Biggs leaves in police convoy

About 60 police officers were waiting at the airfield’s entrances in seven police vans and at least three police cars to welcome penniless Biggs, who has suffered three strokes and can no longer speak properly.

The fugitive, who long ago spent his £147,000 share (worth about £1.6m in today’s money) of the 1963 mail train robbery haul, hopes to receive vital medical treatment, which he could not afford in Brazil.

Biggs, who escaped from Wandsworth prison in 1965, returned home in style in a Dassault Falcon 900 executive jet stocked with curry, marmite and cans of beer.

He emerged into a breezy 9C (48F) day - in contrast to the 32C (90F) he left behind in Rio.

At Northolt, waiting press were kept outside a perimeter fence and RAF police patrolled with dogs.

At about 8.40am, a convoy set off towards the runway consisting of two police cars, two police vans, two ambulances, and a van with blacked out windows.

A few minutes earlier, Chancellor Gordon Brown had arrived in a ministerial red Rover Sterling for a flight to Brussels for a finance meeting.