Grand
Theft Loco-motive
The Great Train Robbery: by Joseph Weekley
The
Great Train Robbery still stands out today in British history as the most
infamous crime of the 20th Century and marks a defining moment, not
just in the nature of British crime but also in the way criminality was viewed
by the general public. In today’s society, the by-gone image of the 1960’s
gangster is one that is still revered by many of the British public with
household names such as Kray, Foreman, Biggs and Reynolds commanding equal
feelings of fear and respect.
[The post office train] Countless films, television programmes and books
have been made documenting the lives and exploits of these so-called ‘celebrity
gangsters’ in the 1960s. The train robbery in 1963 inadvertently changed the
nature of crime and for the first time in history gangsters and their infamous
deeds were now causing interest among the general public. This is a story of
crime, money, fashion, escapes and the eventual notoriety of a group of once
ordinary men.
On the 8th August 1963, the
world of crime changed forever when 16 men led by Bruce Reynolds robbed a post
office train that ran from Glasgow to Euston, taking over 2.6 million pounds
(equivalent to 50 million pounds today). An almost perfectly executed robbery changed
crime forever when they pulled of the biggest job of the century whilst simultaneously
embarrassing the establishment, giving the robbers an almost
[Front page news] Robin Hood like narrative
to this story.
Never before had band of criminals pulled off a robbery such as
this, the public and media outcry combined with the reaction from the police
force was monumental. A specialist taskforce headed by Detective Chief Superintendent
Tommy Butler of the flying squad was assembled to track the culprits down,
which in the media only fuelled the great story of the robbery.
After the media drama of various police chases, appeals and
arrests, the trial began on the 20 January 1964. The trial was held at the specially
converted offices of Aylesbury Rural District Council [1] to accommodate the sheer number
of people involved and lasted 51 days. The scale
of the trail combined with media coverage and the image of these gangsters and
their ‘mols’ began their legend and their appearance in the public eye.
Miniskirt wearing wives of the prisoners dressed to the nines as they were
escorted to the courtroom like footballers wives.
The climax of the trial
really showed the far reaching extent of the robbery, as Mr Justice Edmund
Davies proclaimed the robbery to be “a
crime of sordid violence inspired by vast greed". [2] He then went
on to pronounce 30 year sentences for the main instigators of the heist such as
Gordon Goody and Charles Wilson, causing a great shock to not only the members
of the court but the whole nation. 
To this day the harshness of those sentences is not only a
point of contention but another reason those men became so infamous. A trial
that split a country in two as many people believed the sentences were far too
harsh for a robbery and this highlighted the feeling of resentment against the
establishment, a feeling that defined the sixties as a decade. These men took
on the establishment, stole from her Majesty’s Royal Mail and the establishment
bit back.
To this day the harshness of those sentences is not only a
point of contention but another reason those men became so infamous. A trial
that split a country in two as many people believed the sentences were far too
harsh for a robbery and this highlighted the feeling of resentment against the
establishment, a feeling that defined the sixties as a decade. These men took
on the establishment, stole from her Majesty’s Royal Mail and the establishment
bit back.
[Front page news]
References
[1]Russell-Pavier, Nick, and Stewart
Richards. 2013. The Great Train Robbery. London: Phoenix, Chapter 23, Page 6.
[2] Russell-Pavier, Nick, and Stewart
Richards. 2013. The Great Train Robbery. London: Phoenix, Chapter 33, Page 8.
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