The curse of the Great Train Robbery

In the early hours of 8 August 1963, a crime took place which simultaneously captured the imagination of the general public, and shook the British Establishment to the core, in a way that no criminal event had ever done before.

The Great Train Robbery, as it subsequently became known, involved the audacious high-jacking of one of Her Majesty's mail trains, netting the sixteen strong gang over GBP2.6 million, equivalent to almost GBP50 million in 2016.

One by one, thanks to the tenacity of the Scotland Yard Flying Squad officers charged with bringing the perpetrators to justice, all known members of the gang were brought to trial and, with one exception, were subsequently convicted and sentenced to imprisonment.

However, there was a great deal of public outrage at the length of the some of the sentences handed out by the trial judge, with many of the gang facing the prospect of up to 30 years in prison.

Yet, for many of those involved both directly and indirectly in the Great Train Robbery, the story does not end there. Over the coming years, a series of tragedies, misfortunes, illnesses and downright bad luck were to blight the lives of a significant number of the guilty and the innocent.

The Curse of the Great Train Robbery tells the thrilling story of the robbery and reveals the series of subsequent events which will leave readers to ponder whether this was a crime which was both cursed and doomed to fail from the very outset.