-- Newspaper and Website Reviews
RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
The Weekly News
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Daily Sport
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BIGGS IS WEAKEST CLINK
FRAIL Ronnie Biggs would rather stay in jail watching The Weakest Link than return to Britain’s streets.
The Great Train Robber, 79, says he’s terrified of the soaring violence outside his prison cell.
Mike Gray, his friend and the author of Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, said: “Ron said he would hate to be out on the street with the crime as it is – everyone getting shot and stabbed.
“He said it must be quite frightening for you on the outside.
“He’s turned it around and said, ‘I think I’m all right here’. He’s seen the news, he’s seeing what’s happening on a daily basis and he’s obviously found it quite frightening, especially being a 79-year-old pensioner.
“For the last three or four years he’s been watching The Weakest Link and it’s become one of his chief pleasures in life. He absolutely loves it.
“I’m sure he’s got a soft spot for Anne Robinson because he talks about her all the time.”
Biggs, jailed for the 1963 robbery, is now so frail he communicates by pointing to letters on a board.
Mike added: “Last visit, when we said ‘ta ta’ he spelled out on his board ‘Mike Gray, you’re the weakest link. Goodbye’. He found it hilarious.
“The only unfortunate thing was it took him seven minutes to spell it because he’s that slow. But he still found it funny.”
Two years after taking part in the £2.6million heist of the Glasgow to London mail train, Biggs escaped Wandsworth jail and fled to Brazil.
He was jailed in 2001 after voluntarily returning from Rio de Janeiro after 35 years on the run.
Last year he was moved from Belmarsh, south-east London, to Norwich jail because of ill health.
Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, from Apex Publishing, goes on sale in February.
Daily Star Sunday
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NEW BOOK ON RONNIE BIGGS’S PRISON LIFE
Famed train robber Ronnie Biggs has described Norwich prison as "grim" during interviews for a new book about his time in jail.
The book, entitled Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story reveals the 79-year-old's true feelings about being in the city prison after he was finally caught for his involvement in the £2.6m Great Train Robbery in 1963.
Biggs escaped from jail in 1965 and fled to Brazil, but finally returned to England and was locked up again in 2001.
Now severely ill after three strokes which have left him unable to talk, eat or walk, Biggs has spoken out from his jail cell about his days in HMP Norwich, in Knox Road, and what his life is like inside.
The book, which is to be released in February, includes the time he threw a tissue box at child killer Ian Huntley, when he was diagnosed with MRSA and when he was double handcuffed to his hospital bed.
Author Mike Grey who has co-written the book with Tel Currie, said Biggs is in a desperate state, ill, old and is too frail to carry out chores in the prison, but mainly rests or spends time in the Healthcare Unit.
He added: "Ronnie is still fed via a tube into his stomach.
"He feels that Norwich has beautiful countryside but it's a very grim prison, very much like Wandsworth where Ronnie was when he escaped in 1965."
Mr Grey still visits the famous criminal every month at the city's category C prison and said Biggs feels like things have changed to the point where other inmates don't even know who he is.
He added: "Ronnie just shrugs his shoulders at younger inmates and their attitude.
But on the visits, you always hear 'That's Ronnie Biggs, the famous one' as some 16-year-old on remand tells his young lady or parents, but in true Biggsy style, Ronnie is always ready to shake people's hands and acknowledge them - he's a real gent."
A long-fought campaign has so far failed to release the ailing criminal and, despite Biggs' health, Mr Grey said he maintains his positive outlook and is certain one day he will be free.
He added: "He's well liked by the medical staff and in Norwich he gets a wet shave every day.
"Every visit Ronnie looks smart and last time I saw him, he had a Ben Sherman shirt, aftershave, a 100pc wool jumper, all bought through the prison catalogue with money from the inmates' allowance or funds that have been sent to him."
The authors have spent much of their time campaigning to free the former robber, who Tel Currie said played only a small part in the actual great train robbery.
Mr Currie said: "He was like the tea boy - he tried to organise a train driver, who actually messed up and he watched the robbery from the grass verge.
"It's an inhumane state for him to be in and I know he hasn't made any chums in there. He can't talk and has to point to a word board to spell. He's a sick old man."
The book will be out in February and is released by Apex Publishing.
* Should Ronnie Biggs be released from HMP Norwich? What do you think? Write to the Evening News, Prospect House, Rouen Road, Norwich, NR1 1RE or email eveningnewsletters@archant.co.uk
Norwich Evening News
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BOOK AIMS TO HELP "FREE BIGGS" CASE
Evesham Observer
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THE INSIDE STORY
Epsom Guardian
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BIGGS: I’M BACK TO DIE IN BRAZIL
FRAIL Ronnie Biggs will return to Brazil when he gets out of jail next year.
The 79-year-old Great Train Robber is due to be released on compassionate grounds at a parole hearing on Valentine’s Day 2009.
He is wheelchair-bound, eats via a tube and communicates by pointing to letters of the alphabet.
But he wants to spend his last days in Brazil, where he spent years evading capture for the 1963 robbery.
In a new book about Biggs’ life, his lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano says: “It is Mr Biggs’ desire to return to Brazil and to spend his days with his family.
“I have spoken with the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who have confirmed that Mr Biggs may re-enter Brazil at any time as during his 37 years in the country he lived a law-abiding life.”
Biggs’ involvement in The Great Train Robbery has made him one of Britain’s notorious prisoners.
But in the book he delivers a shock apology for his role in the crime.
He says: “There is no honour to be known as a Great Train Robber. I regret my actions and I apologise for glamorising what should only be thought of as a wilful crime. Before my death, I wish to deter those who may think of following a criminal way of life.
“My life has been wasted and as I reflect on my years as a fugitive, I accept that cocking a snoop at the police was a mistake during my time in Brazil.”
Since returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001, Biggs has retained links with Brazil. Son Michael, 34, has a wife Veronica and they live in Rio with their daughter Ingrid.
The birth of Michael – to club dancer Raimunda de Castro who left when the boy was 11 months old – allowed Biggs to avoid British justice.
Brazilian law stops the parent of a Brazilian child being expelled.
Biggs and Raimunda were reunited and wed in 2002 – giving Michael British citizenship.
* Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story will be brought out by Apex Publishing on February 6 next year.
Daily Star Sunday
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A very sympathetic treatment of the life of a man whose iconic status as one of the Great Train Robbers sometimes gets in the way of the reality of his incaceration today.
Robert Verkaik, The Independent (Law Editor)
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An honest and compelling insight into the infamous face of Ronnie Biggs, revealing his time inside, his remarriage while at HMP Belmarsh and detail throughout of just how frail this Great Train Robber really is.
Lucy Bolton, Norwich Evening News (Crime Reporter)
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FAMILY SAYS TRIAN ROBBER BIGGS COULD BE FREED SOON
By Duncan Campbell
Great train robber Ronnie Biggs is likely to be freed on Valentine's Day next year, according to friends and family. Biggs, 79, who has been in poor health since suffering a stroke, has said he wants to die "a free man".
"He is very happy and very excited about it," said Mike Gray, a friend. "His case is now with the parole board and we are very hopeful that he will be a free man on Valentine's Day, which will be, coincidentally, the day that he will have served a third of his sentence, including time in custody in Brazil and Barbados."
Plans are under way to find a private nursing home for Biggs in north London, to be near his son, Michael, whose birth in Brazil entitled Biggs to residence in that country during lengthy attempts by the British authorities to extradite him.
It is more than 45 years since £2.5m was stolen from the Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train and Biggs is the only robber still behind bars. Jailed for 30 years in 1964, he escaped from Wandsworth prison the following year and spent 35 years on the run, mainly in Brazil. With declining health, he returned voluntarily to Britain in 2001.
"He has to be fed via a tube to his stomach and can only communicate by pointing at letters on a laminated sheet," said Gray who, with Tel Currie, is the author of a new book, Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story. "We have been making the point that he is hardly a danger to the public and, with the prisons as overcrowded as they are, he should now be freed."
Michael Biggs moved to London at the time of his father's return, became a British citizen and now works as a football agent, bringing young Brazilian players to Britain.
Many of Biggs's fellow train robbers are dead: Charlie Wilson was murdered, Buster Edwards killed himself and others died of natural causes. Bruce Reynolds, who orchestrated the robbery, has written a number of books on the case.
The Guardian
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
The Sunday Post
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A good read. An intriguing insight into a story that everyone thinks they know questioning the logic of our justice system.
John D Roberts, Inside Time: The National Monthly Newspaper for Prisoners (Operations Director)
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GREAT TRAIN ROBBER RONNIE BIGGS 'TO BE FREED NEXT YEAR'
Ronnie Biggs, one of the great train robbers, is likely to be freed on Valentine's Day next year, it has been reported.
By Jon Swaine
Friends have reportedly said that Biggs, 79, who has been in very poor health since suffering a stroke, will have his wish to "die a free man" granted.
It is believed that plans are being developed to move Biggs to a private nursing home in North London, where he can be near Michael, his son.
Michael's birth in Brazil allowed Biggs to stay in the country during his 35 years on the run after escaping from Wandsworth prison.
"He is very happy and very excited about it," Mike Gray, a friend, told The Guardian. "His case is now with the parole board and we are very hopeful that he will be a free man on Valentine's Day, which will be, coincidentally, the day that he will have served a third of his sentence, including time in custody in Brazil and Barbados."
Biggs is the last of the train robbers, who stole £2.5 million from a Glasgow-to-London Royal Mail train in 1963, behind bars. After being sentenced to 30 years in prison, he escaped in 1965.
After years of successfully eluding the Government's attempts to have him extradited, Biggs returned to Britain voluntarily in 2001, and was jailed on his arrival.
"He has to be fed via a tube to his stomach and can only communicate by pointing at letters on a laminated sheet," said Mr Gray, who has co-authored a new book 'Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story'.
"We have been making the point that he is hardly a danger to the public and, with the prisons as overcrowded as they are, he should now be freed."
Daily Telegraph
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RONNIE BIGGS INCREASINGLY FRAIL IN NORWICH JAIL
Friends of the train robber Ronnie Biggs have claimed he is now too frail to walk, talk or give them his usual “Brazilian hug”.
After visiting the prisoner at Norwich Prison last week, they said the 79-year-old's health is declining rapidly.
The robber, who has been a prisoner at Norwich HMP since July last year, can no longer rise from his wheelchair to meet them and looked gaunt and very thin.
Mike Gray, who regularly travels from London to the prison to see the ailing robber, has said Biggs' health is now so bad he should be released from jail.
Biggs has suffered two heart attacks as well as many other health scares and now resides in the medical wing of Norwich HMP.
Mr Gray, who has co-written The Inside Story about Biggs' life, said: “He is usually very well dressed and groomed, gets up gives us one of his Brazilian hugs, but he just couldn't do that this time.
“He looked thin and didn't even have his teeth in.”
The author, along with co-writer Tel Currie and Biggs' family, have campaigned for years to release the prisoner, who fled to Brazil after the £2.6m Great Train Robbery in 1963, before voluntarily returning to Britain in 2001.
Mr Gray added: “There has been a lot of talk of his release and we were hoping for this Christmas, but I think realistically it will be July next year now.
“He's still under quite a harsh regime of security and although Norwich is much better than Belmarsh HMP where he was before but he is very frail.”
Norwich Evening News
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RON 'FREE ME' HOPE
Daily Star Sunday
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EX-BOXER IN FIGHT TO FREE RONNIE BIGGS
AN ex-boxer who co-wrote a book on Ronnie Biggs, The Great Train Robber, believes the man has served his time and is hoping to see him released next April.
Tel Currie, who moved from London to Evesham, co-wrote Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story which he had hoped would help free him.
Mr Currie has been inspired in his fight by a recent visit to HMP Norwich, where Biggs is being held, by his co-author, Mike Gray, and publishing manager Chris Cowlin.
He said: “I heard it was a very encouraging visit and that Ronnie was very heartened by it.
“We have tried to raise the public awareness about Ronnie, I believe he has served his time and I described his condition in a radio interview as like ‘keeping a cabbage in jail’.
“It sounds horrible, but he can’t walk and can barely talk, and he deserves to be able to move on in his life.”
Mr Currie feels Biggs was made the scapegoat for the Great Train Robbery in 1963, in which over £2.5m was stolen.
His role was allegedly a minor one yet he is still in prison over 50 years later.
Tel added: “If no one does anything, I fear he will just be forgotten and rot in prison.
“He was described as the ‘tea boy’ of the robbery, yet he received one of the harshest sentences.
“One of the world’s top defence lawyers, Giovanni Di Stefano, has now taken up Ronnie’s case and things are starting to happen already.
“Being in prison is supposed to be about rehabilitation and change, not revenge. This man was about 30-years-old when he went to prison, he is now almost 80.
“It’s pointless using tax payer’s money to keep him in there any longer.”
Evesham Ad Mag
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Regarded by both the public and the underworld as a top villian, in real life Ronnie Biggs was a small-time crook out of his depth when he took part in Britain's most famous crime. A priceless insight, this book helps destroy the mythology surrounding the life of the notorious Great Train Robber.
Rick Lyons, Daily Star Sunday (Crime Correspondent)
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If you think the British justice system is so great, read this book. This book tells the unsavoury story of a sick old man who hurt nobody and the evil system that has destroyed many!
www.justiceforkevinlane.com
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RONNIE BIGGS AUTHOR DISCUSSES PRISONER PAROLE IN FRONT OF TV AUDIENCE
An author from Stoneleigh has appeared before a worldwide television audience of 11.6m viewers to discuss the early prison release of Ronnie Biggs.
Mike Gray, 52, who recently penned a best-selling book on the Great Train Robber, was interviewed for 15 minutes on Sky News last week.
The organiser of the Free Ronnie Biggs campaign expects his friend to be freed from jail next month, in time for his 80th birthday in August.
Parole Board members have decided the risk of Biggs reoffending is low because he can barely walk after a series of strokes.
Mr Gray said: “The book was brought about as an awareness campaign to let people know he is still alive and still going through this high-security madness.
“He is very frail, very ill and the public will be very shocked when they actually see him come out.
“Common sense has prevailed on the release of an old man, who has not hurt anyone in his life, and is being released into a north London nursing home, so he may be with his son Michael.”
Biggs was jailed for 30 years in 1964 after £2.5m was stolen from a Glasgow to London mail train.
He later escaped from Wandsworth Prison.
The driver, Jack Mills, who later died of leukaemia, was struck with an iron bar in the robbery.
After developing an interest in the case at school, Mr Gray began corresponding with the fugitive Biggs through an ex-patriate newspaper.
The author is now braced for TV crews outside his Stoneleigh home, in a repeat of the media furore in 2001 when Biggs returned from Brazil.
His book, Ronnie Biggs: Inside Story, which details Biggs’s treatment in UK prisons, is being restocked at Waterstone’s in the Ashley Centre, Epsom, before the expected July 4 parole date.
Surrey Comet
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Chelmsford Weekly News
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MIKE'S BIGGS IDEAS
The Bournemouth Daily Echo
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AUTHOR'S JOY AS TRAIN ROBBER TO BE SET FREE
Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 15:54Comment on this story
A LONG-TIME friend of great train robber, Ronnie Biggs was in Chelmsford celebrating news that the pensioner will soon be out of prison.
Author Mike Gray was at Waterstone's bookshop to sign copies of his new book, based on the experiences of the infamous fugitive since his return to Britain in 2001.
Mr Gray, 52, of Surrey, said: "It is fantastic news and long overdue.
"We have all been waiting to find out when Ronnie, who is nearly 80 and very ill, will be allowed out, and now we are over the moon."
Mr Gray has been visiting Biggs at Norwich Prison to research his book, and is also the founder, with Biggs's son Michael, of the Free Ronnie Biggs campaign.
On Saturday, shoppers queued at the bookshop for the chance to quiz the first-time author about his experiences with Biggs.
Mr Grey said: "He robbed the Queen's mail, which is probably why he was very popular in Germany.
"Unfortunately the train driver was injured – the only other damage was to the Government's pride."
Biggs was taken to Norwich Hospital last week suffering from pneumonia, but is now said to be in a stable condition.
In February, his lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano informed the family that he is expected to be released on July 3.
Ronnie Biggs's life in and out of the spotlight has made international headlines since his arrest following the Great Train Robbery in 1963.
He was originally sentenced to 30 years in prison for his part in the £2.4million heist, despite only playing a small part, and there being no allegations of any violence on his part.
However the court imposed harsh sentences because the driver of the train was seriously injured, and also the ease of which the robbery took place that caused embarrassment to the authorities at the time.
Following his trial and 15 months at Wandsworth prison, Biggs escaped and spent years on the run, travelling through France to Australia, ending up in Brazil, always one step ahead of the pursuing law.
Biggs fathered a son, survived several kidnap and extradition attempts, recorded music with the Sex Pistols and lived as a celebrity fugitive in Brazil.
He even took money from tourists excited at the chance of having their photographs taken with a man who had become something of an icon for his perceived defiance of authority.
In 2001, aged 71, he wrote to British police saying he wanted to die in Britain and was willing to return and hand himself in.
It is said his last wish was to walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter.
He was arrested at Heathrow on May 7 that year, and immediately re-imprisoned. Since then he has survived multiple strokes but remains at prison, despite calls for his release on compassionate grounds from supporters.
Essex Chronicle
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VALE MAN BACKS RONNIE BIGGS RELEASE
THE Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs, could be a free man this summer thanks to the efforts of a Vale writer.
Evesham-based ex-boxer Tel Currie, 37, who co-wrote Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story, said he was happy at hearing the news that Biggs could be released on parole in July, and that his book had helped to raise the public’s awareness of his situation.
