Biggs spends birthday a free man

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Retired steel polisher Tony Hastings, 67, of Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, visited him at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital in Norwich.

Mr Hastings said Biggs - who was freed from prison on Friday - was smiling as he celebrated his milestone birthday with his family.

"I went in to see him today and sat by the side of his bed," said Mr Hastings who mounted a campaign for Biggs' freedom eight years ago. "It was the best day of my life. I was privileged to be able to meet the man. He looked much better than I expected. I have seen a picture of him where he looked unconscious - but he was smiling and everything. Brilliant.

Mr Hastings said he launched his campaign in 2001. "I just felt that he just wasn't getting justice," he said. "I'm not suggesting that he's an angel. He's a criminal. I know that. But I didn't feel he was any danger to the public and it didn't seem to me to be in anyone's interest to keep him in prison. I've written to lots of people over the years calling for his release - I wrote to Jack Straw in July and I wrote to the Queen on Monday.

"But to be honest I didn't think he ever would be released."

Mr Straw, the Justice Secretary, announced on Thursday that he would release Biggs on compassionate grounds after doctors concluded that the robber was extremely ill.

Biggs was freed on Friday after release paperwork was completed and is celebrating his 80th birthday on the 46th anniversary of the Great Train Robbery.

He was moved from Norwich Prison to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital last week and is being treated for pneumonia.

Biggs, from Lambeth, South London, was part of a gang which robbed the Glasgow to London mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, in 1963 - making off with £2.6million.