Roy James

Racing driver and professional criminal convicted as a participant in the 1963 Great Train Robbery.

Editorial standard

the archive separates convictions, charges, allegations, acquittals and later media descriptions. Cross-links show documented or clearly contextual relationships and do not automatically imply shared criminal conduct.

Profile overview

Racing driver and professional criminal convicted as a participant in the 1963 Great Train Robbery.

Documented criminal context

This profile is built around convictions, formal court outcomes and well-sourced reporting. Where a person is linked to a broader criminal network without a court finding of joint conduct, the relationship is explicitly treated as contextual.

Why this person matters to the archive

The value of this profile is not only the biography. It is a graph node connecting people, organizations, events, places and cases so readers can move through the real structure of British organized crime rather than isolated articles.

Network links

– Great Train Robbery — participant; convicted – Leatherslade Farm — post-robbery hideout

Direct people links

– Bruce Reynolds — fellow Great Train Robber – Ronnie Biggs — fellow Great Train Robber – Buster Edwards — fellow Great Train Robber – Charlie Wilson — fellow Great Train Robber

Sources

– The Guardian. Great Train Robbery at 50 (2013-08-08). https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/aug/08/great-train-robbery-50-years

Death

Roy James died on 21 August 1997 in London, England. The documented cause of death was Heart disease.

Documented network and case context

Roy James is easier to understand when the surrounding cases and people are kept attached to the biography. The current evidence graph records the strongest direct or contextual connections as Great Train Robbery gang (Roy James is documented in sources as associated with Great Train Robbery gang), Great Train Robbery (1963) (Linked to the related canonical historical event), Great Train Robbery (participant; convicted), Leatherslade Farm (post-robbery hideout), Bruce Reynolds (fellow great train robber), and Ronnie Biggs (fellow great train robber). These links are not treated as interchangeable: a conviction, a co-defendant relationship, an organizational role, a shared location and a later investigative association remain separate kinds of evidence.

Evidence trail

Timeline and case connections

Structured events are kept separate from general biography so later audits can update a date, conviction, organizational change, killing or court outcome without rewriting unrelated material.

Date not specified in current profile sources — Great Train Robbery (1963). Linked to the related canonical historical event.

Date not specified in current profile sources — Great Train Robbery. participant; convicted

21 August 1997 — Death of Roy James. Heart disease

Status and record

The structured birth record lists 1935. The death record lists 21 August 1997 in London, England. Cause: Heart disease.

Source record

The current Master package attaches the following evidence sources to this profile: – The Great Train Robbery — British Transport Police, Tier 1. – Weasel train robber dies, aged 61 — The Independent, Tier 2. – Great Train Robbery at 50 — The Guardian, Tier 2.

Each source supports only the claims tied to it. Structured source references remain attached so later audits can trace timeline and relationship records back to evidence.

Evidence and editorial boundaries

For living subjects especially, legal claims and current status require dated sourcing. Future expansion should therefore come from stronger records or newly processed canonical entities rather than unsourced crime lore.

How this profile fits the archive

The current source package includes The Great Train Robbery; Weasel train robber dies, aged 61; Great Train Robbery at 50. These records define the safe editorial boundary for the page. A later pass should prioritize new primary documents, court outcomes, dated organizational changes, prison history or newly processed books and screen works rather than adding generic background.

Research state

This depth pass expands the page from structured evidence already present in the Master. The profile should return to audit when a new source materially changes chronology, legal status, organizational role or media connections. Add the structured fact first, then update prose so narrative and knowledge graph remain synchronized.

Media remains a separate gate. A portrait should be attached only after source page, provenance and reuse status are checked. Until then, a profile can be text-complete while still carrying an explicit media-review requirement.

Archive discipline

A canonical page remains useful even when some biographical fields are unknown. The stable identity lets future cases, organizations, events, books and screen works connect to the same person without creating duplicates. Depth should come from verified edges, not filler.

Next audit priorities

Future enrichment should target a stronger primary source, a dated event, a verified legal-status update, or a newly processed canonical connection. The profile should not grow by copying general background from an organization page.