Biggs in new bid for jail release

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/norfolk/7242271.stm

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Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has made a new plea to be released from prison on compassionate grounds.

Biggs, 78, was transferred from London's high-security Belmarsh Prison to Norwich Prison after strokes and heart attacks left him seriously ill.

He was jailed for 30 years for the 1963 robbery, but escaped and went on the run abroad before returning in 2001 to serve the rest of his sentence.

Biggs's legal team said the Ministry of Justice had refused the request.

The Ministry of Justice would not comment on the outcome.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman confirmed that an application for the early release on compassionate grounds of a prisoner at HMP Norwich had been received.

"We do not discuss the cases of individual prisoners," he added.

Giovanni Di Stefano, a member of Biggs's legal team, said: "The Ministry of Justice has refused the application saying Mr Biggs is not ill enough. I find that abysmal."

'Not discuss'

Biggs was transferred from Belmarsh prison, in south-east London, last June to a unit at Norwich for elderly inmates on life sentences.

He was part of a gang which held up a Glasgow-to-London night train in August 1963 and escaped with a then record haul in cash.

Biggs had served only 15 months when he escaped from Wandsworth Prison by scaling a rope ladder.

He was on the run for 35 years after fleeing to Paris and Australia and then Brazil, which has no extradition treaty with the UK.