The Great Train Robbery (22 page)

William Edward Coupland born 5 April 1914, the licensee of the Newington Arms Public House, King and Queen Street, Walworth, SE17, originally refused to make a statement but a few days later agreed to make one. Very briefly the statement refutes the suggestion by Wisbey that Coupland could confirm he was in the public house on 7 August 1963 between 9 pm and 11 pm. Coupland says he was out with his wife that evening and that Wisbey's claim could not be true.
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On 14 September, Leonard Field, a 31-year-old merchant seaman of 262 Green Lanes, Harringay N4, was arrested in connection with the robbery and the farm purchase. DS Ray had examined the bank authority that Brian Field had identified as bearing the signature of Leonard Field, and found a fingerprint on the document, which he identified as belonging to Leonard Field. The fingerprint, together with the signature, in the view of the police established Leonard Field as the prospective purchaser of Leatherslade Farm. When under arrest at Scotland Yard, Field had demanded his solicitor, John Wheater, be called in. This was exactly what DCS Butler had wanted – an engineered confrontation between Wheater and Field:

Wheater was sent for and arrived at New Scotland Yard at about 11.55 am. He was seen by Mr Butler, Mr Bradbery and Detective Inspector Williams. Mr Butler then told him that Leonard Field was in the building and had asked him to act on his behalf. Chief Inspector Bradbery and Detective Inspector Williams left the office, returning about five minutes later with Leonard Field. As Field entered the office he said, ‘Hullo Mr Wheater'. Mr Butler said to Wheater, ‘This is Leonard Dennis Field who has asked you to act for him. We believe he is the man who paid you a deposit for the purchase of Leatherslade Farm which as you know, was used as a base and hideout by the criminals who robbed the train.' Wheater said, ‘this puts me in a very awkward position. Under the circumstances do you think I should act for him?' He was told that it was a matter for his decision and said, ‘very well'. Field then interjected, ‘I never purchased any farm, did I Mr Wheater? You know I didn't Mr Wheater.'
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Wheater was now flustered and caught in an impasse:

Wheater stood up, loosened his collar, turned quite pale, looked hard at Field for about twenty seconds and then said, ‘I'm confused. I'm confused. I am not sure now. I thought he was the man at first but now I'm not certain.'
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Wheater and Field were then taken out to separate offices where they made further written statements, each sticking to their own version of events. Unlike Field, Wheater, for the time being, was permitted to leave. With a rising tide of evidence now implicating him, Brian Field was arrested the following day by DCS Butler and DS Luis Van Dyck and taken to Scotland Yard. Amongst property found in his possession when arrested was a £5 bank note, serial number A15 901750, which was within 200 of a stolen note, A15 901857. On 16 September 1963, both Brian and Leonard Field were taken to Aylesbury Police Station, where Brian Field was confronted with Leonard Field and denied that he was the man who had acquired the farm. They were later both charged with conspiracy to rob and obstructing the course of justice.

The Fraud Squad's DCI Mesher, who had received the latest statements by John Wheater and Leonard Field, and the material on Brian Field's arrest, concluded his report on Leatherslade by summarising his view of the legal position:

Anyone who acquired Leatherslade Farm and remained in possession and control during the relevant period, in default of a water tight explanation, must be an accessory to the robbery. Anyone else assisting with guilty knowledge must be party to a conspiracy to rob. Brian Field, on his own admission, shortly before the robbery, examined this farm with a Leonard Field whom he knew to be the relation of a convicted criminal. There is ample corroboration of this admission. Upon reading about the connection of the farm with the robbery, he made no effort to contact police with his knowledge.

An abandoned brief case, full of bank notes from the robbery is shown to belong to Brian Field by the overlooked hotel bill which he admits is his. I would say that it is a clear inference, that as police enquiries were closing in, he discarded his share of the loot, paid for helping to provide the robbers with a base for operations. Upon arrest, he was in possession of a bank note, the serial number of which falls within the sequence of numbers relating to stolen ones. Mr Parker can say that Brian Field's house was used as a traffic centre for two days after the robbery, when Field himself says he had no visitors.

