RedHanded - Charles Bronson: Britain’s Most Dangerous Prisoner | #415

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

What do you do with a prisoner so unhinged that he’s been kicked out of 120 prisons to date? How have Britain’s most secure facilities dealt with a man who could explode in a frenzy of brutal violence and destruction at any moment? What happens to a man who spends more than 25 years in solitary confinement? And most importantly: now that Britain’s most infamous inmate has rebranded as an artist, poet, and man of peace, will it ever be safe to let him out?This is the story of the larger-than-life British institution, who once stripped naked, greased himself in butter, and ran at a dozen armed guards – just for the love of the brawl.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Hello, I'm Alice Levine. And I'm Matt Ford and we're the hosts of British Scandal. And for our next series, we're bringing you the story of April Ashley. She was a trans trailblazer, a model and a socialite who lit up Paris and London in the 1960s until a newspaper cruelly outed her and ended her career. But that is not the scandal.

Not only had April transformed her outward appearance, she'd also climbed the social ranks, from a Liverpool slum kid to a lady, married to an aristocrat. And you know you're in for trouble when the tofts get involved. Yes, when the marriage went sour, her divorce triggered a monumental question before the courts. Is it possible to legally change sex?

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Where, quite often when we do accents, we need tuning forks. I think this episode needs a tuning fork. Oh no. A dangerous, pointy tuning fork. Shooting knife. Owl. I'm going to play it for you. I love helping people,

especially children and all folks. Now they keep drumming it into the public. I'm a danger. Well, who am I a danger to? I've never been a danger to the public. I love people. Love them. I love the world.

I'm not a filthy terrorist or a rapist. We're a murderer. So who am I dangerous to, as I? My dangerousness was in the prison, in the asylums. Nearly 50 years of my life in boxes and cages. 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 10 years, sitting in myself, a model prisoner. Well, what a tune. knife that was stabby stabby which he never did that was Charles Bronson

the unmistakable unmistakable I'm going to say it National Treasure She said it here first I think as many a British person I am well aware of Charles

Bronson and his presence his voice though that did take me by surprise and particularly his face with the big moustache a handlebar moustache and the little like I think of oasis

but did they ever wear the little oasis like sunglasses right but I am actually embarrassed to say that I don't know that much about Charles Browns well luckily for you you're gonna get to know I am very excited you must have seen the Tom Hardy film

I actually haven't oh you love Tom Hardy I know I actually haven't watched it but you know I've watched Moblan. That's basically what everyone sounds like, you know. My favourite thing about Charles Bronson is that he just didn't really do anything that serious on the outside. Is it all that it's like it all happens in prison? Yeah.

And didn't he make like a workout DVD or something? He does many things. Let's get into it. If you are British, you can't miss Charles Bronson. He's ingrained in our culture like football and putting the kettle on, I think. Quite. Imagine Charles Bronson popping round your house to put the kettle on. I have imagined it.

How'd it go? Very nice, very civilised. I actually just, like, today is the day the kitchen is being, like, finalised in the house right after such a long and painful renovation. There's one thing I realized this weekend as I was, like, ordering the appliances to go in said kitchen. The little idea I had was to, like, put them all in, like, a little cabinet that I could then open and pull out. It was quite hard to do that, as I had imagined. And basically, they were like, I wouldn't put that on a pull-out tray. And I was like, when I ordered this kitchen, the woman was like, yeah, you could totally do that.

It's absolutely fine. And I was like, now I've got nowhere to put a fucking kettle or a toaster. And I'm like, what am I going to do? I can't have a kitchen without a kettle and a toaster. The microwave's fine. It fits in the utility. But we don't have a microwave. So basically, the plan I have now come up with is we have to buy a microwave that is also

an air fryer that is also a toaster. So it's got to be all three of those things in one. To save space. Does that exist? Apparently it does. Oh, wow. Apparently it does. And then, can't put a kettle in the little cupboard I wanted to

because I can't pull the thing far enough out without the steam like warping the cupboard. So now I've had to buy a whole, like a boiling water tap. Oh. Which I'm not mad about. No. But just don't trust what your kitchen designer tells you. So if Charles Bromton was going to pop around to have a cupboard at mine, I'd have to trust him with a boiling water tap.

And he'd probably be fine. It is my opinion that he would be absolutely fine. I believe you, but I am confused. Well, confused like an Italian would be about a kettle. Got a lot of Italian friends, right? Italians don't have kettles in their kitchens. They think it's hilarious that we have kettle. How do they boil water?

On the hob. And a kettle? A hob kettle? No. A pan? A pan? Yep. What is this?

Fucking 1900s? Mm-hmm. I have also got a hob kettle. but I also think it feels quite tedious to do that. It just looks nice. I enjoy the idea of it going but also don't drink tea

so I'm like, whatever. Yeah. Anyway. Charles Bronson, his reputation is the thing that happens to you first. You hear that name. He is,

according to the press, Britain's most dangerous prisoner and you'll have heard about countless acts of savage violence, wanton destruction carried out without warning for seemingly no reason at all. And the comparisons to Hannibal Lecter in the press have happened over the 25 years that he spent in solitary confinement.

And then there's also the most famous stories of him stripping naked, greasing himself up in butter him running around, and running out a dozen armed guards just because he fucking wanted to. And behind that reputation, there are numbers. Convicted 17 times. 11 hostages taken. Nine rooftop protests and being kicked out of more than 120 prisons.

Wow. But I still would have him over for dinner. Sounds like a bit of a Dennis the Menace character. Did you never kill anybody then? Not once. Wow. That is interesting. So yes, there's all the numbers that Hannah just gave us.

But then there is the character of Charles Bruns. Like I said, the tiny red sunglasses, the circus strong man mustache. That is a good way to describe it. It's like, wear he like, ooh. And also the shaved head. The huge imposing physical stature. owned over countless hours training and solitaire confinement also helps. And the quick turns of phrase, the poems, the books, the artworks displayed in London galleries

only adds to the, um, just the legend, the myth-making, doesn't it? And also you've got the warmth and charisma that so many people who have met him describe. It's a combination that's proved so compelling in British culture that, yes, Tom Hardy himself played Charles Bronson in the critically acclaimed biopic. the court say he's a madman who needs to be locked up for life for the safety of the public he says that he's a victim of an unjust system one that's seen him jailed for more than 50 years for nothing more than an armed robbery in 1974

so what's the truth is he a changed man trapped in some sort of Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy or is charles bronson an unhinged unstoppable thug who will never be safer release And most importantly, after 50 years, could he finally, at last, be close to freedom? Well, long before he invented the character, Charles Bronson, the savage fighter and infamous prisoner, there was Michael Peterson. Another Peterson. Quite.

Michael, Gordon the murderer Peterson, was born in Luton in Bedfordshire in 1952. grew up in a council house and was the middle of three brothers and for the first 25 years of his life he was known as Mickey Mickey's father Joe had grown up in an orphanage with his four siblings Joe served as an aircraft mechanic in Africa

and in India and later became a boxing champion in the Royal Navy How do you think people back then just led such more interesting lives because TV is the problem I'm like why would I go be an aircraft mechanic in Africa and then, you know, become like a bare-knuckle boxer in the Royal Navy when I could just sit around and watch Mobland.

