Great Train Robbery evidence

In the early hours of 8 August 1963, at Bridego Bridge near Ledburn, Buckinghamshire. The Glasgow-to-Euston Travelling Post Office was stopped and 120 mailbags were taken. The official sum was about £2.6 million in used notes.

Most of the gang were convicted at Aylesbury in 1964, including Charles Wilson, Roy James, Ronald 'Buster' Edwards and others, with terms up to thirty years. Bruce Reynolds, the planner, was caught in 1968. Ronnie Biggs was convicted, escaped in 1965 and returned to Britain in 2001.

Only in part. Police found some cash at Leatherslade Farm and in later arrests. A large share of the £2.6 million never came back to the Royal Mail or the banks. Convictions and full restitution are different outcomes.

Mills, the train driver, was assaulted during the stop and became the public victim of the night. He returned to work but was remembered as a man whose health never fully recovered. This atlas records the injury without graphic detail. He died in 1970.

A Buckinghamshire farm the gang used as a hideout after the robbery. Police found it days later. Debris and fingerprints there became central exhibits. The farm is geography in the case, not a puzzle.

Because he escaped from Wandsworth Prison in 1965, reached Brazil and lived as a tabloid exile for decades. He was already a convicted robber. Celebrity attached to the escape, not to a claim of innocence.