Official £2.6 million count
Ledger
The Post Office and court figure for the used notes in the 120 bags. Later 'in today's money' conversions are commentary, not the 1963 exhibit.
The 1964 court worked from a farm, prints, vehicles and witnesses. It did not need a confession from every man to convict a gang.
What remains thin is the cash trail after the bags left Bridego.
Exhibits
Leatherslade Farm
Scene
The hideout yielded prints, debris and the geography that tied a rural Buckinghamshire night to named men.
Fingerprints and vehicles
Forensic
Prints and stolen-vehicle evidence were central to the Flying Squad case. They are why the dossier is convicted, not disputed.
Aylesbury judgments
Court
The 1964 sentences, including thirty-year terms, are the legal closure. Appeals and escapes did not reverse the core findings.
Jack Mills's account
Testimony
The driver's evidence established the assault and the stop. It is the human exhibit that celebrity memoirs keep trying to sideline.
Later memoirs and films
Press
Reynolds, Biggs and screen versions are secondary. They colour English memory; they are not a second trial.
How strong is the record?
Who the gang were90
Aylesbury and later arrests named the core group.
The 1963 sum88
£2.6 million is the standing official figure.
Cash recovered35
A large share of the notes never returned.
Cultural over-claim70
Films and exile stories are thick; they do not reopen the verdicts.
Evidence convicted a gang. It only partly followed the notes.
Public-record encyclopedia. Not legal advice. Not a how-to. Graphic detail is withheld. Wars belong in a separate atlas.