Mr Currie’s argument has always been that Ronnie Biggs was treated as the fall guy for the Great Train Robbery in 1963 in which over £2.5m was stolen.
He said: “His role was allegedly a minor one yet he is still in prison over 50 years later.
“I’m happy to hear that he could be released on parole but until Ronnie walks out of that prison, I won’t let my emotions go.
“I felt that it was important to keep this issue in the public eye, it’s not a faultless justice system, and there are many more instances of injustice with people less than famous than Ronnie.
“But I think the book has helped to to push things along as there wasn’t much happening before.”
Biggs’ lawyer and one of the world’s top defence lawyers, Giovanni Di Stefano, announced on his website that Biggs will be released on parole on July 3, a date the Ministry of Jutice were unable to confirm or deny before The Journal went to press.
The statement on the website read: “I am pleased to confirm that I have received the parole dossier of Ronnie Biggs with a parole release date of July 3, 2009.
“I hope we can find him suitable nursing care.”
The 79-year-old Biggs, who is now restricted to a wheelchair, has allegedly thanked Mr Currie for his part in publishing The Inside Story, which was released last month.
Mike Gray, co-author and founder of the Free Ronnie Biggs Campaign, said: “Ronnie has thanked both Tel Currie and myself for publishing our new book, and for making the world aware of his situation.
“I’ve always said that Biggs was being slowly crucified on the Home Office cross.”
Evesham Journal
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WHY I BELIEVE RONNIE BIGGS SHOULD BE FREED
Recently I was asked to review a new book that detailed the life and considerably turbulent times of the great train robber Ronnie Biggs. Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story is the work of Michael Gray and Tel Currie, and is a tough, no-nonsense appraisal of the man and how he was given a long jail sentence for his part in one of Britain's most notorious robberies.
I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but after reading the book I now believe that Ronnie Biggs should be freed from jail. Truth to tell, I think it would be difficult for anyone to read this book and seriously try to justify his continued incarceration.
Talk to anyone about the Great Train Robbery and one epithet more than any other is quite naturally guaranteed to elicit strong emotions; the name of the beaten train driver, Jack Mills. What happened to the man just shouldn't have, plain and simple, but there's far more to the story than that.
What is far less well known is the way in which the image of Mills was cynically manipulated by both the media and politicians in an effort to perpetually demonise people who deserved to be punished, yes, but not paraded eternally before the world as the Devil's handmaidens. The truth is that others have done far worse than the train robbers, and yet received markedly lighter sentences and far less opprobrium.
We can't have it both ways; either others have got off incredibly lightly, or the Great Train Robbers, including Ronnie Biggs, have been punished far too harshly. Either possibility should leave us shifting uncomfortably on our seats, or at least asking questions about the equity (or lack of it) of sentencing.
Jack Mills was an innocent man who did not deserve to be attacked, and sympathy must go out to his family. Ronnie Biggs is a convicted criminal, and to many this should reduce any latent sympathy for him to zero. I used to think this way, when I was ignorant of the facts. Read this book, and, like me, you may well start to think differently. Sympathy for Mills is truly justified, but should not be used as an excuse for keeping an old, sick man in jail for a manifestly unjust length of time. We simply cannot right a wrong by committing yet another wrong.
Why do I now support Ronnie's attempts to be released? Partly because of his state of health, which is dire. I just cannot see the logic in incarcerating a man at the taxpayers' expense who is patently not a danger to anyone. Even if one doesn't support this position on the grounds of compassion, it should still be supported on the grounds of logic.
But there is a more compelling reason; that the sentence imposed upon Biggs was almost certainly unjust. He should never have been jailed for such a lengthy spell in the first place.
Mike Gray and Tel Currie have written a gripping account of the life of Ronnie Biggs after the robbery. They have, as far as I can tell, been scrupulously fair in their appraisal of events, but pull no punches when it comes to pointing the finger of condemnation at those whose role in the affair has been less than honourable. Chillingly, those they point at are not members of the criminal fraternity, but people at the other end of the social spectrum.
Recently I spoke to Michael Gray and began to correspond with him. Several days ago, I received an e-mail in which he said that, according to Biggs' lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano, an official date has now been set for the release of Biggs from Norwich Prison where he is currently being held. If all goes according to plan, Biggs should be a free man on 23 July.
Gray is not a man who has embarked upon his support of Biggs lightly. His father was a police officer in Tyneside for a number of years, and, along with co-author Tel Currie, he has a good knowledge of exactly how the criminal justice system works. Their book is not an effort to "get back at the system"; they want Ronnie Biggs freed from jail simply because they believe that natural justice requires he no longer be there.
There will be many people reading this who will argue that it doesn't really matter whether the sentence Biggs received was "fair". He's a convicted criminal, and, they'll say, if he can't stand the heat then he shouldn't have entered the metaphorical kitchen.
That's all very well, of course, when we're speaking from the comfort of our living room instead of a jail cell. If our criminal justice system isn't fair, then we really can't call ourselves a civilised society. For years I've been a strong supporter of victims of crime, but the fact is that Ronnie Biggs has now become a victim himself.
To some this might sound like poetic justice, but it isn't. Michael Gray and Tel Currie desire to see Ronnie Biggs freed because we need a better criminal justice system, not a worse one. I can't argue with that. Ronnie Biggs has done enough "bird", and the quicker he's released to spend what little time his deteriorating health allows with his family, the better.
*** Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story by Michael Gray & Tel Currie is published by Apex Publishing, priced £9.99 (ISBN: 1-906358-59-1 / ISBN 13: 978-1-906358-59-4).
The Shields Gazette
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ARRESTING ENCOUNTER
THE author who has tirelessly campaigned for Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs’ release had a surprise visit at his Poole book signing.
Former Bournemouth detective Charlie ‘Chas’ Case, who made the first arrests of the audacious heist that stunned a nation in the summer of 1963, decided to pop along after reading of the event in The Daily Echo.
The meeting was all the more poignant as wheelchair bound Biggs, 79, who has suffered a string of serious health problems since returning from life on the run in Brazil, is set to be released from prison in three months.
Mr Case, whose attitude to renegade Biggs has not softened over the years, said: “I thought it may be interesting to meet this author, but I still believe Biggs should have been returned to face justice decades ago.
“Even though a lot of the other robbers had their sentences reduced to 14 years, Biggs is still a winner.
“Understand, it was us and them, and he was one of them, a crook.”
Mike Gray, co-author of ‘Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story’ and founder of the Free Ronnie Biggs Campaign, was all too happy to make Charlie’s acquaintance, even exchanging notes on the infamous crime.
He said: “Bournemouth has this important link to the Great Train Robbers.
“Two of them were caught and arrested here, by Mr Case, after trying to rent a garage for cash from a police officer’s widow.
“But I have always said that Ronnie Biggs was being slowly crucified on the Home Office cross, and now we have been officially informed that he’ll be paroled.”
The two men Charlie arrested, Roger Cordrey and William Boal, were later sentenced to a total of 44 years.
Meanwhile, Ronnie used a rope ladder to escape from Wandsworth Prison and eventually fled to Brazil where he spent decades as a fugitive from British justice.
After suffering three strokes, he returned, voluntarily, to Britain in 2001, where he was immediately arrested and imprisoned.
Biggs was originally sentenced to 30 years for his part in the robbery of a Glasgow to London mail train – when he is paroled he will have spent just 10 years behind bars.
The 15-strong gang escaped with a record haul of £2.6 million in used bank notes.
Mr Case said: “If it wasn’t for the fact they used violence I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall while the robbery happened. It must have taken military precision.”
Underworld rumours persisted for years that £50,000 of the stolen money was stashed somewhere in Bournemouth – a house in Westbourne was partly demolished following a tip-off in 1974, but no cash was found.
Mr Gray, co-author with Tel Currie, was at Waterstones, Poole, on Saturday.
The Bournemouth Daily Echo
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In the old days, when former great train robber Ronnie Biggs felt that it was time to leave jail, he just got a rope ladder thrown over the wall at Wandsworth nick and climbed to freedom. Alas for Biggs, now 79, it's not so easy these days and he has to wait in his cell for a parole hearing before he can rejoin the outside world. Mike Gray, co-author of the new Ronnie Biggs book, The Inside Story, claims that Biggs - who has suffered a series of strokes - will finally be released in July. Mike, also the organiser of the Free Ronnie Biggs Campaign - don't send rope ladders, this time it's being done legally - has been promoting his opus in the bookstores of the land. Imagine his surprise when, at a book signing in Poole in Dorset, he was bearded by an ex-CID chap, Charlie "Chas" Case, who arrested two of the other robbers, Roger Cordrey and William Boal, in Dorset not long after the robbery. The Bournemouth Echo reports that Mr Case, whose attitude to Biggs has not softened over the years, said: "If it wasn't for the fact they used violence, I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall while the robbery happened. It must have taken military precision."
The Guardian
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY, BY MIKE GRAY AND TEL CURRIE
EVERYONE has heard of Ronnie Biggs.
To the majority, his name is wrapped in the kind of myth only usually afforded to the daring cowboy exploits of the Wild West or even the Jolly Rogering on the pirate-laden high seas in ages past.
To others the Great Train Robber is a criminal getting what he deserves - whiling away his life at Her Majesty's pleasure.
Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story (£9.99, Apex) by Mike Gray and Tel Currie, tells the tale of the man behind the myth and argues that it is time for the broken, ageing, disabled pensioner to be allowed to go free.
Biggs was part of a gang that looted more than £2million after holding up a train running from Glasgow to London in 1963.
The book begins when Biggs voluntarily returns to the UK in 2001 after stating his desire to enjoy a pint in a pub as an Englishman. He was arrested and re-imprisoned, first at HMP Belmarsh and later at HMP Norwich. It is thought he could be released later this year.
Although one can argue the book is written with the authors (two of the man's closest friends and biggest supporters) carrying out their work wearing Biggs-tinted sunglasses, they do make a good case.
The man turns 80 this year and a number of strokes have robbed him of speech and left him wheelchair-bound. He can only be fed through a tube in his stomach and needs help to even go to the toilet. The authors insist he is not a threat to society and should be allowed to spend whatever remains of his life surrounded by friends and family.
Extremely-well written and definitely worth reading.
* Mike Gray will be signing copies of the book at Waterstone's, High Road, Ilford, on Saturday, 1-3pm.
Ilford Recorder
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WHY GREAT TRAIN ROBBER SHOULD NOW BE SET FREE
Worcester News
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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Mike Gray, author of Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story
At 79, The Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has finally been recommended for early release.
Today the Probation Service has granted Ronnie Biggs parole and he is likely to be released from Norwich Prison on the 4th of July 2009. You can read all about it in The Times and on the Sky News website here. Despite the images of Ronnie Biggs appearing to be enjoying himself, which are currently being shown in the media, it should be noted that the 79 year old cannot walk, talk or even feed himself and he has suffered 3 strokes already.
Last week, I spoke to Mike Gray, organiser of the Free Ronnie Biggs Campaign, about his new book Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, which aims to set the record straight about Ronnie Biggs and The Great Train Robbery of 1963.
** EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Mike Gray, author of Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story
Q: Has Ronnie been able to read the book or have it read to him yet? And if he has, what did he think of it?
A: I sent Ronnie the press release which is on the website, which is one sheet only. The prison would not let him have more than one sheet because it was a book about himself and the prison would not let the book be sent to him so it’s quite restricted.
Q: Is he not allowed to have any books?
A: All he is allowed is a letter or a birthday card sent to him. Nothing heavy. No CD’s no clothing, nothing whatsoever. My only chance to let him know how I got on with the book is every two months to update him verbally. I have two hours to express what’s going on.
Q: What has the response been like about the book so far from readers and the general public?
A: The general public has been surprisingly very good, very sympathetic because it’s been 8 years he’s been in prison and in the UK if you murder someone, on a manslaughter charge it’s only 5 years. Ronnie hasn’t murdered anyone and he’s been inside after 8 years. So it’s very good. Obviously, I get the negatives as well – “you shouldn’t glorify crime”, etcetera. My answer to that is Sir Jeffery Archer, once an MP, went in to prison, Biggs’ prison, he was only in there a year, he came out and sold 2 million books about his experiences. So is that not glorifying crime?
Q: In the book you talk about how paedophiles and people like Abu Hamza commit crimes on a large scale but they are met with a lot of leniency, some of which Ronnie’s never received.
A: Which is why we say it’s unfair because when he was put into Belmarsh prison, the highest security prison, with Hamza in the cell next to him and Ian Huntly in the cell on the other side, it was amazing seeing these guys in the same visiting hall as Ronnie.
Q: How do you deal with the opinion that criminals shouldn’t be getting sympathy or leniency in the context of Ronnie Biggs?
A: One thing that surprises everyone, even the newspaper/television people, is that yeah he did the crime, I agree he should do the time. Without a doubt there’s no way he should get away scot-free …but he’s done his time. 8 years. He’s done the time.
Q: It seems that the lack of leniency shown towards Ronnie is partly because of the high profile of the crime. Do you think he would not still be stuck in prison with his poor condition if the crime had not been hyped so much in the press over the years?
A: Definitely. The press have made the public a big hype of it. They’ve encouraged the public to be ‘anti-Ronnie Biggs the Great Train Robbery’ but at the end of the day it was a crime on the Queen’s Royal Mail in 1963, which in them days was treason. Treason was hanging. So when he went to prison he could have hung.
Q: When most people think of Ronnie Biggs of The Great Train Robbery infamy they don’t think about Ronnie as he is now so it must be hard for you to try to change their opinions of him and set the record straight because as you explain in your book, there’s been so much propaganda over the years. So how do you tackle that?
A: Like I say, it’s very difficult. Knowing the Great Train Robbery, people have in their minds the 30 years he spent in Brazil with alcohol in one hand, a topless young lady around him and living the high life. But behind the ‘high life’, because he was a criminal in Brazil, he wasn’t allowed to work so when the newspapers and the media again said “Ronnie we’ll give you £500. Would you pose with a beer and young lady?”, of course he did it because he had to feed and clothe his son because his wife had disappeared. But people can’t see that. It’s very, very difficult. It really is.
Q: In your book you explain how most people don’t know he was poor during his time in Brazil and despite not being allowed to work, he never went back to a life of crime.
A: 30 years he was a law abiding citizen, which was not taken into account when he came back to the UK
Q: Over the last few years there have seen quite a few biopics of former underworld figures like the Bronson film about Charles Bronson. Do you know if there are any plans to bring an up to date story of Ronnie Biggs to the big screen?
A: No there won’t be anything. I think what killed anything to do with The Great Train Robbery was the Phil Collins film Buster. It was great seeing Phil Collins and Julie Walters get involved but it was a bit of a comedy. There wasn’t a lot of facts there but fair play, they got it across to the general public that this is what happens. So no, nothing. No films.
Q: Bronson was used by his supporters to kind of highlight his incarceration and maybe try to get him paroled. So there’s nothing like that planned for Ronnie?
A: Nothing at all. Because of Ronnie’s age, hopefully he’ll be paroled on July the 3rd, which he is 79. He’s 80 in August. His birthday is also the same date as The Great Train Robbery. I can’t expect Ronnie to live more than a year after that in the condition he’s in. They’re going to put an electronic tag on him for 10 years so he won’t reoffend. Absolutely horrendous that they’re doing it but I hope that when comes out he’ll see his family and go to a nursing home and within a year he’ll pass away because his health is very, very poor.
Q: Since this book has now been released, what is next for you and his family?
A: When we first set about doing the book and we finished doing it last August, funnily enough there was never a mention of parole happening this year. So our publishing date of February 2009 is coincidental really because he’s coming out in July 2009. But we feel this book has really helped. Ronnie’s lawyer Geovanni Stefano, who also represents Charles Bronson, has had a lot of comments worldwide about the book so it’s not a money-maker, it’s an awareness campaign. It’s letting people know this is how he’s been treated and those that didn’t know much about him thought “I can’t believe they’ve done that”, but they’re still doing it. They are.
www.thedailymediablog.com
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18 December 2013
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is dead
Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, has died aged 84.
Biggs, who was last seen in public in March, "flicking the V" at the funeral of fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, died early this morning.
The world-renowned robber was being cared for at Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re-arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between London and Glasgow on August 8 1963.
Speaking earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £46 million today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: ''If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
''I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'.
''I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'.''
The gangster's death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. Widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did.
"Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family and I would not wish to speak further on the subject."
When he spoke earlier this year, Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: ''It is regrettable, as I have said many times, that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families.
"The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. For that, I do have my regrets.''
Biggs's death comes on the day BBC1 is to screen a new drama about the record-breaking crime, The Great Train Robbery: A Robber's Tale, in which his role is played by Jack Gordon.
The 28-year-old actor said: "That's a strange thing to hear. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows him, and who have gone through the turmoil of the last 20 years, for everyone involved in the robbery.
"What great timing and bad timing, how strange that it happened today. I made a vow not to contact him because I knew what a bad state he was in.
"That's a really big blow for me. I am in Aruba on holiday right now, living the Ronnie Biggs life of running after the robbery, in a way."
He added: "The day I started filming as him was the day I opened up the newspaper and saw him swearing, with two fingers up at the press, with tubes coming out of him in a wheelchair. It was such a two fingers to society.
"But the robbery was a tragic event. He was a family man at this point, he'd been taken away from the city and put into the countryside from the war. He was a delinquent, his mother died and even before that he was off the rails.
"And he wanted to get out of it by the time he met Bruce Reynolds. He just wanted not to be a part of the crime world but he was broke and trying to bring up a family and start a business. It was a big move going for him, going back to the crime world."
Reflecting on the end of Biggs's life, Gordon added: "The man was in a lot of pain for a long time. He couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he found it very hard, walking was practically impossible, but by the looks of things - his energy and his spirit - he never seemed to be downtrodden.
