by Jim Morris
The same writer above, even used the term “avaricious violence” to describe the acts of one of the great train robbers, which is completely out of place. But the claims of the use of violence in the Great Train Robbery continued to cling to the story, and this never did Jack Mills any good; nor has it really done anyone else a service except in the selling of books.
But think about smashing a vodka bottle over someone’s head: that is gratuitous. And hitting someone with a mallet defies description. As for threatening to bite a man’s testicles . . . And what could have happened to the daughter is too terrifying to contemplate. Taken together, this might be approaching “avaricious”. One can make a definite distinction between the crimes, but armed robbery is armed robbery. But the sentences given strongly support the contention ‘The greater the amount of money stolen, then the greater evil the crime.’ Money is above people.
Both firms attacked innocent people and stole money. So then one might expect similar sentences. But the maximum sentence for any of this gang was half of what the great train robbers received.
The crime was one of forty-odd committed by Billy ‘the Snake’ Amies, and some of his firm were sentenced to fifteen years. Mr Amies became a super-grass to save his own neck and got a five-year sentence, of which he served two years. Some of the people he grassed on said his evidence was a pack of lies; one heard a jury agree that his evidence was a pack of lies. His name was Bobby Welch and he was still on parole for his role in the Great Train Robbery.
It’s all very well for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to arrange lenient sentences for the so-called ‘super-grasses’. But there should have been some consideration as to whether their information would lead to a conviction, or whether it would lead to a huge amount of taxpayers’ money slipping down the drain.
In the spring of 1977, Mrs Elfie Loughren was robbed of cash and jewellery worth £16,548 at her home near Preston in Lancashire. According to Mr Amies, part of the jewellery stolen was sold to a London car dealer. Mr Amies pointed the finger at Bob Welch, asserting he had bought a ring for £1,200. The charge was strenuously denied, but the police investigated and it was felt that Mr Amies had given enough to bring charges.
The jury heard that Bob had been a villain but was now going straight – he was part of the Great Train Robbery, and he was actually still on parole. It was alleged that Mr Amies made up the allegation because he had a grudge against Bob, the jury were quick to acquit.
So two small things in the shadow of the Great Train Robbery: Bob Welch and company would use violence only as a way to get their prize, and Billy Amies seems to fit the bill of one whose violent tendencies were avaricious.
*
Going briefly back to 1963, one has to ask about police behaviour.
It might not have been late one dark foggy night, but Bob was invited to a meeting with a senior police officer who asked if he’d “’ad a ’oliday”. Bob said he couldn’t afford one at the time, but the officer was persistent, and said Bob wasn’t to come back until the officer told him he could. Bob took the advice: he said he arranged for someone to look after his money and after that he “ran”!
In 1978, when a couple of documentaries were broadcast, a panel of two police officers and a journalist was pulled together to discuss one of the documentaries. As part of the research for the programme, the BBC contacted an inspector of police (not a police inspector as in the rank). When asked to comment on the claim that Bobby (and Buster Edwards) were told to “. . . take a’oliday”, he said it was possible this had happened. One of the panellists, John Alderson, who was chief constable for Devon and Cornwall, was adamant that crime corrupts – it does. But he asserted that the criminal must have come to the police officer, and that the police officer would not offer to look the other way, or lose a piece of evidence, or even change a hat for one several sizes bigger, as happened with Gordon Goody.
It was interesting to see Mr Alderson deal with the questions, because one point made a little later was on the public perception of the police hunt for the great train robbers. When the comment was made that the public might think that the police should concentrate on burglars who destroy people’s homes, rather than train robbers or organised crime, he completely disregarded the point, I might almost say that the point didn’t seem to register with him.
*
In prison Bobby and Tom went on hunger strike to protest against the conditions they were kept in. Home Secretary Jim Callaghan visited them, and he was quite open about his dislike of the conditions they were incarcerated in. But he told them “. . . if any of you escape, my head’s gone”. So with this acknowledgement that they were not being treated as they should came the message ‘hard luck’.
And so, after the hunger strikes, when the conditions hadn’t improved, Bobby and Tommy were part of a plot to escape from Leicester Prison. The plot wasn’t successful, and several prisoners got stuck on top of a wall, whereupon it started to rain.
