Brian Field - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

Field served out his sentence and was released in 1967. While Brian Field was in prison, his wife Karin divorced him and married a German journalist. Karin wrote an article for the German magazine Stern. She confirmed that she took Roy James to Thames Train Station so he could go to London and that she led a convoy of two vans back to Kabri, where the gang were joined by wives and girlfriends to have a big party.

When Great Train Robbery gang mastermind, Bruce Reynolds returned to Great Britain in 1968 short on cash (having spent most of his share of the loot on the run), he tried to get in contact with Field who was the only way he could get in touch with the Ulsterman. It seems that Field was ambushed upon his release from prison by a recently released convict "Scotch Jack Buggy" who presumably roughed up or even tortured Field with an eye on getting some of the loot from the robbery. Subsequently Field went to ground and "Buggy" was killed shortly after. Reynolds gave up trying to find him, and Reynolds himself was caught later that year.

Field changed his name to Brian Carlton, in order to disappear. He died aged 44 years, in a car crash on a motorway in May 1979, a year after the last of the robbers had completed their sentence.