If you’ve already seen the 2008 movie “Bronson” about Britain’s so called most notorious
prisoner, don’t worry, that rather theatrical piece of cinema didn’t tell you much about
the man so there’s much more to see today.
You might be thinking that it’s coincidental that a man with such a reputation has the
same name as a former Hollywood tough guy, but he wasn’t called that at birth – the
name was acquired during his bare-knuckle boxing days.
He was actually born Michael Gordon Peterson.
Yep, that doesn’t sound quite as fearful.
There is a lot of controversy about this man, regarding whether he should have been in prison
for so long or if prison is to blame for his often crazy behavior.
We discuss this and more, in this episode of the Infographics Show, Britain’s most
notorious prisoner (Charles Bronson).
As you know, he was born with the name Michael.
His birthdate was December 6, 1952.
He spent his first few years in Wales and then moved to Luton, which isn’t too far
away from the capital, London.
It doesn’t seem that he came from a rough and tumble background, given that his father
ran a Conservative Club for a while and his aunt and uncle were a mayor and a mayoress.
His aunt actually once said this about him, “As a boy, he was a lovely lad.
He was obviously bright and always good with children.
He was gentle and mild-mannered, never a bully; he would defend the weak.”
He might have defended the weak, but it seems his penchant for violence and crime started
early in life.
After he moved up north at the age of 13 it seems that’s when the trouble started.
At that age he was charged as a juvenile for stealing and it’s said he was part of a
gang.
He didn’t much enjoy school, and soon left to start working at an early age.
His first job came when he moved back down to Luton.
That was a very short two-week stint working in Tesco supermarket.
Apparently, he was fired for attacking his manager.
After this it seems crime became second nature to young Michael.
He got in trouble for criminal damage but got off with a fine and some probation.
He had lots of jobs, mostly related to labor or factory work, and we are told he enjoyed
nothing more than a good night out on the town, drinking gallons of beer and getting
into fist fights with the locals – easy to do in some areas of the UK.
He likely wasn’t short of foes on the mean streets of Luton.
One of his jobs, we are told, was a circus strongman, so he was likely a hard man to
fight.
He got in trouble again after crashing a stolen lorry (truck) into another car, but again
got off with just a fine as no one was seriously hurt.
At this point he is still in his teens.
Yet again, he got into trouble, this time aged 19, when he was involved in a smash and
grab, which is basically smashing a car into a shop (store) front and getting as much as
you can.
Again, he got off with just a fine and a suspended sentence.
Aged 20 perhaps he got his chance to join what is sometimes called the “straight and
narrow” as he met a girl and got married.
But apparently, she quite liked his tough guy persona, his tailored suits and the fact
he spoke in a cockney accent.
They had a child and called him Michael Jonathan Peterson.
According to the British press, the son is very private and has never spoken publicly
about his notorious dad.
So, we can’t tell you much about him.
Moving on, now 22, Michael was arrested for armed robbery and this time the judge came
down hard.
He got seven years, but prison wasn’t exactly a place he liked being it seems.
During his first stint in prison in Liverpool he attacked two other prisoners and we are
told he wasn’t provoked.
That got him time in solitary, something he would see much more of later.
He was then transferred to prison in Hull, and again had issues with guards and prisoners.
They gave him sedatives to calm him down, which apparently made him very ill.
He also spent more time in isolation as he was said to be a very difficult prisoner.
On one occasion when he was out of solitary, he attacked a prisoner with a glass jug and
he was convicted of unlawful wounding.
Yet again, he was moved, this time to the tough Armley jail in Leeds, a foreboding-looking
place if ever you’ve seen one.
So, there he was, now serving time in what looks like a medieval castle.
Even in 2018, the place is said to be the place with the highest rate of people taking
their own lives and in the press right now it’s said it’s still very much an unsafe
place for both prisoners and staff.
Back in the 70s it can’t have been a holiday.
But it seems he was too much for Armley, and he kept moving between a number of prisons,
sometimes chained to the floor of the vans he travelled in.
It’s said if not in solitary he would attack prisoners and guards, and it’s also said
he incurred numerous vicious beatings from the guards after an attack.
You might have seen that in the movie, which depicts these guards having to tackle him
in numbers.
During one time in solitary, while recovering from a beating, he got divorced.
We imagine this must have been a low point, but it’s said one thing that kept him going
was his solitary workout routine, keeping him healthy and fearsome.
His book, “Solitary Fitness”, which he wrote after many years inside, has sold millions
of copies.
Reviews are actually very positive, although people talk about how strange the book can
get at times.
Profits from the book, says the media, go to children’s charities.
The British press tells us that his strength was quite unbelievable.
He once bent the cell bars with his own hands, and it’s said he holds six world records
for strength and fitness.
Another unofficial record he has set is the most prison rooftop protests by any British
inmate.
But right now we are still in the 70s, and a long way from fame, or infamy.
While in prison in London he tried to poison an inmate and it seems that was the straw
that broke the camel’s back.
Enough with prison, he was transferred to a psychiatric facility.
But guess who he met there?
Two of Britain’s most ruthless gangsters, The Kray Twins.
He called them, “The best two guys I've ever met.”
That friendship didn’t last long, though, as he was moved back to prison.
What followed was more solitary, escape attempts, attacks on prisoners that ended with lifelong
scars, more attacks, and finally, when the authorities were sick and tired, he was sectioned
under the Mental Health Act.
He was no longer just a criminal, but mentally ill.
In 1978, he was again in another special facility, but it seems he didn’t much like being forced
to take medication and wasn’t keen on the fact he was surrounded by some of Britain’s
most disturbed people, men who would never leave the facility because they had done things
to people we will not talk about.
