The Great Train Robbery (39 page)

Judge:
Mr Justice Edmund Davies

Counsel:

Mr Arthur James QC, Mr Niall MacDermot QC, Mr Howard Sabin and Mr Desmond Fennell appeared for the prosecution.

Mr William Sime QC and Mr Edward Eyre appeared for the accused William Gerald Boal.

Mr John Mathew and Mr John Speed appeared for the accused Charles Frederick Wilson.

Mr Wilfred Fordham and Mr Cyril Salmon appeared for the accused Ronald Arthur Biggs

Mr Joseph Grieves QC and the Hon. Patrick Pakenham appeared for the accused Thomas William Wisbey.

Mr Frederick Ashe Lincoln QC and Mr Joseph Gamgee appeared for the accused Robert Alfred Welch.

Mr R. Kilner Brown QC and Mr Gavin Freeman appeared for the accused James Hussey.

Mr Walter Raeburn QC, Mr Wilfred Fordham and Mr John Speed appeared for the accused John Thomas Daly.

Mr William Howard and Mr John Speed appeared for the accused Roy John James.

Mr Sebag Shaw QC, Mr Wilfred Fordham and Mr Cyril Salmon appeared for the accused Douglas Gordon Goody.

Mr Lewis Hawser QC, Mr Ivor Richards and Mr George Hazledine appeared for the accused Brian Arthur Field.

Mr Michael Argyle QC and Mr Edwin Jowitt appeared for the accused Leonard Dennis Field.

Mr Graham Swanwick QC and Mr Felix Waley appeared for the accused John Denby Wheater.

Statement by Dr Ian Holden

I am a Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Science, a Bachelor of Science, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, and a Principal Scientific Officer at the Metropolitan Police Laboratory.

On Thursday 29 August 1963 I received at New Scotland Yard, from Detective Constable Milner, Buckinghamshire Constabulary, Aylesbury, items from Leatherslade Farm. On 19 September 1963 at Buckinghamshire Headquarters, Aylesbury, in company with Detective Constable Milner, I examined the large new Land Rover. I removed a sample of yellow paint found smeared on the pedals of this vehicle. I also took a sample of the Khaki top coat of paint from this Land Rover.

On 28 September 1963 in company with Detective Chief Superintendent CO, C8 and PC Cullen, Buckinghamshire Constabulary, I went to Leatherslade Farm and examined the large open garage and took samples of the yellow paints on the floor of the garage.

I examined the exhibits I had received together with the various samples I had taken myself. The rubber soles of the shoes had raised lines across the soles to form a pattern of squares. This pattern had been worn away from the main tread area of the soles. There was khaki paint on the shoes of Goody which had gone on in the wet condition. It was mainly on the right shoe under the instep and along the outer edge of the rubber sole. There was a small spot of khaki paint on the top of the right shoe and on an area on the inner aspect of the edge of the sole near the toe of the left shoe. The paint appeared to have been sufficiently wet to run down the sides of the soles. Some of the khaki paint under the instep of the right shoe was free from contamination and was found to be identical in colour and chemical composition with the khaki top coat of paint from the large Land Rover taken by Detective Constable Milner and by myself.

There was an area of yellow paint under the instep of the right shoe of Goody and some small circular areas of yellow paint under the toe of the left shoe where they were partially protected by the remain of the raised lines of the sole pattern. This yellow paint on the shoes had gone on in the wet condition and would be consistent with the wearer of the shoes treading on an area splashed with this yellow paint.

This paint under the instep of Goody's shoes was mixed with fine mineral material. This mixture had the same colour and chemical composition as the paint and fine mineral mixture from the pedals of the Land Rover and the paint and fine mineral material from the large area on the floor of the garage at Leatherslade Farm.

The uncontaminated paint separated from this mixture on the floor of the garage, the paint splashed on the floor at the rear of the garage, the paint from the squashed tin and the yellow paints from the large lorry were identical in colour and chemical composition.
4

At the trial, alternative forensic evidence was placed before the court:

The Defence for Goody called before the Court Mr Cecil Hancorn Robbins BSc FRIC, a director of Hehner & Cox Ltd, Fenchurch Street, City of London, who are consulting and analytical chemists.

