Robber’s ‘double’ relaxes

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33454, 8 February 1974, Page 4

Robber’s ‘double’ relaxes

)By

ROSALEEN MACBRAYNE)

I A Taupo couple i heaved a big sigh of ’relief at the news that the great train robber, Ronald Biggs, had been recaptured in Brazil. It has finally put a Taupo j businessman, Mr Harold Townson, in the clear. Mr Townson was sought by British police in 1971 on sus- ' picion of being Biggs — and it ; took some hard talking to assure them they had made a mistake. ; “I was quite sure all the Time that they were wrong, ■(but my wife feels better now -{they have found the real I Biggs. She was never entirely convinced she wasn’t living in sin.” Mr Townson said, jocularly, after the news of the robber’s arrest. WORLD-WIDE HUNT Police throughout the world have been looking for Ronald Biggs since he escaped from a London prison in 1965. The last free member of a gang of 15 which stole £2.5m from a mail train in England in 1963, Biggs, aged 44, was arrested recently in a hotel room in Brazil. Harold Townson laughs (now about the false alarm, I when Biggs was alleged to

ji have been sighted in England: H three years ago. But it was I i! not so funny at the time, | L He had been living in the' ..small Suffolk town of Eye, i 11 and went to the dentist to' have some teeth extracted. ; i SAME PATTERN 3 The trip was made on a i Friday afternoon in February, r 1971. and the dentist declined • to take out the teeth because he considered them sound, t He later told the "Sunday Mirror” that Mr Townson’s £ teeth pattern was identical to that issued by the police in e their search for Ronald Biggs, i, On the Sunday, he was still r unaware of the drama, but I wondered why there were so - many strangers and police t cars in the village, which had i a normal population of about - 600. At 2.30 that afternoon. , two men arrived to see Mr Townson. They were a chief 5 inspector and detectiver sergeant. STILL WATCHED i "They questioned me for a considerable time, and I had i to tell them everything I had ’, been doing for the previous; 1 three years,” he said. After; ’ an embarrassing few' 1 moments, when he could not! find his passport. Mr Town-; >; son was finally able to . ,(satisfy the police he was not; > Biggs. I “The chief inspector told I me that, although he had; I never seen Biggs, he thought' II had many features resemblI ing his description. Biggs I evidently has scars on the I back of his left hand and I above the right eye. which I lalso have. 1 do not think the rfact that I had .grown a beard helped my stocks either,” Mr L Townson recalled. For days afterward, he and his wife. Alma, were awarei Lof police watching theiri I; every move. OIL DRILLER j' Later. Mr Townson went to '.another dentist to have his I

; teeth pulled out. and was told [the pattern was not at all [like that of Biggs. [ Far from being a robber and prison escaper, Mr TownI son’s professional occupation [at that time was drilling oil ■ wells. He had been working in the North Sea and Libya before going to England. After touring England in a caravan, Harold and Alma Townson decided to start one of New Zealand’s first laundromats. They moved to Taupo, where they owned a house, and set up business nearly two years ago.