Yep, he didn’t like some of these terrible men, and at one point was said to be about
5 seconds away from killing a fellow patient/prisoner who had taken the life of an innocent child.
In his own words, describing the people around him in the facility, “I witnessed them running
into walls, using their heads as rams.
I've seen them fall unconscious doing this…
There was one just kept trying to eat himself, biting his arms, legs and feet.”
He tried to kill another prisoner and then in 1982 when still in the notorious Broadmoor
he led a rooftop protest that lasted three days and caused around $300,000 worth of damage.
Now you can see why this guy became well known as a hard-to-deal-with prisoner, but there
was a lot more to come.
He hadn’t even started.
He led two more rooftop protests and also went on a hunger strike, but in some ways
he found solace in writing poems, sketching and creating cartoon strips.
He even won awards for his work.
It didn’t stop him being violent, though, just settled him down from time to time.
Psychiatrists couldn’t figure him out, and even though he was in a mental facility he
was never properly diagnosed.
He once said, “Asylums are crazy places, with crazy rules.
If you’re not mad when you arrive, you are when you leave.”
Again, he was moved from facility to prison, stabbing inmates, hitting others, more rooftop
protests, more isolation, more beatings from the guards, more medicine, and perhaps his
piece de resistance, he once strangled a prison governor.
After that he was not allowed out of isolation until he finished his sentence.
He got out of prison in 1987, and almost immediately turned to crime.
Although his first offense is quite comical.
He bought a water pistol and modified it a bit, after which he forced a man at water
pistol-point to drive him to Luton, his favorite spot, There, he started bareknuckle fighting
and earned the nicknmame Charles Bronson.
He actually legally changed his name to this.
Was this the start of a life on the outside?
Not a chance.
It’s written that he would fight anyone, and even challenged the king of bareknuckle
fighting Lenny Mclean.
It seems Lenny wanted no part of him, or at least when he agreed to fight it was too late
as Bronson was back in prison.
In another fight, he was challenged to go against a large rottweiler.
He killed it, and said later in life he really regretted that.
It was cash in hand, though.
He was only out of prison months and was back inside again for armed robbery.
We won’t go into details, but he fought again, attacked prisoners, guards, had more
time in solitary, was moved, and moved, and moved, and occasionally tried to start riots.
In 1989, he was attacked himself, stabbed in the back several times, but he recovered.
He wouldn’t tell the police anything about his attackers.
In 1992 he got out, for the grand total of 53 days.
He was jailed, but got off.
Then he was arrested again for having a shotgun and conspiracy to rob.
It’s gets crazy here, because while on remand he took a librarian as hostage.
While negotiating with police he had three demands: an inflatable doll, a helicopter,
and a cup of tea.
Yep, you heard that right.
He was given 8-years, despite saying the gun was to blow off his own head.
It wasn’t the first time he had contemplated taking his own life.
He was difficult again, transferred from prisons, and at times was left naked for many days
on end in dark isolation.
At one point he was put in the worst spot in any prison in the UK, something called
“The Hannibal Cage.”
That had been created for another prisoner who had once killed inmates and was said to
have spooned out one person’s brain and eaten it.
Even though at one point he attacked a governor, it’s said he got much better after being
allowed to interact with handicapped children.
He also kept up his cartoon sketching.
These were the quiet times.
They didn’t last long.
He endured more solitary, more moves, and then in one prison he took two Iraqi hijackers
as hostage in his cell.
It’s said he was going crazy after losing his father.
It’s also said he told the guards if they came close he would snap the heads off his
hostages.
He made his hostages tickle his feet and demanded they sing songs to him.
To them, he was known as ‘The General’.
He demanded a plane, machine guns, ammunition…and a cheese and pickle sandwich.
It seems later he just kept asking for ice-cream.
In the end, he let the hostages go and another seven years were added to his sentence.
While in great physical shape, it’s said all the time in darkness in solitary had negative
effects on his eyes and his social skills, and lawyers now started to get on his side.
It’s a pity then, that he took one of them hostage.
He let him go quickly, though.
But after one civilian worker criticized his drawings, he took him hostage, too, and then
started ripping up parts of the prison.
Hmm, what else?
Well, after the millennium he got married again, converted to Islam, changed his name,
took another hostage, wrote a book, sketched a lot, and then changed his name to Charles
Arthur "Charlie" Salvador out of respect for his favorite artist.
The movie came out and he became a household name- until then not many people knew about
him.
Thousands of people around the world started to support him, saying even though he had
been a bad boy, his incarceration had just gone on too long.
But he just couldn’t stop messing up.
In 2014, he attacked another governor.
That same year his artwork went up for auction, and his 200 pieces, often dark in nature,
fetched around £30,000 ($38,000).
Bronson donated a large part of this to The Brain Tumour Charity and Keech Hospice in
Luton.
Bronson said the old him was now dead, and he was “born again as the artist Salvador.”
He created more works, too, donating to other charities and one time Oxford's homeless.
He also got married to an actress in 2017, and she is hoping to see him out soon.
In total, out of the 44-plus years he has served, 36 of them have been in solitary confinement
– sometimes without light.
In 2018, it was said that he is in an open prison but will have his case reviewed in
two years and could get out.
That might not happen, though, as he got a life sentence for one of his kidnappings.
That was a teacher in 1999 that he held for two days.
The British media also reports that he allegedly smothered himself in butter aged 65 and challenged
the guards to a fight.
We’ll leave you with something he once said, “I'm a nice guy, but sometimes I lose all
my senses and become nasty.
That doesn't make me evil, just confused.”
The question we want to ask you is do you think the authorities did the right thing
in this case?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other show Most Insane Prison Escapes.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.