The Great Train Robber Ronald Biggs is back in British police custody after 35 years on the run.
The ailing 71-year-old was arrested 20 minutes after he landed at Northolt Air Base, in northwest London, just before 8 pm yesterday (NZ time) on a jet chartered by the tabloid Sun newspaper.
More than 60 police were at the airfield as the flight arrived from Brazil.
One of London's top policeman, Detective Chief Superintendent John Coles, head of the Serious and Organised Crime Group, charged Biggs with being unlawfully at large.
After being checked by a doctor, the world's best-known fugitive was taken away in a white van with blacked-out windows and flanked by five police cars.
Biggs, who helped carry out the 1963 Great Train Robbery, is weakened and partially paralysed by strokes, and can barely talk.
He has been on the run since escaping from Wandsworth Prison in 1965 after being sentenced to 30 years for his part in the robbery of a Glasgow-to-London mail train.
The raid netted more than £2.6 million, worth around $124 million in today's money.
As he was pushed to the waiting jet when leaving Brazil, he communicated by scribbling notes on a pad to Sun reporters.
"I'm coming back in style with my head held high."
Wearing a bright-red Sun T-shirt, he added: "It has been an emotional day and it hasn't been easy saying my goodbyes. But now I'm on my way and ready to finally face the music.
"I should be able to tell the judge when I get home to give me bail."
His main worry seemed to be the chilly British weather.
"The only thing I don't have are woolly jumpers.
"I've never needed them since the day I arrived in Rio. I've not got one to my name.
"I don't want to get back to England and catch my death of cold.
"What's the weather like anyway?"
He left Rio in 32-degree heat and emerged to a chilly 9-degree day.
Train robbery mastermind Bruce Reynolds, who flew to Brazil with Sun reporters, accompanied Biggs to the Rio airport, as did Biggs' Brazilian-born son Michael, 26.
When Biggs arrived in a minibus, where the 14-seat Dassault Falcon 900 executive jet - stocked with curry, Marmite and beer - was waiting to take him home, more than 100 journalists besieged the vehicle, forcing it to speed to another entrance.
Biggs claimed he wanted to return home because he did not want to remain a burden to his son.
Michael has spent the past 18 months caring for his father since Biggs suffered a third stroke.
Biggs also hopes to get medical treatment in Britain that he could not afford in Brazil.
As he left Brazil Biggs wrote: "Michael is a very good son to me. He feels so bad about me going back.
"He can't go on with his own life while carrying me."
Biggs put his finger to his eye and ran it down his cheek to indicate how sad he was to be leaving Brazil.
But he wrote: "I want to be free in England again. I have to go back."
Biggs spent his last hours in Rio at the house of a friend.
He sobbed as he cuddled his baby granddaughter, Ingrid, knowing it could be for the last time.
His last words to her were a simple pledge: "I will see you again. All my love, grandad."
Biggs back in arms of law
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