Bronson (29 page)

As with anyone who has lived the solitary life for so many years, I long at times to retreat to it. It’s a place of safety. Yes, the Wakefield Cage is gruesome, cold and empty, but at times it has been a sanctuary to me. A place of peace where I can search myself and go inside myself – where I can ask the question, ‘Why am I like I am?’

It is institutionalisation at its most extreme. That extreme, to me, has become normality.

Madness is a strange brew. Seven weeks after being shipped off to Wakefield I was transferred, at the end of October 1996, to Bullingdon in Oxfordshire – and within days I grabbed my next hostage.

I should never have been in the same room as Robert Taylor.

My lawyer at this time was Lucy Scott-Moncrieff. I couldn’t have asked for a better brief. I’d known her for years and she’d done a tribunal for me in Broadmoor in the 1980s. We lost that one, but she was brilliant anyway.

Unfortunately, Lucy accidentally let me down at Bullingdon.

When Lucy visited me, she always confirmed in advance. But this day I was in for a shock. My door unlocked and ten screws stood there – all friendly, no tension.

‘Visit, Charlie! Your lawyer.’

I was a bit unsettled. I had been doing my cell work-out and had no idea I had a visit. I was unprepared and taken aback. My head was not quite right anyway – it was only a few months since the Iraqi siege and I had been sent there because they were doing building work in Wakefield. I should really have been in The Cage at Wakefield, where I was safe.

I had a quick wash and then all other movement stopped as I was escorted the 30 yards from the seg unit to the area for legal visits. In all my years, I’d never had a serious problem with solicitors. Most are good. They advise me, work for me, help me. Some are prats, but I sack them.

So there I am, walking into this room. Two doors, a table and two chairs – and glass in the walls. It’s like a Hannibal room, and there’s this geezer in it who I don’t know.

Who the fuck was it? Where was Lucy? Why had she not told me she was not coming? Was this guy a cop – was it all a set-up? I started to sweat. I tried to fight my urges but the room began to squeeze me. The guy looked relatively calm. He tried to shake my hand, but I refused. I felt that I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t stand this any more. I should have shouted to the screws outside: ‘Get me out of here!’

This guy, Robert Taylor, was in serious danger.

He said he was a brief and had come instead of Lucy. As he spoke, I felt sick.

I grabbed his pen out of his hand.

‘Move, c--t, and this pen is going in your ear at 300 miles per hour. I’ll stab a hole in your brain – and if that doesn’t kill you, it will vegetabalise you!’

The siege had started.

I told him to sit still and spread his hands on the table. I slung him against a door, then picked up the table and smashed it. Nobody was coming in and nobody was going out. In seconds the office was swarming with screws, staring in through the glass divide. I shouted at them to fuck off, then put this Robert Taylor on the floor where I wrapped him up with his shoe-laces and his tie.

It was all over in half-an-hour, and Robert Taylor has my utmost respect. He was no fool; he kept calm and talked sense to me. I realised very soon that he was not the problem – I was.

I was a very unwell man. I let him go.

Back in the seg unit I buried myself under my blanket and wept. I felt for the man. He’d come in to see me, to help me, to do his job. And I could have ended up wasting him – all because of my paranoia. Would I have done it? Could I have served him up? Sadly, the answer is ‘yes’. That day I could have wasted the whole planet.

Robert Taylor wouldn’t press charges and refused to make a statement. I admire the man’s bottle, and I can only thank him. He may hate me for what I did, but I sent him a nice pen as a mark of my respect.

I was in the van to Walton the next day – back to my old cell in the segregation unit, with a feeding flap in the bottom of the steel door. Just a lodger, just a number passing through. I was destined to stay there eight weeks. I trained hard in solitary and was content. Some of the older screws came to my door for a chat.

Opposite my cell was a smashing lad called Les Cromer, a typical Scouser – all heart. Les sent me over magazines and papers and when he won his case and got out we wrote for a while. He had a lovely daughter who I idolised. The next thing I
heard, he had died in a car crash. He was only in his late twenties.

Another con on remand was my mate Badger, a big solid man who worked on the club doors. They breed them tough up there. Sadly, a lot of useless pricks are now pushing drugs on kids. It really is a fucking disgrace. I may be Britain’s maddest man, but I don’t take drugs, and I don’t kill kids. I despise drugs and the strangle-hold they’ve got on people. A lot of cons today would bend over and take a length for a bag of drugs. They’d even kill. It’s so fucking evil.

