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The crime is still surrounded by myths on the 50th anniversary
Ronnie Biggs, one of the Great Train Robbers, in police custody in 1963
 
It is the 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery, on Thursday. Even after all this time, many myths surround it. A new compilation, the Great Train Robbery 50th Anniversary, compiled by Nick Reynolds, son of the robbery’s architect, Bruce, who died earlier this year – and with contributions from the late robber and Ronnie Biggs – hopes to put the record straight. Here are 10 things you (quite possibly) didn’t know about it.
1. The Bernie Ecclestone connection
Completely unfounded rumours about the involvement of the Formula One supremo have circulated for years, prompting him to make the cheery denial that “there wasn’t enough money on that train”. There is a tiny connection in that one of the robbers, the late Roy James, who had been a professional racing driver, wrote from prison to the former champion Graham Hill, asking for help with his career when he came out. He was told he was wasting his time if he hoped to return to the track. But James was an accomplished silversmith and ended up making trophies.
2. Those 30-year sentences
Jailing the robbers in 1964, Mr Justice Edmund Davies told them that “to deal with this case leniently would be a positively evil thing” and duly sent most of them down for 30 years. Yet the previous year the same judge had reduced the sentence on appeal of one Charles Connelly, who had been involved in a robbery in which a van driver in Mitcham, Surrey, was shot dead. Cutting his term from 15 to 10 years, Davies said: “The sentence was excessive.”
3. Brighton rocked
After Biggs and Charlie Wilson escaped from prison, the author Graham Greene wrote to the Daily Telegraph saying: “Am I one of a minority in feeling admiration for the skill and courage behind the Great Train Robbery? More important, am I in a minority in being shocked by the savagery of the sentences?”
4. The Nazi connection
The robbers negotiated a substantial financial deal for co-operating with the author Piers Paul Read on his 1978 book The Train Robbers. To justify their large advance they invented a story that Otto Skorzeny, the man who organised the ex-Nazi escape network Odessa, had financed the robbery, a hoax that Read only learned of when he went to Brazil to interview Biggs. In fact, it was Bruce Reynolds who put up the necessary money to finance the robbery; it worked out at just £38 per head which he jokingly asked the robbers to refund him afterwards. There was a tangential connection here in that Biggs and another robber, Buster Edwards, got plastic surgery while on the run from a doctor who had remodelled the faces of fleeing Nazis.
5. The unsung victim
While many recall the name of Jack Mills, the driver hit over the head during the robbery – who died of leukaemia, unrelated to the attack, seven years later – few remember the name of his assistant, David Whitby. He died of a heart attack eight years later at the age of just 34.
6. The Colin Firth connection
Steady on – the actor was not quite three when the robbery took place. But on the run, Bruce Reynolds needed new names and identities for himself, his wife and his son, Nick, as they fled to Mexico and Canada. They took the surname Firth and Nick became Colin Firth.
7. The getaway car
British Leyland ran an ad for their Mini in 1979 with the slogan “Nips in and out like Ronnie Biggs” and placed one of the posters near the flower stall of Edwards in Waterloo.
Members of the public complained but the Advertising Standards Authority supposedly only queried whether BL had got Biggs’s permission to use his name.
8. The video game
Bruce Reynolds and Biggs were signed up to produce a Great Train Robbery video game in 1999 but it never came to fruition. There is, however, a zombie-themed board game called The Great Brain Robbery. (The robbers played Monopoly at their post-robbery hideout, leaving incriminating fingerprints on the board.)
9. The lawsuit
One robber, Gordon Goody, now living in Spain, sued the People from prison for suggesting he had “coerced an innocent and decent young woman” into taking part in the robbery. He won the case and received £2 in damages.
10. Odd man in
While four of the robbers were never caught, one of the men convicted, Bill Boal, was not actually involved in the robbery at all. He was arrested because of his links to the robber Roger Cordrey. Boal was found with some of the stolen money which he claimed he had because Cordrey was repaying a debt. He died in prison in 1970, still protesting his innocence. Now his family are considering a posthumous appeal and preparing a file for the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
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Brink’s-Mat Robbery
The Brink’s-Mat raid was the robbery of the century, the stuff of legends in the criminal underworld. On November 26, 1983, a group of robbers burst into the Brink’s-Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport, expecting to find a decent-sized haul of cash – but instead they stumbled upon nearly seven thousand gold bars worth £28 million. More than twenty-five years later, £20 million of bullion remains unrecovered, and it is thought that most people in possession of gold jewellery made in the UK after 1983 are wearing Brink’s-Mat
Scene: 1983 police van and officers
 
