SPE u CATOR
BIGGS DEAL
Like the plodding Russian bear, the Metropolitan Police force has finally got its man. Ronald Arthur Biggs is back behind bars after what sharp arithmeticians tell us is 13,068 days on the run. As a measure of just how much time has passed since he was sprung from Wandsworth prison, the great train robber, who has suffered three strokes, is said to have given himself up because he craves an NHS bed.
Whether Her Majesty's pleasure is made all the sweeter for the delay in bringing Biggs back to justice is doubtful. Her Majesty, who in any case has been preoccupied with entertaining another high-profile guest this week, of course keeps these things close to her chest. But the public reaction to Biggs's return can scarcely be said to have been one of rejoicing.
The cruel have begrudged him medical attention on the grounds that there are more deserving pensioners on NHS waiting-lists. Others have expressed disgust that the event has turned into a publicity stunt for the Sun.
An even more widespread concern is whether our human-rights-driven legal system will permit Biggs to be detained for long. Recent history suggests that the courts have a sympathetic approach towards shambling old men, or anyone who can pull off a convincing impersonation of one. Already, a team of lawyers is reported to be preparing a case for release on compassionate grounds. Those who find themselves unable to settle in their beds until reassured that Biggs is receiving punishment are more likely to find satisfaction in the emergency regulations relating to foot-and-mouth disease than in the sentence for robbery handed out at the Buckingham assizes in 1964: it would not be out of character with our topsy-turvy legal system if Biggs, who has expressed a desire to undertake one last walk in the English countryside, were to be freed only to be re-arrested and fined £5,000 for using a closed footpath.
That said, it is tempting for once to agree with the aims of the human-rights lawyers, if not with their reasoning. It is pointless to make a sick 72-year-old man serve out a 28year sentence. The fantasy that a 100-year old Biggs. long white beard trailing between the prison bars, will still be alive and compos mentis to understand his error belongs to a Bateman cartoon. Incarceration of Biggs merely ensures the maximum public expenditure for the minimum public reward.
It is astounding how much money is spent by the arms of justice on pure theatre without any regard to whether public interest is best being served. Awaiting Biggs's arrival at West London magistrates' court on Monday were no fewer than 15 policemen: all there to ensure that a frail old man on two walking-sticks who had willingly given himself up did not change his mind at the last minute and attempt to shuffle off into a backstreet. A better place to have stationed 15 coppers, perhaps, would have been around the perimeter wall of Wandsworth jail back in 1965.
There is a far more appropriate punishment that could have been handed out to Biggs last week: to refuse him entry to the country. If asylum-seekers have to undergo assessment to determine that they are not economic migrants in search of a better life, then why should an elderly fugitive-cum-medical migrant not also have to justify his reasons for entering Britain? His passport has presumably expired; he has persistently evaded attempts to have him returned to the country; there is no reason why his British citizenship should continue to entitle him to residence here, in jail or out.
We have become so wedded to the idea of jail as the only acceptable form of punishment that the concept of exile has been completely lost from our penal code. Yet what worked for Napoleon and generations of thieves shipped to the New World would have been an ideal solution in the case of Biggs. The man clearly wished to return here, so why did we not spite him by forbidding it? The pint of beer he craves to drink in a Margate pub would go undrunk. the hero's welcome he no doubt expects to receive from fellow prison inmates would be denied him. They may seem measly punishments to the hang 'em, flog 'em brigade, but they would surely be deep and hurtful to Biggs. For him, the stage-managing of his return is all part of the pleasure he has derived from evading justice: it is his appeal for us to remember him.
If a country is prepared to shelter criminals and refuse requests for extradition, why shouldn't we use it as our penal colony? In return for having entertained Biggs for the best part of 35 years, Brazil thoroughly deserves the responsibility of having to support him in his old age. Herein perhaps lies a radical policy that would strip billions from our prison-building budget, and at the same time keep our streets free from criminals: upon conviction, fly every armed robber, murderer and rapist to Brazil and leave them there.
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