Hove man was Great Train Robbery suspect

A former Hove man Terry Sansom was suspected of being involved in the Great Train Robbery.

The government has released Royal Mail files with just over a year to go before the 50th anniversary of the robbery.

They name George and Terry Sansom on a list of suspects. George Sansom was the father of the England and Arsenal footballer Kenny Sansom.

Terry was Kenny’s uncle and lived at Court Farm, at the top of King George VI Avenue, also known as Snaky Hill, in Hove in the 1980s.

Terry Sansom was acquitted of a £9,400 payroll robbery in the early 1960s. He was also cleared of being part of a drug smuggling conspiracy at Brighton Crown Court in the late 1980s.

The Sansom brothers were included on a list of people suspected of carrying out the Great Train Robbery which was compiled by Detective Chief Superintendent Tommy Butler, head of the Flying Squad.

He listed 28 suspects just over a week after a gang stole £2.6 million from a mail train in Buckinghamshire on Thursday 8 August 1963.

Eleven men were convicted of the robbery including Ronnie Biggs, Ronald “Buster” Edwards and Bruce Reynolds. Three of the robbers were never caught and were not even identified.

The Sansoms, who have both since died, were not charged in connection with the raid.

In February 2000 another Terry Sansom, then 39, of Goldstone Crescent, Hove, was jailed for ten years for conspiring to supply drugs and handle stolen goods. He operated out of premises in Brunswick Road, on the corner of Western Road.