Ronnie Biggs, one of the Great Train Robbers, is to be released from Norwich prison next month and will live in a nursing home after a wrangle as to who should pay for his medical care was settled.
Biggs will stay at a home near his son Michael in Barnet, North London.
He could be released as early as July 3 from the wing of the jail that is reserved for elderly prisoners.
Biggs has suffered a series of strokes and is unable to speak. He communicates through gestures and by spelling out words with an alphabet board. He is fed through a tube in the stomach and can walk only a few steps unaided.
Negotiations have been taking place to decide who will pay for his round-the-clock medical care and it is believed that Barnet Primary Care Trust has agreed to cover the cost.
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A Parole Board panel will hear his application for release within the next two weeks. The panel will send its recommendation to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, who will make the final decision on whether Biggs, who will be 80 in August, is to be released.
The Times reported in April that the probation officer overseeing Biggs had recommended his early release. He has served ten years of the 30-year jail term imposed in 1964 for his part in the £2.5 million — £40 million at today’s prices — robbery of the Glasgow to London mail train.
Documents seen by The Times show that the officer recommended release even though she believed he had no regrets about his life.
The probation officer’s report said that he was suitable for early release on parole licence as long as he had a care package to manage his health needs.
The document notes that Biggs has in the past sought to play on his celebrity status, which could lead to an issue of risk management on his release.
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Giovanni di Stefano, who represents Biggs, said: “He’s ecstatic. He knows about this and he’s very pleased and his release is now just a few days away. 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.”
The move to free Biggs is likely to prove controversial given his role in one of the most notorious robberies of the 20th century and his life of indolence in Brazil during 36 years on the run.
Biggs served only 15 months of his sentence before escaping by scaling a 30ft wall. He went to France, Australia and Brazil, where he lived openly for three decades, safe from extradition because he had fathered a child by a Brazilian woman.
He returned to Britain in 2001, impoverished and ill. His son was given British citizenship after his parents married in Belmarsh jail, southeast London, in 2002.