Great Train Robbery (1963) in the capture of Roy James, Ronald Biggs, Jimmy Hussey and John Daly. The trial of the robbers began at Aylesbury Assizes, Buckinghamshire, on 20 January 1964. Because it would be necessary to accommodate a large number of lawyers and journalists, the existing court was deemed too small and so the offices of Aylesbury Rural District Council were specially converted for the event. The defendants were brought to the court each day from Aylesbury Prison in a compartmentalised van, out of view of the large crowd of spectators. Mr Justice Edmund Davies presided over the trial, which lasted 51 days
The Great Train Robbery (novel) by a horse he had been flogging. The final line of the novel reads, "The money from the Great Train Robbery was never recovered." Crichton became aware of the story when lecturing at Cambridge University. He later read the transcripts of the court trial and started researching the historical period. The story is a fictionalised representation of the historical events that happened, although the setting can be considered quite accurate. The characters' names are changed in the novel; for example, the main protagonist William Pierce is changed to Edward Pierce and Edward Agar to Robert Agar. Crichton stated that he