Charles Bronson continued his fight for freedom today, with an expert telling a parole board panel he has developed PTSD after nearly 50 years behind bars.
The notorious inmate, 70, was jailed for seven years in 1974 after being convicted of armed robbery and was finally given a life sentence for kidnapping prison teacher Phil Danielson in 1999.
He is the second prisoner in UK legal history to have his parole hearing held in public after the rules changed last year in a bid to remove the secrecy around the process.
Today, an independent psychologist employed by his legal team said he has mild symptoms of the condition, partly due to some ‘brutal and unacceptable treatment’ while in the prison system.
Bronson, who has spent most of the past 48 years in prison, holds ‘anti-authoritarian views’, the psychologist added, before going on: ‘He feels like the whole system is about humiliating and degrading him.’
Charles Bronson (seen on Monday) is the second prisoner in UK legal history to have his parole hearing held in public after the rules changed last year
The notorious prisoner, 70, was jailed for seven years in 1974 after being convicted of armed robbery and was finally given a life sentence for kidnapping teacher Phil Danielson in 1999
She added that has previously been diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder and is ‘naturally somewhat suspicious of other people’s motives’.
Bronson’s parole appeal is taking place at HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes, with members of the public and media observing via video link from the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
At the first hearing on Monday, he told the panel he had ‘eaten more porridge than Goldilocks and the three bears, and I’m sick of it’.
‘I’ve had enough and I want to go home,’ he said.
‘Of the 50 years I have been in prison I have probably deserved a good 35 of it, because I have been very naughty.
‘Not naughty-naughty but just naughty. I have had 11 hostages. I am not proud of it but I am not ashamed of it.’
He told how he had slept in ‘cages’ and ‘boxes’, and spent ’40 years of my life in solitary’, and having said in the past prison wings were ‘cold, empty and f****** brutal’, now things were much more comfortable.
But he insisted: ‘I don’t want my cell to be a furnished bedsit … unfortunately prison today is full of fairies.’
Describing himself as a ‘retired prison activist’, Bronson, real name Michael Peterson, begged the panel to release him for the sake of his 95-year-old mother, Eira, whose ‘dream’ he said was to see her son out ‘making a good honest living with my art’.
He changed his name again to Charles Salvador in 2014, as ‘Salvador means man of peace’, and argued he was ready for a quiet life as an artist.
A prison offender manager, however, argued that Bronson, who is locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, lacked the skills to cope with life outside prison.
Bronson said his violent outbursts in jail were due to him battling the system, although he did concede he enjoyed starting riots, adding: ‘There’s nothing better than wrapping a governor up like a Christmas turkey.’
But Bronson accepted he had been a ‘horrible person’ who ‘could not stop taking hostages’. Perhaps the most shocking example was the terrifying two-day ordeal suffered by art teacher Phil Danielson in HMP Hull in 1999, for which Bronson received a life sentence.
Bronson has repeatedly had years added onto his sentences due to violence behind bars. He’s seen here leaving the High Court in London on May 3, 2001
Brinson memorably described the notorious Kray twins as ‘the best two guys I’ve ever met’
Bronson said he kidnapped Mr Danielson after the teacher criticised a poster he designed to be hung in jail advising gay inmates to ‘stick with just one partner because you might get Aids’.
He said he tied a knife snatched from the kitchen to a snooker cue for a makeshift spear, kidnapped Mr Danielson, then wrapped a skipping rope around his neck and ‘walked him around the landings’. He told the terrified teacher: ‘You’ve been my best hostage, you’re the only one who hasn’t s*** himself.’
Bronson now wished he could take his former hostage for a cup of tea to apologise.
Bronson told the hearing he discovered art when a kindly prison officer at HMP Wakefield gave him pencils and paper.
He said he now donates pieces to charities, including Macmillan Cancer Support, which then auction the art for up to £2,000.
He added: ‘I am so proud of what I have done for Macmillan.’ Bronson also revealed he had been betting on football matches from prison for almost 50 years – and even won £1,500 from gambling last year.
He also told the panel that his signature round sunglasses were necessary as his eyes had been damaged by darkness during solitary confinement.
He admitted that he had enjoyed violence, but insisted he had mellowed.
‘I was born to have a rumble and lived to have a rumble,’ he confessed to the panel. Describing one fight with prison officers, Bronson told the panel: ‘I took half a tub of Lurpak with me, stripped off and had the rumble of my life. It was f****** brilliant.’ He added: ‘But I am 70 now, it can be a bit embarrassing for someone of my age to be like that. You have to grow up sooner or later. There will be no more rumbles.’
Bronson continued: ‘Give me a chance to prove to the public, to the police, to everybody, that I am just a normal geezer.’
In total, Bronson has taken hostages in ten prison sieges and attacked at least 20 prison officers
DailyMail
