Fugitive Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has started his journey back to Britain after 35 years on the run. Biggs, in poor health after three strokes, was helped from a wheelchair onto the plane, Brazilian TV showed. He was wearing a cowboy-style hat and a red shirt. He was tried five months later, convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison, but he escaped 15 months later, fleeing first to Australia and then to Brazil. Biggs fathered a son in Brazil, halting British attempts to extradite him.
Brazilian law forbids deportation of parents.
But Biggs, partially paralysed and unable to speak following a series of strokes, recently expressed a desire to return home. What I need is passport documentation to travel back to Britain. I am prepared to be arrested at the gate when I arrive at Heathrow Airport and submit myself to the due process of the law. In an interview with the British tabloid The Sun, Biggs said his last wish is to walk into an English pub and order a pint of bitter. I think he would die within a year.