Charles Bronson’s fame questioned – “He never raped anyone”

The lawyer for one of Britain’s longest-serving prisoners, Charles Bronson, called him a “political prisoner” and stressed that he was “a product of the system he is in.”

Bronson, 70, will appear before a public parole hearing on Monday. He has spent most of the last 50 years behind bars after being sentenced to seven years in prison for armed robbery in 1974.

He has since committed a number of violent crimes, most of them in prison. During his time in prison, he took eleven people hostage on several occasions and attacked fellow inmates and prison guards. He also spent a lot of time in solitary confinement.

Read more: Who is Charles Bronson and why has he been in prison for so long?

Attorney Dean Kingham, who previously represented Bronson in an appeal, said Bronson was not given a chance to prove his rehabilitation.

“I believe he is a political prisoner,” he told GB News. “Because he is being held in these extremely secure and almost alien conditions… he has no opportunity to seriously prove to anyone – and that is the parole board – that he can be trusted or that he can lead a more pro-social life in the community or even in less secure prison conditions.”

Bronson’s hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London will be his second ever public appeal, but the latest in a series of requests for his release dating back to 2002.

Kingham questioned whether describing Bronson as Britain’s “most notorious prisoner” was unfair given the nature of his crimes.

“But when you look at the case closely – he was not convicted of murder, he never raped anyone, he never abused children and it raises the question, is he really Britain’s most notorious prisoner when we have the killers of Lee Rigby, Levi Bellfield and Ian Huntley, to name but a few?

“Can we really say that someone convicted of Charlie’s crimes is actually the most notorious prisoner?”

Bronson, who changed his name to Charles Salvador in 2014 in homage to the surrealist artist Dali, became one of Britain’s most famous prisoners after a series of high-profile protests during his imprisonment, including a demonstration on a rooftop in Broadmoor that caused £250,000 worth of damage.

“The vast majority of (the crimes) happened behind prison bars, they happened in prison,” Kingham said. “If you were to speak to Charlie today, which is unfortunately not possible, he would be the first to admit he fought the system, but the system fought him back and continues to do so.”

Kingham explained that Bronson is currently being held in a “prison within a prison,” spending 23 hours a day in his cell and only having one hour of free time in a small exercise yard.

Bronson’s family and supporters argue that the prisoner has long since paid his debt to society and has not been involved in any violent incidents since 2018. However, Justice Minister Dominic Raab has rejected his parole – on the grounds that he continues to pose a danger to the public.

In a Channel 4 documentary released last week, Bronson said: “I have a horrible, violent and bad past, but I have never killed anyone and I have never hurt a woman.”

“I’m focused, I’m calm, I can actually smell and taste freedom like I never have in my life. I’m against crime and violence now. So why the hell am I still in prison?”