The Great Train Robbery (17 page)

If the tip about the two informers being Irish was correct, then the two men on the list who were both Irish and had brothers were Michael Lyttle and Thomas McCarthy. Both men were, therefore, thoroughly investigated, as a memo written by IB controller Clifford Osmond makes clear:

It will be remembered that on the 29 August 1963 information came to hand at New Scotland Yard suggesting that information concerning the number of HVP bags carried on the Up Special TPO or likely to be carried, had been given to the bandits by a member of the Post Office staff who travelled on the train that night and the only clue given by the informant was that the man on the train had passed the information to his brother who was an Irishman.

Of the 16 Irishmen who travelled on the Up Special TPO that night, only 3 would in normal course have had access to the HVP coach and 2 of those were:-

(a)  Michael Raymond Lyttle, PHG who travelled from Carlisle to London, and who lives at 79 Watcombe Road, London SE25, and

(b)  Thomas McCarthy, PHG Glasgow, who travelled from Glasgow to Crewe and who lives at 16 Egilsay Crescent, Glasgow.

It is important that observation is urgently maintained upon the movements of both these officers in order to establish whether or not either is spending money more freely now than he did before the robbery took place. I should like to have IB Assistants allocated to this work without delay and reports submitted to me via Mr Edwards, as soon as possible.

Lyttle, Michael Raymond

Joined train at Carlisle. Employed in No 5 coach (No 3 Division). Would have been due officially to visit HVP coach.

General Information:

Speaks with cockney accent. Lives with his wife (believed to be Irish) and two children (two girls – 4 years and 2 years respectively) at the home of his wife’s mother (Mrs Phyliss I Letts). Lyttle’s father – Patrick Joseph, has married again and resides at 45 Watcombe Road, SE25.

Michael Raymond Lyttle is a heavy spender and drinks heavily, mostly at The Gladstone, Portland Road, SE25, and attends a working man’s club at 12 Enmore Road, Norbury. He appears to borrow money at the beginning of each week. He owns an old Alvis car, index No KPO264.

No further information has been forthcoming on his brother Kevin Edward Lyttle, but Vincent Lyttle is believed to live at 210 Durnley Drive, New Addington. No CRO but thought to mix with ‘wide boys’ in the West End.

McCarthy, Thomas

Joined train at Glasgow, left at Crewe. Employed mainly in No 4 coach (Division 4). During the journey however he assisted in HVP at Carlisle Station owing to heavy transfer of mails.

General Information:

No obvious Irish accent. Lives with his wife and two children (10 and 12 years respectively) in a terraced house which he rents from Glasgow Corporation. He is not regarded too highly locally as he is known to drink and gamble frequently. Apart from this, there is no evidence of excessive spending.
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Could one of these two men be the ‘insider’? Lyttle lived in
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outh London, an area associated with a number of the train robbery suspects, and his brother was possibly mixing with members of the criminal fraternity in London’s West End clubs. McCarthy, on the other hand, lived in Glasgow, which, according to an IB report, was also closely tied to ongoing enquiries:

... there is evidence that Reynolds and Daly flew together to Glasgow in May 1963. If that trip had anything to do with the planning of this offence it might mean that a Post Office or Railway accomplice lives in Glasgow.
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While Lyttle and McCarthy’s links to the train robbers were purely speculative, IB enquiries turned next to a man whom C11 at Scotland Yard believed had concrete links to one of the robbers:

Detective Chief Inspector Walker also reported to me that he had ascertained that Welch or his associates had gained information regarding transit of mails from a man in the Post Office at Mount Pleasant. Furthermore, that this man had formerly been the Secretary of the local union and had been in trouble with the Police for attacking a woman with a knife.

In pursuing this aspect I established that Thomas John Foley, CRO 36217/50 formerly a PHG at the London Parcel Section had in fact been previously employed at the Inland Section and had held the office of Secretary of the IS Branch of the UPW. Foley was suspended from duty following Police action on 10 November 1962. The CRO File on Foley shows that he was born in Southern Ireland on 26 April 1925. His associates in crime have been:-

The CRO Files of the above mentioned have been examined and it has been established that Denis Foley was represented by Messrs Wontner and Son, Solicitors, West Central 2, and there is no evidence that James, Wheater & Co or Brian Field have been concerned in defending either of the Foley brothers.