Fool’s Gold: The curse of the Brink’s-Mat gold bullion robbery
More than 20 people whose lives were touched by the bullion have met an untimely, often gruesome end since the record-breaking raid, an investigation has revealed.
When veterans of London’s criminal underworld meet, they grimly refer to the Brink’s-Mat millions as Fool’s Gold.
Just after dawn on November 26, 1983, six armed men burst into the Brink’s-Mat warehouse at Heathrow expecting to find £3million in cash.
Instead they stumbled across nearly seven thousand gold ingots, worth nearly £28million.
The heist turned them into some of Britain’s richest men and filled the pockets of countless other crooks as the gold was melted down and the money laundered to fund shady activities such as drug smuggling.
Just three out of 15 men involved in planning and executing the robbery were ever convicted – robbers “Mad” Mickey McAvoy and Brian “The Colonel” Robinson and security guard insider Tony Black, Robinson’s brother in law.
 
 
 
The vast majority of the gold – worth over £500million at today’s prices – has never been recovered.
But nearly 30 years on, most of those involved have come to regret the day they ever came into contact with the Brink’s-Mat bullion.
More than 20 people connected to the heist are dead.
They include an ex-policeman who ended up with an axe in his head, an underworld figure gunned down on his yacht off Corfu and an enforcer now believed to be part of the foundations of the O2 Arena in London.
A senior detective who worked on the investigation said he was never surprised by the brutal murders.
He said: “These villains were out of control, many of them off their heads on drugs bought with their new-found riches.
“The trouble was that when that money either ran out, or in the case of some of them, never materialised, there was only one way to respond – to kill people to show others that even 25 years after the robbery, if they dared to cross the gang they would still pay with their life.”
 
Bullion: The heist gang came into riches
 
The book, The Curse of Brink’s-Mat: Twenty-five years of Murder and Mayhem  by Wensley Clarkson, traces the fate of the men whose lives became entwined with the case.
It tells how the idea of a curse was the last thing on the minds of the six robbers who, after tying up guards at the depot, found riches beyond their wildest dreams.
Robinson, McAvoy, Brian Perry and three other men managed to disable the security alarm and enter the warehouse thanks to “insider” Black, who worked at the depot.
Once inside, they doused the guards with petrol and threatened to set them alight unless they revealed the combinations to the vault, which they knew contained £3million.
But when they got inside, they could hardly believe their eyes. Stacked in front of them were 6,800 gold ingots, hundreds of thousands of pounds, travellers’ cheques and two boxes of diamonds.
The men spent the next two hours loading their battered blue Transit van before making their getaway.
The stolen vehicle creaked under the weight. By the time the alarm was raised 15 minutes later, the robbers and the loot had vanished.
Posh: Brian Perry’s house
 