Quite. And that's what I do. That's the problem. The only thing standing in your way. Joe moved to Luton after the Second World War and he met 18-year-old Ere who just moved from Aberystwyth. And together they had three boys. By all accounts, they were a respectable and Laura.

abiding family. The house and garden were always kept spotless and Joe was never seen out of a suit and tie. Joe's attention to detail, presumably drilled into him in the armed forces, translated into strict high standards for his family. And although the family said that he was never violent towards them, they do make it clear that you could not put a foot wrong in Joe's house. And Joe was definitely not afraid of a scrap outside the house. If anyone looked at ARA the wrong way in the pub, Joe would dash over and beat the living shit out of them. There's a different time. You're listening to an episode of Shorthand, our weekly show for Wondry Plus subscribers. Listen exclusively and ad free every Tuesday on Wondry Plus through Apple Podcasts

and Spotify or in the Wondry app. We're your hosts. I'm Elena Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge merge into one larger bruce. With a touch of humor. Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists out there's been like eight of them. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. That mother f***er is not real. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal,

or you love to hop in the way back machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast. Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So Little Mickey was at first a pretty ordinary child. he was affectionate and loved animals the family had dogs and budgies

and at the age of 10 Mickey started his own little zoo in the back garden charging local kids a penny to see his frogs genius and he wasn't naughty in those early years but got intensely upset if he was ever told off in front of others

so yes already seen quite a big rejection of humiliation which no one likes being humiliated but somebody who's taking it that badly not the best sign And at school, Little Mickey was quite introverted and struggled with his lessons. He was incredibly shy, terrified of the dark,

and had frequent nightmares. And at the age of ten, he still wet the bed. Now, in his books, Charles Bronson tells a story about how, when he was about five or six, playing near some woods with some other children, a group of teenagers had run up on them and dragged them all into the forest. Then, he said, they started to,

interfere with the girls and he ran home crying now look that is probably like going to have caused some sort of scar emotionally speaking especially if we take the word interfere to mean sexually assault yeah that's like it's like code from back then yeah like to remember when we met Colin Sutton and he said that like I can't remember remember what case it was but he was speaking to an old lady and she said oh well he interfered with me it's like oh it was that old lady it's like a phrase yeah that Camden old lady rapist

exactly but yeah exactly and you know that's kind of all he really says in the book and so really from from everything you can piece together about Charles Bronson's like formative years early years all of that kind of stuff apart from having quite an authoritarian father figure and this one incident that he himself talks about, there isn't really that much else in his childhood to explain what Charles Bronson went on to become.

One morning, when he was 13, he woke up with the urge to kill, just out of nowhere. He didn't have a victim in mind. He just wanted to hurt someone really badly. Sounds like rage. Sounds like a lot of rage. And again, it comes back to that humiliation side right.

I think it feels kind of linked to someone feeling quite out of control, feeling repeatedly humiliated, probably by his father. And then just not knowing how to process that and just channeling it into going nuts. Well, yes, the inability to process is quite central, as it was on that day as well. So filled with this rage, killing, feeling, he just took. He took himself off to a tree near his house and hid behind it and he was ready with a milk bottle in his hand, ready to fuck someone up. The first person he saw didn't care who it was. Yeah.

And nobody passed by. Bummer. So he got sick of waiting and smashed the milk bottle over his own head. Wow. I think it is this inability to process whatever this feeling is and knowing that it has to go away but not knowing how to. to do that, that completely overwhelms him in that moment. When it gets older, it's a bit of a moment. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just interesting, isn't it? Because it's like, if there was a specific target, why not seek that out? But we also know that people who do this kind of thing do project, and they'll find another target that they deem weaker, that they can control more easily. And then it's just interesting that he turns out rage on himself in that moment. I just think he's built different. I really do. I think his brain just works in a completely different way to yours or mine.

Yeah. Anyway, soon after the milk bottle incident, he started to shoplift with a little gang of little friends. But this wasn't really like an Aladdin stealing a loaf of bread situation. These kids would steal things like shoelaces, pencils and notebooks, which they didn't need or have any use for. They just really wanted to. Now, that's cool. Charles Bronson constantly felt like people were talking about him saying nasty things behind his back. Again, really pointing at that kind of humiliation, persecution complex that seems to be forming quite early on.

And soon enough, I know I'd scored him Charles Bronson, but remember he is still little Mickey, was acting up, and he was eventually expelled. In a pattern that would become painfully relevant later in his life, the young Mickey was moved from school to school. Whenever his behaviour got too much, he'd just be moved again. And outside of school, his criminal dabblings had escalated too.

He'd started stealing motorbikes, not just shoelaces, and taking them for joyrides on the motorway. On his last day of school, with a gang of other boys, he padlocked the main gate shut to stop the teachers from being able to leave in their cars. And this was followed by a massive fistfight with the prefects, which Charles Bronson remembers quite fondly today. When he was still Mickey Peterson,

he got his first job in Tesco, stamping prices on meats and cheeses, which he saw as not a man's job. It is fun, though. Have you ever done the pricing gun? Two weeks into his tenure at Tesco, Mickey Peterson, was shouted out by his manager in front of customers. And Mickey lost it.

He cracked his manager hard over the head with the stamping machine. And then was to let go. After that, he got work on. building sites and in factories, but he didn't stay anywhere very long. Outside of work, he spent a lot of his time in pubs, despite being 15. And he did quite a lot of speed and started a lot of fights, which, if you do a lot of speed, it's going to happen. Kind of inevitable.

Yeah. And when he was 16, he had a rare moment of clarity. He decided that he needed to stay out of trouble and to make that happen. He was going to go and live with his grandparents in Merseyside. His parents and brother eventually joined him, and there was a brief period of wholesome good vise playing cards and earning a crust on building sites. But trouble soon found, young Mickey Peterson.

Because yes, Merseyside had his grandparents, but it also had pups. And it was here that Mickey started ramping up the benders quite significantly. And soon he found himself. waking up on other people's sofas. And one night, after an argument with his girlfriend's dad, Mickey smashed up a row of parked cars so badly that he was sent to a young offenders institute.

It was his first taste of prison life. And though he hated the feeling of being trapped, he soon learned the rules. One night, when he was back on the outside, Mickey and his best friend forever, called John, went to their local pub which is called the bull and they were wearing their best suits

and they saw two ladies at another table and decided to walk over. All four of them got chatting and about a year later they all got married. Wow. Again, what a different time. Totally different time.

One of these ladies Irene was Mickey's first wife and she remembers him as a real charmer. suave and gentlemanly polite. I can see that. And just like his dad, he was very protective and wouldn't hesitate to launch at someone if he didn't like the way that they looked at Irene.

And soon Irene gave birth to a baby boy, and this was the second, albeit brief period, of wholesome vibes for Mickey Peterson. He was delighted to have a kid and ready to settle down and keep out of trouble. He was still just 19. but secured a council house and a painting job nonetheless and was dead set on keeping to the straight and narrow

except when he went out on the piss. And these benders of Mickey Peterson's got so extreme at the time that they actually made the news. This is an actual headline from a local paper at the time. It says, local man goes wild. I really hope that's the first. first time that was used as like a phrase. Yeah. That would be a good origin story

for Charles Bronson. Yeah. Again, it's just simpler time. Simpler time. It just reminds me of like now when you see headlines, the last one that I saw that really did make me chortle was. You see that one where it was like the man punched a police horse and called it gay

and then he got arrested. That's what it reminds me of. So yes. These benders were pretty significant, pretty wild, as the press said, because he would disappear for up to five days sometimes and seek out any scrap or bar fight going, rob houses, rob shops, and shack up with other ladies. And when Mickey did finally come home,

Irene and the baby, because remember they've got a fucking baby, well, he'd just say that he had a bad hangover from the first night, and he'd decided to stay at a friend's house until his headache died down, you know, four days later. He even did another short stretch in prison for attempting to steal a lorry load of new suits. Inside, he remembers looking around and seeing how society was to blame for his fellow inmates ending up in prison, their drunken abusive fathers, bad luck, or desperation.

But for him, he says, I had no reason to fight my way through life. He sort of witnessed all of these people who had had such a terrible time. And he's like, oh, I understand why they're railing against the system. I understand why they're angry. I understand why they're getting in fights and then getting in trouble and getting in prison. Nothing that bad's ever happened to me. I just really fucking want to.

I see. So he acknowledges that. But for no reason at all, as soon as Mickey got out of prison, he immediately started casing for bigger and bigger robberies. And then one day, despite having all his ducks in a row, a wife, a son, a job, a house and a car,

Mickey Peterson bought himself a shotgun and sawed off the end. When he was just 21, he took that gun and robbed a post office, a Tudor Mansion, and finally, a garage in Cheshire. He called this spree his week of insanity. Really diversifying the robbery portfolio there, absolutely. And if you're wondering why he did that, he's got an answer for you. There is no answer, but excitement. Yeah.

