August 7 was a great day for Britain’s “Great Train Robber” Ronnie Biggs. He was officially released! Biggs stole the equivalent of $50 million (RM175 million), the biggest heist in those days, 46 years ago. He was freed early from prison on compassionate grounds as he lay in hospital gravely ill.Biggs was a household name, a modern Robin Hood until his capture. He spent 35 years on the run, won notoriety and some popularity for his ingenuity in evading capture and for cheekily thumbing his nose at the law from sun-soaked beaches.
Biggs, frail and sick with pneumonia, will celebrate his 80th birthday on Saturday with friends and family – 46 years to the day since the heist.
With 11 other gang members, Biggs robbed a Glasgow-to-London mail train in 1963 and stole £2.6 million (RM15.2 million), which is about £30 million (RM175.3 million) in today’s money. The crime became known as “The Great Train Robbery”.
Train driver Jack Mills was hit with an iron bar by an unknown member of the gang and never fully recovered.
Biggs was caught and convicted the following year but escaped from prison after just 15 months using a rope ladder that dropped him on to the roof of a waiting van.
Following his escape, he spent decades as a fugitive, moving from Australia to Panama and Venezuela, before ending up in Brazil, where his playboy lifestyle and cocky defiance of the British authorities made him a criminal legend.
He was tracked down in 1974 by a British newspaper, but narrowly escaped extradition from Brazil because his girlfriend, stripper Raimunda de Castro, was pregnant.
Now 79, Biggs returned to Britain voluntarily in 2001 and has been in jail.
The government approved his release after being told he was unlikely to recover, reversing its decision last month to refuse him parole on the grounds that he had not shown remorse.
