Freedom…

So Ronnie Biggs is now free. He may have been on the run for years but was eventually forced to face justice. Arriving back in the UK (2001), from self imposed exile in Brazil, he was returned to jail to serve out the rest of his sentence since he originally fled from his captors, decades earlier. Suffering ill health, he can no longer function without 24 hour care. This, Jack Straw proclaimed, is the reason for Biggs’ release.

However few are happy to see the Great Train Robber out of prison. In last Saturday’s (8th August 2009) Irish Independent, it was reported that the grandson of the train driver, Jack Mills, who was assaulted by Biggs’ gang, was angry. Stephen Mills says: “I wish Ronnie Biggs was dead, he should have been let to rot in jail. Biggs is a terrible man and he should have served his last days in jail…Letting criminals like him out early is a disgrace.”

Indeed Mrs Anne McCabe probably feels the same way. Garda Detective Jerry McCabe’s killers, Kevin Walsh and Pearse McAuley, walked out of Castlerea hotel, sorry, prison last week too. Seemingly they don’t require 24 hour care. Although they probably had a few pints and a guilt- free laugh with Martin Ferris, the self proclaimed IRA gun runner, who collected and spirited the two criminals away, out of sight and out of sound from the prison gates.

Mr Mills adds more of his justifiable rage on Biggs’ release: “He made a mockery of our justice system.” Just like the McCabe killers did here.

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I was saddened to read of the death, last week, of Paul Smyth. Paul was a teacher in Dun Laoghaire College of Further Education. He had a very friendly demeanour and we would, regularly, have chatter and banter across the corridors of the college. I, as a mature student, got on well with the bearded intellectual. Paul, I couldn’t compete with your fine mind, but it was always a pleasure and a privilege to have spent time, however brief, in your company. May you rest in peace.

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More gloom. It seems that the Guardian / Observer group of newspapers are downsizing (redundancies to you and me). They have been losing money, like most of the print media, consistently and it looks like ‘the Ob’ may be cut adrift from its daily sister publication. A sad tale as it is the oldest Sunday newspaper in Britain. Left wing politics needs newspapers like the Observer as many of its competitors are right wing, vulgar and narrow minded. The Guardian online, however, is going well.

Anyway the hot news is that the Sunday Times is getting its own dedicated website, separate from the Times online. Interesting times ahead…