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Robber Biggs arrested back in UK
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"GREAT Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs was arrested on Monday after returning to Britain to end more than 35 years on the run, bringing to a close one of the longest escapades in British criminal history.
Biggs legendary "adventures"
He was in a gang who stole a then-record 2.6 million pounds -- estimated at 50 million pounds (75 million dollars) in today's money -- from a mail train.
Biggs escaped from prison in Britain in 1965, just 15 months into a 30-year sentence. He got away by scaling the wall of London's Wandsworth prison and making off in a converted furniture van.
He used his share of the loot to pay for plastic surgery and papers for a passage to Australia, where he returned to his old job of carpenter and decorator.
He later fled to Brazil via Panama and Venezuela.
The birth of a son to his Brazilian girlfriend gained him a last-minute reprieve from extradition to Britain in 1974.
Biggs' returns to London
Biggs had sent an e-mail to Coles last week saying he would give himself up and return to face the music.
Accompanied by his son Michael, he had volunteered to end his exile, in an operation co-ordinated by the Sun, whose headline Monday read "Got Him."
Before takeoff, Biggs had signed a declaration stating that he was leaving of his own free will -- the only condition Brazilian police set for his departure from the country he had made his home for 30 years.
"He seemed happy to be going home," said Brazilian police spokesman Clovis Franco Ramos, who witnessed the signing.
He left Rio de Janeiro, his exile for the past three decades, amid chaotic scenes late Sunday as reporters and photographers jostled to get a glimpse of one of the world's most famous fugitives. Biggs was issued with an emergency passport allowing him to make a one-way trip back to Britain.
Also on board the plane was his fellow robber Bruce Reynolds, who has served a 10-year sentence.
Police said Biggs would appear at a west London magistrates' court later in the day. First, he would be examined by a police doctor.
Biggs touched down at the Royal Air Force base of Northolt, northwest London, at 8.45am (0745 GMT) in a private jet chartered by the Sun newspaper.
Police were waiting for him, and 20 minutes later he was arrested for being "unlawfully at large", a Scotland Yard spokesman said.
The arrest warrant was executed on board by Detective Chief Superintendent John Coles, head of the police serious and organized crime squad.
Biggs' future
In theory, Biggs, 71, faces having to serve the remainder of his sentence, although he is hoping for leniency on grounds of his age and failing health.
He has suffered three strokes and can no longer speak properly. Now penniless, having long ago spent his 147,000-pound share of the robbery haul, Biggs hopes to receive vital medical treatment that he could not afford in Brazil.
Biggs told the Sun tabloid last week that he hoped to rely on the mercy of the court because of his age and failing health and the time elapsed since his crime. Biggs scribbled down his thoughts for Sun reporters. "I want to be free in England again. I have to go back to England," he said. "My last wish is to walk into a Margate pub as an Englishman and buy a pint of bitter".
Biggs's main worry as he left Rio appeared to be returning to chilly British weather without a sweater. "I've never needed them since the day I arrived in Rio...I don't want to get back to England and catch my death of cold," he said.
Family friend Kevin Crace said Biggs was "very excited" about coming home. He said the robber's son Michael had told him that "the old Biggs sparkle had appeared in his eye".
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