Hundreds of mourners turned out for the funeral of the mastermind of the Great Train Robbery on Wednesday.

Family, friends and former accomplices said goodbye to Bruce Reynolds, who died in South Croydon last month aged 81.

Fellow train robber Ronnie Biggs, musician son Nick Reynolds and actor David Thewlis all paid tribute to Reynolds at a service at St Bartholomew the Great church in West Highfield.

A written tribute read out on behalf of Biggs, who is unable to speak after a series of strokes, described Reynolds as "a good man".

It said: "Bruce was a true friend, a great friend. A friend through the good and the bad times, and we had many of both."

Reynolds's son, who performed music at the funeral with his band Alabama 3, described his father as his "best friend, soulmate and older brother", adding: "He chose a lunatic path and paid the price."

Reynolds, who was the brains behind the 1963 heist in which he and 14 fellow bandits made off with £2.6m from an overnight mail train, was taken by hearse to West London Crematorium after the service.

Five years after the robbery, in 1968, a broke Reynolds was captured in Torquay and sentenced to 25 years in jail. He was released on parole in 1978 and moved, alone and penniless, into a tiny flat off London's Edgware Road.

He died on February 28 after living his last years quietly in a South Croydon flat, surviving on income support supplied by a charitable trust.

Speaking to the Croydon Guardian in 2004, Reynolds said: "I wouldn't say I regret my life.

"On the one hand I lived in Mexico in an apartment with panoramic views, and drove fast cars.

"But on the other hand I spent ten years in prison - back when prison really was prison - for my part in the Great Train Robbery, and another ten years for other crimes."