Second Train Trial Man Escapes Ronald Arthur Biggs, who was serving 30 years for his connexion with the great train robbery, escaped yesterday after- noon from Wandsworth gaol with three other prisoners. They scaked a 20ft. wall with a ladder thrown over to them during afternoon exercise. Drawn up outside the prison wall was a removal van with a hole in the roof, through which they dropped. Three waiting cars picked them up and drove away as the prison alarm was sounding. Every police car in London was alerted and an immediate watch set up at all ports and airports, particularly at small private flying fields. Messages were flashed to all Flving Squad officers to find out through their underworld informants who might have organized the escape. Late last night Scotland Yard issued a warning: " As these men may be armed, members of the public who may en- counter them are advised to contact the police at once, without approaching them." " GUNS USED" Detective-chief-superintendent Richard Lewis, head of W Division. C.I.D.. said last night that the escape "was engi- neered without a doubt with collu- sion inside the prison. This does not suggest there are any prison offi- cers involved ". The break was " well prepared in advance ". He understood guns were used in the escaPe. Police Biggs had set up an operations room in the prison and detectives had interviewed some prisoners. Biggs is the second man convicted in the great train robbery to escape. Last August Charles Frederick Wilson, also serving 30 years, got out of Winson Green prison, in Birmingham. He is still at large. The Home Office named the escaped men as Biggs; Robert Anderson, serv- ing 12 years for conspiracy to rob; Eric Flower, serving 12 years for armed robbery and conspiracy to rob; and Anthony Jenkins, serving four years for conspiracy to rob. "STOPPED BY PRISONERS" The escape was at five minutes past three. At the time, a Home Office spokesman said, 14 men on the A-escape list were exercising in the yard. The exercise, scheduled to last an hour, had begun at 2.28 p.m. IThere is a special A-Escape list at Wands- worth-men on whom a special watch is kept and their clothing marked. They are under strict supervision throughout the day, and arc visited every 15 minutes during the niglht when locked up.i " At 3.5 p.m. one of the four officers on duty in the yard saw a man's head appear above the outside wall. The offl- ce r immediately rang the alarm bell, and at the same time the man on the wall threw over a rope and tubular ladder." "The four prisoners immediately made for the ladder and climbed over the top. The prison officers tried to stop them, but were stopped by some of the others in the exercise yard. "The officers went outside and discovered a van with a platform on top parked against the wall and the ladders secured to the top of the van." CAR ABANDONED Police said last night that a car had been stopped and taken into Lavender Hill police station. A man was later interviewed, but was ruled out of the inquiry. One of the cars believed to have been used in the breakout, the green Ford Zephyr, was found abandoned outside Wandsworth Common railway station, and detectives checked with Southern Region on trains which stopped at the station at about the time of the break- out. The removal van was abandoned at the scene, and police found inside a loaded shotgun and sets of overalls. The prisoners had had no time to change. The numbers of the three cars used in the breakout were given as: Green Ford Zephyr, AYK 704B; blue Ford Zephyr AYR 27B third car, make un- known, AWM 476B. The police wanted to identify the van, which had a hole cut in the roof and a platform inside. People living in the bungalows over- looking the prison were being inter- viewed last night at Wandsworth police station. Police had cordoned off all the lanes which run round the prison, and were turning away all people other than residents. Peter Head, aged 21, son of the Wandsworth Prison librarian, who saw the escape, was last night looking through pictures in the " rogues gallery" at Scotland Yard. He was mending his motor cycle out- side his home in Heathfield Square when he saw the four escapers. When the men saw him he was, he said, held up at gunpoint, ushered to a shed in his front garden, and "shoved" inside. Mrs. Winifred Williams, wife of a prison officer, who saw two of the men escape, said last night at her bungalow in Heathfield Place near the prison walls: " I was in the living room when I saw a dark green Zephyr drive up. It was followed by a dark red shabby removal van. STOCKING OVER FACE "The van stopped parked alongside the wall with its engine running. The Zephyr was parked in front. I thought it was the baker when I heard the engine, and grabbed my handbag and ran out. I saw a man with a silk stocking over his face beside the van. There was a platform of some sort on top of it against the wall. ' The man in the Zephyr car also had a silk stocking over his face and a scarf. He had a rifle. I went back inside the house. I was frightened. I was worried they might try to stop me from talking. But I could not get out-I could not do anything. I looked out of my bedroom window. I saw two prisoners coming over the wall. They were in blue overalls and striped shirts-prison uniform. I took the number of the Zephyr and handed it in." "I saw the two men scramble along the roof of the van down on to the bonnet and into the Zephyr. And they were off in a mighty rush. They left the van with its engine still running." Biggs, now 35, was sentenced at Ayles- bury Assize in April, 1964, having been found Guilty of conspiring to rob and robbery in connexion with the ?2,500,000 theft from the Glasgow-London mail train at Cheddington, Buckinghamshire. in August, 1963. The Home Office said last night that at the time of the escape four prison officers were exercising 14 prisoners. " This is the right proportion. When the alarm bells rang more warders came. There is no question of the escape being due,to understaffing ". HOME SECRETARY'S ViSIT Sir Frank Soskice, the Home Secre- tary, accompanied by Sir Charles Cunningham, Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, and two advisers from the prison department, visited Wands- worth Prison late last night and spent an hour there. He saw the Governor and was shown the exercise yard and the wall over which the prisoners escaped. Sir Frank said later to reporters: "I just wanted to come and see what happened for myself." Asked if there would be an inquiry at Government level, he declined to add anything further to what he had already said. A private notice question on the escape is expected to be put to Sir Frank in the Commons today. FIRE STOPS TV ITEMS Several iter -. including some film of the Wandsworth prison break, had to be dropped frorm an Independent Television News bulletin at 5.55 p.m. yesterday when a 10-minute fire put film projectors out of action. ine removal van by the wall of Wandsworth gaol yesterday. The four prisoners scaled the wail with a ladder thrown to them and dropped through a hole in the roof of the removal van. SECOND TRAIN TRIAL MAN ESCAPES WANDSWORTH WALL SCALED WITH THREE OTHERS LADDER THROWN OVER: COLLUSION IN PRISON, POLICE SAY