Page 182 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

On 8 April Biggs’ retrial got underway. It lasted only until 14 April when a guilty
verdict was swiftly reached. The following day Lord Chief Justice Edmund
Davies passed sentence on Great Train Robbery gang.

The gang was not taken back to the court, but to the Assizes where they
could be held and locked in the cells before being brought into court one-
by-one to hear their sentence.

Most of gang received concurrent sentences of 30 years (10,957 days) and
25 years. The crime was ‘robbery – being armed with an offensive weapon’
(30 years) and ‘conspire / robbery with violence’ (25 years).

The trial had lasted in total for 51 workings days over a period of 10 weeks.
Evidence had been heard from 264 witnesses and an estimated 2.5 million
words had been spoken. The words filled over 30,000 foolscap pages. The 12
jurors, who were paid 50 shillings a day, had examined 613 exhibits and
listened to 21 barristers.

After the sentences were handed down the gang were split up amongst
some of Britain’s most secure prisons. Biggs was transferred to HMP Lincoln.

In March Reynolds made his preparations to leave the UK and in May he
slipped out of Britain for Mexico. First step was by plane to Ostend and then
on to Brussels. On 6 June Reynolds stepped on to Mexican soil after taking a
Sabena flight from Brussels to Mexico City. He travelled as “K.C. Miller”.

Reynolds and Edwards followed what was going on in the UK with the gang
by listening to the BBC World Service and reading the Telegraph and Times
when they could get a copy.

The appeals were heard in London from 13-14 July at the Old Bailey. The
gang were reunited at HMP Brixton for the appeals. Wilson, however, refused
to attend the appeal. Cordrey and Boal did get their sentences reduced to
14 years, while Brian Field, as a gentleman and member of the establishment,
had his sentence cut to 5 years. Following the appeal Biggs was transferred
to HMP Wandsworth.
On 12 August 1964, Wilson escaped from Winson Green Prison in Birmingham
in under three minutes, the escape being considered unprecedented in that
a three-man team had broken into the prison to extricate him. His escape
team was never caught and the leader, nicknamed "Frenchy", had
disappeared from the London criminal scene by the late 1960s. Two weeks
after his escape Wilson was in Paris for plastic surgery. By November 1965,
Wilson was in Mexico City visiting old friends Bruce Reynolds and Buster
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Edwards. Wilson's escape was yet another dramatic twist in the train robbery
saga.