I think he really does speak to that kind of just feeling quite bored and dull of, like, ordinary life. Like, I feel like he wants to, at this point at least, just be like, yeah, I've got a wife, I've got a kid. What's wrong with me? Why can't I just be happy like everybody else? They can't. He can't. It's fucking boring for him. Like, he's not like the rest of us sat around watching fucking TV, like endless clubs.

He's got to be out there, living life. Exactly. And if he was back in the day, he would have been out in Africa, being a, fucking bare knock a boxer. But without that, he's got to fucking get a saw and shotgun and rob people. Robert Tudor Mansion. Exactly. And every time he did, three times,

burst into the building in a frenetic ball of energy screaming and waving his shotgun around demanding that whoever was in his path give them everything that they had. He was finally arrested after the garage robbery and sent to Risley-Romahn Centre in Warrington. and this time he was in for the long haul and Rizley remand centre was particularly grim it earned the nickname Grizzly Rizley

do you think that when people name prisons like when people name kids they should think about all the different ways in which that can be twisted into some sort of nickname like this yes and Grizzly Rizley was quite so grisly via a combination of rats, cockroaches overcrowding literal bucket toilets and also the dubious accolade of being

number one for prison suicides in the entire country. Bad news. Many would wake up in the morning to see their cellmate hanging from the ceiling. And Rizley's guards had what you would call a fight-fire with fire approach to unrest and violence in their prison. And in the words of our very own Mickey Peterson, The whole fucking place, stank of despair. He's a wordsmith.

Truly. Now for the robberies, Mickey Peterson was convicted of armed burglary and assault with intent to rob and sentenced to seven years. His solicitor said that with good behaviour, he could be out in three, though. But it turned out that his behaviour would be anything but good. And he wouldn't actually leave prison for decades. Within six months, he started taking out his frustrations on his fellow inmates. The idea of Irene and his son, Michael, visiting him,

looking pityingly and shamefully through glass, also drove him crazy. Immediately after their first visit, Mickey Peterson attacked three prison officers. I feel like there's absolutely, you know, it's the humiliation aspect. He feels obviously clearly humiliated having let down Irene. He's left her out there with a kid on her own. and soon afterwards he savaged another prisoner breaking his nose and his ribs

and he says right or wrong I emptied myself of tension and I felt better days later he attacked a man for grasping on another inmate and tried to gouge his eyes out after this Mickey was sent to solitary confinement for the first time

and six months was added to his sentence Those two things are pretty central to the Charles Bronson saga, solitary, which we will get at two later, and those extra sentences that he picked up while inside. And just to be super, super clear, like he only, obviously he gets in fights and stuff, but his robberies, he doesn't hurt anybody.

He threatens them with the shotgun, right, but he doesn't actually hurt anyone. He hurts people in prison. Yeah, I mean, trying to gouge people's eyes out, breaking ribs, breaking noses, attacking prison guards. Like, yeah, okay, can say he didn't do it on the outside, but it's like, it's not going to convince me as a judge that it's time for you to trot out into the public. Yes.

I'm surprised. That took so long. I think his argument is, if I wasn't in prison, I wouldn't be violent. Sure. So you just have to decide if you believe him, and I do believe him. You could believe him, but I think, would you want to be the judge or parole officer or whatever responsible for taking his word for it, letting him out, and then he attacks a member of the public? No, but his supporters would argue that 51 years for armed robbery is quite steep. It is, but you're gouging people's trying to gouge people's eyes out and breaking their ribs in prison. Yeah, because he's in prison.

It's not going to stab. That's fucking, that's bullshit. No. And he's also being people up at the pub before who looked at Irene the wrong way. like even if he didn't kill anybody with the with the robberies he's got to stop the violence inside before anybody's going to be convinced can you imagine he's let out and then he gouges someone's eyes out on the public that's the prison's going to be torn to shreds as they rightfully should be for letting him out despite his poncho for violence Mickey hated being amongst other prisoners he felt like he didn't belong with muggers and drug users and rapists and killers and also the lack of privilege. really got to him. On a visit, Irene said something that stuck with him for a long time. The way you're going, you'll never get out. And so, he sang into what he calls a strange feeling of blackness, a sort of indescribable depression.

One day during a workshop, Mickey didn't appreciate a prison guard's attitude. So, he smashed the room to Smithereens. He pummeled furniture into pieces, smash windows, and threw a broken table at the guards, which hit one of them in the face. A dozen more guards appeared, and he took them all on throwing and brandishing splinter bits of furniture. He was taken to a punishment block and wrapped in a leather body belt. There he felt an injection in his left buttoe. And this would be Mickey Peterson's first experience of Lagactyl,

also known as the liquid Cosh If you see the Tom Hardy Cray's film Yes You know when Ronnie's in Broadmoor and he's like dribbling That's like active, sure It is a strong

anti-psychotic And it's used extensively in the prison system To subdue out of control prisoners And it works But it is very serious business And the side effects are brutal Those injected with the drug Can experience muscle spasms, blurred vision

and temporary paralysis. He was put into a padded cell without any windows or furniture for weeks. And the emptiness was only ever interrupted by guards who could burst in at any hour of the day and beat the shit out of him. And another six months was added to his sentence. Not long after that, an inmate kept Mickey awake

by banging on the ceiling. So, Mickey burst into his cell with a jack. jam jar. He smashed it over the prisoner's head and then pummeled him with glass-filled fists, so every time he hit him, he cut him more and more. And Mickey was laughing maniacly as he did it. That's not going out. No. And he says, in his words, that the whole cell was covered in Clary. It was like an abattoir in there. He was charged with GBAH with intent and then moved to a different prison in Leeds. Just days after he got there, he cut off a guard's earlobe.

And got more time on his sentence. And this was the beginning of a pattern that would last decades. And if we keep going at this rate detailing every incident, every act of brutality, then we will be here all day. Which is a good point to note that some of the anecdotes we've included from his many, many days in prison, come from Charles Bronson's own books. And Mickey slash Charles slash Charlie is what you would call an unreliable narrator

who absolutely loves his own notoriety and probably wouldn't hesitate to editorialise just a bit. Yeah. So please take his account with a picture salt. But there's also some very revealing stuff in there. When he writes about being moved to Onceworth Prison, he first explains how he respected their fair and straight-talking approach. But then writes,

Unfortunately, after a few days, I blew. There was always be something that would set him off. He would assault guards and other inmates at a moment's notice, and then he'd be piled on by guards who would drug him, and then he would be sent to solitary over and over again. His first occasion in Leeds, he spent 23 hours, day alone in his cell. And in the remaining hour, he was allowed to walk around the exercise yard. During the 23 hours in his cell, he started a rigorous exercise routine of

press-ups, sit-ups, squats and shadow boxing to keep fit and strong. He would knock out thousands of press-ups in a single day and could soon do 25 with two men on his back. And then he went on to take on bigger and bigger feats, including 1,790 sit-ups in just one hour. And a certificate from 1998 marks the time that he did more than 6,000 lifts of a 2.5 kilogram weight with his beard. Well, I hear him. So I think what we can deduce from that is that you're right. He cannot stand being bored.

Yeah. Much later on, he honed his fitness routine to a fine art and released a book on it. And whenever these acts of violence happened, he would be moved to a different prison, multiple times a year, all across the country, for decades. Now eventually, the endless solitary confinement and non-stop eruptions of anger and violence built to a crescendo. And Michael Peterson had a breakdown. He was diagnosed with brain damage, epilepsy, and hysteria. Doctors reported him as being intensely sensitive and prone to paranoia.

