A well-known Southend restaurateur, who unwittingly fed the Great Train Robbers, is backing a campaign to free Ronnie Biggs.

Betty Singleton, who once owned the Continental Cafe on Westcliff seafront, is helping distribute a petition for the release of Biggs, held in Belmarsh prison after ending his long Brazilian exile.

Betty says it is high time the authorities took pity on the 73-year-old.

She said: "He has done 35 years in exile. I know it was self-imposed but it was still exile.

"He has had three strokes and he is costing the country money needlessly when he could be with his son, Michael."

Campaigner Betty, now in her 80s, settled down to running her seafront restaurant when her husband Alan retired from the Gurkha Regiment in 1958.

She was "shocked" to discover she had entertained the gang, who often sat huddled in corners.

She now believes they may well have been plotting the famous heist.

Betty, of Chalkwell Park Drive, Leigh, said: "Buster Edwards started coming in first, then James White and his wife Sherry. They used to help out in the cafe and often used to let me go for a rest on the beach.

"They were lovely people and I often wonder what happened to James and Sherry."

Betty started her bid to free Biggs when she came across an old newspaper story about her relationship with the robbers.

She sent it to Biggs's son, Michael, in Brazil and he contacted her, asking her to sign a petition to free his father.

The indomitable Betty, who also once ran an animal sanctuary, went one better and is helping to fill the petition herself.

(Right) Freedom fighter - Betty Singleton, former owner of the Continental Cafe on Westcliff seafront and, left, Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs

Main picture: STEVE O'CONNELL

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