The Good Prison Guide

1

CHARLIE BRONSON – PROFILE

The following is a list of the prisons Charlie has visited so far; some visits to the same establishment have not been listed to save duplication.

CHILDHOOD AND UPBRINGING

Charlie Bronson is the middle of three brothers; his older brother died at his home in Australia at 9.10am on 3 March 2001 in the arms of his dear wife, Fliss, after his long and brave battle against cancer of the brain. His younger brother Mark spent some time in the Royal Navy. There is no family history of mental disorder.

Charles Bronson was born Michael Gordon Peterson in Luton, Bedfordshire. No problems with the pregnancy and neo-natal period. He was nocturnally enuretic until ten years old, was also scared of the dark and had occasional nightmares and night terrors. He is described as having a bad temper from an early age. He is also described as being shy, sensitive and a loner. Suggestions from reports mention that the family doctor saw him in childhood because of these behavioural traits.

His early schooling was unremarkable, but from 12 years of age he began stealing and was expelled at least twice. As a youngster he got into many fights, because he felt that other boys were looking at him. He ran away from home twice in his early teens and finally left home, following an argument with his father, to live with his grandmother in Cheshire.

Charlie left school with no qualifications and then worked briefly in a supermarket, as a labourer and, for three years, as a painter and decorator.

MARITAL HISTORY

Charlie is heterosexual. He first had sexual intercourse in his teens and married in 1970 at the age of 19 years, his son being born the same year. The marriage was unsuccessful and other reports mention Charlie’s heavy drinking. The couple finally divorced in 1976 and Charlie has had no contact with his ex-wife since then.

Although Charlie had numerous sexual encounters, he found close relationships difficult. He said that he found close physical contact unpleasant and did not like ‘cuddling or people holding me, so I can’t have a relationship. I am not like other people.’

CRIMINAL HISTORY

1968 – convicted of criminal damage and was sent to Risley Remand Centre for two months.

1969 – convicted of a hit-and-run charge and banned from driving for life and spent time in Risley Remand Centre.

January 1970 – convicted of criminal damage to cars and placed on probation for a year.

March 1970 – convicted of taking and driving away.

February 1971 – convicted of burglary and criminal damage and sentenced to three months in a detention centre.

June 1972 – convicted of criminal damage. Earlier reports say that he broke a beer glass in a pub as he thought people were talking about him.

December 1972 – found guilty of criminal damage to a shop window. A report in 1978 says that he told psychiatrists that he was upset about his marriage but other accounts have said that this was simply a ‘smash-and-grab raid’.

1974 – convicted of robbery, aggravated burglary, assault with intent to rob, illegal possession of firearms and carrying a firearm. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.

August 1974 – assaulted someone he believed had cheated him at cards, followed him home and attacking him. In the same month, he entered a sub-post office with a shotgun and threatened an assistant behind the counter. Later in the month, he robbed a petrol station and beat up the attendant. All of the offences occurred in the same month and were carried out with the same group of associates. He has told psychiatrists on previous occasions that he felt people were talking about him and that he was under physical threat. 

December 1975 – given an additional nine months’ imprisonment after assaulting another prisoner with a jug in Hull Prison.

1978 – in Parkhurst Prison he was having problems with another prisoner whom he believed to be an informant and he attacked this man with a broken bottle. This was the most serious incident in a term of imprisonment that had been marked by very difficult behaviour, including repeated assaults on prison officers. He was declared insane and transferred to Rampton Special Hospital in November 1978, by which time he had lost 600 days’ remission for thirty-seven offences against prison discipline.

1978 – transferred to Broadmoor Special Hospital and carried out a succession of rooftop protests causing an estimated £500,000 worth of damage.

1981 – transferred to Park Lane Special Hospital and had three years added on for various assaults.

1985 – he was sentenced to three years for GBH, having attacked another patient in Park Lane Special Hospital with a broken coffee jar. He said that this was because the man had made a pass at him and had written him ‘filthy letters’. He said, ‘I cut him. That was out of order, I should have just chinned him.’

1985 – carried out a rooftop protest at Walton Prison for which another year was added on.

October 1987 – released from Gartree as a Category ‘A’ prisoner. Survived sixty-seven days of freedom.

November 1987 – seven weeks after his release, he was arrested for armed robbery on a jeweller’s shop and remanded.

January 1988 – sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for the robbery charges.

1990 – took an assistant governor of Frankland Prison hostage. 

November 1992 – released from Wormwood Scrubs as a Category ‘A’ prisoner and survived fifty-five days of freedom.

2 January 1993 – re-arrested for conspiracy to rob, possession of a firearm and grievous bodily harm.

February 1993 – fined £600 for the GBH and acquitted of the other charges. Eighteen days later, he was re-arrested on shotgun and conspiracy to rob charges.

March 1993 – arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to rob a bank and possession of firearm and remanded to Woodhill Prison.

March 1993 – at Woodhill Prison he took prison librarian Andy Love hostage.

September 1993 – found guilty of intent to rob and possession of shotgun, not guilty of conspiracy to rob, sentenced to eight years.

1994 – took prison governor Adrian Wallace hostage at Hull Prison.

April 1994 – was charged with false imprisonment, threats to kill, ABH and two counts of criminal damage resulting from the Hull siege and received a further seven-year prison sentence.

1995 – went on an eighteen-day hunger-strike at High Down Prison in protest at constant moves and solitary confinement.

1996 – momentarily took a doctor hostage at Winson Green Prison but was attacked by up to sixty prison officers and the doctor was released without harm.

1996 – took two Iraqis and another prisoner hostage in Belmarsh Prison.

