Detectives investigating the 1966 World Cup heist cut a deal with the thieves to get the trophy back, the son of a lawyer at the heart of the case claims.
As Thomas Tuchel and his England squad prepare their bid to bring it home again, the Daily Mirror has uncovered evidence that supports the theory that Frank Baldwin’s dad Freddie helped to rescue the Cup. Football’s ultimate prize was stolen from a stamp exhibition in Westminster in March 1966, with the finals due to kick off just three months later.
It was only days before Prime Minister Harold Wilson was due to fight a general election and the theft put his government, the FA and the Metropolitan Police under intense international pressure. Now Frank Baldwin, the son of Freddie Baldwin, a former solicitor who represented the thieves, said he believes a deal was done to try to retrieve the trophy.
He said: “I think my father rescued the World Cup in time for it to be presented at the finals. If they hadn’t got it back it could have brought the government down because people had lost faith in it. They were a laughing stock and the Cup was stolen on their watch. The theft was actually so easy it made the police a laughing stock as well.”
View 10 ImagesFrank as a child with his mum and dad Freddie and Millie
John McLarens was a 20-year-old jobbing actor who had starred as an extra in Monty Python’s Flying Circus when he discovered the trophy was missing while working as a part-time security guard. John had been one of four guards on duty in the Methodist Central Hall on Sunday March 20 when the thieves sneaked in and grabbed the Cup.
The Mirror tracked him down to his home in Ottawa, Canada, where he emigrated soon after to work as a long distance lorry driver. John, now 80, said: “The metal plates on the doors had been unscrewed but it had been chained on the outside so all they had to do was unscrew eight screws and it just dropped, eight bloody screws.”
View 10 ImagesFormer guard John McLarens at home in Canada
The 14in, gold-plated Jules Rimet trophy of the winged goddess Nike had been loaned to stamp company Stanley Gibbons for the exhibition. It was closed that Sunday,but the hall was open and John was one of four guards on duty, split into two pairs.
John had been downstairs guarding the stamps, which were worth around £50million in today’s money, when he asked if he could swap with the other pair who had been on the first floor with the trophy.
View 10 ImagesJohn McLarens in 1966
He said: “I went across and they had canvas awnings around the display and they were over to the side as if they had been opened up. There was just an empty plinth. The cup wasn’t there. I stood there and tried to work out what had happened. I was kind of worried. Where is it, isn’t it meant to be here? Everybody had told me the cup must not move. Watch the cup. How could I watch the cup if it wasn’t there?”
Rewards totalling £6,000 were soon offered for its safe return. DI Len Buggy of the elite Flying Squad led the probe. His break came when the Chelsea and FA chairman Joe Mears was phoned by a man calling himself Jackson.
View 10 ImagesBetchely, outside court having been bailed, with Frank’s dad Freddie(Image: Getty Images)
The crook sent Mears a parcel containing lining from the trophy and a ransom note demanding £15,000 in five and one-pound notes. He said the cup would be “for the POT” if the money was not paid.
Buggy posed as Mears’ assistant and arranged to meet “Jackson” in Battersea Park – in fact Ted Betchley, 46, a former docker from Walworth, south east London. Betchley was arrested. He insisted he was just the middleman, paid £500 for his part, and was jailed for just two years.
View 10 ImagesDavid Corbett with Pickles, who was found dead hanging by his lead a year later(Image: PA)
Bermondsey boy Freddie Baldwin, who had represented Christine Keeler during the Profumo affair, was Betchley’s solicitor and Frank believes he negotiated a soft sentence for his client in exchange for getting the cup back.
Frank, a journalist from Sevenoaks, Kent, said: “The cup was too hot to handle, there wasn’t a lot they could do with it instead of melting it down but it wasn’t worth a lot of money. Had it not been recovered there was every chance the thieves would eventually be found.”
View 10 ImagesOur 2018 front page revealing who stole the Jules Rimet trophy
Frank believes Betchley refused to give up his accomplice but could have engineered the return of the Cup as part of a deal. He said: “I think they were so desperate they said well if you can get the cup back we’ll forget about the thieves for now and give you a shorter sentence. I think my father acted as an intermediary between Betchley, the thieves and the police.”
Four days after Betchley was arrested, on March 27, Thames lighterman David Corbett, 26, was taking his cross-bred collie Pickles for a walk outside his home in Upper Norwood when he spotted the Cup in the street. Corbett collected £6,000 in rewards, six times more than the England squad got for winning the tournament.
View 10 ImagesSidney Cugullere (right) and his brother Reggie(Image: Phil Harris)
Bobby Moore went on to lift the Cup after England defeated West Germany 4-2 in the eighth World Cup final.
The theft was finally solved by the Daily Mirror in 2018 after we named south London villain Sidney Cugullere as the man behind one of the 20th century’s most notorious crimes. Cugullere, who died aged 79 in 2005 having never been unmasked, soon realised the famous trophy could never be sold and, as a football fan, refused to melt it down.
View 10 ImagesSidney Cugullere was jailed for more than 25 years for other crimes(Image: Phil Harris)
His nephew Gary, 54, said his late dad Reg was an accomplice. Gary, a crane operator from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, said of his uncle: “He always joked that he was the first Englishman to lift the World Cup.”
Evidence that supports Frank’s theory includes the front page splash of the Sunday Mirror written the night before Pickles found the cup which predicted “World Cup ‘back in 48 hours'”. Mirror crime reporter Norman Lucas had been tipped off by his Yard contacts that the trophy would come back, indicating a deal had indeed been struck.
View 10 ImagesThe Sunday Mirror’s splash on the day the Cup was found
Court papers in the National Archives also revealed Freddie Baldwin was Cugullere’s solicitor. Frank said: “It just backs up what I think happened, I really do think a deal was done.” At their funerals, Sid and Reg had trophy-shaped wreaths.
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View 10 ImagesThe trophy shaped wreath at Reg’s funeral(Image: Phil Harris)
The statuette was stolen again from the Brazilian football HQ in 1983, and has not been seen since.
Frank said: “If it was in one piece I think it would have turned up by now. Had they had my father been over there they might have got it back.”