"He had a fascinating life, but in the programme I play Ronnie Biggs before he became famous, when he wasn't very focused on the gig and he wasn't number one in the world. It was his audacity to never give in, never give up, that dominated his later life."
Biggs's relatively minor role in the robbery was overshadowed by his life as a fugitive, which gained him fame in later years.
After having plastic surgery, he lived as a fugitive for 36 years, first in Australia then Brazil, where he fathered a son Michael, who became the key to him being allowed to stay in the country and not face extradition.
Biggs's money ran out and he traded on his notoriety to scrape a living before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 to get better care for his deteriorating health.
He was freed in 2009 on ''compassionate grounds'' by then-justice secretary Jack Straw, who said he was not expected to recover.
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, spoke of his sadness at his death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
The Argus
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Ronnie Biggs is part of the tapestry of modern Britain life.
Duncan Campbell, The Guardian (Senior Correspondent)
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That Bob Dylan track and a train robber’s tale
A WRITER and close friend of Ronnie Biggs hailed the release of the 'Great Train Robber' but blasted the initial refusal as 'inhuman and callous', writes Michael Adkins.
Mike Gray, 52, from Kent, wrote the book Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story after spending years visiting him in prison every month for the last eight years.
The retired printer formed an unlikely friendship with Biggs and his family after making contact with him while he was on the run in Brazil.
Since his return he has vehemently campaigned for his release and is adamant he has served his time. He said: "It is absolutely brilliant that Ronnie Biggs has been released. He has served his debt to society and more. But to refuse his release despite the Parole Board recommendation is ludicrous. It was inhumane and callous but we got the right result in the end and he can now spend his final days with his family."
Mr Gray became fascinated with the 'Great Train Robbery' when he was working on a school project in 1970 and a decade later set about contacting Ronnie Biggs.
Over the years the duo formed a strong relationship with Mr Gray writing to him for the last 25 years, even during his time in Brazil.
He added: "When Ronnie Biggs married in Belmarsh Prison only 10 people were invited, all very close relatives. I was invited because I had been loyal to him over all those years. But to me it was not just a case of loyalty.
"This man has served his time for the crime he committed. Ronnie Biggs is not in the same league as the Krays or notorious gangsters. He was the tea boy who became the legend. As sad as it was and it's terrible for the family but he had nothing to do with coshing the railway man. His job was simply to find the train driver, nothing more. To get 30 years for that is extreme but in those days (1963) the case was quite unique. He robbed the Royal Mail, seen as treason, a crime against the Queen.
"But compare that to today's rapists and murderers who often get nothing in the region of 30 years. At the end of the day this is a dying prisoner, who is no threat to society as the Parole Board found in their report when they recommended his release. I just can't believe it was ever blocked considering his condition was deemed terminal."
In a bid to highlight Ronnie Biggs plight in hospital he recently uploaded a YouTube video called 'Ronnie Biggs - Knockin on Heavens Door' showing his visits over the last fortnight.
He wrote the lyrics and sang the vocals along the lines of the classic Bob Dylan track 'Take these handcuffs off of me, I can't wear them anymore...'
Mr Gray added: "I was horrified to see my close friend gravely ill. "
Mr Gray's book tells the inside story about Biggs' cell life in Belmarsh.
Bexley Times
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
The Brit (Madeira Newspaper)
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SHEER VINDICTIVENESS KEEPS THIS SICK OLD RASCAL RONNIE BIGGS INSIDE
RONNIE was just a rascal, one of the chaps who got in a little too deep and was cheeky enough to slip away from prison on a rope ladder when he saw the opportunity come his way.
He’s got a heart of gold, never touched shooters, no doubt loved his mother, hated violence and shouldn’t be whiling away his final, decrepit days in jail.
And anybody who disagrees, to use the tough-guy speak which frames much of this latest angry appeal for freedom, is a sack of shit.
So goes the well-rehearsed argument which has been put to every Home Secretary since Ronnie Biggs returned back from his fugitive’s exile in Brazil seven years ago.
The campaign to release the Great Train Robber – or maybe that should be a robber in the Great Train Robbery, as he is said to have been less than great at his only role and watched most of the drama in 1963 unfold from a grass verge – might finally be rewarded this year.
But his friends are tired of waiting. For the past three years Biggs has been said to have been close to death, unable to speak and eating through a tube. Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story is a punt at pointing out the vindictiveness of keeping the cuffs on this geriatric prisoner, unlikely to be capable of causing much mischief if he is ever allowed out and about in his wheelchair. .
Had he known that coming back to England from his fugitive exile in Brazil would lead to such an extended stay in the confined retirement homes of Belmarsh and Norwich prisons, maybe his celebrated patriotic wish to die in his own country might not have burned so intensely.
Wriggling away from the authorities and the scene of a £2.6million heist – lionised by film and folklore – so that he could enjoy the odd samba dance and a beer at the Rio carnival, has obviously opened a deep wound at the Home Office. It’s a cut which has been salted by the embarrassment of botched searches and investigations.
But it’s almost as if for every picture of Biggs winking or raising a glass in the sunshine he needs to be punished with an extra couple of months in chokey. There might not be enough months left for that.
Mike Gray writes most of the chapters here, eager to point out the crunching level of security Biggs is kept under. Gray’s a kind of Biggsy superfan who became absorbed by the runaway’s Hollywood script of a life, starting by collecting news clippings and graduating into one of the main drivers to free him, managing the media and appearing at court dates alongside Michael Biggs, his friend’s Brazilian born son. He tells how he is honoured to shake hands with famous faces in what is repeatedly and proudly referred to as the Underworld, among whom his co-writer Tel Curries ranks highly. Currie’s chapters are a little more blunt, perforated with yarns from robberies past. However you tell it: Biggs has spent 10 years in jail and the case is worthy of review.
Of course, he might come out and sell a few embarrassing tales of his life as a “rascal” but ultimately they might not be as embarrassing as keeping him inside for the sake of it.
RICHARD OSLEY
• Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story. By Mike Gray, Tel Currie and Michael Biggs. Apex Publishing £9.99
Camden New Journal
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Hastings Observer
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ONE OF Redhill’s most notorious former residents was left to “rot in jail” for far too long, claims a new book.
Ronnie Biggs won worldwide fame as the most well-known Great Train Robber – part of the gang which stole £2.6m from a mail train in Buckinghamshire in 1963.
The Inside Story, which is printed this month, insists the penal system was the “greater criminal” than Biggs ever was.
Biggs escaped from jail in 1965 before enjoying many years of the high life in Brazil.
He was locked up on his return to Britain in 2001 before finally being freed on compassionate grounds last August.
The book, written by Free Ronnie Biggs Campaign organiser Mike Gray and “friend of the underworld” Tel Currie, insists the notorious prisoner suffered for far too long.
In its foreword, it says: “Who is the greater criminal: the carpenter that played a bit part in an unarmed robbery 47 years ago who remained incarcerated since his return despite being a frail, wheelchair-bound grandfather – or the justice and prison systems that allowed him to rot in jail for so long?”
The Surrey Mirror
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A cracking good read.
Steve Legg, Sorted Magazine
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Forget Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. This is the real story of a London hard man with a very soft side.
Elisa Roche, The Daily Express (Showbusiness Editor)
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A fascinating and riveting insight into a twilight world and a must read for any fan of true crime.
Robin Barratt, Bodyguards and Bouncers Magazine (Editor)
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Book & Music Reviews:
RONNIE BIGGS – THE INSIDE STORY
ULTIMATELY the old adage 'crime doesn't pay' has proved true for Ronnie Biggs. On returning to the UK some 35 years after his famous crime and perhaps even more famous escape from jail, he was promptly locked up in a high security prison despite his old age, extremely poor health, and seeming lack of threat to society.
As Michael Biggs, the great train robber's only son, says in the foreword, “this book is an inside view of my father's life in HMP Belmarsh and HMP Norwich from 2001 to the present date”.
It is a seven-year biography of Ronald Arthur Biggs, otherwise known as prisoner 002731, containing a variety of correspondence such as legal documents, online blogs, and song lyrics, which charts the varied attempts of family and friends to have Ronnie released from prison.
The main writing duties are undertaken by close friends of the Biggs family, Mike Gray and Tel Currie. Both men write in idiomatic, colloquial prose which does not attempt to hide their strong emotions on the subject and their natural bias. They try to highlight what they see as inhumane treatment Ronnie has suffered at the hands of the British Government.
Although unsurprisingly tendentious, they make a compelling point. The book manages to dispel many myths about the Great Train Robbery and the men that carried it out, particularly Ronnie Biggs himself, and some potentially shocking truths are unearthed.
Foremost among these is the fact that the father of one was actually a minor player in the fatal heist and never even set foot on the train itself: he was consigned to merely watching from a grass bank.
Therefore, one of the main purposes of the hardback is to update the image of Ronnie from the escaped criminal sipping a beer in South America and appearing in Sex Pistols videos; he is now a 79-year-old inmate confined to a wheelchair and fed from a tube, unable to speak due to multiple strokes, and suffering from skin cancer of the back.
Instead of sitting on a hidden king's ransom and enjoying a glamorous lifestyle in Brazil (where Ronnie fled after escaping from HMP Wandsworth in 1965), the grandfather endured periods of harsh poverty during his self-imposed exile and longed to be able to return to his native country.
The touching loyalty and love that he commands from friends alone suggests that there is much more to the man than has been portrayed in the media.
Indeed, it is Ronnie's complicated relationship with the press, dealt with most notably in the opening two chapters, that provides the material of greatest interest.
At times cultivating media attention, such as arriving in Britain in a private jet organised by The Sun newspaper, whilst at others railing against aggressive press tactics and apparent misrepresentation, what emerges is a complex character who now suffers from his popular portrayal, whether self-encouraged or otherwise. It is one of Gray and Currie's contentions that the British Government have continued to punish Ronnie because of the very public embarrassment he caused them in both the train robbery and his subsequent escape.
In the end, it is Tel Currie who sums the situation up best towards the beginning of the book when he states that “to untangle the truth can often be messy”.
UK Today
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Great Train Robber book signing session "unbelievable"
Author Mike Gray has called the book signing event for his new co-written book on his close friend, the Redhill Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, “unbelievable” and “worth every minute.”
Mr Gray, from Epsom, said he was approached by Ronnie Biggs' former postman, the son of one of the officers who arrested him, and the son of one of his former workmates, during his two-hour signing session at Waterstones in The Belfry shopping centre, Redhill, on Saturday (February 21).
He said another couple, who had called their pets dogs Ronnie and Biggsy after the criminal, also bought a signed copy of his book, Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story.
But one buyer told him the name of a man now dead, who he said was an accomplice in the Great Train Robbery of 1963, but who was never arrested or charged.
Mr Gray said: “Ronnie had only ever called this man Peter from Redhill, and this guy comes over and gives me his name, which I've now forgotten.
“This guy said he used to know him and he was never arrested and was listed as the robber who got away.”
The buyer told Mr Gray the man had worked on the railways and had lived in Redhill, but after they were caught, the gang had kept quiet about him.
Mr Gray said Biggs' former postman in Alpine Road, Redhill, told him how the robber's post had suddenly boomed on his arrest.
He said: “The son of one of the arresting officers came along and said how he wished his dad could have been there for the book signing.”
“It was very interesting. I only signed ten books, which is still quite good for a two-hour stint,” he said.
“The conversations I had made it worth every minute, and people's perceptions of Ronnie, positive and negative.”
Mr Gray said when he last checked, Ronnie Biggs, 79, was stable in hospital being treated for severe pneumonia.
Biggs lived in Redhill from about 1961 until his arrest, working as a painter and decorator.
Redhill, Reigate & Horley Life
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RONNIE BIGGS
Daily Star Sunday
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BOOK OF BIGGS BEHIND BARS
Epsom Guardian
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
The Northern Star (Australian Newspaper)
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AUTHOR CALLS FOR GREAT TRAIN ROBBER TO BE SET FREE
A former boxer who moved to Evesham from London has co-written a book which he hopes will help to free great train robber Ronnie Biggs.
Tel Currie, claims that Biggs’ treatment in jail has been unnecessarily cruel and now that he has served seven years inside since he returned to Britain from Brazil of his own accord, he should be allowed parole.
Mr Currie said: “Ronnie played a very minor part in the robbery – he wasn’t even on the train when the money was stolen.
“Everyone else who took part is either out of prison or dead. Ronnie is 79, very ill and can hardly walk or eat properly. I and many others believe he has suffered enough.”
Mr Currie’s co-author is Mike Gray, a friend of the Biggs’ family and organiser of the Free Ronnie Biggs campaign. The pair have been visiting the infamous convict, who escaped from prison 15 months into his 30-year sentence, for about seven years and have now completed the book: Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story.
It documents his life inside Belmarsh high security prison and tells of incidents such as Biggs being double hand-cuffed to his hospital bed and chained around the waist.
They say he had his batteries, glasses and watch stolen and was without visitors for three weeks due to staff shortages. When he was diagnosed with MRSA he was not examined for a week.
The foreword by Biggs’ son Michael said: “This book is an inside view of my father’s life in HMP Belmarsh and HMP Norwich from 2001 until the present date.
“It is a real eye-opener to the regime my father has had to endure for the past seven years plus.”
The author’s spokesman Chris Cowlin of Apex Publishing said: “This book is a fascinating account of Biggs’ life in prison since returning to the UK in 2001. It should be read by all so everyone knows how this 79-year-old man is being treated.”
Evesham Journal
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THE BORED GAME
AT DEATH'S door, one-time Aussie resident Ronnie Biggs, who turned 80 on Saturday as a free man, has had a wild ride through life. Such as the time spent hiding on a farm in an English village with the other Great Train Robbers after their heist of the century. But how did they pass the time? A book by Ronnie's pals, Mike Gray and Tel Currie, Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, tells how the robbers played Monopoly and elsewhere it's been reported that real money was used (there was plenty to go round). To cut a long story short, the cops found fingerprints on the board, the players were eventually captured and the judge told them to Go to Jail.
The Age (Australian Newspaper)
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
The Medway News
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VALE WRITER'S PART IN BIGGS' RELEASE
THE Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is now a free man thanks in part to the efforts of a local writer.
Biggs, who served eight years and three months in prison since returning to England from Brazil in 2001, was this month granted compassionate leave after initially being denied parole by the Justice Secretary Jack Straw.
The 79-year-old Biggs is currently at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital suffering from pneumonia, a serious chest infection and a fractured hip.
Boxer-turned-author Tel Currie, from Evesham, along with co-author Mike Gray, wrote Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story in which they campaigned for Biggs’ release, and both regularly visited Biggs in prison.
Mike said: “This book needed to be written and both Tel and I were the best people to write it, we have been there with Ronnie and witnessed things you wouldn’t believe.
“Ronnie is now 80-years-old and can no longer be called prisoner 002731.
“Common sense has prevailed, and I am pleased that his slow crucifixion on the Home Office cross has now come to an end.
“Ronnie is still seriously ill in hospital and will remain in a hospital environment until such a time that’s he’s deemed well enough to transfer to a nursing home for the elderly.
“After visiting Ronnie in various prisons for over eight years we are looking forward to more regular visits in the hospital.”
Evesham Journal
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I WAS ROBBED, SAYS THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBER
ONLY now, as ailing Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs prepares to meet his maker, has he seen fit to air his complaint: that he got fleeced by a hair transplant company. Allow Mr Diary to take you back to October 1999 when, in the guise of Sunday Age Spy, we received a package from Rio. It contained an autographed photograph from the infamous runaway crook - ''To Lawrence, Ronnie Biggs Rio '99'' - and a note from the Melbourne boss of Advanced Hair Studio, Carl Howell. ''While I was in Rio filming a commercial with Ronnie,'' wrote Howell, ''Max Markson of Markson Sparks asked me to obtain a photograph of Ronnie for you. Please find it enclosed with Ronnie's best regards.''
Wind forward 10 years and English writer Michael Gray, who has just produced a book called Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, emailed Diary from the Old Dart. Gray, in regular touch with Ronnie's ex-wife, Charmian, in Melbourne, said the Yarra village was a ''very important connection'' in Biggs' life.
''All very well,'' we said, ''but (ever-alert to the nitty-gritty) whatever happened to Ronnie's Rio rug?''
The answer was a gobsmacker. ''The Advanced Hair Studio in September 1999 asked Ronnie to take part in the advertisement,'' replied Gray, ''but only weeks before, he had suffered his second stroke and was very ill when making the advert. Carl Howell said they were not paying Ronnie a dollar for the advert.''
We could not reach Howell yesterday - he was travelling - and Advanced Hair executive Stephen Jeffrey said it was before his time. However, Markson was adamant: ''Ronnie would have been paid in advance. Absolutely. About 10,000 quid. I remember it well. We had to do about 95 takes. He looked to camera and said, 'I've been involved in the greatest robbery of all time' then tapped his scone and said, 'off the top of my head'. We had a night out at the Copacabana that night.''
It's the Great Hair Mystery. We'll give you Howell's account tomorrow.
Unmeaningless
WHAT'S an ''un-useless'' item? The New Inventors came up with that one in a segment on Japanese commercials the other night. What next? TV programs that are unworthless?
Chocks away
DEBORAH Lawrie (nee Wardley) was the first female airline pilot in Australia, winning a discrimination case in the High Court 25 years ago this month against Reg Ansett (who didn't want sheilas flying his planes because they might get their earrings caught in the headphones). Lawrie flew for KLM out of Holland for 16 years (while Ansett went down the tube) but is now back in the Yarra village and was seen the other day testing the Flight Experience cockpit simulator gizmo at the QV building in Lonsdale Street, city. We hear another recent captain of the virtual 747 was councillor Carl Jetter of the Melbourne Clown Hall. Hey, you never know when Lord Mayor Popeye Doyle might want to be flown back to Russia..
