The Crime Book

35

Leatherslade Farm, later dubbed

“Robber’s Roost” by the press, was

searched by police after farmworker

John Maris tipped them off, convinced

that the robbers were hiding there.

Three men arrested in connection

with the robbery are led away by

police, holding blankets over their

heads. The intense media interest is

evident at the top left of the image.

BANDITS, ROBBERS, AND ARSONISTS

Compassionate release

On 6 August 2009, after falling

gravely ill with pneumonia,

80-year-old Ronnie Biggs was

released on “compassionate”

grounds – a rarity in the UK.

Under the Prison Service Order

6000, a prisoner can only apply

in the event of “tragic family

circumstances” or if he or she is

suffering from a terminal illness

with death likely to result within

a few months. Biggs survived

until December 2013, but this

caused little controversy. By

contrast, two weeks after Biggs

was released, Abdelbaset

al-Megrahi, convicted of the

1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight

103, was freed on compassionate

grounds by the Scottish Justice

Secretary, a decision condemned

by the British and US press.

Megrahi had been diagnosed

with terminal prostate cancer,

but his release from hospital

caused an outcry, as did the

arrival of Colonel Gaddafi’s

personal aircraft to repatriate

him, and the hero’s welcome he

received back home in Libya.

found on a Monopoly game they

had played – using real cash – as

well as on a ketchup bottle. The

conspiracy’s collapse was as abrupt

and chaotic as its planning had

been patient. Eleven of the robbers

were quickly caught together in

south London.

The majority of the 11 were

jailed for 30 years, a severe

sentence for a crime in which

nobody had been killed. However,

it helped generate sympathy for the

robbers. Two of them escaped

prison – in August 1964, friends of

gang member Charlie Wilson broke

into Birmingham’s Winson Green

Prison to snatch him; the next July,

Ronnie Biggs climbed over the wall

at Wandsworth Prison, London.

Mythical status

The robbery’s audacity could not be

denied, but the long-term trauma

inflicted upon the train crew was

easier to ignore. Mills suffered from

post-traumatic headaches for the

rest of his life and never fully

recovered from his injuries. Whitby

died a few years later, at the age of

34, from a heart attack. However,

these tragedies were overshadowed

by an increasing romanticization of

the crime, intensified by the fact

that only a fraction of the £2.6

million haul was recovered. The

robbery occurred at a time when

brazen irreverence towards

old-fashioned authority was in

vogue – and at a time in which

artist Andy Warhol claimed that

everyone would be famous for

15 minutes. Biggs recorded music

with the Sex Pistols and Edwards

became the subject of the film

Buster (1988) – his part played

by rock star Phil Collins. Just

three years after the crime, The

Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery

was released, playing on the

idea that serious crime could be

comic entertainment. ■

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