He was described as callous in his approach to other people, showing a total disregard for the law. He saw hostility and malice when none existed. And a psychiatric report labelled him a psychopath. After another spate of manic violence, smashing a jam jar over an inmate's head, then leaping at a prison guard and slashing at his chest, Mickey was sectioned under the Mental Health Act and he was sent to Rampton, a high security psychiatric hospital, known to many as the Broadmoor of the North. That was all by the age of 26. I do think he is a psychopath and I think he's a really good example of what a non-Hollywood psychopath actually is. like I think he is a very extreme version of the like the image that we all have is that they're geniuses

he's not he's fucking nuts no he's an interesting one because you know typically with a lot of psychopaths it's so varied and it can have comorbidities with so many other things but he is quite he's not as calculating as we can see where people are like I'm going to put together this plan I'm going to remove people that are in my way

I'm going to keep a cool head I'm going to handle this situation. No, he's very reactive. And the doctors who diagnosed him, you know, with that sort of like paranoia, like, and hysteria, I get it because it feels very much more like almost bordering into the psychotic because it just feels so like, so explosive, so reactive, so like led by this feeling of persecution. But yeah, I think he's definitely a psychopath, but I think there's a lot more going on there also. Oh, I agree. And I think when it comes to what I think he is interesting to use as an example of is he highlights a lot of issues within our prison system

and I think that the people who are his like supporters that's the point they're trying to make. Yeah, and I think I have no quibbles with a conversation that people would want to have about, you know, he goes in very young and he goes in for something that, yes, of course, waving a shotgun in people's faces is not a good, great thing, but he doesn't kill anybody. He's there. What can we do with this guy? You know, there is a chance here for this young man to be rehabilitated. What are we doing? Clearly,

he has issues around anger management. And actually, anger management, when you teach people anger management and like put them through rigorous classes on that, it's highly, highly successful. And I know, you know, nobody really wants to have this conversation, much like when we talk about like paedophiles and like, can people be, have that urge taken away from them, therefore they can go lead a normal life. I'm talking strictly about people who have not harmed a child. If you have harmed a child, you deserve to be in prison, obviously.

But like domestic abusers, they find that actually if you give them anger management classes, because typically that's where it's coming from, for some of them, some of them obviously there's other issues like control, whatever, that it's really, really successful. So there's no conversation about that here with Charles Bronson. He's sort of stuck in there, shoved in this prison.

And as Irene tells him, if you carry on this way, you are never going to get out. So yes, absolutely the default. in the prison system, the defects in the prison system, I should say, are made very visible by this case. So yes, that could have been addressed, but I also absolutely take the point that he is just like, in no way making a case for his own release

by acting like this. And attacking the prison guards, that's never going to be looked on well because it's basically like attacking cops. Like, as people doing their jobs and you're cutting fucking earlobes off. Ugh. How hard is it to kill a planet? All it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our time. And crimes like that, they don't just happen. We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% preventable. They're the result of choices by people. Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us,

and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. All right, very quick break because I know you are gagging to get. get back to this particular episode, but we have to tell you a little bit about what's going on on Patreon this week. Certainly. Well, this week we have under the duvet where I explain how hypnosis works badly, but it works. It does work. And I will tell you how I came off

the pill and now the back knees back. We also have a little chat about Russell Brand and contemplate the composition of the soul and whether it even fucking matters. And then I do a little review on a throwback dating TV show that I watched on Channel 4 called Perfect Match where I literally couldn't believe. A, that people were smoking in clubs, because it's that old, and then all the horrific things that were coming out of people's mouths. And you can listen to all of that over on Patreon, and you can watch it too, under the duvet is every week. We release it every Wednesday morning. And also on Patreon, you can get red-handed, totally ad-free and we also do monthly bonus episodes. And you can find all of that at patreon.com

forward slash red-handed. And when he got up to Rampton, he had another poetic descriptor for it. He said that it was full of sad, sick, empty souls. He almost feels like, I've forgotten who this person is. Is it Nellie, Nellie Blythe, the journalist? Yeah. Who goes undercover in a psychiatric hospital so that she can expose all the ills. if Charles Bronson wasn't in there of his own actions he almost feels like a plant who's sent into the prison system

to poetically describe to us how awful it is yes exactly and he sees himself as better than everybody that's in there I'm not like you I'm not violent this is what obviously he is violent but that's what he says like I've never raped anyone I'm no murdering I am I am better than you I'm above you and that is a characteristic of a psychopathic mind as delusion of grandeur

of course the narcissism you know it's inextricor from psychopathy. And I think it's also interesting there because it speaks to how willing he is to while his supporters will say they're backing him as like prisoners, right, he completely dehumanises other prisoners. Totally.

And sees them as like fodder that he can unleash his hell on to make himself feel about it. At Rampton, he was drugged even more consistently than before because it was causing so much trouble and the side effects of the legactyl got worse. He would seize up. got locked jaw, he would wet himself and he would have frequent violent fits, which for a man

who is obsessed with humiliation, it's not going to help. Not going to help. It probably reminds him of the fact that he used to piss himself until he was ten. Exactly. And so, his resentment against the system kept on smoldering. Legactyl wouldn't knock him out completely. And one day, when the effects of the liquid cosh were wearing off, he strangled a paedophile in his cell.

The victim was declared medically dead and was only revived with electric shocks. The only reason that Mickey Peterson didn't stand trial for attempted murder was because he'd already been declared insane by the courts. And after 11 months at Rampton, he was sent to real Broadmoor. Broadmoor of the South, Broadmoor. We've talked about Broadmoor many times on this show. it doesn't really need an introduction, but we're going to do one anyway. Originally named the Broadmoor criminal lunatic asylum.

I know that's the real official name, but it just feels like... Lunatic asylum. Yeah, yeah. Broadmoor has been home to quite a lot of the country's most notorious criminals. Robert Knapper, my boyfriend Robert Maudsley, the Yorkshire Ripper, the London nail bomber, the Stockwell Strangler, the teacup poisoner, and some of the 7-7 bombers, which I'd forgotten about. Mm-hmm. It is still technically cast as a hospital.

It employs nurses and psychiatrists and social workers and therapists. But mainly it is a high security prison for the criminally insane. If anybody watching, listening to this episode is like, I work at Broadmoor where I know someone who works at Broadmoor. Oh my God, please get in touch because I would love to interview somebody who works in Broadmoor. Oh, totally. I watched a documentary about it years ago.

I think when I was at school, maybe, and it really stuck with me. And it was interviewing patients. And it was just so sad. It was like a really exposing look into like being inside these people's heads is terrifying. And that's, obviously, I'm not doing any sort of blanket statement, but there was one guy who I remember from that documentary who's like, who's, like, covered in scars head to toe that he had inflicted on himself because being alive for him is so impossible.

And I think that's a really important view for us all to, like, be exposed to. Yeah, if your brain was that terrifying, you'd probably do some shit too. So Mickey spent his first year at Broadmoor practically comatose on legatil. And when he finally came to, he was absolutely furious. He saw himself as being driven further into madness by the endless drugs, confinement and repetition. Even if you're not Charles Bronson, that would send anyone around the bend, I think. Absolutely. I mean, it would literally be like a prescribed method to break somebody, for sure. And this is not me defending.

They're like prison system, because obviously things could be much. better. It's just must be so difficult when you have someone who is so explosive and putting other patients and staff at risk. What do you do? Well, that's why Robert Maudsley is in his glass box. Yeah. Drugs, solitary, control, confinement, repetition. It's like, it's so hard. It would be so easy to just be like, oh, it's terrible. Of course it's terrible. But like, what is the alternative? Well, this is why it's such an impossible question, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. So in 1984, perhaps growing tired of the same old assault and solitary treadmill, Mickey Peterson decided to mix it up a bit.

And he climbed up onto the roof. Now, rooftop protests are another signature of the Charles Bronson saga. That's the image that comes into my head. For short. And on this first one, he smashed as much as he possibly could. Tiles, windows, skylights, everything. and he threw the rubble at whoever he could see from up on the roof. He shouted complaints about hospital conditions demanding to be transferred

and other inmates were on his side. They were down there throwing up blankets and food to him. And Charles Bronson stayed up there for three whole days in a constant standoff with the police. Then his dad and brother turned up and he agreed to come down. The other thing that made this roof protest historic was that it was the first time Charles Bronson had made the news other than local man goes wild, of course.

