**Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs is preparing for his formal release from prison after being granted freedom on compassionate grounds.**Biggs is severely ill with pneumonia and Justice Secretary Jack Straw approved his release on Thursday after being told he is not likely to recover.
The Ministry of Justice is expected to sign-off Biggs’s licence conditions later, granting his formal release.
The 79-year-old - in a Norfolk hospital - is said to be “over the moon”.
Biggs’s son Michael told the BBC he was “absolutely delighted” Mr Straw had reversed his decision on his father’s parole, which he had refused last month.
Speaking outside Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital on Thursday night, Michael Biggs said common sense had “prevailed”.
“I’ve just been able to spend some time with my father and he, in his own words, it took him a long time using a spelling board, but he is over the moon,” he said.
"We are very hopeful that my father will be able to survive the next few days.
“I’m just very hopeful that my father can have another few months ahead of him in his life”
**
Biggs’s son Michael**
Send your comments
“My father, at present, is not capable of walking, is not capable of reading, writing, speaking - he cannot eat or drink.”
Last month, Mr Straw said the 79-year-old should not be granted parole as he remained “wholly unrepentant” about his involvement in the 1963 robbery of a mail train.
However, on Thursday Mr Straw said: "The medical evidence clearly shows that Mr Biggs is very ill and that his condition has deteriorated recently, culminating in his readmission to hospital.
“His condition is not expected to improve. It is for that reason that I am granting Mr Biggs compassionate release on medical grounds.”
The inmate of Norwich Prison, who was serving a 30-year sentence, was taken to hospital in June suffering from a chest infection and was readmitted on Tuesday.
Michael Biggs explained his father was “completely incapable of re-offending”.
“He has rehabilitated himself inside and outside of prison,” he said.
"All I can say is we are extremely happy at the moment.
“I’m just very hopeful that my father can have another few months ahead of him in his life.”
The decision means Biggs will spend his 80th birthday on Saturday as a free man, although his condition means he will be unable to celebrate his release.
The three Prison Service staff who remained watching him overnight will be withdrawn later, once the licence for his release is finalised.
If his condition were to improve, Biggs would be transferred to a nursing home in Barnet, north London, near his son’s home.
Biggs, originally from Lambeth, south London, was a member of a 15-strong gang which attacked the Glasgow to London mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, in August 1963, and made off with £2.6m in used banknotes.
The train’s driver Jack Mills suffered head injuries during the robbery.
Biggs was given a 30-year sentence, but after 15 months he escaped from Wandsworth prison, in south-west London, by climbing a 30ft wall and fleeing in a furniture van.
He was on the run for more than 30 years, living in Australia and Brazil, before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 in search of medical treatment.
He was sent to Belmarsh high-security prison on his return before being moved to a specialist medical unit at Norwich prison.