Featherbrained
QUESTION: If Kylie Minogue hates that ''singing budgie'' tag so much, why has she gone on Twitter?
The Body
BRAWNY Bulldog footballer Matthew Boyd will need all the grunt he can muster when he backs an inexperienced midfield against the Cats this weekend. That may explain the picture of him on the Doggy website that is captioned: ''Matthew Body (sic) is eagerly looking forward to the clash with Geelong.'' Advanced mind games, most probably.
Not at any price
WE ALERTED you some time ago to the sad fate of the Peter Costello memoirs, knocked down to $5 a hardback copy on a table at (among other places) Richmond Plaza. However, reader Michael Gourlay reports that his local bookstore in Clifton Hill still has them on display at the original price, $54.95. Unsurprisingly, the crestfallen storekeeper told him: ''We haven't sold a single copy.''
Doctor of note
ALLAN Zavod is the piano man who left for a three-week trip to the US back in 2004 and, as Mr Diary told you at the time, disappeared down a pothole full of red tape. A former keyboardist for Frank Zappa, Zavod was still there nine months later after his Green Card expired and he became mired in the renewal maze, leaving his wife back home in Melbourne as a Green Card widow. However, time marches on and Zavod, happily repatriated, has just earned his stripes at Melbourne University as a Doctor of Music. ''I'm only the fourth to receive an earned Doctor of Music in the university's history,'' said Zavod. A sort of medico of melodies. No stethoscope required.
The Age (Australian Newspaper)
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INSIDE STORY ON TRAIN ROBBER
Andover Advertiser
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An interesting and perceptive story about a character known as londoner.
David Hart, London Voice
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I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but after reading Gray and Currie's book on the Great Train Robbery I now believe that Ronnie Biggs should be freed from jail. Truth to tell, I think it would be difficult for anyone to read this book and seriously try to justify his continued incarceration.
Talk to anyone about the Great Train Robbery and one epithet more than any other is quite naturally guaranteed to elicit strong emotions; the name of the beaten train driver, Jack Mills. What happened to the man just shouldn't have, plain and simple, but there's far more to the story than that. What is far less well known is the way in which the image of Mills was cynically manipulated by both the media and politicians in an effort to perpetually demonise people who deserved to be punished, yes, but not paraded eternally before the world as the Devil's handmaidens. The truth is that others have done far worse than the train robbers, and yet received markedly lighter sentences and far less opprobrium. We can't have it both ways; either others have got off incredibly lightly, or the Great Train Robbers, including Ronnie Biggs, have been punished far too harshly. Either possibility should leave us shifting uncomfortably on our seats, or at least asking questions about the equity (or lack of it) of sentencing.
Jack Mills was an innocent man who did not deserve to be attacked, and sympathy must go out to his family. Ronnie Biggs is a convicted criminal, and to many this should reduce any latent sympathy for him to zero. I used to think this way, when I was ignorant of the facts. Read this book, and, like me, you may well start to think differently. Sympathy for Mills is truly justified, but should not be used as an excuse for keeping an old, sick man in jail for a manifestly unjust length of time. We simply cannot right a wrong by committing yet another wrong.
Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story is a book that should be read by anyone who desires to have an accurate glimpse into the motives, actions and lives of those who took part in one of the UK's most infamous crimes. Disturbingly, the authors raise some very serious questions about the way the robbers – predominantly Ronnie Biggs - have been portrayed in the press. They also raise far more disturbing questions about the length of Ronnie Biggs' sentence.
Why do I now support Ronnie's attempts to be released? Partly because of his state of health, which is dire. I just cannot see the logic in incarcerating a man at the taxpayers' expense who is patently not a danger to anyone. Even if one doesn't support this position on the grounds of compassion, it should still be supported on the grounds of logic.
But there is a more compelling reason; that the sentence imposed upon Biggs was almost certainly unjust. He should never have been jailed for such a lengthy spell in the first place.
Mike Gray and Tel Currie have written a gripping account of the life of Ronnie Biggs after the robbery. They have, as far as I can tell, been scrupulously fair in their appraisal of events, but pull no punches when it comes to pointing the finger of condemnation at those whose role in the affair has been less than honourable. Chillingly, those they point at are not members of the criminal fraternity, but those at the other end of the social spectrum. The really disturbing thing is that their account actually rings true. If what they say is accurate, and I have no reason to doubt them, then the state of our criminal justice system may be far worse than we ever imagined.
The authors cannot have found it easy to write this book, but they are to be commended for having the stomach to put their heads above the parapet and giving a unique, albeit controversial, insight into the Great Train Robbery – a perspective that many people will simply not want to hear.
There is an old adage that one shouldn't make judgements about things until all the evidence has been heard. If ever a book supported the veracity of such a statement, then this is it.
Mike Hallowell, The Shields Gazette
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Both brutal and powerful, this is probably the most insightful book about the aftermath of the Great Train Robbery that has ever been written. Every sitting Home Secretary should be made to sit down and read it.
Mike Hallowell, The Shields Gazette
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Epsom Guardian
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Inside Time: The National Monthly Newspaper for Prisoners
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A new book on Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, is to be put out next month by Apex Publishing, with a foreword by Biggs's son Michael. A visit to the website reveals that listed under Reviews by the Famous and Well known are endorsements by Roy Shaw "Famous armed robber and author" and Dave Courtney "Celebrity Gangster and best selling author".
The Sun
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Book-signing recalls Great Train Robber's Redhill days Great Train robber Ronnie Biggs, who lived in Redhill and was arrested there for his part in the infamous crime, was this week ill in hospital with severe pneumonia.
Biggs, 79, who is serving the remainder of the 28-year sentence he was given for the Great Train Robbery of 1963, was rushed from Norwich Prison to Norwich University Hospital at the weekend.
Close friend Mike Gray, who with Tel Currie has written a book on Biggs, called Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, said today: “Ronnie's health is on the decline. We are all at present preparing for the inevitable.”
But he added: “He's got that fighting spirit. He wants to die a free man.”
Mr Gray, from Epsom and with Biggs' son, Michael, the founder of the Free Ronnie Biggs Campaign, said Biggs moved to Redhill in about 1961 and set up as a painter and decorator.
He said Biggs had taken part in the robbery because he needed £500 for the deposit to put on the property in Alpine Road which he and his wife were renting – ironically, from a policeman.
He had gone through with the robbery even though he had just won £500 at the races in Brighton.
Biggs returned to Britain in 2001 for health reasons after having escaped from prison in July 1965, and spending years on the run living in Australia and Brazil.
Mr Gray will be signing copies of his book at Waterstones in The Belfry shopping centre, Redhill, this Saturday (February 21) from noon to 2pm.
He said: “I'm looking forward to it as I've got a funny feeling I can expect some ex-neighbours to come out of the woodwork.
“Ronnie's wife said good luck with Redhill. She said they had a lot of good neighbours there in them days.”
Redhill, Reigate & Horley Life
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18 December 2013
'The tea boy who became the legend' - Ronnie Biggs dies aged 84
THE BIOGRAPHER of Ronnie Biggs, has paid tribute to “the tea boy who became the legend” following the death of the infamous train robber in the early hours of this morning.
Mr Biggs, 84, had been living in Carlton Court care home in Bells Hill, High Barnet, after being freed from Norwich Prison on compassionate grounds in August 2009.
He had been part of a 15-strong gang which made off with £2.6million – then a huge sum – after robbing the Glasgow to London mail train in Buckinghamshire in 1963.?
Train driver Jack Mills, was hurt during the robbery and died seven years later without ever making a full recovery. Mr Biggs always claimed he was not involved in the assault and likened his role in the robbery to “tea boy”.
Mr Biggs was caught and served 15 months of his 30-year sentence before escaping from prison, going run for 35 years. He spent much of his time in Brazil where he fathered a son, Michael, who now lives in High Barnet.
After suffering a series of strokes, he returned to the UK in 2001 and spent eight years in jail. At the time of his release by then Justice Secretary Jack Straw, he was reportedly unable to speak or eat.
He died at 1.30am at Barnet Hospital in Wellhouse Lane.
His friend of 24 years and author of biography Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, Mike Gray, paid tribute to the 84-year-old. Despite Mr Biggs never claiming he was proud of his part in the robbery, his friend said he had played on his notoriety out of financial necessity.
He told The Press: “Ronnie has always felt regret about the robbery and in particular what happened to the poor train driver Jack Mills, as Ronnie was not on the train and knew nothing about it.
“When he arrived in Brazil in 1970, he had to earn his cash in hand as a tourist attraction, so that he could feed his family, as he had no other means of regular income.
“By Ronnie’s own admission he was the tea boy who became the legend, through no fault of his own, he has always loved and cared for his son Michael and did right up to his dying day.”
His son Michael Biggs was not taking calls today.
Barnet and Whetstone Press
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Extremely-well written and definitely worth reading.
Dominic Wiggan, Ilford Recorder
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Sutton Guardian
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This month I have chosen to review biographies, each one being very different. Slave is a harrowing account a young Sudanese girl who is abducted from her mountain village and held as a slave for many years. Buster's Diaries is a comical and enchanting tail of Roy Hattersley's dog and Ronnie Biggs – The Inside story is an account of the campaign to free Biggs from gaol.
Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story is written by two of Ronnie Biggs closest friends who were also involved in a campaign seeking to release Boggs from gaol. The book examines the life of the man who became well known for his role in the Great Train Robbery of 1963, and who subsequently began life on the run when he escaped from prison in 1965. Biggs eventually voluntarily returned to the UK in 2001 when he was immediately re-arrested and imprisoned. Gray campaigned for Biggs to be released on compassionate grounds when the 80-year-old was struck down with severe pneumonia, which Jack straw granted within weeks. However perhaps the message throughout the book is that the penal system has used Biggs as a political tool. If Biggs had not escaped he probably would have been freed within 15 years of his sentence and would not have had to return to prison as a frail old man.
Tenerife Property Guide
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Bangor and Anglesey Mail
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Swindon Advertiser
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Kent on Sunday
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Train of thought derailed
HUMP DAY
Until last week, Hump Day's feedback file was a meagre affair containing little more than the odd scoff at the column's stupid name and an obscure query about beards. And then we wrote about the football career of the son of Ronnie Biggs.
Chris Brent's sole season with Fitzroy's under-19s was remembered by everyone from fans poring over results to teammates and club officials. The recall of the soon-to-be-famous duo of Paul Roos and Gary Pert was typical - of a full forward who boasted enough talent to kick 91 goals in 1981, and enough resilience to cope with the attention his lineage attracted.
Like others who spoke to Hump Day, they knew nothing of his footy exploits since.
Subsequent correspondence came thick and fast, including from Mike Gray in London, the co-author of Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story who wrote to say he'd forwarded Hump Day to Biggs' Brazilian-born son Michael to pass on to his father. Gray couldn't help with Brent's football, but did point out that Thursday is the 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery, and the 84th birthday of its most famous cast member.
All of which demanded a follow-up. One caller thought Brent had wound up running an American gym in Tokyo. This tallied with an email from Bruce Watkins, who said Brent helped to establish ''the mighty Tokyo Goannas'' football club in the early 1990s, a mish-mash of fellow expatriate Aussies plus Americans, English, French, New Zealanders ''and whatever other half-fit drinking companions we could muster''.
The club still exists, with Watkins reporting that an approach was even made to Kerry Packer to become its ''patron goanna'' (which was politely declined), and that Brent served with distinction both in the goal square, where he was a handful for Japanese defenders in regular games against local university students, and as founding treasurer. ''A role he performed with distinction - and accuracy, I might add.''
There were also stories of Brent's two seasons as a fly-in, fly-out spearhead with Burnie Tigers in Tasmania. ''He fitted in very well here, the club had a great deal of respect for him,'' says the then secretary, Geoff Cannell. ''Unfortunately the ball wasn't kicked to him very well, but he was a very good full-forward.''
But it was the teammates and friends made playing for Old Trinity in the amateurs who painted the clearest picture of a footballer who might have made it if he'd really wanted to, and of a man with a strong moral compass who was never allowed to forget his father's sins, and resolved to conduct his life down a different path.
Old Trinity
Richard Wardrop was Chris Brent's best man, a mate since grade 5, and in 1984 a premiership teammate for Old Trinity in VAFA D-grade. He remembers how rapt the club was to get him after Brent had spent 1982 and '83 kicking bags of goals travelling to and from Tasmania.
''We were premiers and champions in 1984 - won 18 games and two finals - and Chris kicked 106 goals,'' Wardrop says. ''He ran straight at the ball, was a beautiful lead, a beautiful kick.
''Footy wasn't his main thing, but if he'd wanted to go on, if it was his driving ambition, he could have made it.''
Another teammate, Jon Carnegie, recalls Brent being the equal of the best schoolboy footballers of his time whose lack of drive was all that held him back. Like others who know him, he thinks the prospect of even more attention on ''Ronnie Biggs' son'' tempered his ambition. ''But I think anyone who played with him and certainly against him would agree that Chris Brent could have played VFL footy as it was then,'' Carnegie says.
Moving forward
Roos and Pert both remembered the element of Brent's football that puts the struggles of regulation footballing father-son into stark perspective. His Old Trinity mates confirm the uncomfortable focus wasn't confined to his Fitzroy days.
''I joined Chris in E-grade and we were a private school side with yellow shorts, yellow jumpers and nice haircuts, playing Thomastown and West Brunswick and North Brunswick, Sunshine, the tougher sides in the amateur competition,'' Carnegie recalls. ''Chris was a target - because of what we were and where we were from, but also because of who he was and where he was from.
''He had no control over any of those things, but he would just absorb it and front up. He never took a backward step.''
Playing alongside Brent in a forward pocket, Carnegie knew that pretty much every week he'd look across and see his mate either in a headlock or putting one on an opponent, and he'd have to join in and fly the flag. Wardrop says coming from a higher league merely increased the attention. ''There were blues, don't worry about that.''
Against an old foe that followed Old Trinity up through the grades, Carnegie says Brent was king-hit from behind, knocked out cold and carried off. ''The rest of us were up in arms, but Chris never breathed a word of it.
''He showed an enormous amount of integrity that day, that it doesn't matter what happens to you, your responsibility is to yourself to move forward. Chris taught that to all of us at the club.''
Selfless pursuit
Carnegie taught at Trinity for many years and now runs his own school providing a mix of traditional and ''real-life learning'' education. He and Brent share a background in social work, a selfless pursuit Carnegie says Brent was a natural at because his own unusual life experience enabled him to see other people's struggles with compassion and understanding.
''Chris certainly had, through his past experience, an ability to see deeply into others, and to help them to see something in themselves at a time when they otherwise couldn't.''
Brent has since moved back into a career path that began when Old Trinity got him a job with the international courier company TNT. Until recently he worked for Maersk in Sydney, and has moved to Singapore with his lawyer wife and their daughter.
Another friend described him as a very genuine person who is interested in others, yet a private person who has never wanted to be associated with his father's crime or fame. Even in the early 1980s, that would not have been possible for a footballer in Melbourne playing on the biggest stage.
Says Richard Wardrop: ''He just wanted an enjoyable, low-key football career out of the public limelight. But he loved his time in footy, was larger than life at a few footy clubs, and just enjoyed doing it for the love of the club and the game.''
The Age (Australian Newspaper)
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RAINHAM AUTHOR MIKE GRAY TALKS ABOUT HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH RONNIE BIGGS, ON THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
The 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery was yesterday (Thursday), a red letter day for a Rainham man who has been inundated with requests to speak about his unusual friendship with one of the robbers, Ronnie Biggs.
For the nine-year-old boy standing outside Wandsworth Prison one day in July 1965, the red removals lorry he saw alongside its towering walls was to lead to a fascination with Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs.
Only minutes before, Britain’s most notorious escapee had scaled those very walls on a rope ladder, jumped onto the van’s roof and made off in a getaway car to begin 36 years on the run.
Fifty years from the heist which netted the gang an unprecedented £2.6 million in cash –worth about £55 million today -that boy, Mike Gray, is swamped with media requests to talk about his personal relationship with Biggs which now stretches back over a quarter of a century,
It was on August 8, 1963 that Biggs teamed up with criminal mastermind Bruce Reynolds and the other ruthless accomplices to hold up the Glasgow to London overnight mail train.
Like all the others, Biggs was caught and sentenced to 30 years in prison. But within 15 months, he had absconded, fleeing to France, Spain, Australia and finally Brazil.
Young Mike Gray had been outside the south London prison because his father was a warder there and his family lived in locally-provided quarters.
After Britain’s failed attempt to extradite Biggs from Brazil in 1974, Mike found out his secret address and wrote to him, explaining their chance connection.
The famous fugitive responded and ever since Mike, now aged 56, has paid him regular visits.
From 1989, Mike wrote to or telephoned Biggs every month and in 2001 visited him in Belmarsh Prison after his return to Britain – the first time the two met face-to-face
Since then, Mike has helped set up a website with Biggs’ Brazilian-born son Michael, become UK organiser of the Free Ronnie Biggs campaign after he returned from Rio and written a book, Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story.
Biggs was finally granted his release in 2009 on compassionate grounds. He suffered a series of strokes from which he was not expected to recover.
Mike said: “I visited him in prison and he was very ill and I thought he might even pass away. It was then I wrote and sang Ronnie Biggs – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door. It’s had 26,000 hits on YouTube.”
A couple of months later, he met his friend as a free man for the first time and handed over his book.
But why the fascination? Speaking from his home in Lower Rainham Road, he said: “It started in the shadows of Wandsworth Prison.
“Ronnie has never been a hardened criminal, he was the “tea boy” who became “the legend” via the world’s media/press.