The possibility that Foley was the source from which the robbery gang attacked the Up Special TPO has been discussed at various times with Detective Chief Superintendent Butler. He is quite sceptical about the information given by the informants of both Detective Superintendent Walker and Commander Hatherill,
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but he agreed with me that further enquiry to alleviate any suspicion was in fact warranted. I promised to acquaint him with the result of the enquiries in due course. Some further enquiry is, it is thought, called for and this File is now being passed to Mr Edwards.

I have discussed this case with DI Huntley of C11. Foley obtained for Welch two postmen’s hats which were taken to his address. There is no information connecting Foley with the Great Train Robbery. On 8 August 1963 he had been in prison for 4 months serving a sentence of 3 years imposed by the CCC on 29/3/63.
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With Thomas Foley now effectively eliminated from the enquiry by virtue of his current tenure at Wandsworth Prison, IB controller Clifford Osmond returned to the conundrum of Hatherill’s tip about the Goody phone call:

In order for this information to be accurate, the man on the train would be required to pass his information to his brother either at Preston or Warrington and, in that event, it would be necessary for the TPO man to assess that a total of 100 bags would be available at Cheddington. This would not be a difficult assessment to make for any skilled TPO officer.

Inquiries so far made by both Police and the Investigation Branch have failed to find any TPO officer who fits the bill but some special inquiry should now be made about Leslie Oliver Penn, PHG who lives at 147 Lucas Avenue, Chelmsford, who was in the HVP coach at the time of the attack. Copies of the statements already made by Mr Penn are enclosed in this separate file in order to facilitate these further inquiries. The important features of Mr Penn’s statements can be summed up by the fact that he has two brothers with criminal records – ie, William Arthur James Penn of 13 Sheffton Road, London N1, and Cyril Edward Penn, who is said to be living at Peabody Buildings, London.

The other fact calling for some inquiry is that Mr Penn has a brother who lives at Warrington – ie, John Owen Penn who is said to be 39 years of age but whose address not been quoted, although he is described as a lorry driver. As the Up Special TPO stopped at Warrington at 11.36 that night, it is important that some inquiry should be made in the town concerning the background and movements of John Owen Penn and some special trace should be set in motion in an effort to prove whether or not any telephone call was made from Warrington between 11 pm and midnight on the 7 August to a London subscriber or to a Pangbourne subscriber, or perhaps to Arthur James Penn, another brother who lives at 86 Windsor Avenue, Hillingdon, Middlesex, and who at one time was a member of the Post Office staff.

It will be seen, therefore, that in some ways the information to hand could fit Mr Leslie Oliver Penn, PHG but so far there is no information to suggest that any of the Penns are Irish themselves or have Irish connexions. This is a matter which should receive attention during the forthcoming inquiry into this aspect of the mail train robbery.
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Within a week, IB officer Dennis Geall, who had been despatched to Warrington, reported back to Osmond:

Enquiries at Warrington made in connection with Leslie Oliver Penn’s brother have identified him as John Owen Penn of 4 Prestbury Drive, Thelwall, Warrington. Penn’s date of birth is 24 April, 1923 and he is employed as a long distant lorry driver by G L Baker, Ltd (Transport), Thelwall Lane, Warrington. John Owen Penn has a CRO No 16711/41 and the address quoted on that form, ie, 26E, Peabody Buildings, Roscoe Street, London, EC1, was given by Penn in his application for a mortgage to the Halifax Building Society.

Penn was on holiday during the week ended 10 August, and at present it has been established that he was away from his home on 5 and 6 August, and returned on 7 August, but his whereabouts during his absence have not been ascertained. During my enquiries, I received active co-operation from the Warrington police and Cheshire County, Stockton Heath Sub Division, Police who, should they obtain any further information in respect of Penn, will convey it to this Branch via G C Molsom, Esq, the Head Postmaster of Warrington.

I should perhaps mention that the Manager of Messrs Baker’s Depot in Thelwall Lane is not well regarded by the Warrington police and, in the event of further enquiries having to be made by this Branch, of his employers, it is suggested that local police be approached in the first instance.
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Osmond finally closed the file on the Penn brothers when he received further reports that seemed to put them in the clear:

It has been ascertained that no outgoing telephone calls whatsoever are recorded as having been made from the Warrington area between 11.00 pm and midnight on the 7 August 1963, to either a Pangbourne or Hillingdon (Uxbridge) telephone number. In so far as calls to London exchanges are concerned such calls would normally be made by means of the STD systems but nevertheless it has been confirmed that no ticketed calls are recorded against that area during the relative period.