It seemed like the perfect crime – but none of the gang had experience in gold, so they had to recruit other underworld figures who had. So much was melted down that it is thought that most people with gold jewellery made in the UK after 1993 are wearing Brink’s-Mat.
Soon millions of pounds were flooding the underworld and unleashing a tide of gangland violence and murders from London’s East End to the Costa del Sol.
The effect was not just felt by criminals. The double-strength ecstasy that killed Leah Betts, 18, in 1995 was almost certainly imported using money from the robbery.
Police were certain that the gang must have had inside help and were quick to suspect Black, the last guard to arrive on the morning of the raid.
He confessed that he had provided information and a duplicate key, and named three of the robbers, McAvoy, his brother-in-law Robinson, and a man called Tony White.
Robinson and McAvoy had spent six months planning the crime, but on finding themselves millionaires they aroused suspicions by moving from their council homes to mansions in Kent. McAvoy is reputed to have named two pet rottweilers Brinks and Mat.
In December 1984, Robinson and McAvoy were jailed for 25 years each while Black was sentenced to six years.
But there were still many villains at large and an extraordinary amount of gold – and in the coming years death and betrayal were linked to the infamous robbery.
The first death occurred in 1985, when Kenneth Noye (pictured), recruited for his links to the smelting trade, stabbed an undercover detective John Fordham in his garden.
At the resulting trial, the jury found Noye not guilty of murder on the grounds of self-defence.
He was on trial again in 1986 after police found 11 bars of gold at his home. He got a 14-year sentence.
Cops revealed Shirley Bassey’s hit Goldfinger had been primed to play on the stereo whenever anyone walked into Noye’s lounge.
He is currently serving life for the murder of 21-year-old motorist Stephen Cameron in a road rage attack in front of Cameron’s girlfriend Daniella Cable, 17, near the M25.
The curse has hit many in the criminal underworld including Great Train Robber Charlie Wilson, who was gunned down at his Marbella home after £3million of Brink’s-Mat money went missing in a drug deal.
In 1996, Keith Hedley, a suspected money launderer, was shot dead by three men on his yacht off Corfu.
Two years later, Hatton Garden jeweller Solly Nahome, who had helped move hundreds of gold bars, was also shot dead outside his home.
Perry, who was jailed for handling gold, died after being shot three times in the head in South London at the age of 63 following his release in 2001.
CAUGHT IN THE CURSE
The same year, Brink’s-Mat gang member George Francis, 63, was gunned down at point-blank range in his car outside the courier business he ran in South East London.
Three decades on, the hunt for the missing gold continues. And with a new generation of gangsters looking for it, police believe the death toll will rise.
Most of the bullion is believed to be buried, with only a few old lags knowing the whereabouts.
Most believe it is only a matter of time before the curse of the Brink’s-Mat gold claims its next victim.
 
BRIAN PERRY – Brink’s-Mat gang associate shot dead in Bermondsey, South London, in 2001.
JOHN FORDHAM – Undercover policeman who was stabbed to death in 1985 by Kenneth Noye
SOLLY NAHOME – Bullion smelter was gunned down in 1998 outside his North London home.
KEITH HEDLEY – Money launderer was shot dead by three men on his yacht off Corfu in 1996.
CHARLIE WILSON – Great Train Robber shot at home in Spain in 1990 along with dog.
GILBERT WYNTER – Enforcer who disappeared in 1998 is believed to be in foundations of the O2 Arena in South East London.
NICK WHITING – Suspected “grass” stabbed nine times and then shot twice with a 9mm pistol in 1990.
PAT TATE – Associate of Noye shot dead with two other men in Rettendon, Essex, in 1995.
STEPHEN CAMERON – Stabbed to death by Kenneth Noye in 1996 road rage incident on the M25.
LEAH BETTS – Died in 1995 aged 18 after taking ecstasy thought to have been imported using Brink’s-Mat money.
DAN MORGAN – Ex-cop found dead in South London in 1987.
DONALD URQUHART – Money launderer who was shot by a hitman in West London in 1995.
GEORGE FRANCIS – Publican who handled gold, shot in Bermondsey in 2003.
JOHN MARSHALL – Associate of Noye shot in Sydenham, South London in 1996.
DANNY ROFF – Gangster mown down in Bromley, Kent, in 1997.
SIDNEY WINK – Gun dealer believed to have supplied the guns for the Brink’s-Mat raid committed suicide by shooting himself in 1994.
ALAN DECABRAL – Witness due to give evidence against Noye ended up peppered with bullets in a car park in Ashford, Kent, in 2000.
JOEY WILKINS – Vice king who grassed on Noye died mysteriously in 2007 after an apparent robbery on the Costa del Sol.
ALAN ‘TAFFY’ HOLMES – Brink’s-Mat detective shot himself in 1987.
MICHAEL OLYMBIOUS – Drug dealer ended up dead in 1995.
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