“The world press have created this monster – Ronnie Biggs – notorious hardman, something he laughs about. But he regrets going on the run as it destroyed his family.
“I last saw Ronnie in February. He had a cancer growth removed last year on his forehead and is still wheelchair-bound, cannot speak and is still suffering the effects of his third stroke some years ago, but his mind is as sharp as ever.”
Yesterday was not only the 50th anniversary of the robbery, it was also Biggs’ 84th birthday.
The Medway Messenger
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AUTHOR'S BID FOR THE RECORD BOOKS AS WRITER OF THE MOST WORKS ON REDHILL'S "GREAT TRAIN ROBBER"
A close friend of the Redhill "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs is hoping to get into the Guinness Book of Records as the author of the most books on him.
Mike Gray, from Epsom, who has known the 84-year-old for more than 25 years, will see his second and third books on him published over the next two months.
Mr Gray, whose first book, Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story, published in 2009, was a best-seller, said he will be applying to the Guinness Book of Records for an entry as the author of the most books – printed and on Kindle – on the Great Train Robber.
Mr Gray's second book on Biggs, called The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, will be published by Apex Publishing on November 1.
He said: “The book is 200 very unusual and difficult quiz questions on the man I have personally known for over 25 years.”
A month later, on December 1, Apex Publishing (Essex) Limited is due to publish his third book on Biggs, called 101 Interesting Facts on Ronnie Biggs and The Great Train Robbery.
Both books will be available on Kindle.
Mr Gray said: “My current book - I am now writing and researching - is going to be my fourth book, again based on Ronnie Biggs, and will be called ' Ronnie Biggs - 85 Years.'
“This is to be an up-dated book on his whole life, telling his story to the present day, as no other publication covers the Train Robbery 50th Anniversary and his 84th birthday to the present day, and I am looking to have it published on his 85th birthday, next summer – August 8, 2014.
“The book title represents his age, and also the 50th Anniversary of The Great Train Robbery last month, and the representation of the heavy prison sentence of 30 years he received at the age of only 34.”
Mr Gray said: “As with anything 'Biggsy,' it always has interest around the globe, and within days of the press release being issued, The Ronnie Biggs Quiz book has already featured in a Costa Blanca ex-pat newspaper, and on an ex-pat radio station – Excite.fm - along Spain's Costa-Del-Crime.”
Biggs lived in Redhill from about 1961, working as a painter and decorator, until his arrest in the town for the Great Train Robbery of 1963.
At the Redhill book signing for Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story in 2009, Mr Gray said he was approached by buyers who included Biggs' former postman in Alpine Road, Redhill, the son of one of the officers who arrested him, the son of one of his former workmates, a couple who had called their pets dogs Ronnie and Biggsy, and a buyer who told him the name of a man, now dead, who he said was an accomplice in the Great Train Robbery, but who was never arrested or charged. At the time, Mr Gray said: “Ronnie had only ever called this man Peter from Redhill, and this guy comes over and gives me his name, which I've now forgotten. “This guy said he used to know him and he was never arrested and was listed as the robber who got away.” The buyer told Mr Gray the man had worked on the railways and had lived in Redhill, but after they were caught, the gang had kept quiet about him. Website: http://www.Apexpublishing.co.uk
Redhill & Reigate Life Newspaper
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Redhill & Reigate Life Newspaper
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18 December 2013
Latest: Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs dies aged 84
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, has spoken of his sadness at Biggs' death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Daily Mirror
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18 December 2013
LBO’s Great Train Robbery reporter reflects on death of Ronnie Biggs
The Great Train Robber who spent 36 years on the run after escaping from prison has died in the same year as the crime’s 50th anniversary.
Famous fugitive Ronnie Biggs was one of the notorious 15-strong gang who stole today’s equivalent of £40 million after ambushing a Royal Mail train as it passed through Ledburn.
The 84-year-old died in the early hours of this morning after a long illness ahead of tonight’s two-part BBC drama, A Robber’s Tale and A Copper’s Tale, to mark the 1963 Great Train Robbery.
Former LBO reporter, John Flewin, was first to arrive at the scene to report on the story that was later dubbed the crime of the century - and he was just eight months into his journalism career.
John, of Stewkley, said: “He would have been the archetype loveable rogue, had it not been for the injury inflicted by the robbers on train driver Jack Mills.
“Biggs always said he was not involved in that incident, and regretted it. The plan was always for a non-violent crime.
“In later interviews, including some for ITN where I was then news editor, he never regretted taking part in the robbery.
“The robbery itself was clearly the shaping influence on his life, but it was the length of the prison sentence — 30 years — that affected him the most.
“He said later that he could have accepted a 20 year sentence, but 30 years — longer than those actually served by many who receive life sentences — meant he just had to escape.
“And that he did 14 months later— with help, scaling the huge walls at Wandsworth prison via a rope ladder.
“In the freedom that the escape provided, he remained a scoundrel, even to the extent of fathering a child in Brazil knowing that the father of a child born in that county could not be extradited.”
Mike Gray, who has been a close friend of Ronnies for more than 25 years, told the LBO in September he applied to the Guinness Book of Records for an entry as the author of the most books – printed editions and Kindle versions, on the Great Train Robber.
His new book ‘The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book’ will be published on New Years Day.
Mike said: “It is a very sad day for myself as I only saw Ronnie recently to show him my new book, but at least he died peacefully in his sleep.
“I am sure his funeral will be a very sad time, but something i am looking forward to, to say my last farewells to someone I called a close friend.”
Leighton Buzzard Observer
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Croydon Advertiser
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18 December 2013
Great Train Robbers' links to Wiltshire and the West
The Great Train Robbery has gone down in history as the Crime of the Century and has rarely been out the news over the past five decades.
But did you know about the West Country links? Ronnie Bigg’s biographer and personal friend Mike Gray has helped us compile some.
RONNIE BIGGS- The most notorious of the gang told his first wife Charmian that he was going tree-felling in Wiltshire, but was actually taking part in the Great Train Robbery. While he was away for the four days, his brother died, and his wife spent one evening phoning around the Wiltshire area trying to find out his whereabouts. She reputedly even phoned the local police to ask them to find him for her.
JOHN WHEATER- The crooked solicitor who obtained Leatherslade Farm where the gang hid out after the robbery retired to the West Country after being released from prison. Although he claimed not to know about the robbery until after it happened, he was sentenced to three years because he did not tell police about the hideout. Sources say he died many years ago.
JOHN DALY- Brother-in-law of Train Robbery Mastermind Bruce Reynolds, Daly was the only train robber to be found not guilty of the robbery, due to lack of evidence. Most of his share of the money, £150,000, was stolen by 'minders', and after being found not guilty, he moved with his family from Sutton, Surrey to Launceston in Cornwall where he worked as a council street cleaner and refuse collector. He kept his train robbery past a secret until he died earlier this year. After his funeral wife Barbara, who went on the run with him, said her husband had turned his life around and worked hard and honestly to raise his family, but spent his life living in fear of a retrial.
Barbara said at the time: "Things were tight financially and John struggled to get work. But he never committed another crime.
"I was much prouder of him being a dustman and road sweeper than a train robber. John didn't have any money, but he had his freedom, his garden and his family — and that was everything. He proved that crime does not pay and that the best things in life come from hard work and honesty.We had a very simple life and didn't earn a lot, but we had what we needed."
ROGER CORDREY- Fixed the railway signals and was the first train robber to be arrested after being picked up in Bournemouth days after the robbery. He was living above a florist shop and rented a lock-up from a policeman's widow who became suspicious about how much cash he had. He was jailed for 20 years which was reduced to 14 on appeal and was released from prison in 1971 after serving eight years. It was a lot less than other robbers as he was not on the robbery itself. After being released he went to live in the West Country to resume his career as a florist and lived a discreet life. Cordrey retired to Swanage where he died in 2005.
BRUCE REYNOLDS- The mastermind behind the train robbery was the last of the gang to be arrested in 1968, five years after the actual robbery. He had been on the run in Mexico and Canada but the family started running out of money and he returned home. The family, including his son who is in well-known band Alabama 3, were living in his Torquay where he went for childhood holidays when he was eventually arrested. He was released in 1978 but jailed again in the 1980s for drugs offences. He later worked as a media consultant on films and books about the robbery, performed with Alabama 3 and died in February this year aged 81.
The author Mike Gray was outside Wandsworth prison when Ronnie Biggs escaped because his dad was a warder. He became fascinated by the case and wrote to and visited Biggs in Brazil. With Biggs’ Brazilian-born son Michael, he organised the Free Ronnie Biggs campaign. He wrote Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story and says “he was only the tea boy”
Western Daily Press
~
RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Ashbourne News Telegraph
~
18 December 2013
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is dead
Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, has died aged 84.
Biggs, who was last seen in public in March, "flicking the V" at the funeral of fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, died early this morning.
The world-renowned robber was being cared for at Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re-arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between London and Glasgow on August 8 1963.
Speaking earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £46 million today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: ''If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
''I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'.
''I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'.''
The gangster's death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. Widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did.
"Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family and I would not wish to speak further on the subject."
When he spoke earlier this year, Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: ''It is regrettable, as I have said many times, that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families.
"The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. For that, I do have my regrets.''
Biggs's death comes on the day BBC1 is to screen a new drama about the record-breaking crime, The Great Train Robbery: A Robber's Tale, in which his role is played by Jack Gordon.
The 28-year-old actor said: "That's a strange thing to hear. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows him, and who have gone through the turmoil of the last 20 years, for everyone involved in the robbery.
"What great timing and bad timing, how strange that it happened today. I made a vow not to contact him because I knew what a bad state he was in.
"That's a really big blow for me. I am in Aruba on holiday right now, living the Ronnie Biggs life of running after the robbery, in a way."
He added: "The day I started filming as him was the day I opened up the newspaper and saw him swearing, with two fingers up at the press, with tubes coming out of him in a wheelchair. It was such a two fingers to society.
"But the robbery was a tragic event. He was a family man at this point, he'd been taken away from the city and put into the countryside from the war. He was a delinquent, his mother died and even before that he was off the rails.
"And he wanted to get out of it by the time he met Bruce Reynolds. He just wanted not to be a part of the crime world but he was broke and trying to bring up a family and start a business. It was a big move going for him, going back to the crime world."
Reflecting on the end of Biggs's life, Gordon added: "The man was in a lot of pain for a long time. He couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he found it very hard, walking was practically impossible, but by the looks of things - his energy and his spirit - he never seemed to be downtrodden.
"He had a fascinating life, but in the programme I play Ronnie Biggs before he became famous, when he wasn't very focused on the gig and he wasn't number one in the world. It was his audacity to never give in, never give up, that dominated his later life."
Biggs's relatively minor role in the robbery was overshadowed by his life as a fugitive, which gained him fame in later years.
After having plastic surgery, he lived as a fugitive for 36 years, first in Australia then Brazil, where he fathered a son Michael, who became the key to him being allowed to stay in the country and not face extradition.
Biggs's money ran out and he traded on his notoriety to scrape a living before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 to get better care for his deteriorating health.
He was freed in 2009 on ''compassionate grounds'' by then-justice secretary Jack Straw, who said he was not expected to recover.
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, spoke of his sadness at his death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
London Evening Standard
~
18 December 2013
Rainham author Mike Gray speaks of sadness at death of friend the Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs after his death at 84
A Rainham author has paid a heartfelt tribute to his friend Ronnie Biggs, who has died today aged 84.
Mike Gray, who has written four books on the notorious Great Train Robber, had kept in regular contact with him and last visited him at his care home in north London earlier this year.
The 56-year-old said: "Ronnie did not have a bad bone in his body. Even the copper who arrested him said his criminal CV was laughable.
"He only went along because he was friends with Bruce Reynolds, but nobody else had ever heard of him.
"He was by his own admission the tea boy who became the legend due to the world media.
"He always regretted the injury to the train driver. Only yesterday I sent him a Christmas card.
"This is a sad day for me and his family."
Mike's unusual relationship with Biggs started as a nine year-old boy standing outside Wandsworth Prison waiting for his father, who was a warder, to finish his shift.
He remembers seeing a red removal van alongside the prison's towering walls on that day in July 1965.
Only minutes before, Britain's most famous escapee had scaled those walls on a rope ladder, jumped onto the van's roof and made his getaway in a car to begin 36 years on the run.
After Britain's failed attempt to extradite Biggs from Brazil in 1974, Mike found out his secret address and wrote to him explaining their chance connection.
To his amazement, the fugitive responded triggering a friendship which lasted to Biggs' death in the early hours of this morning after years of ill health.
Mike's latest book The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book has just been published.
It coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery in 1963 - a heist that netted the gang an unprecedented £2.6 million in cash - worth about £55million today - on the London to Glasgow mail train.
Biggs was jailed two years later - but escaped - before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001.
Kent Online
~
18 December 2013
Ronnie Biggs death “very sad” says Kent author who became close friend
A Kent author who was personal friends with Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has spoken of his sadness at his passing.
Ronnie Biggs took part in the 1963 robbery of a mail train that netted the gang £2.6 million in cash – a sum worth around £50m today. Much of it was never recovered.
The 84-year-old, who famously escaped prison and fled Britain to live a playboy’s life in Brazil, died early Wednesday morning at the Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, London.
A series of strokes left him barely able to walk. He was last seen in public in March at the funeral of fellow train robber Bruce Reynolds.
Rainham writer Mike Gray has written books on Mr Biggs and got to know him well over the past few decades.
He told us: “It is a very sad day. I was awoken at 5am by a phone call from a member of Ronnie’s family in Barnet, and although I knew his health was deteriorating, it’s always a shock when it happens.
“Ronnie was never a violent criminal. His criminal CV at the time of the train robbery was ‘laughable’, as one ex-detective once told me, none of the other 15 train robbers wanted him on the job as none of them had ever heard of him.
“I last saw Ronnie this year. It’s ironic that his 84th birthday was on the same day as the train robbery’s 50th anniversary this year, and since his 2009 release on compassionate grounds, his health improved simply by being surrounded by his loving family, of which I include myself in that circle.
“He along with all the other train robbers regretted the injury to train driver Jack Mills. If that had not happened, I do not believe they would have received the draconian 30 year sentences in 1964.
“Ronnie was only involved because he needed £500 to put down as a deposit on a house for his wife and child, as he had promised her that he was going straight, the rest is history.
“The Great Train Robbery has become, via the world’s press, a national institution, or as its commonly known, ‘the crime of the century’ simply because it was unheard of in 1963 to rob a train of £2.6m in cash.
“Many bigger robberies have taken place since, but no-one remembers the names of the robbers or the crime; Ronnie Biggs and the Great Train Robbery, will still be debated by millions for another 50 years.
“Ronnie Biggs was a good friend of mine, and I am proud to have been an instrumental part of his release campaign.
Mike Gray met Mr Biggs while he was working as a prison warden – and years later wrote a book revealing what he was really like.
Kent News
~
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is dead
Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has died in London aged 84
Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, has died aged 84.
Biggs, who was last seen in public in March, "flicking the V" at the funeral of fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, died early this morning.
The world-renowned robber was being cared for at Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re-arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between London and Glasgow on August 8 1963.
Speaking earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £46 million today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: ''If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
"'I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'.
''I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'.''
The gangster's death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. Widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did.
"Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family and I would not wish to speak further on the subject."
When he spoke earlier this year, Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: ''It is regrettable, as I have said many times, that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families.
"The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. For that, I do have my regrets.''
Biggs's death comes on the day BBC1 is to screen a new drama about the record-breaking crime, The Great Train Robbery: A Robber's Tale, in which his role is played by Jack Gordon.
The 28-year-old actor said: "That's a strange thing to hear. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows him, and who have gone through the turmoil of the last 20 years, for everyone involved in the robbery.
"What great timing and bad timing, how strange that it happened today. I made a vow not to contact him because I knew what a bad state he was in.
"That's a really big blow for me. I am in Aruba on holiday right now, living the Ronnie Biggs life of running after the robbery, in a way."
He added: "The day I started filming as him was the day I opened up the newspaper and saw him swearing, with two fingers up at the press, with tubes coming out of him in a wheelchair. It was such a two fingers to society.
"But the robbery was a tragic event. He was a family man at this point, he'd been taken away from the city and put into the countryside from the war. He was a delinquent, his mother died and even before that he was off the rails.
"And he wanted to get out of it by the time he met Bruce Reynolds. He just wanted not to be a part of the crime world but he was broke and trying to bring up a family and start a business. It was a big move going for him, going back to the crime world."
Reflecting on the end of Biggs's life, Gordon added: "The man was in a lot of pain for a long time. He couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he found it very hard, walking was practically impossible, but by the looks of things - his energy and his spirit - he never seemed to be downtrodden.
"He had a fascinating life, but in the programme I play Ronnie Biggs before he became famous, when he wasn't very focused on the gig and he wasn't number one in the world. It was his audacity to never give in, never give up, that dominated his later life."
Biggs's relatively minor role in the robbery was overshadowed by his life as a fugitive, which gained him fame in later years.
After having plastic surgery, he lived as a fugitive for 36 years, first in Australia then Brazil, where he fathered a son Michael, who became the key to him being allowed to stay in the country and not face extradition.
Biggs's money ran out and he traded on his notoriety to scrape a living before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 to get better care for his deteriorating health.
He was freed in 2009 on ''compassionate grounds'' by then-justice secretary Jack Straw, who said he was not expected to recover.
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, spoke of his sadness at his death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
Dorset Echo
~
RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Medway Messenger
~
18 December 2013
Ronnie Biggs death “very sad” says Kent author who became close friend
A Kent author who was personal friends with Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has spoken of his sadness at his passing.
