The quiet Great Train Robber reveals identity of the gang’s mystery insider

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/the-quiet-great-train-robber-reveals-identity-of-the-gangs-mystery-insider/



Now 85 and living in Spain, Douglas Gordon Goody has decided to share his story with the world – including unmasking the mysterious ‘Ulsterman’ who helped to plan the crime – then vanished

The quiet Great Train Robber reveals identity of the gang’s mystery insider
Tracy McVeigh, The Observer
27 Sep 2014

He has kept his secrets for more than 50 years: the quiet man of the most infamous criminal gang in British history, both mastermind and instigator of the Great Train Robbery.

The Rolex has been replaced by a Swatch and the white Jaguar and sharp suit are long gone. So is the equivalent of £2.5m that was his share of the crime. Now aged 85 and one of just two surviving members of the 15-strong gang, Douglas Gordon Goody lives quietly in the Spanish countryside with his partner, Maria, and their five dogs. It is back to his rural roots for a man whose introduction to crime was smuggling cattle over the Northern Irish border to dodge customs.

Two key facts about the audacious 1963 robbery that gripped the public imagination still remain unknown – who was the insider, the mystery man who fed the gang the information they needed to know to target the train? And who was the gang member who bloodied what was planned as a “gentleman’s crime” by coshing the train driver?

Goody is clear on the first. The Observer can reveal that Patrick McKenna was the “Ulsterman”. Then a 43-year-old Belfast-born postal worker in Islington, north London, he was introduced to Goody via a third party. They met four times in early 1963 and McKenna told them how a post train operated, enabling the gang to successfully stop the Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train in the early hours of 8 August 1963, getting away with more than £2.6m – the equivalent of £48m today – all in £5 and £1 banknotes. It was McKenna who told the gang to change the original robbery date from the 7th because the next day’s train would be carrying more cash.