A carpenter by trade, criminal turned celebrity Ronnie Biggs has died at the age of 84. <br /><br />In the summer of 63, the cash-strapped youth joined a gang that stopped a Royal Mail night train, and made off with over two million pounds in what became known as the Great Train Robbery. <br /><br />The haul was the equivalent of around 40 million pounds (47 million euros) today. <br /><br />Sentenced to 30 years behind bars, Biggs managed to escape in 1965 and spent years on the run, living mostly in Brazil.<br /><br />There he flaunted his freedom, regularly giving interviews to British newspapers and revelling in his notoriety. <br /><br />Ronnie Biggs always said he never regretted his role in one of the world’s biggest robbery’s and even recorded a punk song with the Sex Pistols called, ‘No One is Innocent’. <br /><br />In 2001, ailing and broke Biggs finally surrendered to British police and returned to prison but was freed in 2009 on health grounds. <br /><br />Biggs was last seen in public in August at a memorial service at London’s Highgate Cemetery for Bruce Reynolds, the mastermind of the robbery, who died aged 81 in February.<br /><br />Frail and using a wheelchair, Biggs was unable to talk after a series of strokes.