Ronnie Biggs took part in the 1963 robbery of a mail train that netted the gang £2.6 million in cash – a sum worth around £50m today. Much of it was never recovered.
The 84-year-old, who famously escaped prison and fled Britain to live a playboy’s life in Brazil, died early Wednesday morning at the Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, London.
A series of strokes left him barely able to walk. He was last seen in public in March at the funeral of fellow train robber Bruce Reynolds.
Rainham writer Mike Gray has written books on Mr Biggs and got to know him well over the past few decades.
He told us: “It is a very sad day. I was awoken at 5am by a phone call from a member of Ronnie’s family in Barnet, and although I knew his health was deteriorating, it’s always a shock when it happens.
“Ronnie was never a violent criminal. His criminal CV at the time of the train robbery was ‘laughable’, as one ex-detective once told me, none of the other 15 train robbers wanted him on the job as none of them had ever heard of him.
“I last saw Ronnie this year. It’s ironic that his 84th birthday was on the same day as the train robbery’s 50th anniversary this year, and since his 2009 release on compassionate grounds, his health improved simply by being surrounded by his loving family, of which I include myself in that circle.
“He along with all the other train robbers regretted the injury to train driver Jack Mills. If that had not happened, I do not believe they would have received the draconian 30 year sentences in 1964.
“Ronnie was only involved because he needed £500 to put down as a deposit on a house for his wife and child, as he had promised her that he was going straight, the rest is history.
“The Great Train Robbery has become, via the world’s press, a national institution, or as its commonly known, ‘the crime of the century’ simply because it was unheard of in 1963 to rob a train of £2.6m in cash.
“Many bigger robberies have taken place since, but no-one remembers the names of the robbers or the crime; Ronnie Biggs and the Great Train Robbery, will still be debated by millions for another 50 years.
“Ronnie Biggs was a good friend of mine, and I am proud to have been an instrumental part of his release campaign.
Mike Gray met Mr Biggs while he was working as a prison warden – and years later wrote a book revealing what he was really like.
Your Maidstone
~
18 December 2013
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is dead
Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, has died aged 84.
Biggs, who was last seen in public in March, "flicking the V" at the funeral of fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, died early this morning.
The world-renowned robber was being cared for at Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re-arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between London and Glasgow on August 8 1963.
Speaking earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £46 million today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: ''If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
''I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'.
''I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'.''
The gangster's death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. Widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did.
"Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family and I would not wish to speak further on the subject."
When he spoke earlier this year, Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: ''It is regrettable, as I have said many times, that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families.
"The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. For that, I do have my regrets.''
Biggs's death comes on the day BBC1 is to screen a new drama about the record-breaking crime, The Great Train Robbery: A Robber's Tale, in which his role is played by Jack Gordon.
The 28-year-old actor said: "That's a strange thing to hear. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows him, and who have gone through the turmoil of the last 20 years, for everyone involved in the robbery.
"What great timing and bad timing, how strange that it happened today. I made a vow not to contact him because I knew what a bad state he was in.
"That's a really big blow for me. I am in Aruba on holiday right now, living the Ronnie Biggs life of running after the robbery, in a way."
He added: "The day I started filming as him was the day I opened up the newspaper and saw him swearing, with two fingers up at the press, with tubes coming out of him in a wheelchair. It was such a two fingers to society.
"But the robbery was a tragic event. He was a family man at this point, he'd been taken away from the city and put into the countryside from the war. He was a delinquent, his mother died and even before that he was off the rails.
"And he wanted to get out of it by the time he met Bruce Reynolds. He just wanted not to be a part of the crime world but he was broke and trying to bring up a family and start a business. It was a big move going for him, going back to the crime world."
Reflecting on the end of Biggs's life, Gordon added: "The man was in a lot of pain for a long time. He couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he found it very hard, walking was practically impossible, but by the looks of things - his energy and his spirit - he never seemed to be downtrodden.
"He had a fascinating life, but in the programme I play Ronnie Biggs before he became famous, when he wasn't very focused on the gig and he wasn't number one in the world. It was his audacity to never give in, never give up, that dominated his later life."
Biggs's relatively minor role in the robbery was overshadowed by his life as a fugitive, which gained him fame in later years.
After having plastic surgery, he lived as a fugitive for 36 years, first in Australia then Brazil, where he fathered a son Michael, who became the key to him being allowed to stay in the country and not face extradition.
Biggs's money ran out and he traded on his notoriety to scrape a living before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 to get better care for his deteriorating health.
He was freed in 2009 on ''compassionate grounds'' by then-justice secretary Jack Straw, who said he was not expected to recover.
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, spoke of his sadness at his death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
Hillingdon & Uxbridge Times
~
18 December 2013
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is dead
Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, has died aged 84.
Biggs, who was last seen in public in March, "flicking the V" at the funeral of fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, died early this morning.
The world-renowned robber was being cared for at Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re-arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between London and Glasgow on August 8 1963.
Speaking earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £46 million today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: ''If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
''I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'.
''I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'.''
The gangster's death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. Widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did.
"Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family and I would not wish to speak further on the subject."
When he spoke earlier this year, Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: ''It is regrettable, as I have said many times, that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families.
"The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. For that, I do have my regrets.''
Biggs's death comes on the day BBC1 is to screen a new drama about the record-breaking crime, The Great Train Robbery: A Robber's Tale, in which his role is played by Jack Gordon.
The 28-year-old actor said: "That's a strange thing to hear. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows him, and who have gone through the turmoil of the last 20 years, for everyone involved in the robbery.
"What great timing and bad timing, how strange that it happened today. I made a vow not to contact him because I knew what a bad state he was in.
"That's a really big blow for me. I am in Aruba on holiday right now, living the Ronnie Biggs life of running after the robbery, in a way."
He added: "The day I started filming as him was the day I opened up the newspaper and saw him swearing, with two fingers up at the press, with tubes coming out of him in a wheelchair. It was such a two fingers to society.
"But the robbery was a tragic event. He was a family man at this point, he'd been taken away from the city and put into the countryside from the war. He was a delinquent, his mother died and even before that he was off the rails.
"And he wanted to get out of it by the time he met Bruce Reynolds. He just wanted not to be a part of the crime world but he was broke and trying to bring up a family and start a business. It was a big move going for him, going back to the crime world."
Reflecting on the end of Biggs's life, Gordon added: "The man was in a lot of pain for a long time. He couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he found it very hard, walking was practically impossible, but by the looks of things - his energy and his spirit - he never seemed to be downtrodden.
"He had a fascinating life, but in the programme I play Ronnie Biggs before he became famous, when he wasn't very focused on the gig and he wasn't number one in the world. It was his audacity to never give in, never give up, that dominated his later life."
Biggs's relatively minor role in the robbery was overshadowed by his life as a fugitive, which gained him fame in later years.
After having plastic surgery, he lived as a fugitive for 36 years, first in Australia then Brazil, where he fathered a son Michael, who became the key to him being allowed to stay in the country and not face extradition.
Biggs's money ran out and he traded on his notoriety to scrape a living before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 to get better care for his deteriorating health.
He was freed in 2009 on ''compassionate grounds'' by then-justice secretary Jack Straw, who said he was not expected to recover.
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, spoke of his sadness at his death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
The Shields Gazette
~
18 December 2013
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is dead
Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, has died aged 84.
Biggs, who was last seen in public in March, "flicking the V" at the funeral of fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, died early this morning.
The world-renowned robber was being cared for at Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re-arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between London and Glasgow on August 8 1963.
Speaking earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £46 million today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: ''If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
''I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'.
''I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'.''
The gangster's death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. Widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did.
"Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family and I would not wish to speak further on the subject."
When he spoke earlier this year, Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: ''It is regrettable, as I have said many times, that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families.
"The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. For that, I do have my regrets.''
Biggs's death comes on the day BBC1 is to screen a new drama about the record-breaking crime, The Great Train Robbery: A Robber's Tale, in which his role is played by Jack Gordon.
The 28-year-old actor said: "That's a strange thing to hear. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows him, and who have gone through the turmoil of the last 20 years, for everyone involved in the robbery.
"What great timing and bad timing, how strange that it happened today. I made a vow not to contact him because I knew what a bad state he was in.
"That's a really big blow for me. I am in Aruba on holiday right now, living the Ronnie Biggs life of running after the robbery, in a way."
He added: "The day I started filming as him was the day I opened up the newspaper and saw him swearing, with two fingers up at the press, with tubes coming out of him in a wheelchair. It was such a two fingers to society.
"But the robbery was a tragic event. He was a family man at this point, he'd been taken away from the city and put into the countryside from the war. He was a delinquent, his mother died and even before that he was off the rails.
"And he wanted to get out of it by the time he met Bruce Reynolds. He just wanted not to be a part of the crime world but he was broke and trying to bring up a family and start a business. It was a big move going for him, going back to the crime world."
Reflecting on the end of Biggs's life, Gordon added: "The man was in a lot of pain for a long time. He couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he found it very hard, walking was practically impossible, but by the looks of things - his energy and his spirit - he never seemed to be downtrodden.
"He had a fascinating life, but in the programme I play Ronnie Biggs before he became famous, when he wasn't very focused on the gig and he wasn't number one in the world. It was his audacity to never give in, never give up, that dominated his later life."
Biggs's relatively minor role in the robbery was overshadowed by his life as a fugitive, which gained him fame in later years.
After having plastic surgery, he lived as a fugitive for 36 years, first in Australia then Brazil, where he fathered a son Michael, who became the key to him being allowed to stay in the country and not face extradition.
Biggs's money ran out and he traded on his notoriety to scrape a living before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 to get better care for his deteriorating health.
He was freed in 2009 on ''compassionate grounds'' by then-justice secretary Jack Straw, who said he was not expected to recover.
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, spoke of his sadness at his death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
The Star
~
20 December 2013
Ronnie Biggs, notorious for Great Train Robbery, dies aged 84
English criminal Ronnie Biggs, famous for his role in the Great Train Robbery in 1963, has died aged 84.
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.
The infamous Great Train Robbery saw a 15-strong gang hold up a Glasgow to London mail train and make off with 2.6 million pounds, a huge sum at the time, at a railway bridge north of London.
The celebrity fugitive played a minor role in the hold-up but was jailed for 30 years in 1964.
After 15 months, he escaped by scaling a prison wall and leaping on to the roof of a furniture van.
His three decades on the run took him to France, Spain and Australia before he settled in Brazil where he flaunted his freedom by frequently being pictured in British newspapers partying.
Biggs returned to the United Kingdom in 2001 to seek medical treatment and was arrested and jailed.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds after suffering pneumonia from which he was not expected to recover.
Biggs had suffered a series of strokes in recent years and was, at the time of his death, being cared for in a home in north London, according to the Press Association and Sky News, who reported his death quoting unnamed sources.
Life on the run in Australia
Biggs netted 143,000 pounds for his role in robbery - 40,000 pounds of which he spent on plastic surgery in France, where he bought forged documents that he used to fly to Sydney in 1966.
His wife Charmian and sons Nicholas and Chris joined Biggs in Australia, where his third son Farely Paul was born.
Fearing that police were closing in on him, Biggs fled on a passenger liner to Panama in 1969 before making his way to Brazil.
UK detectives travelled to Brazil in 1974 in the hope of catching him, but they were thwarted because Biggs by then had a fourth son, Michael, with his Brazilian girlfriend Raimunda Rothen, which made him legally untouchable.
He released a single with the Sex Pistols in 1978 after lead singer Johnny Rotten had left the band.
In April 1981, Biggs was kidnapped by a gang of British ex-soldiers, who were hoping to collect a reward from the British police.
But the boat they took him aboard suffered mechanical problems off Barbados, and the stranded kidnappers and Biggs were rescued by the Barbados coastguard.
Barbados had no extradition treaty with the UK and Biggs was sent back to Brazil.
Return to the UK with help of The Sun
Biggs returned to the UK in 2001 with the help of the British tabloid The Sun, which paid for his flight and announced his return.
He was arrested upon his arrival and an appeal against the remainder of his jail sentence was dismissed.
Biggs married Raimunda while he was in London's high-security Belmarsh prison in 2002.
He was transferred to a prison specially designed to harbour elderly inmates in 2007.
His son Michael had long campaigned for his release from prison.
"If this is the British legal system, it is appalling," he said in 2009, insisting his father had "paid his debt to society".
He described his father as being "totally incapacitated", adding: "He cannot walk, he cannot talk, he cannot read or write, he cannot drink - how can he take any reoffending courses?"
Biggs was last seen in public in March at the London funeral of fellow train robber Bruce Reynolds, where he made a defiant "V" sign at the waiting media.
The press pack that awaited him was a sign of the enduring fascination in Britain with the train heist and particularly Biggs, who was widely viewed as a loveable rogue.
Biggs 'only had small role in train robbery'
On August 8, 1963, a gang of 15 robbers and a retired train driver stopped a Royal Mail train at the Bridego Railway Bridge in Buckinghamshire, about 60 kilometres north of London.
The train's driver, Jack Mills, was severely beaten and never recovered - he died in 1970 from leukaemia.
According to Biggs' biographers, the worst of the train robbers were never captured.
Tel Currie, the co-author of Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, told the ABC in 2009 that contrary to popular legend Biggs played only a small role in hijacking the train.
"He got in the train and he was useless because all the panels had changed and everything since he had been in a train," he said.
"So they took him back out and Ronnie spent the rest of the time on a grass verge watching it happen."
Co-biographer Mike Gray said the British government had wanted to punish Biggs for flaunting his escape while he was on the run.
"I think it goes back to - it was an indirect attack on the Queen," he said in 2009.
"It was the Royal Mail, which in 1963 was seen as treason, and they were still hanging for it and they were made to pay.
"And because Ronnie escapes for 30 years, albeit he was a law abiding citizen, he was made to pay the price."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, had criticised the sympathy for Biggs in the past, although he said his thoughts were with his family following his death.
"My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family," he said.
Biggs was born in 1929 in the south London suburb of Stockwell.
The World Observer (Australian Newspaper)
~
20 December 2013
Wiltshire alibi of Great Train robber Ronnie Biggs helped to convict him
Written by Gerald Isaaman.
Ronnie Biggs, one of the notorious £2.6 million Great Mail Train Robbers, who has died at 84, told his wife, Charmain, that he was in Wiltshire at the time he was helping to commit the robbery in Buckinghamshire in 1963.
“He told his wife he was going tree-felling in Wiltshire, to earn some money, before he went off for four days,” says Mike Gray, a friend of Biggs and author of four books about him, including Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story.
“During that time, Ronnie’s brother, whom he was very close to, died, and Charmain had no contact details for him in the county. She spent all night phoning Wiltshire Police, asking if they had contacted her husband.
“They said they had no record of any tree-felling. That’s one of the things that undid him at the trial, as they had no records of him anywhere in the county.
“It wasn’t mentioned in a lot of the court reports at the time, so not a lot of people know about it.”
Marlborough News Online
~
18 December 2013
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is dead
Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, has died aged 84.
Biggs, who was last seen in public in March, "flicking the V" at the funeral of fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, died early this morning.
The world-renowned robber was being cared for at Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re-arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between London and Glasgow on August 8 1963.
Speaking earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £46 million today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: ''If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
''I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'.
''I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'.''
The gangster's death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. Widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did.
"Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family and I would not wish to speak further on the subject."
When he spoke earlier this year, Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: ''It is regrettable, as I have said many times, that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families.
"The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. For that, I do have my regrets.''
Biggs's death comes on the day BBC1 is to screen a new drama about the record-breaking crime, The Great Train Robbery: A Robber's Tale, in which his role is played by Jack Gordon.
The 28-year-old actor said: "That's a strange thing to hear. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows him, and who have gone through the turmoil of the last 20 years, for everyone involved in the robbery.
"What great timing and bad timing, how strange that it happened today. I made a vow not to contact him because I knew what a bad state he was in.
"That's a really big blow for me. I am in Aruba on holiday right now, living the Ronnie Biggs life of running after the robbery, in a way."
He added: "The day I started filming as him was the day I opened up the newspaper and saw him swearing, with two fingers up at the press, with tubes coming out of him in a wheelchair. It was such a two fingers to society.
"But the robbery was a tragic event. He was a family man at this point, he'd been taken away from the city and put into the countryside from the war. He was a delinquent, his mother died and even before that he was off the rails.
"And he wanted to get out of it by the time he met Bruce Reynolds. He just wanted not to be a part of the crime world but he was broke and trying to bring up a family and start a business. It was a big move going for him, going back to the crime world."
Reflecting on the end of Biggs's life, Gordon added: "The man was in a lot of pain for a long time. He couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he found it very hard, walking was practically impossible, but by the looks of things - his energy and his spirit - he never seemed to be downtrodden.
"He had a fascinating life, but in the programme I play Ronnie Biggs before he became famous, when he wasn't very focused on the gig and he wasn't number one in the world. It was his audacity to never give in, never give up, that dominated his later life."
Biggs's relatively minor role in the robbery was overshadowed by his life as a fugitive, which gained him fame in later years.
After having plastic surgery, he lived as a fugitive for 36 years, first in Australia then Brazil, where he fathered a son Michael, who became the key to him being allowed to stay in the country and not face extradition.
Biggs's money ran out and he traded on his notoriety to scrape a living before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 to get better care for his deteriorating health.
He was freed in 2009 on ''compassionate grounds'' by then-justice secretary Jack Straw, who said he was not expected to recover.
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, spoke of his sadness at his death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
Express & Star
~
19 December 2013
Train robber Biggs used his notoriety to enjoy high life
FOR 50 years the name Ronnie Biggs was synonymous with the heydays of the London 'villains'.
With the death of the Great Train Robber, who was last seen in public in March, at the funeral of fellow gang member Bruce Reynolds, an era has come to an end.
