Great train robber Biggs set to spend the rest of his life in prsion

RONNIE Biggs will remain in prison after Justice Secretary Jack Straw refused to grant him parole yesterday.

Mr Straw said the Great Train Robber was "wholly unrepentant" about his actions.

Mr Straw said Biggs would have been a free man "many years ago" had he complied with the sentence given to him.

He said yesterday: "I have informed Mr Ronald Biggs today of my decision regarding his parole.

"Mr Biggs chose to serve only one year of a 30-year sentence before he took the personal decision to commit another offence and escape from prison, avoiding capture by travelling abroad for 35 years, whilst outrageously courting the media.

"Had he complied with his sentence, he would have been a free man many years ago."

He said he had decided to refuse the Parole Board's recommendation to release Biggs: "He chose not to obey the law and respect the punishments given to him – the legal system in this country deserves more respect than this.

"It was Mr Biggs's own choice to offend, and he now appears to want to avoid the consequences of his decision. I do not think this is acceptable."

Biggs, of Lambeth in South London, has suffered a series of strokes and is fed through a tube. The 79-year-old communicates using gestures or by pointing at letters on a card.

He was a member of a 15-strong gang that attacked the Glasgow to London mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, in August 1963, and made off off with £2.6 million.

He was given a 30-year sentence, but after 15 months he escaped from Wandsworth prison in London by climbing a 30ft wall and fleeing in a furniture van.

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