This guy sounds pretty cool... Britain's "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs, who stole the equivalent of $50 million 46 years ago, was freed early from prison Friday on compassionate grounds as he lay in hospital gravely ill. Biggs, who 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. Even now his early release from jail for a crime that earned him a place in criminal history and made him a household name in Britain has divided public opinion. Rail unions, who told British media he was "no Robin Hood," said he should have spent the rest of his life in prison for his role in a robbery in which a train driver was seriously hurt. The Prison Reform Trust welcomed the news and said the jail terms of hundreds of elderly prisoners should also be reviewed. Biggs, said to be frail and sick in hospital with pneumonia, is free to celebrate his 80th birthday Saturday with friends and family -- 46 years to the day since the heist. Peace
Great train robber? He robbed one train, and he got caught... (joke stolen from mock the week or somewhere like that...)
Well thats what he was called at the time, plus he escaped from prison after only being there for 15 months, and stayed free for 35 years.. Nice feat . Peace
All he did was get some bird pregnant; they couldn't extradite him then. I think he should have rotted in jail. Sorry. I'm not too keen on these so-called "lovable rogues."
Him and that fat friar tuck spent all their money on loose woman and booze. I mean Robin Hood did.. Ronny invested in t-shirts.. Peace
Agree. Biggs was just a small-time crook, not even a leading member of the gang. His only claim to fame is that he escaped jail. Wonder how the train driver's family feel about this [the driver died, although not immediately, as a result of his injuries]. At least the other gang members did there time. And dont even mention the Sex Pistols episode...
Ronnie Biggs was a scapegoat. All those dudes made the English establishment look stupid at a time they could ill afford. They payed the price. I always thought Biggs did 10 years but I could be mistaken. Perhaps he got 10 and escaped, i'm not that up on it tbh. Whatever, he made the mistake of coming back to the UK and trying it on with free NSH medical treatment and they buggered him. If it was me, i'd have said "i've had a good run, I got one over on the wigs in the UK and now i'm ill so that's that" and i've have stayed there.
Fuck Ronnie Biggs. He is a thug. I think they should let him out of prison on compassionate grounds, but the man is no hero.
Always been the same, hasn't it ? Dick Turpin is presented as a glamerous anti-hero, while in reality he was a thug and a rapist. I reckon if you want something close to what career criminals of Biggs' era were really like, you should check out a couple of British films from the start of the 1970s - Get Carter and Performance. Grim and not in the least glamerous.
He's living not too far from me now. No hero and I would not have let him out given he escaped for 30 odd years.
