General Chat

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?

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Figures published by the National Offender Management Services (NOMS) show 935 offenders whose licences had been revoked had not been returned to jail as they should have been.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

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Amen to that Suzian. Great thread.

Best wishes to all

Bernie

great topic Suzian - thanks

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.