Ronnie Biggs' solicitor Jane Wearing feels in a lose-lose predicament about media coverage of funding the Great Train Robber's appeal, she told the Gazette this week in an exclusive interview.Ms Wearing, a consultant in the Norwich branch of Cambridgeshire firm Leftley Mallett, explains that the media circus has been 'totally mad since he got back', only two days after the Norfolk-based solicitor received a telephone call from Biggs' family in the UK informing her -- totally out of the blue -- that he would be returning.She says that she was not able to prepare properly for his return, adding: 'It would have been much better to have had notice.' Describing her client as an extremely ill man, she says he had been so damaged by strokes that it is difficult communicating with him.She acknowledges that some of The Sun's activities in publicising his return have been 'unfortunate', adding: 'They have not helped public opinion.

Public opinion always helps in these things.'She says that she is now keen to try and wrest some control of her client back from the media.

Ms Wearing's husband -- a British Airways pilot -- met Biggs in Rio.

When Biggs told him that he needed a lawyer, Mr Wearing gave him his wife's telephone number.She says that dealing with the media has been a very difficult.

She is constantly being asked how she is being paid.

'Of course, Ronnie hasn't got any money personally,' she says.

While his family has yet to decide whether to apply for legal aid, Ms Wearing expresses concerns about the adverse publicity such an application would cause.However, although the family has indicated that it could pay Biggs' legal fees, some of the sources of the money -- brother Michael is known to be trying to sell films he has made about Ronnie's life as a criminal fugitive -- might cause further adverse publicity.'I don't want to give the false impression that Ronnie is going to enjoy a high lifestyle when he gets out of prison,' she says of her application to shorten the term of Biggs' sentence.Ms Wearing has bad memories of the media.

She acted for Biggs in 1997, when the government attempted to extradite him from Brazil.

At that time, the work was done by her firm pro bono, but she was continually asked by the media about funding, and 'left feeling as if the underworld had paid'.This time, she says, her firm will not be acting pro bono.

She insists that it is improper for her to ask where her fees were coming from, so long as the money can be shown to have an honest provenance.ENDS Jeremy Fleming