Ronnie Biggs
Friday, August 7th, 2009 02:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanWell in my not-so-humble opinion, Jack Straw should have stuck to his guns and left Biggs in his hospital bed under guard until he died. I know that in practical terms, releasing him on compassionate grounds has no effect. Ronald Arthur Biggs has pneumonia and is not likely to recover, but the symbolism of the warders at his bedside until he died would have been important.
Through his own efforts, but aided and abetted by a complacent and sensation-seeking media, Biggs turned himself during his close on 40 years on the run, into some kind of counter-culture symbol, cocking a snook at authority; a cheeky chappie giving the finger to the establishment. That doesn’t represent the truth though, does it?
Biggs, the most infamous of the Great Train Robbers, was a habitual criminal with twenty-six previous convictions. The Great Train Robbery sounds quaint now, forty-six years later. They stole £2.6 million in 1963. That would be worth in the region of £40 million now. In the process, an innocent train driver, Jack Mills, was thrashed to within an inch of his life by the gang and never worked again.
Biggs was caught, tried and sentenced to 30 years before he escaped in 1965, finding his way eventually to Brazil where he stayed thirty years, protected by local laws that prevent extradition of some one who has fathered a Brazilian citizen. In all that time he showed no remorse, instead he basked in his notoriety. He came back to Britain in 2001 knowing he would get better healthcare in a British prison than in Brazil. So his last act as a free man was to deliberately come back to sponge off the country he had derided for so many years. He stated that all he wanted was to walk into a pub in Margate and buy a pint of bitter as a free man.
Well he won’t and that’s good.
Ironically, had he done his time, he would probably have been released from chokey well before his thirty years were up and then he could have lived the quiet life he claimed to have wanted. He may even have been able to get a job. But no, he ran and exploited as far as possible a mind set that glamorises the worst of criminals.
Biggs has won, even if it is an empty victory at the end. That annoys me.
Through his own efforts, but aided and abetted by a complacent and sensation-seeking media, Biggs turned himself during his close on 40 years on the run, into some kind of counter-culture symbol, cocking a snook at authority; a cheeky chappie giving the finger to the establishment. That doesn’t represent the truth though, does it?
Biggs, the most infamous of the Great Train Robbers, was a habitual criminal with twenty-six previous convictions. The Great Train Robbery sounds quaint now, forty-six years later. They stole £2.6 million in 1963. That would be worth in the region of £40 million now. In the process, an innocent train driver, Jack Mills, was thrashed to within an inch of his life by the gang and never worked again.
Biggs was caught, tried and sentenced to 30 years before he escaped in 1965, finding his way eventually to Brazil where he stayed thirty years, protected by local laws that prevent extradition of some one who has fathered a Brazilian citizen. In all that time he showed no remorse, instead he basked in his notoriety. He came back to Britain in 2001 knowing he would get better healthcare in a British prison than in Brazil. So his last act as a free man was to deliberately come back to sponge off the country he had derided for so many years. He stated that all he wanted was to walk into a pub in Margate and buy a pint of bitter as a free man.
Well he won’t and that’s good.
Ironically, had he done his time, he would probably have been released from chokey well before his thirty years were up and then he could have lived the quiet life he claimed to have wanted. He may even have been able to get a job. But no, he ran and exploited as far as possible a mind set that glamorises the worst of criminals.
Biggs has won, even if it is an empty victory at the end. That annoys me.