Great Train Robber Gordon Goody dies

London
Gordon Goody
Great Train Robbery
Friday 29 January 2016 at 3:03pm

Gordon Goody has died, more than 50 years after the Great Train Robbery Credit: PA Wire

The death one of the last surviving members of the Great Train Robbery gang, marks "the end of an era", the son of one of his fellow robbers said.

Gordon Goody, from London, has died aged 86. He passed away in Mojacar, a town in the south of Spain where he ran a bar, the local town hall said.

Goody, a hairdresser before the 1963 robbery, was jailed for 30 years for his role in the 1963 heist, one of the most famous in British criminal history which was dubbed the "crime of the century".

Michael Biggs, left, with his father Ronnie Biggs, another of the gang, who died two years ago Credit: Lewis Whyld/PA Archive

Michael Biggs, the son of Ronnie Biggs, one of the other robbers, described Goody's passing as "the end of an era".

On 8th August 1963, a gang masterminded by Bruce Reynolds stopped the Glasgow-Euston overnight mail train as it passed through the Buckinghamshire countryside close to Cheddington.

The train was driven a mile and a half to Bridego Bridge, where the gang unloaded £2,631,684 in used notes - worth around £46 million today.

But they were later captured and 12 were jailed for a total of more than 300 years.

More than one broke out of prison, including Biggs, who spent over 30 years on the run before he finally returned to Britain in 2001 to face arrest.

Reynolds returned in 1968, five years after the crime, and was captured in Torquay and jailed for 25 years.

Goody was sentenced to 30 years but released in 1975, setting up his Spanish bar four years later.