– meets fiancée who’s turned his life around’
robbery of a post office. She said: “I was so embarrassed. We hadn’t brought Charlie up to behave like that. I didn’t want to face anyone. I couldn’t understand why he had done this.”
Bronson has spent 43 years in jail for a range of violent attacks and been free for just 122 days since he was first sent down. He had a stint in psychiatric hospitals, where he was forced to take sedatives that made him violently ill. Medics later ruled he was not insane and he now spends 22 hours a day in solitary – and may never be eligible for parole.
Yet while Eira accepts her son must take responsibility for his actions, she feels he has been mistreated.
Reputation
She said: “I don’t think Charlie is mentally ill. He just doesn’t like being told what to do. I can’t excuse some of what he has done but the sedatives messed with his brain and I think a lot of the crimes he has committed in prison stem from that. “As his reputation grew I worried he’d become a bit of a target for other prisoners. Everyone wants to be the one who did Bronson in.” But Eira believes he can adjust to life on the outside with Paula’s help. She said: “When I look at my other sons, I feel sad because it makes me think of everything Charlie has missed out on. John was in the Marines and Mark the Navy. They made their dad and me proud. Sometimes, I cry and say to Charlie, ‘What a waste of a life’.
“I remind him of what his brothers have achieved and I tell him he could have done the same, had he kept out of trouble. But he tells me there is no point in having regrets.
“I’m not naive. He has been in jail for most of his life so he will find it very difficult on the outside and I think he’d be too much of a target in a town like Aberystwyth. But if he and Paula moved to a quiet cottage in the country I think they could have a happy life. She’s a lovely girl but she doesn’t take any of his nonsense.”
Bronson regularly sends his mum pieces of his artwork, which are displayed all over her flat. Eira is housebound and calls and letters from her son are the highlights of her existence.
But she said: “I like it when he draws nice, soft things, like rabbits. The drawings he does for children are the nicest.” She knows she may not live much longer and has already made plans to have her ashes taken out to sea in a bottle, to be scattered alongside those of Joe, who died of lung cancer 23 years ago. Paula has also helped Bronson heal his rift with his brother. The pair fell out two years ago after Mark disagreed with some material in one of his books. Eira, pictured with Tom Hardy who played her son in a film, said: “I’m not long for this world but it would mean everything to me if I could give my son one last hug.” Paula added: “I’ve promised Eira I will look after Charlie when she’s gone but it would mean everything to me if he got out before then. But I just know that it is going to happen.”