General Chat

This is from the local Evening News in Norwich, you can see the picture if you go to the site.

A picture of frail great train robber Ronnie Biggs lying in his hospital bed has been released on the day he hoped to be released from prison.

Biggs, 79, is recovering in Norfolk and Norwich University hospital after breaking his hip in a fall in jail last weekend. Biggs, who will be 80 next month, has suffered three strokes over the last two years.

He communicates through gestures and by spelling out words with an alphabet board. He is fed through a tube in the stomach and can walk only a few steps unaided.

He is likely to be in hospital several weeks and while there, three prison guards from HMP Norwich, are ordered to keep a 24-hour watch.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw refused to grant parole to Biggs on Sunday despite a care home being lined up for him after his release. A parole board recommended that he should be released.

But Mr Straw refused on the basis that he had not shown remorse for his crimes.

Biggs has appealed to Mr Straw to reconsider so he could spend his last few days with his son, Michael, 34.

He said: “My lawyer said sorry on my behalf to the Parole Board, not just for my minor role in the robbery, but all the silly things I did as a young man.”

Biggs, of Lambeth, South London, has served ten years of a 30-year sentence imposed in 1964 for his part in the £2.5 million (£40 million at today's prices) robbery of the Glasgow to London mail train.

He was one of a 15-strong gang who ambushed the mail train in 1963. Driver Jack Mills was coshed. He never fully recovered and died seven years later.

The robber escaped from London's Wandsworth jail after 15 months. He was a fugitive in Spain, Australia and Brazil for more than 30 years before returning to Britain voluntarily in 2001.

Bigg's son, Michael said: “I regret allowing my father to persuade me to bring him back every second of my life. When he couldn't speak and barely walk, all he did was beg me, on his alphabet board, to take him back to England.

“His last wish is to walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of beer.”

Bigg's lawyer, Giovanni Di Stefano is asking magistrates today to issue a summons so he can launch a private prosecution against Mr Straw for false imprisonment.

Considering what I have just heard on the news, that there are hundreds of murderers and rapists let out on licence that haven't returned to prison and can't be found, I don't see why Biggs needs to be kept imprisoned any longer altho it doesn't sound as tho he will be going far anyway, certainly not to Margate for a pint!

I think it is disgraceful that the people let out on licence could pose a threat to others, we have seen enough of further crimes being committed before, will the authorities ever learn?

Lizx

Hi Liz, funnily enough I have just added that to the thread over on chat .

xx