Train robber Ronnie Biggs to live out his days in nursing home funded by taxpayer

The 79-year-old Great Train Robber, who has to be fed through a tube and is barely able to walk after a series of strokes, is said to be "ecstatic" that he is returning to the city of his birth.

Until now, one of the biggest obstacles to his freedom was a wrangle over which council and health authority would pick up the bill for the 24-hour nursing care he needs.

The dispute has been resolved with Barnet council and the local Primary Care Trust - which both serve the area in which the Biggs's son Michael lives - agreeing they will pay.

The precise cost is unknown, but is likely to run to tens of thousands of pounds a year, while there will also be potential further costs because of the need for the Met to ensure that Biggs is protected from any risk caused by his notoriety.

Biggs, who was part of a 15-man gang that stole £2.6million from a mail train in Buckinghamshire in 1963, is in the hospital wing of Norwich Prison.

He was jailed for 30 years for his part in the Great Train Robbery, which left train driver Jack Mills with injuries from which he never recovered before his death in 1970.

Biggs escaped after 15 months by scaling the walls of Wandsworth Prison and spent 35 years on the run, becoming Britain's most notorious fugitives, living in Spain, Australia and Brazil before returning to Britain voluntarily in 2001.

Biggs's lawyer Giovanni di Stefano said the final hurdle to his release had been overcome and that Biggs would be freed on 3 July when the minimum term that he must serve expires.

He praised the decision to allow Biggs to return to London - rather than move into a care home in Norfolk - as a "victory for common sense" and said that his client was eagerly anticipating his release.

"He's ecstatic. He knows about this and he's very pleased and his release is now just a few days away," Mr di Stefano said.

"It's a brand new home that he will be going to and his son will be only a half a mile away and will be able to visit every day.

"The taxpayer will be paying, but that would be the case wherever he was and it is common sense that he should be near his family.

"It is a rare thing for me to say it, but on this occasion I have to say that the Government really has behaved correctly and in an exemplary fashion."

Although Mr di Stefano expressed confidence that Biggs's release will be approved, it still has to be given final authorisation both by the Parole Board and Justice Secretary Jack Straw.

That is expected to be little more than a formality after a report by probation officers submitted to a previous Parole Board hearing declared that he was safe to be freed.