There is a lack of substantive evidence against Wheater, although much which could corroborate that he was a partner in this enterprise. He accepted a substantial cash deposit from a man he knew to be the brother of a convicted criminal without apparently issuing a receipt. He signed the contract for sale himself, thus suppressing Leonard Field's distinctive signature. We have yet to discover his authority to do this, likewise the position about insurance of the farm. A point I have not previously mentioned is that the address, 150 Earls Court Road, London, SW5, appears to have been added to the contract in manuscript by Wheater as an after-thought.

The demeanour of Wheater, when confronted with Leonard Field underlines the obvious falsity of his contention that he couldn't recognise him as the prospective purchaser. His contradictory statements also imply guilty knowledge.
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Mesher and his Fraud Squad colleagues had been brought in by Commander Hatherill to untangle the complex web of lies and deception that had surrounded the acquisition of the farm. Having worked his way through this initial quagmire, he eventually established that Field and Wheater were involved in a much wider network of fraud and money laundering.

Unlike Wheater who, on paper at least, had a distinguished and unblemished background, Brian Field's was a more checkered one. Born on 15 December 1934, he was immediately adopted by a
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outh London couple, Reginald and Ivy Field. On leaving school in 1951 he obtained a position as a junior clerk at a
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outh London solicitors, which he held until he was called up for National Service as a private in the Royal Army Service Corp in April 1953. According to his army record, the solicitors gave him a reference stating that he was ‘conscientious and of excellent character'. Following basic training he briefly saw action in the Korean War prior to the armistice that ended the conflict on 27 July 1953. On discharge in April 1955, the Royal Army Service Corp described his character as ‘good'.
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After leaving the army, Field spent the next year or so drifting from one menial job to another. In May 1955, for example, he became an accounting machine clerk, but ‘left of his own accord' four months later. After two months of unemployment he became a linotype operator but left after three months, being described by his employer as ‘unsuitable for this type of work'.
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He then seems to have found his forte as a clerk at Dyne Engineers Co. Ltd, where he eventually worked his way up to become company secretary. In fact, he also became company secretary of another linked company, Richard Baines Ltd, before both went into liquidation in May 1958. Shortly after liquidation, a police investigation followed, which resulted in Douglas Carroll, Brian Field and John Cosworth-May being charged with ‘conspiring with Albert Grossman and other persons unknown to cheat and defraud the creditors of Dyne Engineers Co Ltd'.
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Grossman, who ran a whole web of companies, disappeared but was arrested in Paris the following year. The case against Grossman, described as one of the most complex frauds of its time, dragged on for the best part of three years. Eventually, Grossman was found unfit to plead and was released in 1961.
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Carroll, Field and Cosworth-May eventually had their cases dropped due to insufficient evidence.

Following his first scrape with the law, Field again became a solicitors' clerk in April 1959, leaving in May 1960 to take up employment with John Wheater as managing clerk at his recently opened firm of TW James & Wheater.
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There, Field (a natural networker) was able to develop the laundering skills he had learned under Albert Grossman and build up the firm's criminal law business through a host of underworld contacts.

During their investigation into the conveyance of Leatherslade Farm, the Fraud Squad had discovered that the address given by Wheater on the sale contract for Leonard Field was 150 Earls Court Road, London, which turned out to be an empty property owned by the widow of slum landlord Peter Rachman. The property was currently in the process of being sold to a company called Jiltslade Investments Ltd, and police encountered a host of contradictory accounts by Wheater and others associated with the purchase as to who was actually the real purchaser. Wheater maintained that it was one Brian Hocking,
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a director of Jiltslade Investments Ltd, while Hocking maintained that he was simply a front for the real purchaser, Wheater himself.
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While no firm conclusion was ever reached on this matter, the Fraud Squad suspected that if Wheater was the real purchaser, he was probably obtaining the property as an investment for one of his firm's criminal clients. Investigations also discovered that Jiltslade was just the tip of the iceberg in terms of linked companies that Field and Wheater had an involvement with. These included: Brusteric Investments Ltd, Fusigrand Investments Ltd, Stramquish Investments Ltd and Trizweeks Investments Ltd.
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Indeed, when Wheater sought to procure a mortgage for Jiltslade Investments Ltd, it was he (rather than Hocking) that filled in and signed the application form. Furthermore, when fraud officers later read the application form during their investigations, they wrote in green ink ‘downright lying' next to Wheater's claim that he owned the property in which he lived at 60 Otterways Lane, Ashtead, Surrey.
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Field and Wheater were also found to be fronting a number of other companies and enterprises and had close links to the newly legalised betting industry, which was a heaven-sent opportunity for laundering large sums of money. On 6 September 1962, for example, TW James & Wheater had registered at Companies House a new company called Bookmakers Guardian Co. Ltd (registered office 4th Floor, 93-97 Regent Street, London W1). With a nominal capital of £1,000, the shares were held by Field and Wheater, with Derek Ruddell (of 2 Sherard Mansions, Well Hall Road, Eltham SE9) as director and Field as company secretary.
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DCI Mesher's knowledge of the fledgling bookmaking industry in London was also to be of great assistance to DCS Butler's investigation of Harry Smith, as Butler makes clear in a report to Commander Hatherill:

It is well known that Danny Regan is a close friend of Smith and that their degree of friendship goes back to at least 1946. Regan is one of several brothers who, between them, operate several betting shops in the metropolis under the name ‘M & M Regan' and ‘Michael Regan.' One of the shops owned by the brothers is situated at No 38 Aldersgate Street, City, EC, next door to a cafe owned by James Edward White, CRO No 26113/1955, who is another associate of Smith and Regan. Information has been received by another officer that one of the men who took part in the actual robbery was named Danny. He was thought to be identical with Daniel Pembroke, CRO No 27206/56. This man who lives at No 22 Hood House, Elmington Estate, Camberwell, SE5, was brought to this office on 6 September 1963. Pembroke is a close associate of several of the men already dealt with for this crime, so he cannot be completely eliminated from suspicion. When the even closer association between Regan and White and Smith and probably others became known to us, it was thought highly probable that this was the man Danny. On 27 September 1963, Regan was brought to this office and closely interrogated concerning the offence. He staunchly denied all knowledge of it. His palm prints were taken and compared with those left at the farm, but no identification was made. Regan admitted knowing White and Smith and several of the other persons who at the time had been arrested for complicity in the offence, but said he had not seen any of them for many weeks. He was allowed to leave. Regan is one of those close-mouthed individuals who counteract interrogatory subtleties by monosyllabic replies and refusal to elaborate. He will admit nothing that cannot be proved to the hilt and is quick to demand the attendance of a legal representative.
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As a result of Mesher's ongoing enquiries into the Leatherslade conveyance and the activities of the firm TW James & Wheater, the decision was eventually made by Commander Hatherill to give DCS Butler an arrest warrant for Wheater. Butler was also to document the arrest:

At 7.40 am on Thursday the 17 October 1963, with Chief Inspector Mesher and Detective Sergeant Pritchard, I went to 60 Ottways Lane, Ashtead, Surrey and there saw Wheater. I said to him, ‘You already know Detective Sergeant Pritchard and myself. This is Chief Inspector Mesher. May we come in?' We accompanied Wheater into the lounge, where I said to him, ‘We hold a warrant for your arrest for conspiracy to stop a mail train with intent to rob it at Cheddington on the 8 August 1963, and also for being an accessory after the fact. Shall I read the warrant?' He said, ‘May I read it myself?' The warrant was handed to him and he read it.

Whilst reading it, he said, ‘I don't know any of these or at least only half of them'. I cautioned him and said, ‘Briefly, it is alleged that you have concealed the identity of the purchaser of Leatherslade Farm, signed the Contract yourself, and gave a false address of Leonard Field in that you said he lived at 150 Earls Court Road. Do you remember that?' He replied, ‘Yes'.

He was told that it was proposed to search the address, and he said, ‘Yes, I'll explain to my wife later'. We commenced to search the lounge. Wheater stood quite near me and said, ‘This is a mistake, you know. This will ruin me'. He walked to the window and then said, ‘Don't think I am being rude, but I would like to search you people first. I don't want anything put on me.' I said to him, ‘Surely you don't mean that. You must have been listening to too many fairy tales from your clients.' He said, ‘Yes, probably I have, I'm sorry, I should not have said it.'