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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Crime & criminology > Organized crime > General
In the early hours of 8 August 1963, a crime took place which
simultaneously captured the imagination of the general public, and
shook the British Establishment to the core, in a way that no
criminal event had ever done before. The Great Train Robbery, as it
subsequently became known, involved the audacious high-jacking of
one of Her Majesty's mail trains, netting the sixteen strong gang
over GBP2.6 million, equivalent to almost GBP50 million in 2016.
One by one, thanks to the tenacity of the Scotland Yard Flying
Squad officers charged with bringing the perpetrators to justice,
all known members of the gang were brought to trial and, with one
exception, were subsequently convicted and sentenced to
imprisonment. However, there was a great deal of public outrage at
the length of the some of the sentences handed out by the trial
judge, with many of the gang facing the prospect of up to 30 years
in prison. Yet, for many of those involved both directly and
indirectly in the Great Train Robbery, the story does not end
there. Over the coming years, a series of tragedies, misfortunes,
illnesses and downright bad luck were to blight the lives of a
significant number of the guilty and the innocent. The Curse of the
Great Train Robbery tells the thrilling story of the robbery and
reveals the series of subsequent events which will leave readers to
ponder whether this was a crime which was both cursed and doomed to
fail from the very outset.
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