The lawyers for Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs who escaped from Wandsworth prison in 1965 have applied for him to be released on compassionate grounds.

The 78-year-old is partially paralysed and can barely speak after suffering several strokes.

There has been a series of campaigns for Biggs to be released and his solicitors said they made an official application on compassionate grounds in 2006 but it was unsuccessful.

Giovanni Di Stefano, a member of Biggs' legal team, said the latest request has also been turned down, although the Ministry of Justice would not confirm whether or not a decision had been made.

Mr Di Stefano said: "The Ministry of Justice has refused the application saying Mr Biggs is not ill enough. I find that abysmal.

"We have got 10,000 letters from everyday people - including post office workers and rail workers - who have written in support of Ronnie, and still these people (the Ministry) turn a blind eye.

"Ronnie is very upset. He takes it on the chin like everything else, but it isn't right."

Mr Di Stefano said he will write to the Lord Chief Justice, who heads the judiciary in England and Wales, to complain about what he says were irregularities in Biggs' appeal hearing in 1964.

"I'm having to take action that I didn't want to take," he said. "He was not taken to court for his appeal - you have a right to be present in the appeal.

"I will be appealing against his conviction not just sentence."

Biggs spent 30 years on the run after scaling a rope ladder to escape Wandsworth jail.

He first fled to Paris, where he adopted a new identity. He then moved to Australia, followed by Brazil.

Ill health forced him to return to Britain in 2001, when he was immediately jailed.