Buzzin Disgrace

It has been reported the Ronnie Biggs, The Great Train Robber of 1963, could be free from prison by next year according to his lawyer.

A 15-member gang, with Bruce Reynolds being the leader and including Biggs, stopped a travelling post office train after tampering with the signals and cutting the telephone cables.

Although no guns were used, the driver of the train Jack Mills, was struck on the head with an iron bar from which he recovered but suffered constant trauma headaches and died in 1970 from leukemia.

£2,631,784 was stolen which is approximately £40 million today and thirteen of the gang members were caught and sentenced and jailed in 1964.

Biggs escaped from prison after serving only 15 months of his sentence with a considerable amount of the money.  He went to Paris where he obtained new identity papers and underwent plastic surgery.  He travelled to Australia in 1970 where he continued to live a normal life.

After a tip off he moved to Melbourne from Adelaide and then onto Brazil where it was discovered he could not be extradited and so lived there for many years untouchable by the British authorities.

In 1970, Biggs found he could no longer afford his medical expenses after suffering three strokes and voluntarily returned to England.

Biggs was detained and after a short court hearing he was sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.

This thief was on the run for 35 years when he had been sentenced to 30 years in prison.  Because he has now served a third of his sentence, he is now considered to be eligible for parole.

Why?  He should never be allowed out to lead a normal life, he had that luxury when he should have been serving his sentence, but was living and enjoying his life abroad and spending the money he had stolen.  I say keep him in prison for the rest of his life.