The heist in 1963, involving the Glasgow to London mail train, netted the gang a haul worth £48million in today’s money. Yet the man who became most closely associated with the crime was only a peripheral figure in its execution.
Captured and sent to Wandsworth Prison, Ronald Biggs escaped his incarceration by climbing over a wall in 1965 and eventually fled to Brazil via Australia. In the capital Rio de Janeiro he managed to live anonymously.
However in early 1974 the Daily Express received a tip-off and reporter Colin Mackenzie was dispatched to South America. Scotland Yard arrived soon afterwards in the form of Detective Chief Superintendent Jack Slipper, who had made it his mission to bring Biggs home to serve the remaining 28 years of his sentence…