GREAT Train Robber Ronnie Biggs could be downing a cool frosty one on Margate’s Main Sands just as summer begins.

The 79-year-old hopes to be released from jail in July after serving 10 years for his part in the heist.

His son Michael told the Thanet Times the one thing Biggs is keen to do is get down to Margate and have a pint of beer.

Michael, 34, said: "As a kid my dad came down to Margate several times and it was one of his favourite holiday destinations. He loved the climate in Margate as well as the beaches and the parks and the funfair rides. I know he would love to sit on the seafront and drink a pint of lager."

Now confined to a wheelchair and often fed intravenously, Biggs cannot talk.

He received a 30-year sentence for his role in the train robbery in August 1963. The gang of 15 made off with more than 125 mailbags jammed with cash amounting to roughly £2.6 million. In today’s money that is about £40 million.

Biggs escaped from Wandsworth prison in 1965 by climbing over the wall and fled to France. There he had plastic surgery to alter his appearance and went through Spain, Australia and Panama before settling in Brazil.

In 2001 Biggs notified Scotland Yard by email that he was ready to return to Britain and turn himself in to authorities.

Friend of the family Kevin Crace, from Ramsgate, owner of Westgate Pavilion, is keen to see him on the isle after helping get him back to the country in 2001.

He said: "Ronnie was stationed in Margate during the war and that’s one of the reasons he wants to come back down. He is now an old man and just wants to live the remainder of his life in peace with his son. He is very keen to get down to Margate as soon as he is released."

Londoner Michael, a musician who plays the guitar, says that his dad has had several strokes and heart attacks and also has skin cancer.

He said: "We’ve got to remember that this was a political sentence. If you remember what was happening at the time in politics with Christine Keeler and the Profumo affair. The Government had been severely discredited and then comes the biggest robbery in history. He got 30 years for the robbery and 25 years for conspiracy. When you consider what paedophiles and murders get these days it is unbelievable."

Michael thinks the British public hold a soft spot for the villain because he was the underdog.

He said: "People seem to like the one who got away. They seem to think he had this fantastic amazing life drinking pina coladas on the beach but it wasn’t like that. The media have made him into what he is. When you’re offered £800 for a picture and you’ve got a family to look after you tend to go along with the part they want you to play."

Is Biggs a threat to society or should he be released? Email thom.morris@krnmedia.co.uk or leave a comment.

The Ronnie Biggs saga.

• Born on August 8, 1929, in Lambeth, south London, Biggs was first convicted for stealing when he was a teenager.

• In August 1963, he joined the gang which hijacked a Glasgow to London night train and came away with £2.6 million.

• A month after the robbery several of the culprits were tracked down by detective Jack Slipper.

• Biggs stood trial in January 1964 and was jailed for 30 years.

• After serving 15 months Biggs scaled a wall at Wandsworth Prison and made his escape.

• He spent 36 years on the run and even recorded a single for the Sex Pistols.

• Biggs had plastic surgery in France to change his appearance, before moving to Spain and then Australia.

• He was tracked down to Melbourne in 1969 but fled to Brazil.

• The Brazilian courts refused to extradite Biggs because he had a dependent son in the country.

• In 1981 he was kidnapped and taken to Barbados by abductors who wanted to take him back to Britain.

• He avoided extradition and returned to Rio de Janeiro.

• In the late 1990s he suffered a series of strokes and has experienced health problems ever since including pneumonia, epileptic seizures and heart attacks.

• He married Brazilian Raimunda Rothen, mother of his son Michael, at the high security prison the following year.

• Repeated appeals for his release were refused.

• In July 2007 he was moved to a lower security unit at Norwich jail for elderly life-sentenced inmates, even though he was not serving a life sentence.

• A parole board will meet again this July to decide whether or not to release him.