'Great train robbery' detective couldn't outlive Biggs

LONDON - He was one of Scotland Yard's most renowned detectives, his long career dominated by a legendary robbery and his single-minded pursuit of one of the men responsible.

Jack Slipper - "Slipper of the Yard" - the former Flying Squad head who died yesterday, aged 81, saw the sick and impoverished Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs come home to face justice, but failed in his wish to outlive his old adversary.

Slipper tracked Biggs to Rio de Janeiro in 1974, telling him "Hello Ronnie, long time no see".

Journalist Colin Mackenzie, who witnessed the encounter which turned to farce when Slipper had to leave Brazil empty-handed, said yesterday that while angry at the time at "losing his man", Slipper was an "old school" detective. He soon got over his disappointment, and was so philosophical about it, that he later returned to Rio to chat to Biggs.

Slipper had confessed his respect for his quarry and yesterday it was the turn of Biggs and Bruce Reynolds, the leader of the train robbers' gang, to pay warm tributes to the man who had arrested them in 1963 for stealing 2.6 million - 35 million in today's money - from a mail train.

Slipper was best known for pursuing Biggs, who had escaped from Wandsworth Prison, to Rio in a Daily Express-negotiated deal. The Brazilian authorities said Biggs could not be extradited because his Brazilian partner was pregnant with his son, Michael.

It was later revealed that Slipper had neglected to inform the Home Office, the Department of Public Prosecutions or the Brazilian authorities of his mission in advance. In the early 1990s Slipper, then retired, made another unsuccessful attempt to persuade the homesick and impoverished Biggs to come back to London - "to prove his point that crime did not pay".

Biggs returned voluntarily in 2001. He had earned the respect of Slipper, who believed Biggs should be given his freedom to spend his last days with his son.

Biggs remains in Belmarsh Prison, incapacitated through a stroke. A statement issued yesterday by his son read: "We as a family are very sad with the death of Mr Slipper. Even though my father and Mr Slipper were on different sides of the fence there was a high and mutual respect between them."

Reynolds said yesterday: "He was always affable. He was a big man and that sort of weight carries some force in the underworld. So he was quite a character and very well known by friend and foe."

- INDEPENDENT