And it was also the beginning of his public legacy. In his non-stop magical mystery tour of the country's prisons, Vicki Peterson saw all of our most infamous facilities and met a real rogues gallery of villains. He met the Great Train Robbers, the London Torture Gang, and most significantly and famously of all, Ronnie and Reggie Cray. Can we please have a film where Tom Hardy plays all three of them at the same time? Yes, please. The Cray Twins impressed Bronson.

Their legend and infamy was national news. They were properly famous. And the one thing you need to know about the man. and who would become Charles Bronson is the infamy was like crack to him. That's what he wants. That's what he craves. He wants to be famous. And that's why I think it's hard for me to feel like.

I know I said, oh, he's not particularly calculated. He's just reactive. But of course, you have to ask the question. Like, he knows, right? You can say, he's saying the repetition is breaking me. But I'm like, at this point, even you Charles Bronson can connect the dots, right, between you committing these acts of violence and staying in prison and it getting worse and worse and worse for you.

I take it up until this point, he's not getting like the notoriety for it outside of the prison system. But from here on now, I'm like, how much of this is an active decision to up the legend? Totally. I think the Tom Hardy film sort of makes it seem

like he robbed the post office and the mansion and the garage because he was like, oh, this is the only way I'm going to become famous. I don't buy that. I think he was bored. I think he was bored. And I think the feeling of bored and Tim was so unbearable that he had to.

And then that's why he gets stuck in. Because I think you're right, he absolutely can connect the dots between these violent outlets and then solitary and it all gets worse. He knows that. He can't help it. And then by the time he's been in there for, you know, five, six years, he's any touch of reality he ever had is completely gone. Yeah.

he did manage though to form a lifelong very firm friendship with both cray twins and he calls them the best two guys that he'd ever met in his life though if i knew them i'd say that too just in case they're great so for the rooftop protest incident another year was added on to his sentence same old same old but then something happened that nobody expected, and finally the cycle was broken. Yeah, because not long after the protest, Michael Peterson, Mickey Peterson, had his mental health review.

And after four and a half hours of discussion, judges ruled him sane. I don't know how I feel about that. I guess, like, you know, I'm not an expert, I didn't interview him, I don't know what's going on. And it's hard to know, because, like, on one hand, the idea of, like, he can't help. it then implies that he is psychotic and, like, is not in full use of his mental faculties. But then if they're saying he's sane, then he is, and he's making the choice to allow himself to carry out those things. So I don't know. I don't know what the truth is, but that's the decision they reach. I'm with you. I don't think, I think what they did was really

irresponsible. And it was decided that once he had served the four years on his sentence, he would be free to go. So basically what's happened here, is what never happens if you get sent to a psychiatric hospital. Exactly. Which is to be then found sane and then be released. It was, of course, spoilers, a lot longer than four years, owning to quite a bit more assaulty, protesty, stabby, and destruction of prison property behaviour.

But eventually, he towed the line just enough to eventually catch up on his release date. The 30th of October, 1987. After 14 years inside, he was finally free to go. And as he walked out of the gate, a guard said over his shoulder to Mickey Peterson. We'll see you soon. Michael Peterson was categorically not ready for the outside world. He had had no contact at all with the outside world since 1974 when he was 21.

1987 was a brave new world, Thatcherism, microwave ovens, banana, Rama. The head didn't have air fries yet, I don't think so. Toasters? Must have toasters. They were put a man on the moon by this point. True. There were just a lot of things that Michael Peterson didn't know anything about. At first, that didn't matter. Freedom was top of his list.

and he went to go and stay with his parents and Abarist With and he describes his runs along the beach that he would do in the mornings a sheer bliss. Boring there was a nap Abarist with in particular Quite boring, small

quiet It's like an idyllic little town It's not quite for Charles Bronson No And he decided that he didn't want to sponge off his parents So He headed for the big smoke, he says that the reason for leaving is concern about his parents' finances.

But it also probably had something to do with some advice that he got from his best friend Reggie Cray. A few weeks before Mickey was released, he told Reggie Cray that he'd probably end up robbing banks when he got out. Good. And Reg said, don't we daft, you'll just end up back inside. Be a prize fighter instead. which I don't think is terrible advice for a man like Charles Bronson with a rage problem Yeah, if you're going to be nuts and hench and you just love kicking the shit out of people

do that instead. So I think Reg has got more solid advice than any other like prison official that has crossed Charles Bronson's path thus far. The best careers advisor Charles Bronson could have found, honestly. So, obviously, Reggie Cray, when he says Price Fighter, he means illegal boxing rings, is what he means.

And that's what Mickey found in pubs in London. And it was a pretty straightforward way to monetise being Charles Bronson in the real world. So when he arrived in London with just 250 quid to his name, he sought out a friend south of the river, and soon he had his first fight arranged. And this was against a fighter known as the Bermansy Bear. So called for his imposing stature and her suit appearance. Which we both just learned. Means hairy.

Still, he was no match for Mickey's prison-honed right hook. And that night, Mickey Peterson won 500 pounds in his first match. And at another of these fights, Mickey Peterson met a man named Paul. Edmonds. He was a bank robber that Mickey knew from prison. But Edmonds was also taking a break from all of the robbing and had turned his hand to fight coaching. And so Paul Edmonds took Mickey Peterson under his wing and his first move was to get rid of that middle of the road name. Little did he know that the Peterson legacy in future true crime world would become quite illustrious. There is actually another Michael Peterson who is a killer that we have

to cover. So yes, Edmonds wasn't to know this at the time, and he renamed Mickey Peterson after the brooding star of The Magnificent Seven, the Dirty Dozen, and the Great Escape, Charles Bronson. Young Mickey had never seen a Charles Bronson film, and he still hasn't to this day. But he's been known as Charlie ever since. And though he may have lacked some of that movie star Grace and Finesse, our Charles Bronson was a powerful fighter and he did pretty well. Plus, it was an excellent vent for all of

that aggression. As he puts it, quote, I had 14 years of madness inside me that I needed to release. Everyone I knew was lethal and very much insane. He'd win himself enough cash to get by and even occasionally fought for charity. Much less nobly, he was also once made to fight one-on-one with a riled up Rottweiler, who didn't make it out the ring alive. Oh. So yeah, Mad Bastard, very scary, massive man. But he didn't have that much training, so he was out fought, often and disqualified. Yeah, he's a brawler.

And I don't want to say he lacks discipline because, you know, doing like a bazillion sit-ups in an hour is quite disciplined. But yeah, maybe just not the like rigorous skills. It's learning technique. Yeah, yeah. involves being told what to do and doing it, which he doesn't like. That's the word I was looking for. It's not the discipline. It's the respect for authority that it takes to commit yourself to a school of training.

And, you know, I don't think I can think of a single person who I would say is capable of telling him what to do. Except maybe Joe, his doubt. Wow. So not only is he not doing particularly well as a fighter, the money wasn't really that good either. especially when you consider that his cruising, boozen and bruising habits were back in full force. He spent all of his prize money on drink.

And when that ran out, he started keeping an eye out for somewhere to rob. Especially since, not long after arriving in London, Charles Bronson said, quote, I felt starved of excitement. I needed some danger. He's a fucking fighting in illicit, like Ben,

knuckle boxing, and he's like, I was so bored. I was so fucking bored. So, firstly, he bought a toy gun and forced a Mercedes driver to drive him around for a few hours, which he called the greatest buzz I'd had in years. And then there was the jewellery robbery of the 7th of January 1988. And here accounts disagree on what exactly went down. according to the jeweler himself and the police and basically everyone else apart from Bronson here's what happened Bronson burst into the shop

screaming his head off that he'd kill the jeweler if he didn't open the safe the jeweler said that everything was in the window it only went in the saves overnight I love that this jeweler is like explaining that it's all out, it's nothing in the same so Bronson took all of the jury out of the windows and all of the money out of the till

and he left with more than a thousand pounds worth of goods What's he robbing of fucking Claire's accessories? What's this jeweller up to? A thousand pounds worth of goods. A thousand pounds is probably a bit more then. Yeah. If you want Bronson's story,

which I do. You've got no choice. He was just innocently out on his morning jog when suddenly he was punched in the face of nowhere and before he knew it he was surrounded by policemen. And he pointed out that they never actually found any jewellery or a fake gun. He insists the only thing that he did during this time on the outside was the pub fighting. But whatever happened, it's only a matter of time.

