RETIRED policeman Malcolm Fewtrell, who caught train robber Ronnie Biggs, has said that he feels sorry for him.

Mr Fewtrell, a former detective superintendent, was head of Buckinghamshire Police CID in 1963, the year of the Great Train Robbery.

As Ronnie Biggs spent his first night on British soil in 35 years, Mr Fewtrell was reflecting on Biggs' life on the run.

"I feel sorry for Biggs," he said. "I knew him when he was arrested, of course.

"He was not a vicious criminal, it was the leaders who were dedicated criminals.

"He was happily married and working as a painter and doing quite well.

"I feel sorry for him and his physical condition."

Mr Fewtrell, of Swanage, Dorset, warned everybody not to make Biggs and the Great Train Robbers seem daring.

He said: "The Sun have done everybody a bit of an injustice in making them heroes.

"I went to the scene and then to the Royal Bucks Hospital and I saw Mills [the train driver] and he was in a pitiful state.

"If people saw what I saw they would not regard them as heroes."

Mr Fewtrell retired as the head of Buckinghamshire CID 18 months later than planned after staying on in the force to help catch the train robbers.

He ordered a search for the hideout over a radius of 20 miles, as he believed that the gang would want to go into hiding quickly. They found the hideout at Letherslade Farm on the border between Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.