While it took some ten days to complete the challenge of dusting down the entire farm, outbuildings and vehicles left behind, the first arrests were down to pure luck (or bad luck from the point of view of those arrested).1 Roger Cordrey had left Leatherslade Farm on Saturday 10 August, met up with an old friend, Bill Boal, in Oxford, and together with his family and Cordrey’s share of the robbery money had gone down to Bournemouth. Cordrey’s immediate plan was to hide the money in two second-hand cars they had bought and secure them in two rented garages. Boal apparently saw an advert in a newsagent’s window for a rented garage and, along with Cordrey, set off to meet the owner, 67-year-old Emily Clarke, who unbeknown to them was a policeman’s widow. She immediately became suspicious when the pair offered to pay the garage rent three months in advance in cash. Mrs Clarke accepted the money, gave them the key and phoned the police the minute they left her house: They were both arrested at just after 9 pm on 14 August by Detective Sergeant Stanley Davies and Detective Constable Charles Case of the Bournemouth Police, following on information given to the police by Mrs Emily Clarke of 45 Tweedale Road, Bournemouth.
What do You think about The Great Train Robbery (2012)?