He was called to negative the evidence given by Dr Holden that the paint on Goody's shoes was identical with yellow paint contaminated with mineral found on the floor of the garage at Leatherslade Farm and khaki paint found on the Land Rover at Leatherslade Farm. Mr Robbins tried to do this by disputing the interpretations by Dr Holden of spectra of paints which he and Mr Robbins had prepared from samples taken from exhibits. Mr Robbins summarised his findings regarding the khaki point in this way:

(1)  In two spectra of paint prepared from samples taken from the Land Rover, one by Dr Holden and one by himself, there were lines of chromium in strong intensity.

(2)  a spectrum of rubber without paint prepared from a sample taken from the shoes, there were lines of chromium of less intensity and,

(3)  a spectrum of soil without paint prepared from a sample taken from the shoes, there were lines of equal intensity as those in (2),

(4)  a spectrum of paint prepared from a sample taken from the shoes, there were lines of less intensity than (2) and (3).

He argued that the chromium lines in (4) were the result of contamination from the surface of the shoe when the sample of point was scraped off and that chromium was not a constituent of that paint. He said, therefore, the paint on the Land Rover and that on the shoes were different paints.

Mr Robbins summarised his findings regarding the yellow paint by saying that having examined the spectra, prepared by Dr Holden, he could not pledge himself to a distinction between the point taken from the lorry and the paint taken from the shoes. They had the same composition.

The Defence then called to the box Mr Douglas Nicholas who is employed at the Fulmer Research Institute at Stoke Poges in Buckinghamshire. He is an Investigator in charge of the Department of Spectroscopy. His qualifications are by experience and not by academic diploma. Mr Nicholas agreed with the readings of Mr Robbins of the spectra relating to the khaki paint and said that it seemed likely that there were difference in the compositions of the khaki paint taken from the Land Rover and the Khaki paint taken from the shoes. He said he was not an expert on paints and could not say whether it could be accounted for by the fact that the samples may have come from different parts of the same pot of paint. He agreed it would depend on whether the paint was a homogeneous mixture. He concluded by saying that if they had been the same paint he would have expected the spectra to have been identical.
5

The Metropolitan police consisted of four departments each headed by an assistant commissioner:

A Department — Administration

B Department — Traffic

C Department — CID

D Department — Recruitment and Personnel

C Department, the department referred to throughout this book, was in turn subdivided into divisions:

C1 — Murder Squad

C2 — Crime Correspondence

C3 — Fingerprints

C4 — Criminal Records Office

C5 — CID Policy

C6 — Company Fraud Squad

C7 — Laboratory

C8 — Flying Squad

C9 — Provincial Crime Branch

C10 — Stolen Car Squad

C11 — Criminal Intelligence

Notes

  
1
.  
The Times
, 21/2/70.

  
2
.  Statement of the West Cheshire coroner in ruling that there was no reason to hold an inquest into the death of Jack Mills, who died on 4 February 1970 at Barony Hospital, Nantwich, Cheshire (Ellis, Ellis & Bolton solicitors, Crewe).

  
3
.  HO 287/1496 (originally closed until 1995; opened 1996).

  
4
.  DPP 2/3718, 2 of 6 (originally closed until 2045; redacted version

25/6/10).

  
5
.  DPP 2/3717, Report 17 (originally closed until 2045; redacted version 25/6/10).

  
6
.  ASSI 13/658 (opened 1994).

Biggs, Ronnie,
Keep on Running
(Bloomsbury, 1995)

Biggs, Ronnie,
Odd Man Out
(M Press, 2011)

Biggs, Ronnie,
His Own Story
(Sphere, 1981)

Clarkson, Wensley,
Killing Charlie
(Mainstream Publishing, 2006)

Coates, Tim,
The Great British Train Robbery
(SP, 2003)

Delano, Anthony,
Slip-Up
(Coronet, 1986)

Fewtrell, Malcolm,
The Train Robbers
(Arthur Barker, 1964)