Biggs won worldwide notoriety for his 36 years on the run after escaping prison. He ended his days at Carlton Court Care Home in north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re- arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between Glasgow and London on August 8 1963.
Biggs became Britain's most-wanted fugitive and was often photographed surrounded by bikini-clad Brazilian girls on Rio's Copacabana beach.
He even recorded a song in 1978, No One is Innocent, with the Sex Pistols.
Earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6million - the equivalent of about £46m today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: "If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
"I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'. I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'."
His death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. His widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did. Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that while I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family."
Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: "It is regrettable that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families."
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him."
Evening Times
~
18 December 2013
Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is dead
Ronnie Biggs, the Great Train Robber who won worldwide notoriety for spending 36 years on the run after escaping prison, has died aged 84.
Biggs, who was last seen in public in March, "flicking the V" at the funeral of fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, died early this morning.
The world-renowned robber was being cared for at Carlton Court Care Home in East Barnet, north London, after suffering several strokes in recent years.
He was released from prison in 2009 on compassionate grounds due to ill health, despite being re-arrested in 2001 after evading the authorities since his first escape from Wandsworth Prison in 1965.
At the time of his escape, Biggs had served just 15 months of the 30-year sentence he was handed for his part in the robbery of a Royal Mail freight train between London and Glasgow on August 8 1963.
Speaking earlier this year, he said he was proud to have been part of the gang behind the robbery, which saw 15 men escape with a record haul of £2.6 million - the equivalent of about £46 million today.
Biggs, who could not speak due to his strokes and communicated through a spelling board, said: ''If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is 'No'.
''I will go further: I am proud to have been one of them. I am equally happy to be described as the 'tea-boy' or 'The Brain'.
''I was there that August night and that is what counts. I am one of the few witnesses - living or dead - to what was 'The Crime of the Century'.''
The gangster's death prompted mixed reactions from those affected by the robbery.
For many, the glamour of the crime was overshadowed by the brutal attack on the train's driver. Jack Mills, who was coshed, reportedly by Biggs, never fully recovered from the ordeal and died a few years later.
Mr Mills's family described Biggs as just a criminal.
His son Stephen died on Christmas Day 2011, aged 48. Widow Barbara Mills, 57, from Sandbach, Cheshire, said: "I'm just sad Stephen died before he did.
"Biggs is not a hero, he's just an out and out villain."
Peter Rayner, former chief operating officer of British Rail, said: "My view is that whilst I was - and am - critical of the Great Train Robbers and the heroes' welcome they got, especially in light of the death of Jack Mills, my sympathies go out to his family and I would not wish to speak further on the subject."
When he spoke earlier this year, Biggs admitted he "regretted" the attack on Mr Mills.
He said: ''It is regrettable, as I have said many times, that the train driver was injured. And he was not the only victim. The people who paid the heaviest price for the Great Train Robbery are the families.
"The families of everyone involved in the Great Train Robbery, and from both sides of the track. All have paid a price for our collective involvement in the robbery. A very heavy price, in the case of my family. For that, I do have my regrets.''
Biggs's death comes on the day BBC1 is to screen a new drama about the record-breaking crime, The Great Train Robbery: A Robber's Tale, in which his role is played by Jack Gordon.
The 28-year-old actor said: "That's a strange thing to hear. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows him, and who have gone through the turmoil of the last 20 years, for everyone involved in the robbery.
"What great timing and bad timing, how strange that it happened today. I made a vow not to contact him because I knew what a bad state he was in.
"That's a really big blow for me. I am in Aruba on holiday right now, living the Ronnie Biggs life of running after the robbery, in a way."
He added: "The day I started filming as him was the day I opened up the newspaper and saw him swearing, with two fingers up at the press, with tubes coming out of him in a wheelchair. It was such a two fingers to society.
"But the robbery was a tragic event. He was a family man at this point, he'd been taken away from the city and put into the countryside from the war. He was a delinquent, his mother died and even before that he was off the rails.
"And he wanted to get out of it by the time he met Bruce Reynolds. He just wanted not to be a part of the crime world but he was broke and trying to bring up a family and start a business. It was a big move going for him, going back to the crime world."
Reflecting on the end of Biggs's life, Gordon added: "The man was in a lot of pain for a long time. He couldn't speak, he couldn't talk, he found it very hard, walking was practically impossible, but by the looks of things - his energy and his spirit - he never seemed to be downtrodden.
"He had a fascinating life, but in the programme I play Ronnie Biggs before he became famous, when he wasn't very focused on the gig and he wasn't number one in the world. It was his audacity to never give in, never give up, that dominated his later life."
Biggs's relatively minor role in the robbery was overshadowed by his life as a fugitive, which gained him fame in later years.
After having plastic surgery, he lived as a fugitive for 36 years, first in Australia then Brazil, where he fathered a son Michael, who became the key to him being allowed to stay in the country and not face extradition.
Biggs's money ran out and he traded on his notoriety to scrape a living before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 to get better care for his deteriorating health.
He was freed in 2009 on ''compassionate grounds'' by then-justice secretary Jack Straw, who said he was not expected to recover.
Author Mike Gray, who has written numerous books on the Great Train Robbery and on Biggs, spoke of his sadness at his death.
The 56-year-old, from Rainham, Kent, said he visited Biggs every month for eight years while he was held at HMP Norwich and HMP Belmarsh.
He said: "He was never a bad person. His criminal CV was laughable before the train robbery and none of the train robbers wanted him on the robbery as they had never heard of him.
"He was only invited as mastermind Bruce Reynolds was Biggs' best pal and Biggs knew a retired train driver. Biggs always regretted the injury to (train driver) Mr Mills."
Mr Gray, whose books include Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story and The Ronnie Biggs Quiz Book, last visited him at his north London care home earlier this year.
"I feel very sad as he has become part of my life and myself part of his," he added.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef,said: "While, naturally, we feel sorry for Mr Biggs' family at this time, we have always regarded Biggs as a non-entity and a criminal, who took part in a violent robbery which resulted in the death of a train driver.
"Jack Mills, who was 57 at the time of the robbery, never properly recovered from the injuries he suffered after being savagely coshed by the gang of which Biggs was a member that night."
Belfast Telegraph
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RONNIE BIGGS AUTHOR HORROR AS GREAT TRAIN ROBBER REFUSED PAROLE
Epsom author Michael Gray is shocked and horrified at the decision to keep great train robber Ronnie Biggs in jail until he dies.
Michael Biggs, Ronnie’s son, was with Mr Gray when he heard the news from lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano that his father was to stay behind bars.
Mr Gray who has written a book, Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story, said: “It was a very emotional moment and a call that we could not believe.
“Jack Straw was the Justice Minister in 1997 and applied for Biggs’s extradition.
“It was refused, so at the time Mr Straw looked very silly. As far as I am concerned it was revenge.
“You can rape a child or a woman, shoot someone dead with a gun – but for God’s sake, don’t steal the Queen’s money [the theft was from a Royal Mail train].”
Ronnie Biggs, 79, who is very frail after a series of strokes, is confined to a wheelchair and recently broke his hip.
He can only communicate with the use of an alphabet board and has to be fed through a tube.
He was jailed for 30 years for his part in the Great Train robbery, but escaped from Wandsworth prison to spend many years in Brazil.
He returned voluntarily to the UK eight years ago to serve his sentence and, because of his ill health, was expected to be paroled in time for his 80th birthday.
But last week, Justice Secretary Jack Straw blocked his release, on the grounds that the robber was “wholly unrepentant” and had shown no regret for his crime.
A surprising Ronnie Biggs supporter is outspoken Tory MP Ann Widdecombe.
She said: “The prisons are bursting at the seams.
"The courts are being urged to let burglars go free but one fairly doddery and very frail old man is being kept in prison.
“If you have got a prison place, for goodness’ sake, use it to lock up someone who is genuinely a risk to the public.”
Epsom Guardian
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AUTHOR CALLS FOR TRAIN ROBBER BIGGS TO BE LET OUT OF JAIL
The author of a new book about Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is pleading with Justice Minister Jack Straw to release the seriously ill prisoner before his 80th birthday on Saturday.
Biggs was one of the gang who stole £2.6 million from a train at Ledburn near Mentmore in one of this country's most infamous crimes.
High Court judges have granted Biggs' lawyer the right to appeal against Mr Straw's judgement.
Michael Gray, author of The Inside Story, said he was horrified to hear that parole had been refused.
He added: "I see it as revenge. Ronnie Biggs is being crucified on the Home Office cross - the time has come to take him down, and the public opinion and support is growing in favour of the soon to be 80 year old inmate."
Should Biggs be released?
The Bucks Herald
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Your Medway
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Round Town News (Costa Blanca Newspaper)
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MIKE TELLS THE INSIDE STORY
Driffield Times
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Costa Blanca & Costa Calida Leader (Costa Blanca Newspaper)
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RONNIE BIGGS ENTHUSIAST TRIES FOR MASTERMIND
A crime enthusiast has applied to be quizzed on Mastermind about Ronnie Biggs, the train robber and former Wandsworth Prison inmate.
Mike Gray, from Kent, wrote a biography named "Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story" and has dedicated many years to studying the legendary criminal.
If his application wins over a panel in a 13-week decision process, he will visit BBC studios in London and Manchester for several heats and tests before undertaking the television challenge.
His three quiz subjects will be Ronnie Biggs, The Great Train Robbery and UK True Crime.
He said: "Ronnie once said to myself on a prison visit that I knew more about him than he did himself.
"There cannot be anyone on this planet that knows as much about Ronald Arthur Biggs as myself."
Surrey Comet
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The author of Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs’ latest book will be visiting Sutton next month for a signing session at Waterstones.
Mike Gray’s new best selling book ‘Ronnie Biggs - The Inside Story’ tells the Great Train Robber’s story of his time in prison since he returned to this country in 2001.
Mr Gray has been a close family friend of Mr Biggs since 1989 and was the first to see the 80-year-old when Justice Secretary Jack Straw released him from prison on compassionate ground last August.
He said: “This book tells the Ronnie Biggs story with a difference, its not about the Train robbery, the prison escape, the high life in Brazil, but a truthful and disturbing insight into the prison system from 2001 to 2009.
“How Biggs was treated like his fellow inmate, child killer Ian Huntley, in the UK's most secure prison HMP Belmarsh.
“To write the book I visited Biggs in HMP Belmarsh and HMP Norwich every month for over eight years.”
Mr Gray and his co-author Tel Currie visited Biggs along with notorious bareknuckle hardman Roy "Prettyboy" Shaw, as well as Great Train Robbery mastermind Bruce Reynolds, TV personality Uri Geller and gangster Dave Courtney.
Sutton Guardian
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
www.torrevieja.com
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Epsom Guardian
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Coast Rider (Costa Blanca Newspaper)
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Kent on Sunday
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EVESHAM AUTHOR LENDS SUPPORT TO BIGGS RELEASE LETTER
By Daniel Fawbert Mills
EVESHAM author Tel Currie has said he supports a letter to the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, pleading for the release of Ronnie Biggs.
Mr Currie, who co-wrote Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, with Mike Gray, supports Mr Gray’s attempt to get the Justice Secretary to reconsider his decision to refuse Biggs parole, and to challenge his assertion that Biggs was ‘wholly unrepentant’.
Mr Gray said: “Two weeks ago Jack Straw said Biggs was ‘wholly unrepentant’ and refused him parole, even though his own parole board all agreed to free Biggs on July 3. “I have now written a letter to Mr Straw challenging his statement.
“In our book The Inside Story, which tells of my eight years visiting Ronnie in prison, Biggs clearly stated that he was sorry about what happened to driver Jack Mills, and sorry that he ever got involved in The Great Train Robbery.
“Over the years of prison visits, from 2001 to 2009, I have sat with Biggs’ son Michael and his granddaughter Ingrid, and he has always told her to obey the law, and ‘not to be stupid like granddad’. Words of a person who is sorry for their actions.”
In 1997, Jack Straw applied for Biggs’ extradition from Brazil to England, which Brazil publicly declined much to the embarrassment of the Justice Secretary.
Mr Gray said he believes it is for this reason that Mr Straw declined Biggs’ parole.
He added: “Biggs has served his time for a robbery over 40 years ago. It is now time to stop his slow crucifixion on the Home Office cross, and take him down immediately.”
Tel Currie said: “I will support Mike in every way, even if they don’t listen.”
Meanwhile, Biggs was rushed to hospital this week with severe pneumonia.
The 79-year-old inmate at Norwich Prison was taken to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.
He was taken to the hospital last month with a serious chest infection and a fractured hip but returned to prison on July 17.
His son, Michael Biggs, said: "It's the worst he's ever been. The doctors have just told me to rush there."
TewkesBury AdMag
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Ronnie Biggs was finally released from prison on compassionate grounds on August 6th after a long campaign to free the former Great Train Robber, who is now 80 years old. Friends and family have long argued that Ronnie, who has suffered a number of strokes, can no longer speak and was being fed through a tube posed no threat to society. He communicates by tapping out letters on a plastic covered sheet but still retains a sense of humour, according to Mike Gray who has been following the Ronnie Biggs story for 35 years and with Tel Currie has written a book about the man and in support of Ronnie being freed. The book is called ‘Ronnie Biggs – The Inside story’ and Mike Gray is staying on the Costa Blanca at the moment and was kind enough to talk to the CoastRider about the book and his friendship with Ronnie Biggs. His involvement with the Ronnie Biggs story proper began when he had to choose a topic for part of his English ‘O’Level studies from the current news events. This was early in 1974 and the story that caught his attention was that of Ronnie Biggs who been rearrested in Brazil after nine years on the run.
Mike was the son of a prison officer and it took him back to 1965 when he saw the red furniture van used as part of Ronnie Biggs’ escape from Wandsworth Prison. What started as an project became an ongoing piece of work as Mike saved all the newspaper cuttings he could lay his hands on to build up a massive collection that filled a very large suitcase.
He decided to try to get some cuttings from Brazilian papers where Ronnie was living and placed an advert in a newspaper.
Nothing happened for a while but then he was contacted by a collector of Beatles memorabilia who said if he could get old of Thomas the Tank engine recordings, which featured Ringo Starr, he in return, would send something back to Mike. Mike bought the recordings, sent them off and waited. He had more or less written the exercise off when out of the blue he got a reply, not with newspaper cuttings but the telephone number of the house where Ronnie Biggs was living. Plucking up his courage he contacted the man and has remained in contact ever since, visiting him in prison in the UK and becoming involved in the campaign to release Ronnie from prison.
The outline of Ronnie Biggs story is probably familiar to most people. He took part in the Great Train robbery of 1963 when a gang stopped a mail train and got away with 2.6 million pounds. At the time it was the largest robbery to have happened in the UK. The story of the search and arrest of the robbers filled the newspapers for months afterwards and at the trial on April 15th 1964 the judge described the robbery as ‘a crime of sordid violence inspired by vast greed’ and passed sentences of 30 years imprisonment on seven of the gang members including Ronnie Biggs. Oddly the robbery had involved little violence. The gang had not carried guns but had injured the train driver by hitting him over the head with an iron bar as a result of which he was unable to work again.
Ronnie Biggs part in the whole affair turned out to be minor in the extreme leading many to believe it was the audacity of the crime that led the then authorities to impose such long sentences. Ronnie Biggs escaped from prison 15 months later and went on the run, eventually ending up in Brazil where he lived for many years. However his health deteriorated and he wanted to return to his country of birth where he knew he would have to go to prison. His return was funded and organised by the Sun newspaper and in May of 2001 he returned with 28 years of his sentence still to serve.
Mike Gray and Tel Currie’s book describes their experiences of how Ronnie Biggs was treated during his stay in Belmarsh prison and his worsening physical health. They describe in detail the unsuccessful petitioning of authorities for an early release and the book provides an interesting and very human insight into the recent years of this man who has never been long out of the spotlight.
His supporters have long argued that Ronnie’s sentence was too long and have compared its severity to what they see as the comparatively light sentences handed out to rapists and child killers. They question society’s values in treating a sick old man in such a way. Ironically, leaving aside the question of the severity of the sentence, if he had stayed in prison and not gone on the run he would have been out years and years ago.
Ronnie Biggs is now staying in a nursing home close to where his son Michael’s lives. Mike Gray and Tel Currie’s book is called ‘Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story’ and it is published by Apex Publishing Limited.
The Coast Rider (Spanish Newspaper)
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KILLER FILM DEBUT FOR RONNIE BIGGS' BUDDY
WHAT do a Driffield Ronnie Biggs biographer and Katie Price's cage fighter ex-boyfriend Alex Reid have in common?
At first glance, it would appear not a lot, but the pair have both landed roles in the film Killer Bitch.
Mike Gray, who grew up in Driffield, was a close friend of the notorious Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs.
He authored Ronnie Biggs – The Inside Story and was asked to take on the role of a thug by producer and director friend Liam Galvin.
The violent film, set in Surrey, will premiere in London's Leicester Square in March.
Mr Gray, who still has relatives in Driffield and Bridlington, said: "It is a small part. It's not going to make me into the next Michael Caine. I play one of the bad guys in a pub scene. I am a friend of the barman. I'm in a pub before a fight breaks out."
The plot focuses on a woman, played by former children's TV actress Yvette Rowland, who has to kill five people, to save her friends and family.
Mr Gray befriended the film's director through the Free Ronnie Biggs Campaign, which succeeded in getting the 80-year-old released from prison on compassionate grounds in August.
"Liam kindly allowed me to promote my book," said Mr Gray, 52, who now lives in Kent. "In one scene I am reading it."
Along with other gang members, Biggs stole £2.6m – the equivalent of about £40m today – after holding up a mail train from Glasgow to London in the early hours of August 8, 1963.
