Straw refuses Ronnie Biggs parole
Straw refuses Ronnie Biggs parole
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Profile: Ronnie Biggs
How the robbery unfolded
The Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has been refused parole by Justice Secretary Jack Straw.
Mr Straw rejected a recommendation by the Parole Board which backed the release of Biggs, 79.
Mr Straw said Biggs was "wholly unrepentant" about his actions and had "outrageously courted the media".
Biggs' son Michael called for Mr Straw to review the decision. "This is not justice," he said. He said his father was in a "life-threatening" condition.
Biggs is in the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital after breaking his hip in a fall.
He was taken from Norwich Prison to hospital after a fall at the weekend.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2005/11/91.jpg https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2005/08/29.jpg Had he complied with his sentence, he would have been a free man many years ago https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2005/08/30.jpg
Justice Secretary Jack Straw
The Parole Board report said the risk Biggs posed was "manageable under the proposed risk management plan and consequently parole is recommended".
But the panel added that "in terms of his attitudes and risk areas" there was little evidence, apart from his increased age, to suggest he would not return to his old criminal lifestyle.
Giving his reasons for the refusal of parole, Mr Straw said it was "unacceptable" that Biggs had chosen not to obey the law and tried to avoid the consequences of his decision.
Mr Straw said Biggs would have been a free man "many years ago" if he had complied with the sentence given to him.
He said: "I have informed Mr Ronald Biggs of my decision regarding his parole.
"Mr Biggs chose to serve only one year of a 30-year sentence before he took the personal decision to commit another offence and escape from prison, avoiding capture by travelling abroad for 35 years whilst outrageously courting the media.
"Had he complied with his sentence, he would have been a free man many years ago.
"I am refusing the Parole Board's recommendation for parole. Biggs chose not to obey the law and respect the punishments given to him - the legal system in this country deserves more respect than this.
HAVE YOUR SAY Let him go for his pint and live his last months and years as a free man
Julian, Middlewich
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"It was Mr Biggs's own choice to offend and he now appears to want to avoid the consequences of his decision. I do not think this is acceptable.
"Mr Biggs is wholly unrepentant and the Parole Board found his propensity to breach trust a very significant factor. He has not undertaken risk-related work and does not regret his offending."
Biggs' son Michael said his father presented "no threat to society whatsoever", adding "he cannot walk, he cannot talk, he cannot eat and drink".
"This flies in the face of the parole board recommendation. This is not justice," he said.
Michael Biggs called Mr Straw's decision "beyond belief" and "vindictive".
"My father has been made to serve a long sentence because of his surname."
He said he would be visiting his father in hospital on Thursday morning.
Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "It is difficult to see what can be gained, other than tough headlines, by overturning a carefully considered Parole Board decision to grant release and instead condemning a sick, elderly man to spend what seem from reports to be his dying months in prison."
Biggs was a member of a 15-strong gang which attacked a mail train in Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, on 8 August 1963.
The gang made off with £2.6m in used banknotes in the biggest ever raid on a British train.
After being given a 30-year sentence, Biggs escaped from Wandsworth Prison, south London, in a furniture van after spending 15 months in jail.
He was on the run for more than 30 years, living in Spain, Australia and Brazil, before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001.
How the Great Train Robbery unfolded
How the Great Train Robbery unfolded
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/07/46.jpg The scale of the robbery captivated the British public
The Great Train Robbery of 1963 was the most famous raid of an era in which some criminals became celebrities.
The gang, taking inspiration from the rail robberies of the Wild West, raided a Glasgow to London mail train and escaped with £2.6m in used bank notes - a record haul at that time.
The mastermind was Bruce Reynolds, a known armed burglar.
Using inside information on mail movements, he assembled a gang to intercept the overnight train in a quiet part of Buckinghamshire.
The robbers struck on 8 August 1963 when the train stopped near Cheddington after the gang had changed a signal to red.
Fifteen men wearing ski masks and helmets swarmed onto the train and grabbed 120 bags of money.
Train driver Jack Mills was struck over the head with an iron bar, although it has never been established who was responsible, and he would never work again.
Police launched an immediate manhunt for the robbers, whose crime had captivated the British public, because of its scale.
Five days after the robbery, a tip-off led police to the gang's hideout at Leatherslade Farm, about 20 miles from the crime scene, near Oakley.
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/07/47.jpg Charlie Wilson was the first Great Train Robber to be charged
The gang had escaped there to share out the proceeds of their robbery, which would amount to more than £40m in 2009.
It is believed the men played Monopoly at the farmhouse using some of the notes stolen from the mail train.
They fled the property before police arrived, but their fingerprints were found all over the house.
The gang contained a number of members who already had criminal records, which provided vital evidence for police.
Nine days after the robbery, Charlie Wilson became the first member of the gang to be arrested and charged.
By January 1964, police had gathered enough evidence for 12 of the 15 to be put on trial in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
By April all 12 men had been convicted, with only one of them, Roger Cordrey, who gave back his £80,000 share of the money, pleading guilty.
Eleven of the men were each sentenced to between 20 and 30 years in prison.
In passing sentence, Mr Justice Edmund Davies focused on the violence used against Mr Mills.
He said: "Let us clear out of the way any romantic notions of daredevilry. This is nothing less than a sordid crime of violence inspired by vast greed."
https://teakdoor.com/images/imported/2009/07/48.jpg Reynolds (r) joined Biggs (c) for his 70th birthday celebrations in Brazil
The 12th convicted man, solicitor John Wheater, was jailed for three years for obtaining the farm as a hideout.
However, it was accepted he had not known about the robbery until after it had happened.
The three Great Train Robbers not put on trial in 1964 had all been jailed within five years.
They included Buster Edwards, later the subject of a film starring Phil Collins, who went on the run to Mexico but gave himself up in 1968, and mastermind Reynolds.
Within two years of the first trial, both Charlie Wilson and Ronnie Biggs had escaped from prison, adding to the notoriety surrounding the robbery.
Wilson was caught in Canada in 1968, but Biggs became the UK's most famous fugitive as he continued to evade recapture until giving himself up by flying back to the UK from Brazil in 2001.
He was immediately arrested and taken to high-security Belmarsh prison to serve out the remainder of his original sentence, before later moving to Norwich prison on compassionate grounds in 2007.
His lawyers say he has suffered two strokes and now cannot speak or eat due to facial paralysis.
His son Michael, whose birth had prevented Biggs's extradition from Brazil, has campaigned for his father's release ever since his return to the UK, but that wish has been denied
