Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs has been given permission to challenge the decision to refuse him parole according to his legal adviser.

Earlier this month Justice Secretary Jack Straw refused to release the 79-year-old from prison on the grounds that he was "wholly unrepentant" about his crimes.

But Biggs's legal adviser, Giovanni di Stefano, said the High Court had granted his client permission to launch a judicial review of the decision.

Doctors caring for Biggs at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital have said he has "little hope of recovery".

Biggs, from south London, was a member of a 15-strong gang which attacked the Glasgow to London mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, in August 1963 and made off with £2.6 million in used banknotes.

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