What goes around - comes around!

Nearly 50 years on Ronnie Biggs is a victim of crime as mobility scooter is targeted

By Christian Gysin
Last updated at 10:25 PM on 23rd April 2010

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For the police who pursued him, and for his victims, there could be no greater irony: Ronnie Biggs has become a victim of crime.

Forty-seven years after taking part in the Great Train Robbery, the career criminal has had his mobility scooter vandalised.

The £600 scooter had been nicknamed the 'Getaway Vehicle' by family and friends of the 80-year-old, who escaped from prison in 1965 and spent years as a fugitive.



@Getaway vehicle': Ronnie Biggs using the scooter last year

Biggs, who is said to be 'pretty upset' by the vandalism, has been sent a letter and a ' Victim of Crime' leaflet by police.

Officers at Barnet station in North London are investigating the attack on the fourwheeled 4mph vehicle, which had been parked near the porch of the care home where Biggs, who has had a series of strokes, has been living for eight months.

The Daily Mail understands that around £200 worth of damage was done, including an arm being ripped off and the front basket being torn from the handlebar.

Yesterday the scooter was parked outside the care home awaiting repairs. Black tape was wrapped around the right arm, which had also been damaged by the vandals, and the basket was on the seat.



The scooter, a gift to Biggs from Lee Thompson, saxophonist with pop group Madness, had not been used for months because of the weather, but friends and family believed Biggs hoped to drive it again as temperatures rose during the past week.

A friend of Biggs - pictured on the scooter last year riding the half mile from his nursing home to his son Michael's nearby house - said: 'The scooter had been left in the porch

and someone came along and smashed it up one night. It was just meaningless vandalism. Ronnie is pretty upset because he was hoping to start using it again soon.



The scooter that Biggs uses to travel to his sons house had its basket and arm broken

'He also thinks it is a sad state of affairs when yobs destroy an old person's only means of getting out and about. He feels such people lack respect these days.'

The incident was reported to police, who sent Biggs a letter saying they were sorry he had become a victim of a crime.

Another friend said: 'Obviously the irony of the police being on his side hasn't been lost on Ronnie. But he feels no self-respecting criminal would have inflicted harm on an 80-year-old pensioner in his day.' Biggs was a member of the gang from Lambeth, South London, which in 1963 robbed the Glasgow to London mail train of £2.6million - equal to more than £30million today.


The men were jailed for 30 years but after 15 months Biggs escaped from Wandsworth prison. He lived as a fugitive in Australia and Brazil, where his son was born.

Nine years ago, and seriously ill, he returned to the UK voluntarily and was sent back to prison. He was released last August before leaving the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital for his North London care home. Biggs is unable to speak after a series of strokes and needs 24-hour care.

Angelina wrote:I thought he was at death's door, just like the Lockerbie bomber....what bloody fools we've got running this country to let them go free