Bronson parole bid is first open hearing
NOTORIOUS prisoner Charles Bronson’s next bid for freedom is set to be the first hearing held in public, the Parole Board has confirmed.
A pilot scheme that will see some hearings open to journalists is about to be launched by bosses.
If it is a success, there is potential for the set-up to become permanent in high-profile cases.
The first hearing, which journalists will be allowed to view and report on, is expected to happen this summer, with Bronson’s the test case.
A Parole Board spokesman said: “We are looking for the first public hearing to be Charles Bronson’s, possibly in June.
“It has yet to be finalised, but that is likely to be the first one, because he has already indicated he wants his parole hearing to be held in public.”
Bronson, 69, originally from Luton, was born Michael Gordon Peterson. He first changed his name to that of the US action movie star Charles Bronson, then Charles Ali Ahmed and now Charles Arthur Salvador, after artist Salvador Dali.
Branded Britain’s most violent inmate, he is currently in HMP Woodhill near Milton Keynes, Bucks, and is determined to be freed after spending years in solitary confinement.
He was first sentenced to seven years in jail for armed robbery in 1974, but the time was extended due
to attacks on staff and prisoners. He was released in 1987, and became a bare-knuckle boxer, but was sent back inside in 1988 for another armed robbery.
Released again in 1992, he was back behind bars after just 53 days for planning another armed robbery – and he has not been freed since.
After further violence, criminal damage and hostage-taking, he got a life sentence following his kidnapping of a prison teacher in 1999.
He has staged nine rooftop protests, held a reported 11 hostages and been moved from prisons more than 120 times.
Due to issues with mental illness he has had periods in Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth highsecurity psychiatric hospitals, but has also published several books from inside and become an accomplished artist, poet and fitness fanatic.
Tom Hardy played him in the 2008 biopic Bronson, based loosely upon his life.
The pilot is part of a root and branch review of the parole system launched in the wake of the John Worboys Black Cab rapist scandal, when a Parole Board decision to release him was overturned.
After the review was announced, Bronson launched a High Court bid for the right to a public parole hearing, arguing that blocking inmates who wanted one went against the open justice principle.
Judges said in June 2020 that there were arguable grounds that the Parole Board’s blanket ban on public hearings did offend the principle of open justice.
Last year on the Youtube podcast Anything Goes with James English, Bronson said he wanted the media at his next parole hearing so “there’s no more sweeping my case under the mat”.
He said: “My legal team all believe in me but at the end of the day there’s only really one person that’s gonna get me out, and that’s myself.
“The way I’ve been behaving for the last few years, there’s no reason why I can’t get out.”
At his last parole case in 2017, he was refused release, days after wedding former Coronation Street actress Paula Williamson.