October 1996 – took a lawyer hostage in Bullingdon Prison; this was brushed off as a senseless, half-hearted action and he was not charged.

1997 – sentenced to further seven years (reduced to five on appeal) for Belmarsh siege. 

August 1998 – took prison teacher Phil Danielson hostage for forty-four hours in Hull Prison.

February 1999 – went on a forty-day hunger-strike when they took his artwork away from him at Whitemoor Prison.

February 2000 – jailed at Luton Crown Court for life for the Hull siege, and is not eligible for parole until 2010.

July 2000 – moved to Whitemoor after being stormed by sixty MUFTI Squad officers at Woodhill Prison.

Further attacks on prison staff, fellow inmates, rooftop protests and prison sieges has resulted in Charlie spending a total of twenty-six years in solitary confinement out of thirty years served since 1974.

PSYCHIATRIC HISTORY

From an early age, Charlie reports that he had a quick temper. He also had a history of intermittent heavy drinking, although he was never dependent upon alcohol. A referral to his general practitioner as a child because of his shy personality did not result in any further assessment or treatment.

His involvement with psychiatrists began during his prison sentence of 1974–78. His difficult behaviour in prison, including assaults on officers and other inmates, meant that he spent no time on normal locations and was assessed by various psychiatrists and treated with neuroleptic medication. The consensus of the various reports is that Charlie had a paranoid and hostile personality. In addition, it seems that he has suffered a psychotic breakdown on at least one occasion, although this does not amount to schizophrenia.

Charlie’s difficult behaviour continued after his transfer to Rampton Special Hospital in November 1978. He attempted to strangle a paedophile sexual offender, in the hope that he would be convicted, given a life sentence and returned to prison. He was transferred to Broadmoor Special Hospital in October 1979 and further incidents followed, including self-harm with a knife, attacking another patient, rooftop protests and attempts to escape from the intensive care block. 

He was transferred to Park Lane Special Hospital in June 1984 and made good progress, being given ground parole before his attack on a fellow patient seven months later. He was discharged by a Tribunal on 23 September 1985, on the grounds that he was not suffering from a mental disorder within the meaning of the Mental Health Act 1983.

Since then, Charlie has not had any psychiatric treatment, although he has spent most of his time in prison and has never been on normal location. He has spent most of his time in segregation units and has had short spells on C Wing at Parkhurst and the Lincoln Special Unit. He said that he was sent away from the Special Unit at Lincoln after he had hit a governor because he was ‘taking liberties and lying to me’.

Charlie said that he refused to have any contact with prison doctors because of an experience in Armley Prison in 1985. He said that he had been hurt in a brawl with officers following a rooftop protest and was lying naked on the floor, in a body belt, covered in blood. The doctor came and stood over him and asked him if he had any injuries. Since that time he has refused to speak to prison doctors and is abusive to them. He has no objection to doctors from outside prison.

MENTAL STATE AT INTERVIEW

Charlie has a very intense manner and reported anxiety attacks when he was in crowds or queues. He said that he would become tense and break out in a sweat, although he did not think that people were looking at him. He said that he was a loner and simply could not cope with large numbers of people, especially following his long experience of segregation units, where he spent most of his time locked up in a single cell. Because of his anxiety in crowds, Charlie did not think he could cope on normal location within prison.

He has respect ‘for people who are straight with me, whoever they are’. He could not stand being lied to or people ‘taking liberties’.

He said that he had a quick temper and would sometimes ‘do mad things’. ‘Straight away, afterwards, I know I shouldn’t have done it and I feel embarrassed. For example, when they take you out of the cell, you would just be walking past a table and then you might pick it up and throw it across the room, just on impulse. Then they are all around you, looking at you.’ He believed that he was ‘probably going to die on one of these blocks’. He believed he was ‘too damaged for normal location’. 

Charlie said he had been suffering from head pains and blackouts that had started in 1975. He said he had been working out on a punch bag in the gym when he had lost his vision for a few seconds and then woke up on the floor of the gym. He said his last blackout had been about nine weeks ago in Winson Green Prison. Before the episode, he had developed pains in the right side of his head, which had lasted for about two hours. He then fell unconscious and found that he had wet himself when he came round.

In total, he had had about three episodes of blackouts since the first one in 1976 but had only wet himself on one occasion and had never bitten his tongue. As he spent almost all his time alone, there were no other accounts of these blackouts, so it was impossible to know whether or not he had had convulsions. He had feared that he was developing a brain tumour but accepted that this could not be so; otherwise he would have died by now.

Charlie was correctly oriented in time, place and person. He was articulate and appeared to be of at least average intelligence.

2

‘YOU’RE NICKED!’

Many people have written to me over the years, and all sorts of questions have been asked but, you know, no one has asked me why I’m violent. Don’t you find that rather odd? What it tells me is that people accept violence and bad behaviour. I mean, if a star behaves badly then they put it down to artistic temperament. But I can tell you that violence is nothing more than a basic instinct; look at the amount of attention and glorification given over to violence. Go and look on my mate Julian Davies’s website –www.unlicensed2000.com – and then tell me that you or others aren’t impressed by pure brutal force.

Look at those celebrities in today’s society who have faced imprisonment; mostly it’s because of childish acts or just wanton lust. A breakdown of society’s values occurs in everyone … not just me.

For anyone hitting the prison system for the first time, it must be a daunting prospect, if not a frightening one. Me, well, I’m already in the system and can survive. For those mere mortals on the street arriving in the prison queue for the first time, it can tear their lives apart. But can you imagine being famous (or infamous) with the trappings of everyday wealth that you and I can only dream of and then facing the prospect of going to prison? Not just losing your dignity, but losing your minders, your assistants, your luxuries and losing your entourage of