Ronnie Biggs

So finally Jack Straw has seen sense and agreed to release Ronnie Biggs on compassionate grounds.

I know there's little sympathy for Biggs, and I'm not about to defend his character or claim he's just been misunderstood - he was convicted for stealing £2.6m from a train, and had 26 previous convictions. A year into his sentence he escaped from prison and fled, spending 36 years sunning himself overseas. This is not a miscarriage of justice - he has served only nine years of a 30-year sentence.

But Biggs is not the master criminal his reputation suggests. His only role in the robbery was to secure the services of a getaway train driver, and to load the money onto waiting trucks. He wasn't the one who attacked Jack Mills, the driver of the targeted train (despite dubious suggestions to the contrary Mills died of unrelated luekaemia 7 years later). And he can hardly be said to pose a threat these days. He was already ailing when he returned to the UK in 2001, and over the past few years has suffered strokes that have left him debilitated. We're not talking about a criminal warlord who will go on the rob again as soon as he has the chance; Biggs is a frail and dying old man.

And there is more at play here. We have a system in this country where people who are convicted of a crime serve their sentence and then are released, with a clean slate, to live their life like any other free citizen. At least, that's how it should work.

But the media, in particular the tabloid press, loves to get involved in notorious cases like this, allegedly to protect the interests of the British public but really because they know scandal sells. The same happened when new identities were given on release to the killers of James Bulger, to Maxine Carr (whose only crime was to fall for the wrong man) and even to Mary Bell decades ago. They had served their time and it was only right that they were given a second chance, but the tabloid media attempted to wield their mighty power and serve as judge and jury above and beyond the law.

Jack Straw refused to grant Biggs parole last month because he was "unrepentant", but he must also have known the tabloid storm that would have followed had he allowed Biggs to go free. Too often it seems that home secretaries make decisions on high-profile criminals based on what the press thinks. Now at least Biggs is free to die with dignity.