Train robber Biggs back in prison

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/norfolk/8155823.stm

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The Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has been taken back to jail following hospital treatment for a broken hip.

The 79-year-old inmate at Norwich Prison was taken to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital last month also suffering for a chest infection.

Earlier this month, he was refused parole by Justice Secretary Jack Straw.

Mr Straw rejected a recommendation by the Parole Board which said the risk Biggs posed was "manageable under the proposed risk management plan".

But the panel added that "in terms of his attitudes and risk areas" there was little evidence, apart from Biggs' increased age, to suggest he would not return to a criminal lifestyle.

On the run

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.

Biggs escaped from Wandsworth Prison, south London, in a furniture van after serving 15 months of a 30-year sentence.

He was on the run for more than 30 years, living in Spain, Australia and Brazil, before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001.

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.