Page 183 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

After Wilson’s escape, the other members of the gang all received extra
tough treatment in prison. Many of them admitted later that they now looked
more seriously at ways to escape. In June 1965 a plan by Goody to escape
from HMP Strangeways in Manchester was uncovered.

Eleven months after Wilson's escape, in July 1965, Biggs escaped from
Wandsworth Prison, 15 months into his sentence. A furniture van was parked
alongside the prison walls and a ladder was dropped over the 30-foot-high
wall into the prison during outside exercise time, allowing four prisoners to
escape, including Biggs. The escape was planned by recently released
prisoner Paul Seaborne, with the assistance of two other ex-convicts, Ronnie
Leslie and Ronnie Black, with support from Biggs' wife, Charmian.

The plot saw two other prisoners interfere with the warders, and allow Biggs
and friend Eric Flower to escape. Seaborne was later caught by Butler and
sentenced to four-and-a-half years; Ronnie Leslie received three years for
being the getaway driver. The two other prisoners who took advantage of
the Biggs escape were captured after three months.

Biggs and Flower paid a significant sum of money to be smuggled to Paris for
plastic surgery. Biggs said he had to escape because of the length of the
sentence and what he alleged to be the severity of the prison conditions.

Wilson and Biggs' escape meant that five of the known robbers were now on
the run, with Tommy Butler in hot pursuit.

In October 1965 Biggs left London by boat to Antwerp and then by road to
Paris. On 29 December Biggs flew from Paris to Sydney via Zurich, as “Terence
Furminger”, a writer born on 13 June 1928.

In January 1966 some of the key train robbers were transferred to HMP
Parkhurst on the Isle of White (Goody, James, Wisbey, Hussey, Welch,
Cordrey).

The story of the Great Train Robbery was not going away. The Sunday Express
published photos of the “wanted” men, those gang members known to be
still on the run. On 12 April Jimmy White was arrested in Littlestone-on-Sea. He
would be sentenced to 18 years.
In September Edwards and his family decided to return to the UK. Edwards
gave himself up on 19 September and was sentenced to 15 years at
Nottingham Assizes. Half of what the other robbers had received as a
sentence just two years previously. The judge decided that while Buster was
‘in the hierarchy’ he was ‘not one of the leading planners.’

Bruce Reynolds and family left Mexico in December 1965 and drove to visit
Charlie Wilson for Christmas in Canada. They then moved on to the South of Page183
France.