It was May 1997 and I was back to the shit-hole of Durham seg. I hate Durham – too far up north for people to visit me for a start. But I was pleased about one thing – I was in a cell next to Bob Maudsley. Bob’s a funny fucker, genuinely witty. He’s got a high IQ. But he has to live for today, as there’s no future for him. He’s a Scouser, 6ft tall, with long hair and a beard. Now, Bob is the
real
Hannibal Lecter of the system. He’s been in solitary over 20 years – he’s got no hope and he knows it. I like him because he’s a true survivor.

Above me was Big Ashy and Rob Webber, both on remand for violence and gang warfare in the Newcastle area. They are both major faces in the north, feared and respected. But they got badly turned over and got heavy bird – Ashy 32 years and Rob 20 years. I’ve known Ashy since he was a youngster, serving six years. He does his bird like a man. Just don’t fuck with him, and he’s sweet. Rattle his cage and your head comes off!

There was another con, by the name of Fontane, who remembered me from over 20 years ago in Hull. He was a big, bald guy, Cat A and in escape patches. On my way out to the caged exercise yard, he stopped me. We had a good chat and got on well. He said he was on remand for robbery, in court the following
week. Next week came and a local paper arrived on the seg unit. Fontane’s face was staring out at me. He’d got life for multiple rape; one of his victims was just 16. I screamed though his door, ‘Fontane, you’re a dirty fucking beast! You filthy nonce! A big hard man? You’re a big ugly bully who rapes women!’

I’d love a straightener with him. Later, maybe.

No con ever sees me enter Full Sutton – I always arrive at the back door of the seg unit, just as I did a little over a month after being ghosted into Durham. But within half-an-hour, the whole jail knows I’m there – first and foremost the screws. I’m put in a cell on a ten-guard unlock – ten screws standing ready when they open the door. Every morning before breakfast I have to leave my cell so I can be searched, metal detected and put in an empty cell while they search mine. Nobody else has to put up with that shit. It sort of spoils the start of the day.

But there are always good lads in Full Sutton block. This time I met up with Pepi Davis, who was serving a life sentence. Deep down he’s a lovely guy, but fuck with Pepi and you fuck with Hell! Then there was Steve Gillen, an armed robber from East London. It was a good ten years since I’d heard from or seen Steve. There was also Chris Brand, a lifer who killed a con in Norwich more than 20 years ago. Chris has got serious problems and I feel sad for him. He was in Broadmoor but they moved him back to prison. He’s tried to expose stuff about paedophiles – and good luck to him for that – but the authorities just deny it. Maybe his time will come. Last thing I heard though, Chris had set fire to his own hair.

There was one real fucking low-life in the block – John Steed. This beast was a steroid freak who’d lost the plot in King’s Cross and blew away a prostitute in his car. He was also a serial rapist. He’d served ten years of a life, but as soon as I was in Full Sutton I
was on his case. I wanted so much to get at him, but it was almost impossible. It’s always done one-by-one with cons in the seg.

I thought about jumping a screw to get him to unlock the scumbag’s door, but I was surrounded by ten of them every time I came out of my own cell. Steed was on Rule 43 protection. He knew we were not going to meet. He was all mouth through his cell window – pure bravado. He upset me. I told him he was no good to man nor beast, and he might as well die now, rather than spend the rest of his life in jail. I told him it would save a lot of problems, and save someone else getting a life for killing him later!

I left for Belmarsh once more – for a court appearance – and two days later I arrived back to take up bed and board in Wakefield Cage. It was only a few days later that I switched on my radio and heard that John Steed had been found dead in Full Sutton seg unit. The beast had hanged himself and done us all a favour. I was made up!

Reg Wilson was in the next cage to me. Reg is a fitness fanatic – not a man of many words, but a man of action who I admire. And he’s a brilliant artist. Reg is serving natural life, like Bob Maudsley. In fact, the Prison Service is now saying Bob, Reg and I might be banged up together – the three most ‘difficult’ cons in the country. They’re talking about a special unit for us. But it’s not an answer to my problems, and not an answer to theirs.

My visitors in Wakefield only saw me through the cage door. They shook my hand through the flap in the bottom of the cage. They may not have seen much of me, but they saw the dullness, the emptiness, the raw reality of life in a 12ft by 6ft cage.

