LONDON: Half a century after Britain’s infamous Great Train Robbery, the most notorious member of the gang, Ronnie Biggs, is unrepentant and says he is proud of his role in the heist.
The gang stole the equivalent of $69m in today’s money from a mail train travelling from Glasgow to London 50 years ago on Thursday.
The crime itself was audacious enough, but it was Biggs’ 36 years on the run and his high-profile new life in Brazil which propelled him to fame.
He escaped from prison in 1965 and was finally arrested and thrown back in jail in 2001 on his voluntary return to Britain.
Biggs, who will celebrate his 84th birthday on the anniversary of the robbery, was released from prison in 2009 after his lawyer claimed he was close to death following a series of strokes. But he is still alive and although now confined to a wheelchair he showed he has lost none of his old defiance by making an obscene hand gesture to journalists at the funeral of the gang’s mastermind Bruce Reynolds in March this year.
Biggs, who cannot speak and communicates through a spelling board, said ahead of the 50th anniversary: “If you want to ask me if I have any regrets about being one of the train robbers, my answer is ‘no!’
AFP