After less than 70 days out in the real world, Charles Bronson was back in prison. And he has been there ever since. And this is the problem, right? Because yes, absolutely his supporters can say, look at the ills of the prison system, all of that. But he's out. He's had his career advice from Reggie Cray. He's doing his fighting. And then he can't help. Or no, I'm not going to give him that. He chooses to escalate back into a situation where he's put himself back in prison. So I'm just like, what was going to happen? What was going to fucking happen? And it did not take the newly christened Charles

Bronson very long to get back to his old ways. After just a few days in Lester prison, he was back up on the roof doing another one of his little protests. And maybe it's a situation where, you know, you see this with other people who have spent a long time in prison. They can't cope in the real world and they do commit crimes that put them back inside. So maybe there is an element of that. I don't know. That's what I think happened. I think, like, the jewelry store robbery is like, yeah, he obviously did.

But I do think he does it on purpose. I think he's just, he's like, oh, actually I can't, I don't like this. Yeah, I think maybe it is just a place where he can go and, yeah, that just makes sense to him, maybe. So yeah, after his second rooftop protest, one night not long after that, he stripped naked, covered himself head to toe in boot polish, and went absolutely buck wild in his cell, punching and kicking at his steel door until he was piled on by guards and thrown back in solitary. It's not even taking it out

another prisoner that, like, something's happened. He's just going nuts. And then the next day, he moved prisons. By now, his reputation preceded him. Everyone had heard the legend of the country's most dangerous prisoner. Some prison guards would even want to attack him for the bragging rights of bringing Charles Bronson down

a notch or two. And soon the tabloids were all over Charles Bronson, reveling in the gory details calling him England's Hannibal Lecter for his time kept in solitary, which is a stretch because he's never actually eaten anybody. No. And perhaps seeing his notoriety grow.

Charles Bronson, up to the ante, once again. It's this title of Britain's Most Dangerous Prisoner that sort of developed this sort of air around him where, like, people think that he's a serial killer and he's not. And whereas 80s, Charles Bronson was mad for a rooftop protest, 90s Charles Bronson was all about the hostages. In 1994, he held a prison librarian hostage, demanding an inflatable doll, a helicopter, and a cup of tea in his ransom. Two years later, when another prisoner

was taunting him from his cell, Bronson took him hostage, along with three Iraqi hijackers who happened to be there as well. Classic. During the seven hours, that he held them all hostage, he was idly daydreaming about an ex-girlfriend who used to tickle his toes. And so he took off his boots, untied one of the Iraqi hijackers and put a rope around his neck, saying, tickle my toes or I'll snap your smile called. Later, he made a series of cartoons about this incident, featuring such choice quotes as even Saddam Hussein wasn't as mad as him, and, I'm sorry I ever hijacked that plane now, this is insanity. We'll put them on our Instagram.

Yeah. And the hostage takings continued. In 1998, Charles Bronson took three inmates hostage at Belmarsh and threatened to eat one of them if he wasn't brought a cup of tea. And again, this is what makes me feel like he just loves that. Loves the notoriety of being the most dangerous prisoner. He probably loves the notoriety of being called Hannibal Lecter. Why randomly now start to make these like, I'm going to eat him?

Mm-hmm. Now, later that same year, Charles Bronson was placed in an experimental special unit in HMP Hull. Hull was testing a new approach, one based on mutual respect. Bronson had been moved more than a hundred times by this point and was enjoying the new setup. But then again, Bronson's got a Bronson, and he did. on the 1st of February 1999 prison teacher Phil Danielson walked into Bronson's cell

and was immediately struck to the floor Bronson said he was taking Danielson hostage because he'd slagged off his artwork Danielson has absolutely no memory of ever even seeing any of Bronson's artwork Yeah this is the challenge now because it's like we'll be like okay we need reform we need new ways to handle these people

We need to give rehabilitation they're like we'll try something HMPP Hall we're going to try one based on mutual respect. Here's your teacher. Not a prison guard. He's a teacher. I'm going to beat the shit out of him. It's just, what the fuck is anyone meant to do about this? Don't know.

It was the start of the longest prison siege in recorded history. Whoa. Ever. That's bonkers. And here is how it went down. Bronson tied his teacher Danielson to a chair. attached a knife to a pool queue with a bandage and marched up and down the wing

with his makeshift spear like a soldier. He told Danielson that he was going to kill them both. And then, in a frenzied, trance-like state, he absolutely destroyed the entire wing of the prison. He ripped fridges and washing machines out of the wall and even threw an industrial-sized fridge up the stairs. How does one do that? By doing a thousand press-ups a day in yourself for 20 years, that's how?

Volume 2 of the prison workout manual, find heavy white appliances and throw them upstairs. Fucking oh. And this chaos lasted hours. Charles Bronson caused half a million pounds worth of damage. Much later, when he'd run out of steam, he made Danielson watch the entire 1995 film Dead Man Walking, got Susan Surrounded and Sean Penn in it, and he told Danielson that he was the only one of his hostages that hadn't shown. shit himself. And for that, he really admired him. I'm sure that gives

poor old Phil Danielson a lot of, you know, comfort as he probably spent the rest of his life processing the trauma of what happened to him. So this time, Bronson's demands started pretty high and included machine guns

and a helicopter to go to Cuba. But eventually a little over 40 hours later, he agreed to surrender. If he could see his solicitor, and and also if there were no punishment beatings from the guards. At half-nine the next morning, Charles Bronson told Danielson to march in parallel with him,

backwards and forwards, over and over again. And then at 10 a.m., he said, just keep on walking. And Danielson, taking this as his cue, ran out of there like a frog in a sock. And once again, this all begs the question. why? Was it still this far down the line, just thrill-seeking to relieve tension, or is there something else going on? Throughout Bronson's time in prison, and ever since, he tends to frame

himself as a moral crusader, not just an unstoppable juggernaut, but a vigilante with standards and rules and a hatred of injustice. And his defenders will always point to the times that He's burst into the cells of paedophiles and rapists and beat them within an inch of their lives. And if we could cast our minds back to Bronson's first stretch in prison, when he smashed a glass jug and shredded another inmate almost to death, he points out in his book that when that prisoner was released, he went on to kill four people. And he said, if I'd killed the scumbag, four people would still be alive today. Interesting logic.

Yes, quite. He claims to have his own code of ethics that to sort of explain his violent past. Yeah. It feels like, like that's what gangsters do, right? Mm-hmm. Mob guys. It's like they ignore all the horrible shit they do. And, you know, obviously in our culture as well, like we have glamorized them and all of that.

And we ignore all the sex trafficking and abuse and beatings and drug runnings and all that. And they're like, oh, but, you know, they're good men. They wouldn't touch a child or something like that. So again, it's kind of like this, all of the morals, quote unquote, and like criminal code of honor or whatever that you might see attached to a gang member or a mob boss, but without any of the discipline to actually like have a criminal empire. Just a one-man mob boss. Then there's the way that Charles Brunson talks about his assaults on prison guards. By his own admission, he just launches himself at them, almost for sports. Screaming, throwing glass and rubble, and laughing maniacly.

Then afterwards he describes being thrown naked and bloody into empty cells, depressed and demoralised and overwhelmed by the feeling that his life is wasted. His point always seems to be the brutality of the justice system. And it does sound brutal, but also, what are they meant to do with you? Sometimes Bronson will talk about his treatment as though he's just the result of unfortunate circumstances and a broken system. But in the end, time and time again, he chooses violence for no particular reason.

