The crime of the century

AT exactly 3.10am on the morning of Thursday, August 8, Jack Mills brought his train to a standstill at Sears Crossing, just south of Leighton Buzzard on the Buckinghamshire-Bedfordshire border. Despite the irritation - the Glasgow to London nightmail train was on time and had been travelling at 80mph when Mills saw the yellow warning signal - he settled back in his cab and started to roll a cigarette, unaware that the Great Train Robbery had begun.

As soon as the train stopped, fireman David Whitby set out to report the unscheduled halt. Finding the nearest trackside phone not working, he called to Mills that he would walk down the line to the next, but had taken only a few steps when two figures appeared out of the darkness.

As the two men approached Whitby, Mills turned to see a man wearing a balaclava standing on the footplate. Mills lunged at him, and the two grappled, but behind the driver another man had entered the cab and Mills was coshed repeatedly on the head, forcing him to relinquish his grip on the man's throat and pushing him into unconsciousness.

When he came to, he found around eight or nine robbers, all wearing dark clothes and balaclavas, standing on the footplate. Mills was yanked to his feet and ordered to drive the train slowly for about half a mile. As the train pulled away, even through the pain from his bleeding head Mills sensed there was something different - the load seemed much lighter than its 368 tons.

The train had 12 coaches, but the robbers were only interested in the one second from the front. This was the HVP - the high value package - where the big money was carried. The robbers had uncoupled the first two coaches from the rest of the train. Workers in the other carriages continued sorting the mail, aware that the train had stopped but oblivious to the drama going on ahead of them.

After 800 yards, Mills was told to bring the train to a stop. He was then handcuffed to Whitby and left lying by the trackside, while the robbers formed a chain to pass the bags of money down the bank to two Land Rovers and a truck. Forty minutes later the operation was complete and the gang fled, long before the guard went to the front of the train to see what was going on. By the time he found Mills and Whitby, flagged down the early morning slow train and contacted the police, it was 5am. The robbers had made off with nearly £2.6m in used banknotes, the equivalent of around £40m today. A reward of £260,000 was on offer.

It was an operation planned with extraordinary precision. The green signal lights had been covered with heavy material, and batteries were wired up to illuminate the amber and red lights - bringing the train to a stop without alerting the signal box. The wires on the trackside phone had been cut. The Sears Crossing had been well chosen: a remote spot with the nearest village more than a mile away.

But the gang's attempt to escape quickly unravelled. They had holed up at nearby Leatherslade Farm, but hearing police were combing the area they fled, leaving enough evidence to delight the fingerprint men. A bag containing £100,000 was found in a Surrey wood, prompting excited treasure hunters to join in the search, and another discarded bag of £100,000 contained a hotel receipt that led to one of the gang's contacts.

With all the gang members well known to police, arrests soon followed, and 12 went on trial at Aylesbury early in 1964. After their conviction, Mr Justice Edmund Davies made it clear that the sentences would be exemplary. "Let us clear out of the way any romantic notion of daredevilry," he told the robbers.

"The consequence of this outrageous crime is that the vast booty remains unrecovered. It would be an affront to the public if any of you should be at liberty in anything like the near future to enjoy your ill-gotten gains."

The 12 were sentenced to 307 years between them. Charlie Wilson, Tommy Wisbey, Bob Welch, Roy James, Jimmy Hussey, Ronald Biggs and Gordon Goody were each sentenced to 30 years, Leonard Field and Bruce Reynolds to 25 years. The sentences were a watershed in British crime, the end of an era when a robber without a gun could expect to serve ten years or less, ushering in a generation of criminals who believed that when they could get 30 years for unarmed robbery, they may as well use a gun and give themselves a chance of getting away.

The trial was also notable in that none of the major players informed on each other, and three of the gang members were never brought to justice, including the one believed to have coshed Jack Mills.

But the story did not end there. After serving 15 months in Wandsworth, Biggs went over the wall in July 1965, scaling a rope ladder and dropping into a furniture van. He fled to Australia and spent £40,000 on plastic surgery to change his appearance, and then moved to Brazil. In 1974 his son Michael was born, the result of an affair with a Brazilian go-go dancer. Later that year, Biggs was found by Det Insp Jack Slipper of the Flying Squad, but Biggs' fatherhood of a Brazilian subject kept him from arrest.

The following quarter century saw him entertain tourists and newspaper reporters with tales of his exploits, record songs with the Sex Pistols and appear in Brazilian tv adverts. But as his health deteriorated and an extradition treaty between Brazil and Britain threatened to end his freedom, Biggs returned in 2001, and is now serving out the remainder of his 30-year sentence in Belmarsh Prison.

Biggs was only a minor player in the robbery: his job had been to find a train driver. But his role in a heist which still resonates has ensured his notoriety lives on. The sheer size of the haul - still the world's biggest train robbery - has given it an infamy unmatched, even by the Brinks-Mat and Knightsbridge robberies of the 1980s, which both surpassed the Great Train Robbery in terms of the amount stolen. It was a daring and seemingly victimless crime: banks had lost out, but no one seemed to be worse off.

But it was not victimless. Jack Mills, 58 at the time of the robbery, was permanently damaged by being coshed on the head. He died seven years later, at 64. He had leukaemia, but his family claimed he had never recovered from the attack. His death still casts a shadow over the crime of the century.

Whatever happened to the Great Train Robbers?

Bruce Reynolds: the antiques dealer and mastermind of the robbery. After escaping from prison, he fled to Mexico and France, before being arrested in Torquay in 1968. He was released in 1978.

Ronald 'Buster' Edwards: also escaped from prison and fled to Mexico, but gave himself up in 1966. After serving nine years, he sold flowers outside Waterloo station and was the subject of the 1988 film Buster. He was found hanged in a garage in 1994.

Charlie Wilson: nicknamed 'the Silent Man' for his refusal to say anything during the trial. He escaped from prison after four months but was tracked down in Canada and served 12 years. He was shot at his home in Marbella in 1990 - the victim of a gang killing.

Roy James: the getaway driver, was released after 12 years, and in 1993 was jailed for six years after shooting his father-in-law. He died months after his release, in 1997.

Tommy Wisbey: the bookmaker was released in 1976 but jailed for ten years in 1989 for drug dealing. Now retired.

Gordon Goody: a hairdresser, who had been tipped off about the banknotes on the train. He was released in 1975 and last heard of running a bar in Spain.

Leonard Field: the former merchant seaman was released in 1967 and was last heard of living in North London.

James Hussey: was released in 1975 but convicted of assault in 1981 and conspiring to traffic drugs in 1989.

Bobby Welch: was released in 1976. Current whereabouts unknown.

Roger Cordrey: the florist who rigged the railway signals, was released in 1971.

Jimmy White: evaded capture for three years, found and sentenced to 18 years.

William Boal: an engineer, died of cancer in prison in 1970.