One of the longest-serving inmates in the UK, Charles Bronson, has been denied parole. The board ruled the 70-year-old was unfit for release after a public parole hearing earlier this month. Why has Bronson been imprisoned for such a long time, and who is he?
Who is Charles Bronson?
The notorious prisoner, Michael Peterson, was born in December 1952 in Luton, Bedfordshire.
As a result of his 1974 conviction for armed robbery and subsequent reputation as a violent and dangerous prisoner, he has spent most of his life behind bars.
During a brief period of freedom in the 1980s, the former bare-knuckle fighter changed his name to the well-known Charles Bronson, but he now goes by Charles Salvador.
Although a more common translation is “savior,” he picked the surname because it means “man of peace” in Spanish rather than because he enjoys art or the surrealist Salvador Dali.
Bronson produced many works of art while incarcerated, many of which have been sold, with some of the revenue going to charity.
In 2014, 200 of his works were auctioned, bringing in more than £30,000. At his parole hearing, it was revealed that his Several collectiveSeveralSeveral books have been100,000.
He has published several novels, some about his stay in Broadmoor Hospital and his jail exercise regimen.
In 2009, Tom Hardy starred in a dramatization of Bronson’s stay in prison.
Why has Charles Bronson been in prison for so long?
At 22, Bronson was imprisoned in 1974 for armed robbery and injury.
He has only briefly been outdoors since then and is currently imprisoned at the Milton Keynes, England, facility Woodhill Prison’s specialized close monitoring center.
He has developed a reputation over time for attacking guards and other prisoners. He struck another prisoner with a glass jug in 1975 and staged a three-day rooftop protest in 1985.
In 1994, Bronson kidnapped a prison librarian and wanted a cup of tea, a helicopter, and an inflatable doll as ransom.
He kidnapped three prisoners at London’s Belmarsh Prison four years later.
He was given a discretionary life sentence with a minimum of four years after holding a prison education worker at HMP Hull hostage for 44 hours.
In 2014, he was given a second two-year prison sentence for putting a prison governor in a headlock at HMP Woodhill.
When a prisoner at West Yorkshire’s HMP Wakefield in 2017, he was denied parole. He was acquitted of trying to hurt a jail governor a year later gravely.
In testimony before the jury during his trial, Bronson acknowledged that he had been a “very terrible man” in the past and related how, while imprisoned, he had held 11 hostages in nine different sieges, including governors, medical staff, and, on one occasion, his attorney.
Bronson spoke on his prison episodes at the most recent parole hearing: “I enjoy a good fight. Which man wouldn’t?”
It was reported that he once faced jail officers in his cell and used half a tub of Lurpak to grease up his nude body.
Charles Bronson ‘Not suitable for release.’
The Parole Board stated the following in a document describing its choice: “After considering the circumstances of his offending, the progress that Mr. Salvador has made while in custody and the evidence presented at the hearings, the panel was not satisfied that Mr. Salvador was suitable for release.”
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“Nor did the panel recommend to the Secretary of State that he should be transferred to an open prison.”
The panel acknowledged Bronson “genuinely wants to progress” and that “there was evidence of improved self-control and better emotional management,” but it said it was not satisfied he had “the skills to manage his risk of future violence until he has been extensively tested outside of his current highly restricted environment.”
According to the report, the psychologists Bronson’s team had consulted were “unequivocal” in their assessment that he “no longer required the safe placement in his current jail.” The panel added that “evidence supported such a move within a closed prison.”
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