Ronnie Biggs

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Lore & Background

Ronald Arthur Biggs was born in Stockwell, London, on 8 August 1929. During the Second World War, he was evacuated to Flitwick, Bedfordshire, and then Delabole, Cornwall. At age 18 in 1947, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force but was dishonourably discharged for desertion two years later after breaking into a local chemist shop. One month after that, he was convicted of stealing a car and sentenced to prison. On release, he took part in a failed robbery attempt of a bookmaker's office in Lambeth, London. During his incarceration in HM Prison Wandsworth, he met Bruce Reynolds. After his third prison sentence, Biggs tried to go straight and trained as a carpenter. In February 1960, he married 21-year-old Charmian (Brent) Powell in Swanage; they had three sons together. In 1963, needing money for a house deposit, Biggs happened to be working on the house of a train driver who was about to retire—variously identified as 'Stan Agate', 'Old Pete', or 'Pop'. Biggs introduced the driver to the train robbery plot involving Reynolds. On the night of 8 August 1963—Biggs's 34th birthday—the gang stopped a Royal Mail train. The recruited driver could not operate the main line diesel-electric locomotive, so the train's actual driver, Jack Mills, was coshed with an iron bar and forced to move the engine and mail carriages. Biggs's fingerprints were later found on a tomato sauce bottle at the gang's hideout, Leatherslade Farm, leading to his arrest three weeks later. In 1964, nine of the 15-strong gang, including Biggs, were jailed; most received 30-year sentences. 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 to Glenelg in Adelaide, South Australia. By then, he had spent all but £7,000 of his £147,000 share: £40,000 on plastic surgery, £55,000 as a package deal to get out of 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. Biggs worked set construction at GTV Channel 9 Television City studios. In October 1969, a Reuters report revealed he was in Melbourne; he fled five months later by passenger liner from the Port of Melbourne, using an altered passport. Twenty days later the ship berthed in Panama; within two weeks he flew to Brazil. In Brazil, 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. In 1974, Daily Express reporters confirmed he was in Rio de Janeiro. Biggs recorded vocals on two songs for the Sex Pistols film 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle' (1980): 'No One is Innocent' and 'Belsen Was a Gas'. 'No One is Innocent' reached number 7 in the UK singles chart in 1978. To provide income, Biggs hosted barbecues at his home where tourists could meet him. In March 1981, he was kidnapped by a gang of British ex-soldiers, but the boat suffered mechanical problems off Barbados; the stranded group was rescued by the Barbados coastguard, and Biggs was sent back to Brazil when no valid extradition treaty was found.

Reader's Guide

Ronnie Biggs's significance lies in his role in the Great Train Robbery of 1963, which yielded £2.6 million (equivalent to about £47.5 million in 2025); Biggs's share was £147,000 (equivalent to £2,700,000 in 2025). His escape from Wandsworth Prison on 8 July 1965 and 36 years as a fugitive turned him into a folk anti-hero, though his actual role in the robbery was minor—his main task had been to get the recruited driver to move the train, and when that failed, he was banished to a waiting vehicle while the train was looted. The case highlighted issues of extradition, as Brazil had no extradition treaty with the UK, and later Barbados was found to have no valid extradition treaty either. Biggs's later years included his return to the UK in 2001, several years in prison where his health rapidly declined, and release on compassionate grounds in August 2009. He died in a nursing home in December 2013. His story has been the subject of documentaries and dramatizations, including the 2012 ITV docu-drama 'Mrs Biggs', for which his ex-wife Charmian served as a consultant.

Did You Know?

• Biggs's fingerprints were found on a tomato sauce bottle at the gang's hideout, leading to his arrest three weeks after the robbery.
• He escaped from Wandsworth Prison on 8 July 1965 by scaling the wall with a rope ladder and dropping onto a waiting removal van.
• Biggs recorded vocals on two songs for the Sex Pistols film 'The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle'; 'No One is Innocent' reached number 7 in the UK singles chart in 1978.
• In March 1981, Biggs was kidnapped by a gang of British ex-soldiers, but the boat suffered mechanical problems off Barbados and he was sent back to Brazil.
• Biggs's ex-wife Charmian served as a consultant on the 2012 ITV docu-drama 'Mrs Biggs', which recounts their time together.