General Chat

I could tell a story here about the Krays which involved my Mum & Dad, who had a business in the Commercial road in the late 50's, but I won't go into it at this stage but suffice to say, the Krays were not nice people. Yes they may have treated their circle of friends nicely and been nice to their mum but other than that, they were rotten to the core. Just my opinion of course.

great topic Suzian - thanks

Amen to that Suzian. Great thread.

Best wishes to all

Bernie

Evening all

to bring this back to its roots (and since I started it!)

For the record, I'm no defender of Ian Brady, no apologist for the train robbers, and no bleeding heart.

What I asked you to consider was this "what is the point of keeping Ronnie Biggs in gaol now?"

Trawling through the answers, they seem to diviide themselves into three camps:

Camp A - to act as a deterrent. If you believe this, you've got to accept this thought process "I may rob this train. If I get caught, I could either do 25 years , or, if I'm very lucky, I could come back to the UK after 20 or so, and spend my days dying in gaol". I see the deterrent value!

Camp B - protection of society. this one holds no water. Frankly, I'm more afraid of the postman than I am of Ronnie Biggs.


Camp C - revenge. And, on this one, I come back to my original point This only belittles us.

(a few people have raised the idea that the press would love to get hold of Biggs - amd I don't for one second doubt that. But. of course, that would be to swell their readership. Which consists of...)

thanks, everyone, for a very interesting exchange of views.

Sue xx

I worked on the railways in London in the late 50's / early 60s and people from the East End told me about the Krays.
Mrs Kray, the aunties, the cousins and all the hangers on had goods from local shops and drinks in the pubs on "the boy's account". Of course the account was never paid. They also went straight to the front of the queue, pushing in before
everyone else.
Barbara Windsor was married to Ronnie Knight, a convicted criminal who at one stage fled to the Costa Del Sol to escape the police. So she would have sympathy with the criminal fraternity.

Absolutely Ann,

I also hate this misbegotten perception that the Krays were "salt of the earth", and "didn't harm the ordinary people". C*bblers! The Krays made a lot of their money by running protection rackets all over the East End - robbing honest shopkeepers and businessmen/women of their hard-earned money with threats of extreme violence.

The only reason that the East End was perceived as safer when the Krays were around is because other criminals were s*it scared of operating on their patch.

and I hate this theory that there are "good" criminals and "bad" criminals!!! Rubbish,, a criminal is bad - just cos he's good to his mother and buys drinks for his mates doesn't make him a good person

Barbara Windsor, much as I like her, is always wittering on about the Krays and their lovely mother etc etc.

Thanks for that Ed.

To those of you who believe the train robbers were heros who just stole money from the government and did no real harm to anyone, read the letter in yesterday’s Daily Mail. An extract from it is:

…….the thugs entered the railway coach. They threatened the postmen with an axe if they did not hold their arms out in front of them. As each man held out his arms, he was coshed on the arm muscles to paralyse them so they were unable to interfere while the gang robbed the train…..One of the postmen died shortly after the attack and another ended up in a mental home…….

Still believe that Biggs and his co-thugs were modern day Robin Hoods?

And please don’t tell me that Biggs did not do the actual physical assaults. We cannot judge the past by today’s standards and the law at that time stated that all were responsible for the crimes committed by any member of the gang.

I couldn't agree more with Bernie. Do you remember when Biggs was 'kidnapped' in the 80s in order to allegedly extradite him? The publicity and stories generated from this act would be a newspaper editor's dream.

Oh Rose, there are people out there who would dearly love to spring Biggs. If a newspaper could manage it it would be a major scoop. Make no mistake, if there was a chance they would be up for it, they would not worry about Biggs' health, just their own publicity coup.

I'm not shocked at anything this government has lost - they seem to have a gift for losing things and people!!!!

BBC news today....

I offer this merely as a counterpoint to the argument for spending money on guarding Biggs...money better spent elsewhere?

"Convicted killers still at large

Hundreds of offenders who should be in prison remain at large
Nearly 1,000 offenders who should have been sent back to prison are still at large, according to Justice Secretary Jack Straw.

They include 19 convicted murderers who have not been returned to custody.

Also free are rapists and people convicted of manslaughter who were on licence from jails in England and Wales between January 1999 and March 2009.

The Conservatives said the figures would shock the public and accused the government of putting people at risk.

They blamed the government's Labour's "reckless" early release scheme and "lax approach" to probation.

Figures published by the National Offender Management Services (NOMS) show 935 offenders whose licences had been revoked had not been returned to jail as they should have been.

As well as murderers, those still free include two people convicted of manslaughter and 26 others convicted of sexual offences, including 12 for rape or attempted rape.

FREE TO COMMIT MURDER

Dano Sonnex should have been in prison when he tortured and murdered two young French students in London.
Released on licence after serving part of an eight-year sentence for violent crimes, the 23-year-old drug user was accused of further offences, and should have been recalled to jail.

