The Great Train Robbery by Andrew Cook

attributed to Goody from the time he was first seen by Detective Chief Inspector Vibart at Leicester on 23 August 1963 until he was allowed to leave Aylesbury Police Station on 25 August 1963 were ruled inadmissible. 13

    The judge was also forced to issue a stiff reprimand to another police officer giving evidence against Goody. DSgt John Swain of the Flying Squad had related an account of a search he made at the home of Goody’s mother when she was the only person in. Mr Sebag Shaw vigorously pressed Swain on what he suspected was a clear abuse of the law of search: ‘You were told to search the house without a warrant?’ Swain replied evasively and without conviction that, ‘If Mrs Goody had said, “you can’t come in” we would have got a search warrant.’
    Sebag Shaw now had Swain on the ropes, as he knew full well that Swain had told Mrs Goody that he had in fact got a warrant on him. Forced to admit that he had said this, Swain attempted to mitigate himself by responding that, ‘It was a mistake not a lie. I had other warrants to search other houses on me and I was told to go to Mrs Goody’s home.’
    Judge Edmund Davies immediately rebuked Swain – ‘See that it never happens again.’
    While this was a very small victory for Goody, both he and his counsel knew that the biggest challenge to the evidence against him was yet to come in relation to the claim by the prosecution that shoes belonging to him had paint on them that matched paint found at Leatherslade Farm. The Crown was additionally claiming that a little knob, found in a jacket belonging to Bill Boal, contained in the grooves traces of yellow paint, which according to Scotland Yard’s Dr Ian Holden was more than likely the same paint as that on Goody’s shoes.
    However, before this could be contested, there were other submissions to be made concerning other alleged breaches of Judges’ Rules of evidence:

    On the 31 January 1964, Detective Inspector Harry Tappin was giving evidence when Michael Argyle QC, Counsel for Leonard Field, asked to make a submission in the absence of the jury. Justice Edmund Davies agreed and the jury retired. The objection raised, was that evidence which was about to be given by Tappin of the questioning of Leonard Field by Detective Chief Superintendent Butler, was not in conformity with Judges’ Rules because his client had been in custody and had not been cautioned. Justice Edmund Davies ruled that the oral evidence, up to the time Field was put into the detention room at Cannon Row Police Station, would be admitted in evidence. Justice Edmund Davies also ruled that the written statement taken from Field after he had been in the detention room should not at this stage be admitted. 14

    While this was the second submission that the judge agreed to, he was to inexplicably change course following the third submission:

    Lewis Hawser QC, Counsel for Brian Field then raised an objection to evidence which Detective Inspector Tappin would later be giving against Field. Hawser’s objection was that an oral statement made by Field just before he was charged in which he denied the identity of Leonard Field as the potential buyer of Leatherslade Farm was inadmissible in evidence. After certain arguments had been made, Justice Edmund Davies decided to exercise his discretion and admit the evidence. The jury then returned and the trial continued. 15

    Perhaps the biggest error in terms of police evidence was to come on 6 February when DI Basil Morris, of the Surrey Constabulary, gave evidence regarding an interview he had with Ronald Biggs, when he asked whether or not Biggs knew any of the train robbery suspects. He gave Biggs’s reply to one question as being:

    ‘I knew Reynolds some years ago. I met him when we did time together.’ At the conclusion of Morris’s evidence he was cross examined by Wilfred Fordham who afterwards, in the absence of the jury, made an application to Justice Edmund Davies to discharge Biggs