In 1965, Biggs escaped from Wandsworth Prison and lived as a fugitive for 36 years, voluntarily returning to the UK in 2001. He spent several years in prison and as health declined.
Grandfather-of-one Mr Gray, whose family arrived in East Yorkshire in the mid-1950s after his father was offered a job at HMP Hull, said his fascination with the Biggs story began as a child.
"I just started off collecting newspaper cuttings for a school project," he said.
"In 1989, I wrote to Ronnie in Brazil, where he was at the time. A friendship was struck up and we've kept in touch."
Hull Daily Mail
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BIGGS, AND MY PART IN HIS RELEASE
THE Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is expected to be released from prison this summer – thanks in part to the efforts of a Vale writer.
Evesham-based ex-boxer Tel Currie, who co-wrote Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, has been campaigning for Biggs’’ release as he believes he was treated as the fall guy for the train robbery in 1963 in which about £2.5 million was stolen.
Speaking after the news that Biggs could be paroled next month, Tel said: “After all the hard and relentless work that has gone on for years by the way of charity, awareness and boxing nights by our team of supporters, I cannot describe the feeling of elation I experienced when I heard our close friend Ronnie will be released.
“I would love to think the book Mike Gray and myself wrote helped to push things along, but in reality I think the Home Office finally gave Ronnie’s case some time and reached the only logical and humane conclusion. This is a dream come true.”
Mike Gray, Tel Currie’s co-author and founder of the Free Ronnie Biggs campaign, was in Spain at the weekend where he spoke to Giovanni Di Stefano, Biggs’ lawyer.
He said: “Di Stefano confirmed that Ronnie will be paroled on July 3 and will be placed in a nursing home in north London so he may be close to his son Michael, who lives in the Barnet area.
“We have campaigned relentlessly since 1999 for Biggs’ freedom, and without the help of Mr Di Stefano, Ronnie would not be weeks away from parole, but possibly years.”
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice refused to confirm the release date, saying it was a matter for the Parole Board.
Evesham Journal
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Ronnie Biggs was born Ronald Arthur Biggs, in August 1929. He is a convicted criminal who is best known for escaping from prison after his role in the Great Train Robbery, in 1963 and for being on the run for many years. For the 35 years that he was on the run, Ronnie was an enigma. Now, two of his closest friends have written a ‘warts and all’ book on their famous mate. On 3rd July, Ronnie will be released on parole and to mark the occasion, the book, entitled ‘Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story’, has been released by publishers APEX. The inside story is about Ronnie’s life and it gives a very personal and unique, yet disturbing insight into the man that became a legendary household name after his involvement in one of Britain’s most notorious crimes. Mike Gray, one of the book’s authors, has a holiday home in San Pedro del Pinatar and earlier this week, Round Town News went along to meet him and find out more about his book.
ESCAPE
Mike was born in Wandsworth and his Dad was a prison officer at Wandsworth prison, where Ronnie Biggs was taken after he was charged and from where he subsequently escaped two years later. Mike told RTN; “I was only nine years old when Ronnie escaped and I remember it vividly. We could see the large red van by the prison walls and then we saw all the prison officers running around and heard the alarms.” When Mike’s Dad returned from work, he told him that a very important criminal had escaped and that was the first time he heard the name Ronnie Biggs. Ronnie disappeared immediately and after spending some time in Switzerland, where he had plastic surgery, he found his way to Australia, where he worked as a tradesman.
In 1974, Mike was doing his English Language O-Levels, with a view to becoming a journalist. His teacher told him to pick one of the headlines from that evening’s News at Ten to research and the lead story was Ronnie being found in Brazil. The next day, there was a media frenzy in Wandsworth and Mike knew that this was the story he needed to research for his exam. He collected two suitcases packed with information, press cuttings and other details about Ronnie and the Great Train Robbery and needless to say, he passed his exam!
RINGO STARR
Due to the absence of an extradition treaty with Brazil at the time and the fact that his partner was pregnant with his child, the Brazilian authorities would not extradite Biggs back to the UK and so he was allowed to stay there. In 1989, Mike was still interested in Ronnie and the robbery and so contacted a newspaper in Rio, placing a lineage advertisement for information on the Great Train Robbery. He was soon contacted by a trainee lawyer interested in collecting Beatles memorabilia. The man asked Mike to send him some tapes of Thomas the Tank Engine, narrated by the Beatles’ Ringo Starr. The lawyer was delighted and in return sent Ronnie’s full address and telephone number to Mike. He said; “I thought he was winding me up, so I didn’t call him for a week. It turns out that the man was Ronnie’s neighbour and had asked his permission to send the contact details. When I eventually got the nerve to call him, he answered and said; ‘I’ve been waiting for your call, what took you so long?!’ I was amazed and that is how our friendship started.”
Since then the pair have kept in monthly contact and since Biggs’ return to the UK for medical treatment, following three strokes and a heart attack, Mike has been visiting him, firstly in hospital and then in prison where he is being held until his parole next month. The book is a fascinating insight into Ronnie and the train robbery and is well worth a read.
Mike has given RTN a free signed copy to give away to one of our readers. To win the book, please answer the following question:
Q: What was the exact date of the Great Train Robbery?
The first person to e-mail louise@rtnnewsgroup with the correct answer will get this copy. If you would like to get your own copy, it is available at Amazon.co.uk and other reputable outlets.
Round Town News (Costa Blanca Newspaper)
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Kent on Saturday
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Romford Recorder
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
BQ Magazine (Chinese Magazine)
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Kent Messenger
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Ayr Advertiser
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Medway Messenger
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BIGGS BIOGRAPHER SELLS BOOK RIGHTS TO HOLLYWOOD
Ronnie Biggs’ biographer is set to profit from his friend’s crimes after agreeing to sell his book’s television rights to Hollywood.
Medway resident Mike Gray – author of Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story – will be paid out by American TV director Chris Hanaford, whose office is located on the iconic Sunset Boulevard. Co-author Tel Currie will also benefit.
Mr Gray has been friends with the Great Train Robber since 1989 when he was still hiding away in Brazil, and says he would love either Bob Hoskins or Michael Caine to play the part of Biggs on the small screen.
He said: “It came out of the blue because I never thought a company would come in for the film rights, but it’s really exciting. We’re now just waiting for them to return the signed contracts.
“I was slightly disappointed a British firm didn’t come forward though, as I think it would have given the film a raw edge. I’ve seen an American reconstruction of the Great Train Robbery on the Discovery Channel and it was pretty awful – they even had dollar signs on the money bags.
“Everything I do in regards to the book I let Ronnie know. I don’t have to but I do it out of respect for the man, and I haven’t heard anything negative back from him so that’s good.”
Biggs was a member of the 15-strong gang that attacked the Glasgow to London mail train in August, 1963, making off with £2.6 million in used banknotes in what at the time was the largest robbery in British history.
He served 15 months of a 30-year prison sentence before going on the run in Spain, Australia and Brazil, returning voluntarily to the UK in 2001 when he was immediately re-arrested and imprisoned.
Mr Gray campaigned for Biggs to be released on compassionate grounds when the 80-year-old was struck down with severe pneumonia back in July, which Justice Secretary Jack Straw granted within weeks.
Yet despite claims he had only days to live, the former fugitive is still alive and kicking more than four months on.
Mr Gray, who lives in Rainham, said: “I last saw him three weeks ago and he’s not doing too badly, but he still has this terrible cough that will never go away.
“People see him out and about and think he’s as fit as a fiddle and that we’ve been taking the mick, but 20 out of 24 hours a day he’s in bed being fed through a drip.
“All he wanted was to be able to see his granddaughter as a free man, and now he does every other day. He’ll now be able to enjoy his first family Christmas out of prison, but I think he maybe only has a year left.”
Kent on Sunday
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RONNIE BIGGS TO STAY IN NORFOLK
Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is likely to stay in Norfolk when he's released from prison, the Evening News can reveal.
The frail 79-year-old is being held at Norwich Prison and is a third of the way through a 30-year sentence handed to him for his part in the infamous £2.6m heist of a train in 1963.
However, it is expected that he will be released on parole in July because he is no longer deemed a threat to society and is unlikely to reoffend.
Today, his lawyer Giovanni De Stefano, claimed to have been given confirmation that Biggs was to be freed in July and said he was then likely to live his days out in the county.
He said that rather than returning to London, Biggs, who is unable to talk or speak after a series of strokes and heart attacks, is likely to be moved to a Norfolk nursing home.
This is because, as Norwich Prison will officially be his previous address, he is only likely to be able to receive funding support for the care he needs, by staying in this county.
Mr De Stefano, speaking to the Evening News from his base in Rome, Italy, said: “The law says it is the area health authority that has to pay, so as much as his family would want him to be near them he will remain in Norfolk most likely - even though his last chosen home was Brazil.”
After a series of illnesses including several strokes and pneumonia in February this year, Biggs, who will be 80 in August, is now too frail to walk or talk, so will need full time care once he has left HMP Norwich in Knox Road.
Mr De Stefano added: “He cannot be released with nowhere to go so because of the funding most likely Norfolk.
“Ronnie is very happy about being released. He's extremely content. He had a debt to pay and he feels he has paid it.”
Notorious for his role in the Great Train Robbery of 1963, Biggs was part of a gang who stole £2.6m from a Glasgow to London night mail train, the biggest ever robbery at that time.
Biggs' share was to be £147,000, the equivalent of £1.6m today.
He was caught and jailed for 30 years, starting his time inside at HMP Wandsworth, but on July 7, 1965 he scaled the walls with a rope ladder and fled to Paris initially before moving to Adelaide in Australia before settling in Brazil.
Although it was known he was in Brazil from 1974, he was not extradited to Britain and came back of his own accord in 2001, instantly arrested and jailed, first to Belmarsh and then moved to Norwich in 2007 where he has remained in the elderly lifer's block.
Mr De Stefano said he has funded the latest parole bid and that taxpayers' money had not been used.
He added: “It was only at the end of Monday that I had notification from the parole board that Mr Biggs would be released.
“I have been told I do not need to meet with the parole board, which means the decision to release him has been made.”
Despite Mr De Stefano's insistence that Biggs will definitely be released in July, the Parole Board at the Ministry of Justice would not officially confirm this.
A spokesman said: “No decision has been made. There are certain issues which still need to be clarified before a final recommendation can be made.
“We are confident that the information can be made available for a decision to be made in time for Mr Biggs's parole eligibility date in July. The recommendation would be to the Justice Secretary, who has the final decision in this type of case."
It is understood his release is already being discussed with health officials at NHS Norfolk, which would fund his care, and nursing home locations are being looked at.
Mike Gray, Biggs' friend and author of the book The Inside Story about the robber's life, said: “Ronnie is so excited about July 3 and looking forward to being surrounded by his close friends and family.
“I spoke to Ronnie's son, Michael, on Sunday night and the nursing home details are being finalised, amid the upmost secrecy.”
Have you served time with Ronnie Biggs at Norwich Prison? Call Lucy Bolton on 01603 772429 or email lucy.bolton@archant.co.uk
Norwich Evening News
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
Ipswich 24 Magazine
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
www.spanishnews.es
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CHRIS HAS THE INSIDE STORY
Clacton Gazette
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PUBLISHER'S HOPES TO HELP GREAT TRAIN ROBBER BIGGS
A campaign to release one of the country’s most infamous prisoners has received a boost, thanks to a Clacton publisher.
Chris Cowlin, of Apex Publishing, visited Ronnie Biggs at HMP Norwich. Chris is set to release a book about The Great Train Robbery, Biggs’ life on the run and his time in prison.
Mr Cowlin, along with co-author Mike Gray, who are campaigning for Biggs’ release, spent two hours with the 79-year-old on Tuesday.
He revealed Biggs is confined to a wheelchair, fed through a tube and his health has deteriorated so badly he gets out of breath trying to communicate.
Mr Cowlin is hopeful Biggs could be released in July – a third of the way through his sentence.
“The idea behind the book is to raise the profile of the cause,” he said.
“I know what he has done and don’t condone any crime but when you see someone in that state..."
Coast Gazette
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GREAT TRAIN ROBBER BIGGS SET FOR RELEASE
Ronnie Biggs, the man at the centre of Britain's great train robbery, is expected to be freed within days, in time for his 80th birthday.
Biggs will be told of his release today after the justice secretary, Jack Straw, agreed to grant him parole, according to some reports. A spokeswoman for the justice ministry said that no decision had been made but that "an announcement is expected in the next few days".
Biggs, who is being held in Norwich prison, is in Norfolk and Norwich University hospital after breaking his hip in a fall at the weekend. Straw is to sign the 79-year-old's parole papers, allowing him to be released into the care of a nursing home, the Times reported.
Biggs's release has been on the cards since a parole board hearing was postponed in April to consider where he will live on his release. His friends and family had been hopful that the parole board would recommend his release when it reconvenes on 4 July on the grounds that he is unlikely to reoffend.
Giovanni di Stefano, Biggs's lawyer, said in April that his client would need round-the-clock care that would be provided at the taxpayer's expense.
Biggs had been entitled to apply for release because he will have served a third of his sentence by this summer. The final decision rests with Straw, who can reject recommendations on prisoners serving a fixed sentence of more than 15 years but less than life.
Biggs has suffered a series of strokes and his family say he is unable to walk and can communicate only by using an alphabet board. They say that the chances of him committing another crime are "zero".
He was jailed for 30 years for his part in what remains the best-known robbery in British history. The great train robbery, as it came to be known, was a media sensation. The gang stopped the train in rural Buckinghamshire, uncoupled the carriage containing high-value items ‑ mainly money being sent by registered post ‑ and used the mail train's own diesel locomotive to move the carriage to a bridge, where the sacks containing the money were transferred to a fleet of waiting vehicles. The gang made off with stolen cash valued at more than £2.6m ‑ about £40m at present-day values.
The robbery of the Glasgow-London train in 1963 led to some of the heaviest sentences ever handed out to robbers at their trial the following year. The train driver, Jack Mills, was beaten unconscious during the robbery. He died of an unrelated illness in 1970.
Biggs escaped from Wandsworth prison in 1965 and fled first to Australia, then to Brazil where he appeared to live the good life for three decades, safe from extradition because he had fathered a child by a Brazilian woman.
He returned to Britain in 2001, impoverished and ill, after suffering his first stroke in Brazil. His son was given British citizenship after his parents married in Belmarsh jail, south-east London, in 2002.
Biggs's lawyer said in a written submission to the parole board earlier this year that Biggs was a different man from the one who went on the run. "Mr Biggs has changed and changed for the better," Di Stefano said, arguing that Biggs had voluntarily returned to Britain "to face the music".
Di Stefano said that 4 July, when Biggs will have served a third of his sentence, was the earliest date for his release. His release would probably be followed by a bidding war for his story. A book about his time in jail, The Inside Story, by Mike Gray, has just been published.
www.guardian.co.uk
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RONNIE BIGGS: THE INSIDE STORY
www.studiolegaleinternazionale.com
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MICHAEL CAINE COULD PLAY RONNIE BIGGS IN MOVIE
MICHAEL Caine could play Ronnie Biggs in a movie about the notorious Great Train Robber.
A Hollywood film company is in negotiations to buy the rights to a new book about the 80-year-old former jailbird.
Both Caine and Bob Hoskins have been linked with the project.
Mike Gray, author of Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, said: “These two guys are London boys who have both become Hollywood legends.
“It would be fascinating to see one of them play Biggsy in the film.”
Caine, 76, is currently starring as another rogue in his new movie, Harry Brown.
He plays an ex-marine who turns vigilante against gang members who murdered his best pal.
Biggs was jailed for his role in the £2.6million heist of the Glasgow to London mail train in 1963.
He escaped from jail two years later and spent 35 years on the run.
He was caged again in 2001 after turning himself in but was freed in August on compassionate grounds.
Daily Star Sunday
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GREAT TRAIN ROBBER RONNIE BIGGS MAKES RARE PUBLIC APPEARANCE
Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, who lived in Redhill and was arrested there for his part in the infamous crime, has made a rare public appearance to promote his autobiography.
Biggs, 82, attended the publicity event in East London with his son Michael, to publicise his book, Odd Man Out: The Last Straw.
His son spoke for him as Biggs was unable to - the result of a series of strokes which have also left him unable to walk.
He said his father had no regrets about returning to the UK to face justice after spending more than 30 years on the run, but Biggs did express sorrow over the death of the driver of the mail train they robbed in 1963, who never fully recovered from being hit with a cosh during the crime.
The book brings Biggs' autobiography of 1994 up to date, with his return to the UK, his time in prison, his release in 2009 on compassionate grounds and his life since covered.
Earlier in 2009, the then Justice Secretary Jack Straw turned down Biggs' application for parole on the grounds that the robber was “wholly unrepentant” about his crimes.
However, a month later, he did grant Biggs parole saying the decision was based on medical evidence that Biggs's health had deteriorated in prison and he was not expected to recover.
Biggs was one of a 15-strong gang which attacked the Glasgow to London mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, on August 8, 1963, before making off with £2.6 million.
After escaping from Wandsworth Prison, South London, 15 months into his 30-year sentence, he went on the run for more than 30 years, living in Spain, Australia and Brazil, before returning to the UK in 2001.
Biggs moved to Redhill in about 1961 and set up as a painter and decorator.
According to his close friend Mike Gray, from Epsom, who with Tel Currie wrote a book on Biggs called Ronnie Biggs: The Inside Story, he took part in the robbery because he needed £500 for the deposit to put on the property in Alpine Road, Redhill, which he and his wife were renting – ironically, from a policeman.
He had gone through with the robbery even though he had just won £500 at the races in Brighton.
Redhill, Reigate & Horley Life
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