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Charles Bronson to remain in jail after losing Parole Board bid for freedom

Notorious prisoner Charles Bronson (PA Wire)
Notorious prisoner Charles Bronson (PA Wire)

Notorious prisoner Charles Bronson has lost a Parole Board bid to be freed from jail.

Bronson, now 70, has spent nearly five decades behind bars after first being jailed in 1974 for armed robbery.

However, his sentences have been extended many times due to a series of violent attacks on fellow inmates and prison staff.

His latest bid for freedom failed it was revealed on Friday and he will remain at a secure unit at HM Prison Woodhill, Milton Keynes.

In a document detailing the decision published on Thursday, the Parole Board said: “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.

“Nor did the panel recommend to the Secretary of State that he should be transferred to an open prison.”

Bronson, who has taken up painting behind bars even changing his surname to Salvador after his hero Salvador Dalí, had insisted he is now a reformed prisoner, has found solace in art and is a man of “peace”.

He also told the hearing how he enjoyed a “rumble” fighting in prison and won £1,500 last year from betting.

Describing one incident, in which the parole review was told he stripped naked and “greased up”, he said: “I took half a tub of Lurpak with me, stripped off and had the rumble of my life. It was f****** brilliant.”

But the 70-year-old claimed he had changed his ways and said he would be able to handle any conflict on a larger wing.

In a voice note sent to Sky News from prison, Bronson claimed that he “hates violence”, has been a “model prisoner” for the last decade and that “I love the world”.

Bronson told the broadcaster: “I’m not a f****** filthy terrorist or a rapist, or a murderer, so who am I dangerous to outside?”

He added: “I want to go home, I’m an artist born again. I hate violence, I despise it and that’s all I’ve done for the last ten years, sit in my cell, a model prisoner, polite, respectful but they still won’t let me out.”

Bronson is the second inmate in UK legal history to have his case heard in public after rules were changed last year in a bid to remove the secrecy around the process.

The summary of the Parole Board decision added: “The panel noted that Mr Salvador has spent most of the last 48 years in custody and that much of this time has been in conditions of segregation.

“The panel accepted that Mr Salvador genuinely wants to progress and that he is motivated to work towards his release. It thought that there was evidence of improved self-control and better emotional management.

“However, the panel was mindful of his history of persistent rule breaking and that Mr Salvador sees little wrong with this. He lives his life rigidly by his own rules and code of conduct and is quick to judge others by his own standards. His positive progress has to be assessed in the context of him being held in a highly restrictive environment.

“In the panel’s view, it is unknown exactly what is containing Mr Salvador’s risk. It is unclear whether the strong external controls of custody are mainly responsible or whether his attitudes have genuinely changed.”

Once dubbed one of Britain’s most violent offenders, Bronson has spent most of the past 48 years behind bars, apart from two brief periods of freedom during which he reoffended, for a string of thefts, firearms and violent offences, including 11 hostage-taking incidents in nine different sieges.

Victims included governors, doctors, staff and, on one occasion, his own solicitor.

Bronson was handed a discretionary life sentence with a minimum term of four years in 2000 for taking a prison teacher at HMP Hull hostage for 44 hours.

He will be eligible for another parole review in “due course”, the Parole Board said.