"Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs lost his long-running bid for early jail release on Wednesday after the British government said he should not be allowed out on parole because he was "wholly unrepentant".

Justice Secretary Jack Straw said he had rejected the Parole Board's recomendation to allow Biggs, 79, to be released.

"Mr Biggs is wholly unrepentant and the Parole Board found his propensity to breach trust a very significant factor," Straw said in a statement. "He has not undertaken risk-related work and does not regret his offending."

Biggs has served 10 years of a 30-year sentence for one of Britain's most infamous crimes.

Along with 11 other gang members, he robbed a Glasgow-to-London mail train in 1963 and stole 2.6 million pounds -- about 30 million pounds ($49 million) in today's money. The crime became known as "The Great Train Robbery".

Biggs was caught and sentenced the following year, but escaped from prison after just 15 months, fleeing first to Australia and then to Brazil.

His playboy lifestyle and cocky defiance of the British authorities made him a criminal legend, spawning several films and making heroes out of the villains in the eyes of millions around the world.

However, he surrendered to police in 2001 after 36 years on the run and is now serving the remainder of his sentence at Norwich prison in eastern England.

"Mr Biggs chose to serve only one year of a 30-year sentence before he took the personal decision to commit another offence and escape from prison, avoiding capture by travelling abroad for 35 years whilst outrageously courting the media," Straw said. "Had he complied with his sentence, he would have been a free man many years ago."

Biggs' son Michael, 34, told Reuters recently his father had suffered three strokes, two minor heart attacks, has skin cancer and cannot walk or eat, drink or speak properly.

His lawyer Giovanni Di Stefano said had Biggs been granted parole he would have remained in hospital, where he is recovering after a fall in prison, for at least another two weeks before moving to a nursing home for round the clock care.

"This man is seriously ill," he told Reuters. "They can't even operate on him because they don't know if he will survive it."

Lawmaker Theresa Villiers, whose Chipping Barnet constituency north of London includes the nursing home where Biggs had been expected to reside, said it was unacceptable for taxpayers to have had to pay for Biggs' care.

"Ronnie Biggs has never expressed remorse for his crime," she said on her website.

"Not content with robbing trains, he is now set on hitting the taxpayer with a big bill. People who have worked hard and saved all their lives will be worse off than a convicted criminal who spent 35 years evading British justice."