A FORMER policeman, who helped investigate the Great Train Robbery, has told Llandudno Rotary club of his 37 year’s service in the British Transport Police.

Mike Perry, who recently transferred to the Llandudno cub after 20 years membership of a club in Derbyshire, outlined his career starting as a cadet in 1960 and retiring as an Inspector in 1996.

During his service with the British Transport Police, Mike was drafted in to assist with the Great Train Robbery enquiry and saw at close quarters the results of the thuggish violence on the innocent train driver, Jack Mills.

Mike expressed his despair at some of the glamour that is attached to this crime in the press and mind of the public. Jack was assaulted causing injuries so serious that he never returned to full duties and died not long after. In later service, Mike played his part in the International Police Association, where he met Inspector Garth Mann of Birmingham. They became good friends but lost contact. Forty years on, when Mike first contacted Llandudno Rotary, he was dumfounded to be put in touch with his old friend, Rotary Secretary Garth Mann.

The Great Train Robbery was the theft of £2.6 million from a train in Buckinghamshire.