Charles Bronson shares his prison life, discusses violent past and hopes for future at parole hearing

Charles Bronson, dubbed one of Britain’s most violent offenders, is among the UK's longest serving prisoners.

Now 70 years old, he's spent most of the past 48 years behind bars, apart from two brief periods of freedom where he reoffended. He spoke about his life in prison, his violent past and even his hopes for the future at a parole hearing on Monday (March 6).

During the time he has been incarcerated, he has held 11 hostages in nine different sieges – with victims including governors, doctors, staff and, on one occasion, his own solicitor. Bronson’s first conviction was in 1974 when he was 21 and was jailed for seven years for robbery, aggravated burglary, assault with intent to rob and possession of a firearm.

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He was convicted for wounding again in 1975, 1978 and 1985, then in 1987 he was released from prison at the age of 34. After 69 days he was back in prison, sentenced in 1988 for seven years for robbery at a jewellers’ shop.

Giving evidence in what is only the second ever parole hearing to be held in public in England and Wales, Bronson held forth on various topics. On the current conditions in prison, he said in the past he has been on wings that were “cold, empty and f****** brutal”, but now things are much more comfortable.

He told the panel: “I’ve got a telly in my cell, I can’t even believe it.” But he said unlike other inmates who have their own bedding, photographs on the walls and comforts such as CD and DVD players, he likes to know he has woken up in a cell.

“I don’t want my cell to be a furnished bedsit … Unfortunately prison today is full of fairies,” he said. Describing his time as an unlicensed boxer, he told the