Starting when, with a wife and child and a decent job, he decided to saw off the end of a shotgun and rob a garage. Yeah. I think when we first started, started sort of really looking at psychopaths and what it actually means and what it's like to live as one. the thing that I always remember and I think applies to him and I'm not obviously excusing his behaviour but like because it is a difference in brain

it's the excitement thing isn't it they have to do more yeah absolutely and that's what he is doing I don't think he should be in prison I think he should be in Broadmoor as well I think he needs to be in hospital he's very obviously really unwell and I do think that the system made him worse and I can understand it's like what you said

what else are you supposed to do with someone who is attacking prisoners and guards however solitary confinement is horrific absolutely and yeah the people who are like supporters of his

if they're saying that he should just be released into the general public well I certainly wouldn't want him living next door to me then I wouldn't campaign on the right for him to be living next door to somebody else I think absolutely he should be in Broadmoor because he's not okay. And, you know, with the prison system,

you can absolutely have that conversation about how it doesn't cut reoffending if we're not talking about rehabilitation, all that. But I also, and I've said this before, don't believe everyone can be rehabilitated. I think sometimes prisons are just there to keep bad people away from the rest of us. Some people are just bad. And yes, you can have conversations about how sometimes, by the time people are in prison, it's already too late.

These intervention policies should be started as like social care systems that are happening much earlier in a person's life. And I admit that Charles Bonson may not be the kind of man who tells us everything that happened to him, but like, there's not really anything that we can pinpoint as being like, this is what let him down his path of criminality. As we said, he had everything going for him, and he chose to go down this path for whatever reason. So yeah, it's a tricky one, but I would say, the most I could say is Charles Bonson should

be in Broadmoor, not out on the streets. And there is a slightly dated documentary out there that, if you want to, you can and watch, but I think it's of its time. Anyway, in that documentary, there is an interview with a psychiatrist called Dr. Bob Johnson. And he was hired by Parkhurst to study disruptive inmates. And he did his real best to get to the roots of these prisoners' emotional problems. And he says that he could see that deep down, Bronson didn't want to lose control. And I think when I say, I'm not excusing him by saying he can't help it

I think he can't I don't think he has the capacity to stop himself yeah it's so tricky then isn't it because it's like they declare him sane and then he's doing this and then it's like where do we draw the line with other people who like if he was beating up his wife at home

no one would excuse a thing of like he can't help it it would like he would need to be in prison he would need to be somewhere that he is being controlled so Yeah, I just, I find, I know you're not excusing his behavior, but like anybody who is kind of saying, oh, you know, he's only like that because he's in prison once he's outside, he's fine. I'm like, is he? I don't know what's wrong with him, but he's not okay. I think it's, this is what Dr. Johnson explains as well, and I think the side I fall on is that obviously with people like Charles Bronson, the current system makes them worse. and that doesn't necessarily mean they should be free to frolic but we could be doing more to address people like Charles Bronson

who do not fit in the society in which we all live and that's why they're in prison in the first place and they are not being helped by the system that is there to help them that's the point of it one of the points of it so we should be looking at improving that. Yeah, because, you know, people have mixed feelings about what is prison really there for, is it for retribution, is it there for rehabilitation? People may fall on, like, extreme ends of that spectrum,

and most people probably fall somewhere in the middle that it's for both. And so, yes, absolutely with different cases like Charles Bronson, like how are you addressing that issue? Because he's not succeeding in Broadmoor. He's not succeeding in regular prison. He's not certainly not succeeding by being put in solitary, environment. I take that these are all kind of management tools that they're using to safeguard the people around him. But yes, I absolutely think there should be experimental procedures on

what else can be done. Though obviously the last teacher that came in, he tried to fucking do what he did too. Poor old Paul Danielson. And I can't remember the name of the study, but when we were doing a book, I read a study about young offenders and like recidivism rates and how the 50% of the group were negatively enforced and the other 50% were positively reinforced and the ones who were positively reinforced had a way lower recidivism rate than the ones who were punished and that's kind of the point that Johnson makes as well because Johnson and Bronson had a really productive relationship and they regularly talked about feelings and stuff. And if you're a bit skeptical that talking about feelings can calm the tempers of brutal psychopaths, Johnson disagrees

with you and has receipts. After he worked within May. at Parkhurst, incidents of violence plummeted from one every two months to one every two years. That is a 95% drop. You can't argue with that. It's not, you know, that is very, very statistically significant. And Dr. Johnson wrote to the Home Secretary to suggest that this approach was taken seriously in the UK's prisons. He did not get a response. And according to Johnson, the current system is relying far too much on repression, restriction, denial of human rights and dignity and

self-esteem and he actually calls the current prison system an expensive way of making people worse. And I'm not going to argue with him, you know, that those numbers speak for themselves. I think the challenge is right, getting governments and people at large to see that maybe the upfront costs would be more expensive of doing programs like this, where you have somebody who's going in there and offering this kind of essential like talking therapy to these kind of inmates. And that in the long term, the cost benefit analysis is going to be that the money you're spending perprisonate is coming down. But we've got to have a high expenditure up front.

That's one argument, just purely the money. And then there's the argument of people who are just going to be like, who gives a fuck about that? Who gives a fuck about any of this? Like when we say positive reinforcement heralds, on average, better results are negative. People are like, why has he got a fucking TV? Why has he got a Game Boy?

Why has he got, you know, access to these rights? And I'm not saying I'm not unsympathetic to those feelings. If I had been the victim of a crime or even not, and I have to read about these cases and think about the life that maybe the perks that some of those prisoners would be given in prison. Of course, it's like a guttural feeling of that's wrong. So it's a really tricky argument, isn't it? It's a really tricky, like, proposal to take on board.

Exactly. And it is going to be very difficult to convince people, the majority of people, that public funding should be spent in that way. So whether or not these psychiatric sessions helped Charles Bronson, A few other things coincided at the same time, and his violence did slowly subside. Something else that clearly helped him was art. This bit definitely helps to make the Bronson story so irresistible to the public.

It really adds to that kind of like, like we said at the start, the mythology around him, because he's a keen cartoonist and a pretty prolific writer. And it has to be said that he has a great turn of phrase, Like Hannah described him, he is a bit of a word smith. He can be very charismatic, thoughtful, and pretty funny. He released his first book of poems in 1999, soon followed by an autobiography. And this autobiography even got a sequel called More Porridge Than Goldilocks, which is pretty good.

And he wrote an entire book, as we told you earlier, about his exercise routine, which did incredibly well. And he writes, in this book, Show Me Another Man, a man half my age, who can pick him. up a full-size snooker table. I can't. No. And he could probably throw it up the stairs, which is actually fair enough. And then there is the famous

Luneology, in my own words. His first book to be written without the help of a ghostwriter, and you can tell. He's a great talker, but we wouldn't say that he's a locked-up literary genius. And while he takes his art

extraordinarily seriously he's not quite Caravaggio either he's not bad though he's not bad and we should probably be careful because the last time someone slagged off his work they were subject to the longest prison season history not bad hosts of red-handed not bad no I think obviously what's happening here is because they are

can we say sort after probably because of the notoriety of who he is not necessarily the skill and talent but I really don't think he's that bad. No. And the art world does have a morbid interest in criminals, just like the rest of us. John Wayne Gacy painted all those clowns. Certainly did.

So, UK galleries love to display the art from the UK's most violent prisoner. Of course they do. In 2014, a sale of 200 of his pieces raised more than £30,000. And over the years, he's sold more than 100 grand's worth of art. Where does that money go? I think he donates it to charity I think that's fine Donate it to some charity

Some prison charity Maybe that would be quite nice But yeah Interesting And I think this is his most famous quote He says I've been a nasty bastard But I found my true self through art

My art is my life Yeah It's the first bit that really helps The second bit just sounds like you know, he's like a fucking 19-year-old art student, but the, I've been a nasty bastard. Mm-hmm. That's great.

And also, if you're on your own 23 hours a day, your life isn't that much. True. And in 1998, something else happened to Bronson that made him reconsider his rough and rowdy ways. He met his son. Bronson hadn't seen his son, Michael, since he'd first been jailed in 1974.