*
While Tommy and the other two were away, the media operated a ‘gone but not forgotten’ policy. By the early part of 1966, Tommy was in Durham, and Rene (Irene) his wife was struggling on. She missed only a couple of visits in the twelve-odd years he was away, mainly because she was ill. Tommy had shares in a betting shop, so Rene had something of an income from this – she also worked in the shop in the afternoons for a few extra pounds.
With Marilyn and Lorraine, Rene lived in a council flat in Camberwell. Her main problem to begin with was the effect of the publicity on the school bullies: the girls would often come home upset at what had been said: “Your dad’s a train robber . . .” Rene moved them to a different school, which helped, and they settled.
Both Tommy and Bobby rebelled at the conditions they were in. For the first two years they were mainly in solitary confinement, with nothing but the cell walls for company. Tommy had always been a robust individual, but he lost an alarming amount of weight, and by early 1966 Rene said he was as “. . . thin as a rake”.
*
Roger got his divorce, and while in prison he took an interest in tropical fish, researching and breeding. He was paroled in 1971. Bobby, who was at Shrewsbury, was also divorced in prison, and he busied himself with writing books for local kids with sight problems: but the press attacked it.
Following sentences of twenty-five years for conspiracy and thirty years for robbery, both Bobby and Tom appealed but the appeals were rejected. Following stays in no less that twelve prisons, Tom finished up at Maidstone, from where he was paroled on Monday 15 March 1976. Bobby Welch left Gartree Prison in Leicester on Monday 14 June. Early in his sentence he was called to the ‘guvner’s’ office and told that the fine for the irregularities in the licencing laws from the New Crown Club hadn’t been paid, so the magistrates had sentenced him to three months imprisonment in absentia; when he was told this he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
It is unknown what happened to the character known as Frank Munroe.
*
There was yet another ‘first’ in the case, or at any rate, in the lives and times of the great train robbers.
Bob Welch had married Helen (Pat) Ludgate in 1950, but the couple couldn’t conceive. Bob was brought up to be loyal, so he couldn’t face the thought of leaving her. So he just let things drift, opened the club and employed a young lady as a barmaid with whom he started a relationship. It is unclear whether Pat knew, but Bob would later tell police he spent nights at his girlfriends home.
When Bob was sentenced to thirty years, to all intents and purposes it put paid to the marriage. But in 1969 Pat said she’d met someone else and so she wanted a divorce: whether she had met someone is not known. Bob agreed to the divorce, but in those days couples needed a good reason, not simply living apart. In July of 1969, a judge granted her a decree nisi. Pat brought the case under the heading of ‘cruelty’ and Mr Justice Barrington ruled:
“I am satisfied that the crime, which I accept was not one in w
hich the petitioner herself participated, was of such grave and weighty nature it was likely to cause the wife injury to her health... and that amounts to legal cruelty.”
So the crime which attracted a thirty year sentence was considered cruel to wives and partners. But this begs the question as to whether the crime itself was ‘cruel’ or was it the sentences? I merely identify the question.
A legal expert commented that this might “. . . set a precedent for other wives whose husbands are serving long sentences”.
On Bob’s release from prison, the barmaid with whom he’d had a relationship became his second wife; they’d had a son.
*
So the South Coast Raiders were no more. Like many other enterprises, they started off small and found some success, but were then swallowed up by a larger conglomerate! The others were rounded up, or some of them were, and the lesser conspirators eventually started to leave Her Majesty’s.
I mentioned earlier that the amalgamation of the two firms wasn’t a match made in heaven. And it wasn’t. But some of the individual gang members struck up good friendships with the members of the other firm. That took time, as for the best part of two years they could only count the days with the cell walls in solitary confinement for company. Any idea they could, for instance, have got together to get Bill Boal (sort of a bystander, imprisoned for conspiracy among other ‘crimes’) out of prison shows a complete lack of understanding of his predicament and theirs, and how the English legal system works; one might almost say it was naïve.
The same commentator openly criticised and seemed to me to relish the opportunity to ridicule earlier writers, which was as unfair as it was unpleasant. We now have open files at the National Archive and the Postal Archive for any research – the earlier writers didn’t. But this begs the question as to why there are so many factual errors in his book.
How and ever the train robbers passed into history – and some have passed into the next world – and discussions about the Great Train Robbery will continue. But it has to be remembered that the South Coast Raiders were a big part of the robbery and its history.