you played a very dynamic part in it or in the robbery itself. Detective Superintendent Fewtrell has confirmed me in that view of you which I had already formed, but your participation in any degree nevertheless remains a matter of extreme gravity. In the light of these considerations the concurrent sentences you will serve are, upon the first count, 21 years and upon the second count 24 years.

CHARLES WILSON

Charles Frederick Wilson, you have been convicted of conspiracy to rob the mail and of armed robbery. No one has said less than you throughout this long trial. Indeed, I doubt if you have spoken half a dozen words. Certainly no word of repentance has been expressed by you. I bear in mind those matters which your learned Counsel has urged upon your behalf, but my duty, as I conceive it, is clear. If you or any of the order accused still to be dealt with had assisted justice that would have told strongly in your favour, but you have not. The consequences of this outrageous crime is that the vast booty of something like £2½ million still remains almost entirely unrecovered. It would be an affront to the public weal that any of you should be at liberty in anything like the near future to enjoy any of those ill-gotten gains.

Accordingly, it is no spirit of mere retribution that I propose to secure that such an opportunity will be denied all of you for an extremely long time. Nevertheless, the plea of Mr Wilfred Fordham for a gleam of light at the end of the long dark tunnel to be left for his client, is a plea I intend to heed in respect of all of you. On the first count you will go to prison for 25 years and on the second count you will be sentenced to a concurrent term of 30 years.

RONALD BIGGS

Ronald Arthur Biggs, yesterday you were convicted of both the first and second counts of this indictment. Your learned Counsel has urged that you had no special talent and you were plainly not an originator of the conspiracy. Those and all other submissions I bear in mind, but the truth is that I do not know when you entered the conspiracy or what part you played. What I do know is that you are a specious and facile liar and you have this week, in this court, perjured yourself time and again, but I add not a day to your sentence on that account. Your previous record qualifies you to be sentenced to preventive detention; that I shall not do. Instead, the sentence of the court upon you in respect of the first count is one of 25 years’ imprisonment and in respect of the second count, 30 years’ imprisonment. Those sentences to be served concurrently.

THOMAS WISBEY

Thomas William Wisbey, you stand convicted on the first and second counts. Your previous record qualifies you for corrective training but any such sentence is plainly out of the question in the present circumstances. In your case again I have no evidence upon which I can measure the degree or quality of your participation in the vast criminal enterprise which has given rise to this trial. Your learned Counsel has urged that you are plainly not a dominant character and that the part you played was subsidiary and was perhaps connected with transport matters. You yourself have thrown no light upon that or upon any other topic and you have not sought to mollify the court by any admission of repentance. The sentences upon you are concurrent sentences. In respect of the first count, 25 years’ imprisonment and in respect of the second count, 30 years’ imprisonment.