Biggs 'may be released within days'

Jul 1 2009

Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs could be free within days after Justice Secretary Jack Straw agreed to grant him parole, it has been reported.

The Times said Mr Straw would sign the 79-year-old's parole papers, allowing him to be released into the care of a nursing home.

But a Ministry of Justice spokesman denied any decision on the release of Biggs had been made and said the report was "unfounded speculation".

Biggs, who is being held in Norwich prison, is in Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital after breaking his hip in a fall at the weekend. He could be let out as early as Friday, when he will have served one third of his 30-year sentence.

Biggs's legal adviser, Giovanni Di Stefano, said his client was "seriously ill" and would remain in hospital for the next two to six weeks.

"The only difference if Mr Straw has approved his parole is that the guards will disappear from the hospital," he said. "Then he will go to his nursing home and stay there. There will be no coming out of the prison in a wheelchair. He will be in hospital for at least another two weeks."

Biggs has suffered a series of strokes and is fed through a tube. He communicates using gestures or by pointing at letters on a card. If released, it is believed his care would be paid for by Barnet Primary Care Trust, near where his son Michael lives in north London.

He would also be free to celebrate his 80th birthday on August 8, 46 years to the day since the heist.

Biggs, from Lambeth, south London, was a member of a 15-strong gang which attacked the Glasgow to London mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, in August 1963, and made off off with £2.6 million in used banknotes. He was given a 30-year sentence but after 15 months he escaped from Wandsworth prison in south-west London by climbing a 30ft wall and fleeing in a furniture van.

He was on the run for more than 30 years, living in Spain, Australia and Brazil, before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001.