Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, 79, has been taken to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital with a suspected broken hip and chest infection, his son Michael said today.

Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs, 79, has been taken to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital with a suspected broken hip and chest infection, his son Michael said today.

Biggs, who is currently being held at Norwich Prison on Knox Road, is due to be released, possibly a soon as Friday.

He is being treated for the infection and will be seen by an orthopaedic surgeon later.

Biggs has been held in the prison's elderly lifers unit, which specialises in caring for inmates whose health is deteriorating. He is fed through a tube and communicates using an 'alphabet panel' after suffering a series of strokes.

A Parole Board report recently concluded it was safe to release him from prison as his ill-health would make it impossible for him to become involved in crime again.

Biggs became the country's most notorious fugitive after escaping from Wandsworth Prison in 1965 and spending 35 years on the run, following his part in the Great Train Robbery.