BRONSON PLEA OVER 'TORTURE' IN PRISON
Daily Mirror
2 April 2004
by Don Mackay

FEARED prisoner Charles Bronson took a hostage in jail because he feared being put back into conditions of torture, a court heard yesterday.

Bronson, who is appealing against his conviction for taking his art teacher captive at Hull prison in 1999, claims he has suffered beatings and segregation for 25 years.

David Whitehouse QC said: "His case is that he had been tortured for years and this had led him into a very depressed, low and psychiatrically disturbed condition at the time of the Hull prison riot."

Bronson, 51, claims he held Phil Danielson hostage as a protest against his transfer to the severe regime of Woodhill prison in Milton Keynes.

Mr Whitehouse said: "He believed that to be returned to conditions which he regarded as torture would lead to him suffering serious mental injury."

Bronson claims he was regularly beaten by prison officers every time he was transferred. He has been in 120 different jails.

Mr Whitehouse said: "He has a real fear of transfer."

Mr Whitehouse also said Mr Danielson had criticised one of Bronson's cell cartoons as "anti- homosexual".

"He finds criticism very difficult to take."

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