Family seek release of train robber Biggs

LAWYERS for Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, who turned 75 on Sunday, are seeking freedom for the ailing prisoner on compassionate grounds.

"I regard my father as a political prisoner," his son Michael said after the appeal was launched at London's High Court yesterday. "Terrorists and paedophiles get better treatment."

Biggs, who cannot eat or speak properly after several strokes, is in the hospital wing of London's top security Belmarsh prison, where he is serving the remainder of a 30-year sentence given in 1964 for one of the most notorious heists.