Train robber Biggs admitted to hospital

A frail Biggs was returned to a UK prison last month after 35 years on the run

LONDON, England -- Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has been admitted to hospital and is undergoing medical tests, a family spokeswoman said.

Biggs has been held in custody at Belmarsh Prison, south east London, after ending his self-imposed exile in Brazil last month.

He was admitted to a London hospital on Saturday.

A statement issued to the Press Association on behalf of Biggs said: "Ronnie Biggs was admitted to a civilian hospital late this afternoon following a change in his condition.

"He (Biggs) is undergoing medical tests but was said by the hospital to be stable.

"His son Michael spent the evening by his bedside. He continues to be deeply concerned about his father's health."

A spokeswoman for the Prison Service said: "I can confirm that a prisoner has gone from Belmarsh to an outside hospital."

He is believed to have been taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Greenwich, near to the high-security prison.

Biggs, 71, was sentenced to 30 years for his part in the 1963 robbery of a Glasgow to London mail train in which a guard was injured.

But he served only 15 months before breaking out of London's Wandsworth Prison in 1965.

The gang escaped with £2.6 million ($3.74 million) -- worth around $500 million today.

He returned to Britain amid a media frenzy but was immediately arrested and returned to prison to serve the rest of his sentence.

His legal team later announced that he was lodging an appeal.

Biggs, partly paralysed and in failing health, has said he wanted to return to his native Britain to have a beer in a pub before he died.