The first book to make use of recently released government files detailing the men who got away with the Great Train Robbery. In the early hours of Thursday 8 August 1963, sixteen masked men ambushed the Glasgow-Euston mail train at Sears Crossing in Buckinghamshire. Making off with a record haul of GBP2.6 million, the robbers received approximately GBP150,000 each (over GBP2 million in today’s money). While twelve of the robbers were jailed over the next five years, four were never brought to justice. They evaded arrest and 30-year prison sentences, and lived out the rest of their lives in freedom. In stark contrast to the likes of Ronnie Biggs, Buster Edwards and Bruce Reynolds, they became neither household names nor tabloid celebrities. A small team of accomplices who helped execute the crime, before and after the fact, also evaded 25-year prison terms for conspiracy to rob, and likewise lived the remainder of their lives in freedom. Now that these mystery figures, who managed to hide in plain sight for six decades, are dead, the truth about them and indeed about the Great Train Robbery itself can at last be told.
AUTHOR: Andrew Cook is an author and TV consultant. He has written for The Times, Guardian, Independent, BBC History Magazine and History Today. His previous books include On His Majesty’s Secret Service (Tempus, 2002); Ace of Spies (Tempus, 2003); M: MI5’s First Spymaster (Tempus, 2006); The Great Train Robbery (THP, 2013); and 1963: That Was the Year That Was (THP, 2013).
20 b/w illustrations