Apart from my loyal friends from years back, there were two wonderful visitors to my cage. Firstly, Rosemary Kingsland. Rosemary is a talented author
who lived among the natives of a forgotten tribe in South America for a year to research a book. These natives were generally peaceful, but would think little of eating human beings. She not only survived them, she survived me! Rosemary is one of the nicest people I have ever met. Secondly, there was the singer Terri Vasillion. She came in with Rosemary. Terri’s eyes filled up when she saw me, and I felt a bit bad about that. But then I asked her to sing.

She did, too! Terri sang ‘Hurt’ by the great singer Timi Yuro. The whole seg went silent; cons put their ears to the doors, and screws stood still. I got a lump in my throat. It was like a dream; this song was for me. Then she sang ‘Unchained Melody’, another favourite of mine. What a visit, what a singer! It blew Wakefield away. In 100 years that jail had never seen or heard the like before. When it was over and when the outer door had shut, I lay in the darkness and I felt blessed.

My other visitors up there were my loyal friends Ed Clinton, Chris Reid, Lyn Jameson and, of course, big Ray Williams. Ray’s from Ellesmere Port and has been an unflinching pal since I was in my teens. I asked him a big favour. ‘Ray,’ I said, ‘please help me find my son.’

It was 22 years since I’d seen Michael. I knew I was asking a lot, but Ray did me proud. A week later he found Mike. He was a 26-year-old chef. It looked like I would soon be meeting my son for the first time since 1975, when he came into Hull Jail with his mum Irene. I’d seen neither of them since then.

The committal on the Iraqi case was coming up, so they moved me to Belmarsh seg in September 1997. Tony Steel was there. Tony’s serving four lifes – he is probably one of Britain’s top-five most dangerous men. But I love him (we all do) because he’s fearless.

I was sad to hear that the prison officer in the gym,
Mr Murgatroid, had had a heart-attack, but I was glad he survived. He’s a lovely man. I also got to see Governor Outram and we discussed my life. In spite of the Iraqi siege, he never washed his hands of me. He told me to believe in myself.

Ten days later, I was back in the Wakefield Cage with a big smile on my face. I had a letter in my hands from my son! Ray was going to bring him in to see his old dad. I felt I had found myself as well as him. I was overjoyed.

Governor Parry and PO O’Hagan set up the visit in a room in the seg. I was being let out of the cage so that I could hug my boy! The seg staff were all brilliant. Even though I’m on a massive security unlock, they all stayed back and there was no tension. I came out of The Cage and put my shoes on (shoes are always kept outside). I had my monkey suit on – the green-and-yellow check boiler suit they make me wear. And then they walked me 20ft to a room where my lad was waiting with Ray. Hell! I filled up. It was like walking into a room filled with light and hope. My little boy was now a grown man. We hugged. It was like looking at myself 20 years earlier. Even Ray had tears. I hugged him, too. Then we sat down and looked at photos Mike had brought me – photos of his childhood, the years I had missed.

That night I felt bad, sick. I had a pain in my chest, and I mean big-time. I was sweating and felt like I could hardly breathe. I thought I was having a fucking heart-attack. I tried to shout to Reg Wilson, but I couldn’t, so I rang the bell. A night screw came and looked through the Judas hole. I gasped that I thought I was dying. The medics came and opened my outer door, but they wouldn’t open the cage door itself. I had to put my arm through the feeding flap at the bottom while they took my pulse and blood pressure. Then they pushed some pills through the flap and
shut the door. I was alone. I could have died. Who would have given a shit?

The next day the doctor said it was stress, an anxiety attack, down to all my problems and the excitement of the previous day meeting my son.

In October I was back at Belmarsh ready for my trial at the Old Bailey. I pleaded guilty to all charges over the Iraqi siege, because I was expecting a concurrent sentence. I told the judge, ‘I’m as guilty as Adolf Hitler and OJ Simpson … I was on a mission of madness, but now I’m on a mission of peace. All I want to do now is go home and have a pint with my son.’

Prison Officer O’Hagan was one of the guards in the dock. He was prepared to speak up for me, but they never asked him. However, my barrister Isabella Forshall explained that years of isolation had left me phobic with other people. She added, ‘With his human warmth, he has a great potential to do good.’ The prosecutor called me ‘probably the most disruptive inmate in this country’ and pointed out, ‘He has been known to bend cell doors with his bare hands.’