But blunders by the probation service meant he was free to walk the streets - and, with an accomplice, stab Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo to death.

Errors left 'sadist' free to kill

Mr Straw said the recall system was working well, with less than 1% of recalled offenders not returned to jail between 1999 and 2008.

"Ten times more offenders are being recalled to prison each year than before 1997 as a result of our tough new recall regime," he said.

"Only about 10,000 offenders were recalled in the 15 years between 1984 and 1999 - when our new measures were implemented - and the old system was cumbersome and court based.

"Since then, 92,000 offenders have been recalled.

"Of those recalled between 1999 and June 2008, just 0.7% of offenders have not been apprehended.

"But we are far from complacent and recognise that the system has to be strengthened further, not least in respect of those serious offenders who remain at large."

'Lost track'

But Shadow Justice Secretary Dominic Grieve said: "The whole point of releasing prisoners on licence is that they can be monitored and returned to prison if they commit a breach.

"The public will be shocked that the government has lost track of almost 1,000 criminal fugitives - including murderers, paedophiles and sex offenders. "

NO Bernie, of course I haven't ." thought why there are 3 guards? " !

'Sprung Biggs" ? Pushing him out of the hospital in a wheelchair with a tube in his stomach? really?

Rambling Rose, have you thought why there are 3 guards? If there was only one guard and some undergound figures, (or even a gutter newspaper), "sprung" Biggs, then everyone would be complaining that the justice dept. was not doing its job properly.

The piece of low-life scum Ian Brady is of no danger to the public now. He is a mental and physical wreck, but we have a lot of security to keep him inside. Thank goodness.

"Biggs, 79, is recovering in Norfolk and Norwich University hospital after breaking his hip in a fall in jail last weekend. Biggs, who will be 80 next month, has suffered three strokes over the last two years.

He communicates through gestures and by spelling out words with an alphabet board. He is fed through a tube in the stomach and can walk only a few steps unaided.

He is likely to be in hospital several weeks and while there, three prison guards from HMP Norwich, are ordered to keep a 24-hour watch. "


Like he's going to make a break for freedom!

Derek,

Regarding your comment:

"So lets stop a moment and consider what actually hapened to jack MIlls....he ac`ually got a smack on the head.as he had to do to make it look realistic.............for which he was paid handsomely!!......."

Are you seriously claiming that the train driver Jack Mills was part of the gang and got a cut of the proceeds?

If so you are out of order. I was a trade union official at the time. There was little sick pay on British Railways in the 1960's and we organised a nationwide collection so that he and his wife could keep the wolf from the door. To say he got a pay-off is libellous and quite frankly the most disgusting allegation I have seen on these pages.

Hi Sue,

Sorry I didn't reply yesterday, I had other more pressing things to do.

I guess my point is that by being seen to be punished, then Biggs's treatment by the judicial system will act as a deterrent to others.

Lets get some other points up here anyway:

1. Biggs was sentenced in the 60s, when sentencing was harsher under an older law. Whilst this older law no longer applies, he still has to complete his sentence under the older law from which it was applied. If this was not the case, then I believe it would set a legal precedent which would allow other serious criminals sentenced at the same time to argue for their release, just because they were old and infirm.

2. They robbed a mail train. There used to be (and may still be) a crime called "Tampering with Her Majesty's Royal Mail". This was considered a VERY serious criminal offence. Without going into details, I know of someone who was sentenced to several years in prison for this offence (but with much less money involved). Therefore, the sentence was proportionate considering the sums involved. This is not about revenge.

3. The Moors Murderers are not a valid comparison. They committed an altogether different, heinous crime that disgusted the entire world. Whilst it was over 40 years ago, their acts will never be forgotten or forgiven. No politician would ever release Ian Brady - they would be committing political suicide if they dared to even suggest it.

4. If he hadn't escaped, stuck his fingers up at the UK, and served his time like a good boy, Biggs would be out by now. (You never know, maybe he'd even have been released early?) You make your choices in life and you have to pay the consequences in the end. Biggs made his choice; he's now paying the consequence. Therefore, I have no sympathy for him.

Ed

You'll get no argument from me, Igor

If anyone threatened me or mine, I'd do what I had to do, and bugger the consequences.

That's not the point, though (with respect).

what I was trying to say was that a line has to be drawn between protecting society and revenge.

By all means, protect ourselves. But revenge, for its own sake, belittles us all.

Sue x

And ( before i return to watching 'Love Actually' on the telly ...softie lol)

I never 'bought' Hindley's conversion to Catholicism, her apparent ( lost the word!) 'remorse' will do ....if she had been genuinely 'repentant' as a Catholic or a human being , IMO she would never have asked for release and would not have rested until she had given police the location of the other victim. ( I was only 9 when they were convicted , sheltered from the news then no doubt, but still remember it).

well you really should not have a knife in the first place - elf and safety and all that - and of course there are the human rights of the burglar to consider