Biggs awaits parole board ruling on freedom

GREAT Train Robber Ronnie Biggs will learn within weeks whether he has succeeded in his bid for early jail release after a parole board panel met yesterday to consider his case.

No details were available of the board’s decision, but its recommendation will be passed to Justice Secretary Jack Straw who will have the final say, a parole board spokesman said.

The earliest date that Biggs, 79, could be freed falls in the first week of July, and Straw’s decision should be made by then, the spokesman added.

Biggs’s legal representative Giovanni Di Stefano said he was “extremely confident” Biggs would be released early next month.

By July, Biggs will have served 10 years of a 30-year sentence for one of Britain’s most infamous crimes.

Biggs’s son Michael, 34, said it was time to release his father, who has suffered three strokes, two minor heart attacks, has skin cancer and cannot walk, or eat, drink or speak properly.

“I’m just hoping that common sense will prevail,” he said. “It’s not serving the taxpayer any purpose. My father is clearly not a threat to society any more. He has done his time.”

Biggs and 11 other gang members robbed a Glasgow-to-London mail train in 1963 and stole £2.6 million – about £30m in today’s money. The crime has been known ever since as The Great Train Robbery.

Biggs was caught and sentenced the following year, but escaped from prison after just 15 months, fleeing first to Australia and then to Brazil. His playboy lifestyle and cocky defiance of the authorities made him a criminal legend, spawning several films and making heroes out of the villains in the eyes of millions around the world. However, he surrendered to police in 2001 after 36 years on the run and is serving out his sentence at Norwich prison.

“If they are letting every Tom, Dick and Harry out on early release to free up prison space, why not do the same to Ronnie Biggs?” his son Michael added. “Are they going to make him pay for his name or are they going to treat him like everybody else?”

His family have said he hopes to be free to celebrate his 80th birthday on August 8, 46 years to the day since the heist.

Mr di Stefano, said: “The parole board have formally met and have made their recommendations to Jack Straw MP. I have spoken to the Ministry of Justice who confirm they are actively working on the case and a decision will be made quickly.”