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UK: Great Train Robber Biggs could be freed later this year


19 Feb 2009 12:16 AM

LONDON, Feb 18 DPA - Britain's Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs could be freed from jail on turning 80 later this year, media reports said on Wednesday.

His son Michael told a television station that he expected his father to be freed and moved to a care home after his case was heard by the Parole Board in July.

Biggs, from London, was a member of a 15-strong gang which attacked the Glasgow to London mail train in 1963, making off with STG2.6 million ($A5.8 million).

He was given a 30-year sentence but escaped from Wandsworth prison in London in a furniture van after spending 15 months in jail.

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

Earlier this week, Biggs was returned to Norwich Prison from hospital where he was being treated for pneumonia.