Ronnie Biggs

Lore & Background

Biggs served 15 months before escaping from Wandsworth Prison on 8 July 1965, scaling the wall with a rope ladder and dropping onto a waiting removal van. He fled to Brussels by boat, then to Paris where he acquired new identity papers and underwent plastic surgery. In 1966, he fled to Sydney, then moved to Glenelg, Adelaide.

By then, he had spent all but £7,000 of his share: £40,000 on plastic surgery, £55,000 on a package deal to leave the UK, and the rest on legal fees and expenses. In 1967, after an anonymous letter warned that Interpol suspected he was in Australia, the family moved to Melbourne. In October 1969, a Reuters report revealed he was in Melbourne; Biggs fled, and five months later left on a passenger liner from the Port of Melbourne, using an altered passport. He arrived in Panama and within two weeks flew to Brazil.

In 1970, Brazil had no extradition treaty with the UK. In 1974, a Daily Express team confirmed he was in Rio de Janeiro; Scotland Yard detective Jack Slipper arrived, but Biggs could not be extradited because his girlfriend, nightclub dancer Raimunda de Castro, was pregnant—Brazilian law did not allow extradition of a parent of a Brazilian child. Biggs later recorded vocals on one song for The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980), the Sex Pistols film: 'No One Is Innocent' (also known as 'Cosh the Driver').

Reader's Guide

Ronnie Biggs's significance lies in his central role in the Great Train Robbery, one of the most famous heists in British history, and his subsequent 36-year life as a fugitive, which turned him into a folk anti-hero. His escape from Wandsworth Prison and his ability to evade capture for decades, aided by plastic surgery and the lack of an extradition treaty with Brazil, captured public imagination.

While his actual role in the robbery was minor—he failed to move the train—his notoriety grew through media coverage and his own publicity stunts, including recording with the Sex Pistols. His case highlighted issues of extradition, the limits of international law enforcement, and the public's fascination with charismatic criminals. His eventual return to the UK, imprisonment, and release on compassionate grounds due to declining health brought a final chapter to a story that had spanned nearly half a century.