Enquiries have also been made in an attempt to establish whether or not the firm of James & Wheater Solicitors represented any one of the Penn brothers in the course of the criminal proceedings instituted against them in the past, the most recent of which took place on the 2 March 1961. In this connexion it has been ascertained that prior to the 1 May 1961 when Mr J D Wheater entered his present firm and undertook criminal practice for the first time since he became a solicitor on the 1 March 1949, he was engaged solely on civil actions and in the circumstances it would appear probable that he was not in a position to have been concerned in any of the prosecutions against the Penn brothers.
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Having hit another dead end, Clifford Osmond resolved to return to square one and search for the origin of the Goody phone call:

While I feel that this information in some respect or other cannot be completely accurate, we must do our best to test it out step by step. Hence, all telephone calls made from stations on the route of the mail train have been checked and one leg of the inquiry dealt with in these papers concerns a telephone call recorded as having been made at about 10 pm on the 7 August from a public call box situated in the Prince of Wales Hotel, Drury Lane, Rugby, to another public house in the village of Wicken, which is only a few miles from Cheddington where the attack took place.

An examination has, therefore, been made of all ticketed calls made, before and after the attack, from the Prince of Wales Hotel, Rugby, and in the course of those investigations it was found that calls are frequently made to J C S Boyd, 18 Redcar Street, Belfast 6 (Tel: Belfast 56398). This was an interesting feature, to say the least, because information reaching the Police suggests that an Irishman is in some way concerned with this leakage of information. In those circumstances, we have now examined the ticketed calls made in turn from Boyd’s Belfast telephone and a copy is enclosed together with a copy of the ticketed calls made from the Prince of Wales Hotel, Rugby.

It is important to establish what Mr Boyd does for a living and as much information as possible about his background, remembering that this might very well be an innocent aspect of the case. At the same time it will be seen from the attached lists of telephone calls that calls have been made from both the Belfast and Rugby numbers to Harthill 390 – subscriber G S Bowie, 16 Westbenhar Road, Harthill, Lanark. In those circumstances, it is essential also to find out what Mr Bowie does for a living and as much information about his background. During these investigations, which must be made with great discretion, it is essential that a report should be submitted urgently if Mr Boyd or Mr Bowie turns out to be a member of the Post Office staff or a railway employee or to have connexions with the Post Office or railway.
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This seemed to be an intriguing possibility and one that made a great deal of circumstantial sense so far as Hatherill’s tip-off was concerned. As a result of further extensive investigations, Osmond committed the results to paper:

Post Office Insider – Bowie

In the course of following up inquiries into the possibility of inside information having been passed to a member of the mail train gang to a spot not far from Cheddington, all telephone calls made from places at which the train stopped on its journey from Glasgow to London were checked as it was found that a call was recorded as having been made at 10.06 pm on the evening of the 7 August from a renter’s call box situated in the Prince of Wales public house, Drury Lane, Rugby to another public house – ie, The Fox and Hounds, Denes Hanger, Wolverton, which is not very far from the scene of the crime. It is, of course, true that the Up Special TPO had not reached Rugby by 10.06 pm. that night. Nevertheless, some inquiry should be made to see whether or not the barman at the Fox and Hounds can identify any of the published photographs or describe strangers who might be in such a small village that night. The second leg of such an inquiry should be directed to establishing the identity of G S Bowie, who lives at 15 Westbenhar Rd, Hartill, Lankshire (Tel: 390). The reason for such inquiry is that there has been information from time to time that the leakage took place by an Irishman and it is found that frequent calls are made from the Prince of Wales public house, Drury Lane, Rugby, to Mr J G S Boyd, 18 Redcar Street, Belfast, to Bowie frequent calls are also made by Mr Boyd in Belfast to Mr Bowie in Scotland and to the public house in Rugby. It would be sufficient I think, if it were established beyond any doubt what Mr Bowie does for a living and in particular that he is not a member of the Post Office staff or a Railway employee.
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