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Daily Record
Daily Record
National
Sarah Arnold

Charles Bronson declares 'I'm coming home' ahead of public parole hearing

Charles Bronson has revealed his public parole hearing could take place as soon as June – declaring: “I’m coming home.”

Britain’s most notorious prisoner has high hopes for his historic hearing – the first ever to take place in public.

The 70-year-old hardman cannot wait to taste freedom again and does daily exercise to ensure he leaves jail as fit as when he first went in over 40 years ago.

In a phone call from jail, he said: “I’ve got my jam roll [parole] coming up. All my reports are excellent.

“It’s looking good, it really is. I’m closer now to getting out than I have been in 30-odd years.

Charles Bronson says his pre-hearing reports are looking "excellent" (Reach PLC)

"Up to now there’s not a date, but it’s looking like June, July.

“I’m the first man in the British Isles to have a public parole hearing. All these decades I’ve done.”

The bare-knuckle boxer, who has changed his name to Charles Salvador, was first jailed for seven years in 1974, aged 22, for armed robbery – but more time was added due to attacks on guards and fellow prisoners.

Bronson has earned a reputation as Britain's most notorious prisoner (SWNS)

That stretch ended in 1987 but he was soon back in jail, and in total has spent over 40 years inside.

In 2014 the Spurs fan covered himself in Lurpak to attack 12 prison officers at Full Sutton jail, admitting he had “lost it” because Arsenal had won the FA Cup. It was a carbon copy of his assault on 12 Wakefield Prison officers in 2010.

He has also staged nine rooftop protests and held a reported 11 hostages. But his days as the country’s most violent prisoner are over and he now writes poetry and paints, donating works to raise money for charity.

HMP Woodhill, where Bronson is currently banged up (Chris Radburn/PA)

He also sticks to a regime of runs, squats and press-ups.

He said: “I still smash my press-ups out. I’m 70 years old and I can still do 95 press-ups in 30 seconds.

"I don’t walk on the yard, I run – sit-ups, press-ups, squats, I love it.

“When I go out on the yard that’s my hour of freedom. I’ve got a big smile, I’m happy.

"I’m walking out as fit as the day I came in. I’m coming home.”

As a Category A prisoner, Bronson has strictly supervised visits separate from other inmates at HMP Woodhill near Milton Keynes, Bucks.

So he is disgusted that serial killer Levi Bellfield was allegedly caught groping a female penpal visiting him at HMP Frankland where he is serving life for the murders of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, Amelie Delagrange, 22, and 19-year-old Marsha McDonnell.

Bronson said: “Did you see that piece of s*** was on a visit with a woman, and allegedly groping her? It’s upset me because people like Bellfield are evil monsters. He’s a serial killer.

“I’ve done my bird for all these years – 30-odd years of my sentence has been in solitary isolation, punishment blocks, dungeons, closed visits… I couldn’t even smell my visitors, let alone touch them.

“That man should never be on an open visit. All his life he should be isolated.”

Charles Bronson being led from the cells in 2001 (Mick Razzell)

Bransons says he believes Michael Stone, who he has served time with, was wrongly convicted of killing mother and daughter Lin and Megan Russell in Chillenden, Kent, in 1996.

He spoke out after Bellfield was said to have confessed to the murders, though sources later said he had retracted his confession and denied it.

Bronson said: “I know Michael Stone. All these years he’s been in prison, not one day of it has he been on a protection wing.

“The reason he hasn’t been on a protection wing is he claims he’s innocent of them murders. I believe he is.”

He added: “Bellfield, from the day he was sentenced 20 years ago, has been on the protection wings.

“He’s not just a murdering b******d, he’s a coward. He couldn’t go on a normal location wing as he’d be served up [on a platter] – like the Yorkshire Ripper, Ian Huntley, people like that.”

He also slammed Soham murderer Ian Huntley, who was at HMP Wakefield when Bronson was held there.

Bronson married late soap star Paula Williamson (HGL/GC Images)

He said: “My best mate Ray Williams, God bless him, he’s no longer around, came up to see me once in Wakefield.

"All my visits in Wakefield were in a cage. It was like going to London Zoo.

"A couple of screws had brought him over and I could see he was upset. I said, ‘What’s up, mate?’

“He said, ‘I’ve just come through the visiting room. I’ve just seen that Ian Huntley sitting there with two girls – two teenage girls visiting him, and I was going to go over and f***ing knock him out. And a screw grabbed my arm and said, ‘Don’t do it, Ray’.

“Ray was fuming… he’s come up to visit me and he sees me in a cage – I’m not allowed in the visiting room, and he’s got to walk through that visiting room, seeing Ian Huntley sitting there with two teenage girls.”

He added: “I tell you one great thing that did come out of Frankland Prison – see that Covid? It f***ing killed the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. I think that’s blinding, that’s brilliant.”

Bronson said even prison warders’ skin crawls when they work on the “monster wings” holding child killers and serial murderers.

Charlie said: “I’ve spoken to many female prison officers who work on the monster wings, they tell me when they open the lights of their doors, the Huntley doors, this fat piece of s*** [Bellfield’s] door, their skin crawls, they start itching because they are opening the doors of f***ing monsters.”

Bronson, who was played by Tom Hardy in 2008 biopic Bronson, wed Coronation Street and Emmerdale actress Paula Williamson in 2017, though the marriage collapsed and tragically she was found dead at her home in July 2019.

Public parole hearings were brought in to boost transparency and public confidence after an outcry over plans to free black-
cab rapist John Worboys in 2018.

Any inmate can now make a request for an open hearing.

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