LONDON – Ronnie Biggs, whose role in the 1963 “Great Train Robbery” made him one of Britain’s most famous criminals, will be freed from jail due to ill health, justice secretary Jack Straw said yesterday.
Biggs escaped from prison in the 1960s and spent decades as a fugitive in Brazil where his playboy lifestyle and cocky defiance of the British authorities made him a criminal legend.
Biggs, who turns 80 tomorrow, returned to Britain voluntarily in 2001 and has been in jail ever since, but his declining health has stirred debate about whether he should be released after serving 10 years of a 30-year sentence.
“Mr Ronald Biggs has been informed today of my decision regarding his application for compassionate release on medical grounds,” said Mr Straw, reversing a decision a month ago to refuse him parole. “The medical evidence clearly shows that Mr Biggs is very ill and that his condition has deteriorated recently, culminating in his re-admission to hospital. His condition is not expected to improve.”
An inmate at Norwich Prison in eastern England, Biggs has been admitted to hospital suffering from a chest infection. Along with 11 other gang members, Biggs robbed a Glasgow-to-London mail train in 1963 and stole £2.6 million – almost £30 million in todays money. The crime became known as The Great Train Robbery.
Biggs was caught and sentenced the following year but escaped from prison after just 15 months.
He used his share of the money to pay for plastic surgery and papers for a passage to Australia where he returned to his old job of carpenter and decorator. He later fled to Brazil via Panama and Venezuela.
He surrendered to police in 2001 after 36 years on the run.
Mr Straw said he had made the initial decision to refuse parole principally because Biggs had shown “no remorse for his crimes nor respect for the punishments given to him”.
But the minister said he had changed his mind after considering the prisoner’s health, specifically whether death was likely to occur soon and whether the prisoner was bedridden or incapacitated.
Biggs will spend one more night under prison guard before his release today, the ministry of justice said.
The robbery was dubbed the “crime of the century” when it hit the headlines in August 1963.
The plan was to hold up the night mail train from Glasgow to Euston as it passed through the Buckinghamshire countryside close to Cheddington.
The train was carrying huge numbers of used bank notes.
Career thief Bruce Reynolds, who masterminded the operation, assembled at least 15 hardened criminals for the job – including the now notorious Ronnie Biggs.
The train appeared shortly after 3am and stopped at a set of fake signals the gang had put up. Its driver, Jack Mills, got out to see what was going on and was coshed over the head and knocked senseless. The train was driven to nearby Bridego Bridge and the gang unloaded £2,631,684. The cash was taken by lorry 25 miles to Leatherslade Farm.
A crooked solicitor had been used to buy the farm and the gang planned to hole up there until the heat died down. By December most of the robbers had been arrested. Twelve were jailed for a total of more than 300 years but more than one broke out of jail, including Ronnie Biggs who spent more than 30 years on the run. But after serving just 15 months he scaled a wall at Wandsworth Prison in London and made his escape in a furniture van before fleeing the country.