Michael's mother, Irene, kept Bronson's identity a secret from Michael at first. And even when her son Michael found out, he wouldn't mention his dad in front of his mum to avoid upsetting her. But both Michael and his dad, as is natural, had wondered about each other. And after 23 years, Charles Bronson

asked a childhood friend to pass on a message. And his son, Michael, agreed to meet. Everything Michael and Irene knew about Bronson came from the papers. So as far as they knew, Bronson was a totally unhinged maniac. Then he turned up, huge and imposing, with a big black beard and tiny orange sunglasses. But soon, Bronson and Michael started crying, and had a big, long father-son-son hug.

And when it came time for Michael to leave, Bronson said, I'll keep out of trouble if you do. And I'm not going to say that it was all completely fine, from there on out. There was a bit of light brawling. and manic violence here and there, but it definitely was the beginning of Bronson's more peaceful era. In February 2000, he went on trial for taking Danielson hostage. He sacked his lawyers and defended himself. Of course he did. He made an emotional plea to the jury, saying that the system was to blame and that prison had created him. He also acknowledged that he'd done bad things, but he'd done his time for them.

And whether or not this speech had any impact, we're not sure. But some of his charges were dropped. The judge did note, though, that he was still dangerous and unpredictable, and that, quote, the community at large deserves some protection from you. And Bronson was given life in prison. He wouldn't be eligible for parole for a decade when he'd be 57 years old. Yeah. So Bronson kept fighting, metaphorically this time.

He appealed in 2004, this time arguing that his decades of solitary confinement amounted to torture. Which I do think is true. Yeah, absolutely. He said that when he took his last hostage, he was suffering a period of extreme distress, which he called a disturbance of the mind. And actually, the judge accepted that the experience was harrowing, even saying that Bronson had a calm dignity and might have changed its ways. Still, before the parole hearing, Bronson had a few slip-ups.

He took a governor hostage this time at Park Lane Prison. And shortly afterwards, he stripped naked and covered himself head-to-toe and butter to fight 12 prison orders, all because Arsenal won the FA Cup. It was also around this time that Bronson's infamy got another big injection. from the biopic Bronson starring none other than Tom Hardy and I haven't seen it but I have it on good authority that it is a very good film

I enjoy it but it definitely does play fast and loose with the actual details of the story and suffice to say it did Charles Bronson absolutely no favours in the appeals department though I bet he fucking loved it

In 2014, to symbolise his new start and distance himself from the legend, he changed his name once again to Charles Arthur, Salvador. Saying this, Bronson was a nasty bastard, I didn't like him. Salvador is a man of peace. I feel peaceful. And he says he chose Salvador because it means man of peace. It doesn't. It means saviour. still though he argued he was swapping a shorn off shotgun for a sawn off paintbrush it's not really what you do with paintbrushes so it doesn't quite work no anyway before long

his new man of peace persona started to work in 2014 he was cleared of trying to attack a prison governor and threatening to gouge his eyes out Bronson said that he was actually trying to hug him and he tripped a jurors found him not guilty and he did a little dance And then in 2020, he won yet another court case, arguing for his right to have a public parole hearing. They are usually done behind closed doors, but Bronson argued that this was unlawful and he wanted to be heard in public to expose the system for what it had done to him. And so on the 6th and 8th of March 2022, Charles Bronson's parole hearing was streamed live into the Royal Courts of Justice. And he told the panel, Of the 50 years I've been in prison, I have probably deserved a good 35 of it.

Because I have been very naughty. Not naughty, naughty, but just naughty. And he was pretty candid about this naughtiness. About the roof protests, Charles Bronson said that he enjoyed every fucking one of them. And he said, there's nothing better than wrapping a governor up like a Christmas turkey. And admit it, I love a rumble. What man doesn't? And he went on to say that he was a changed man.

He said that he was terrified to put a foot wrong because he knew that if he ever did anything serious again that he would die in prison. He assured them, I'm ready, I'm a chilled out man. I feel comfortable in myself. An independent psychologist hired by his legal team said that Bronson had signs of PTSD, partially due to, quote,

brutal and unacceptable treatment in prison. The parole board accepted that he was motivated to work towards his release. But they said that they were mindful of his history of persistent rule breaking and said that Mr. Salvador, so he's little wrong with this. They also said that he lives his life rigidly by his own rules and code of conduct and is quick to judge others by his own standards. And that's nail on the head. Like, he, he lives in a system which he has created,

and that doesn't protect anyone around him. It's not the Code of Conduct that the rest of us have to live our lives by. No, it's not the law of England and Wales. And so, the parole board denied his release, and they rejected his secondary plea to move to an open prison. Bronson, as we have alluded to throughout this episode, has got his fans out there. And many still consider his lifelong incarceration to be a profound,

injustice. Here's a quote from the foreword of Bronson's book, Luniology. Charlie Bronson is not evil. He never has been and never will be. He should have been freed years ago. Still, it bears mentioning that this forward was written by Charlie Richardson. A fellow long-serving inmate and member of London's infamous torture gang. Who used to, you know, pull off people's toes and teeth with pliers to make them talk. So I presume next to him, he probably feels like Charles Bronson, isn't about that. The legend, though, has absolutely taken on a life of his own. A Sunday supplement once printed a list of the 50 most evil people in Britain.

And Charles Bronson was placed higher on that list than Ian Huntley, Rose West and Peter Sutcliffe. And that is unfair. I don't see who's compiled that list because... Ian Huntley, Rose West and Peter Sutcliffe. took sadistic pleasure and enjoyed and reveled in causing pain and doing all of the things that they were doing. I don't believe that that's what Charles Brompton does. I think he just is like, doesn't give a fuck

and is like explosive in his rage and also enjoys a notoriety and was definitely hamming it up towards the end. But to place him above Ian Huntley, that's ridiculous. And it also fuels his campaign painers as well because like yeah yeah yeah do I think that he's been rehabilitated to a point that

he can be released no but he's not in the same league as people who get given 51 years yeah I think it's like any of those things right where it's like don't go too far because then you hand a gift to the people who are opposing you and that's what they've

done there with that and yeah okay technically his only sin on the outside is armed robbery, which, you know, compared to Ian Huntley, is not that bad. However, he's absolutely unhinged and he was very violent for decades and he's not being violent now and hasn't for some time. But he's absolutely capable of it. And that shows that he's also capable of stopping because he's not doing it now. Because he's got better. Yeah, yeah.

But I think that's the thing is like they're kind of acting like the case that we're kind of acting like the case that we're. we did maybe like a few weeks ago, Iqbal Masi, where it's like the debt keeps adding on through no fault of Europe. They're acting like they just keep adding time on. The prisons are overcrowded. They want to get you out of there if they fucking can. But he will not let them because of what he's doing. So these days, Bronson is still campaigning for his release and it has been a very long time since he got in any trouble. He says he's focused, anti-crime, anti-violence and can taste his freedom. Since 2000, he's been held. He's been held in segregated high-risk units designed to hold the most dangerous offenders.

And I do think that's fair, not because of what he did on the outside, but because of everything he's done since going in. And he and his solicitor, Dean Kingham, have the tough job of proving that Charles Bronson is safe for release. He's currently being held at a specialist's close supervision centre at Woodhill Prison in Milton Keynes. I don't feel the same as I do with the Menendez brothers like, I've, you know, I think they did it and I think they've done their time. I think he has done his time for the crimes that he has committed and he has stayed out of trouble for a long time. But I don't think he's safe for release because he is so unpredictable.

However, I do think he is a really good example of how listening to people actively and dramatically improves mental health. There you go. That is the story. The legend, the myth, the man that is Charles Bronson or Michael Peterson. And I'm glad he's called Charles Bonson because we'll come back and cover Michael Peterson. But I think we'll kill us quite classic. Another time. And we'll see you there. Goodbye.

Bye. Thank you. Thank you. To listen to shorthand every week, start your seven-day free trial with Wondry Plus, and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or in the Wondry app. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? bumps, the ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead, in hospital rooms and doctor's offices. Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's

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