Around 60 prisoners applied to get married last year, but new legislation could mean prisoners serving whole-life terms would be banned from ever getting wed.
Under Justice Secretary Dominic Raab’s Victims’ Bill — due to be unveiled in the next fortnight — rapists and muderers serving whole life terms could be banned from ever getting married.
It is currently legal to marry in the UK if you are in prison, but prisoners who want to get married have to apply to the governor of the prison. And governors have the power to object to this request, which means it’s not always guaranteed.
Here, we take a look at the high-profile prisoners who have married or planned to get married in recent years.
Levi Bellfield
The new legislation would prevent the marriage of serial killer Levi Bellfield, who is serving two whole life orders at HMP Frankfield in Durham, from going forward.
The serial killer was given a whole life term for murdering Milly Dowler, 13, in 2002, Marsha McDonnell, 19, in 2003, and murdering Amelie Delagrange, 22, and attempting to murder Kate Sheedy, 18, in 2004.
According to The Sun, the 53-year-old got down on one knee to propose in front of staff at the Category A men’s prison.
Bellfield was reportedly introduced to his fiancée by the Yorkshire Ripper.
He and Peter Sutcliffe are said to have become friends after they were imprisoned on the same wing at HMP Frankland.
Sutcliffe was friends with the woman, in her 40s, and Bellfield asked to be put in touch with her after spotting her picture while helping tidy his friend’s cell, according to The Sun.
The 53-year-old is said to have sent the woman gifts and poems before they progressed to phone calls.
Bellfield’s fiancée has said she is “not ashamed” of their relationship and the father of 11 has “changed” and is “not a monster”.
Charles Bronson
Perhaps one of the most high-profile prison weddings in the UK was that of “Britain’s most violent prisoner” to a soaps actress 27 years his junior.
Having served multiple spells in prisons for a litany of violent crimes, Charles Bronson married twice while behind bars.
In 2001, he was wed in HMP Woodhill to Fatema Saira Rehman, who worked as a translator in Luton.
The Bangladeshi-born divorcee had started a written correspondence with Bronson after seeing a picture of him in a newspaper, and reportedly visited him nine times prior to their wedding. The pair divorced four years later.
Then in November 2017, Bronson was married again, this time in HMP Wakefield, to Paula Williamson, who had previously appeared in Coronation Street, Hollyoaks and Emmerdale.
They filed for divorce prior to her unrelated death in July 2019, which was ruled a drug overdose by a coroner during an inquest attended by Bronson via videolink.
Thelma Yvonne Purchase & Tai Pilley
Currently serving a 30-year prison sentence over the murder of a disabled man for his £70,000 inheritance fund, Thelma Yvonne Purchase is reported to have entered a civil partnership while in prison.
The mother-of-three from Meir, Stoke-on-Trent, reportedly met Tai Pilley, a transgender woman,, who was imprisoned for strangling their uncle and stabbing him 48 times with a garden fork in Gipton, Leeds.
Pilley reportedly became notorious as one of the most dangerous people behind bars, killing an inmate at Parkhurst and twice taking prison officers hostage.
According to the Daily Star, the pair went through a civil partnership ceremony at New Hall prison in 2010, but their relationship later deteriorated, and Purchase was moved to a different prison.
Mikhail Gallatinov & Marc Goodwin
The two convicted murderers made headlines in March 2015 after becoming the first same-sex couple to marry in prison, in a 20-minute ceremony at Full Sutton Prison in East Yorkshire.
Gallatinov, 40, is a convicted paedophile serving a life sentence since 1997 for the “cold-blooded” killing of 28-year old Adrian Kaminsky - who he met through a chat line. He can be considered for parole next year.
Goodwin, 31, was sentenced to life in 2007 for a homophobic murder.
Julian Assange
While most would certainly not term the Wikileaks founder “notorious”, his case has become one watched the world over, as the US seeks to extradite him from the UK.
He has spent three years in HMP Belmarsh since his dramatic arrest at the Ecuadorian Embassy, and faces 18 counts relating to WikiLeaks release of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables.
In March last year, he married his long-term partner Stella Morris at the high-security London prison, with the pair wearing wedding outfits designed by Dame Vivienne Westwood.
“This is not a prison wedding,” his new wife said. “It is a declaration of love and resilience in spite of the prison walls, in spite of the political persecution, in spite of the arbitrary detention, in spite of the harm and harassment inflicted on Julian and our family.
“Their torment only makes our love grow stronger.”
