Prison thug’s reward for brawling with a warder?
A pair of Calvin Klein glasses

The Daily Mail
11 May 2007
By James Slack

BRITAIN’S most dangerous prisoner has been given £200 to buy spectacles so he can see the ball when watching the football on TV.

The Prison Service offered Charles Bronson the money after his glasses were damaged in a brawl with two guards at Full Sutton high-security jail.

Bronson, who has attacked at least 50 prison officers over the past three decades, is boasting that he will buy designer frames by Calvin Klein. He demanded new glasses because he could no longer make out the action while watching Premiership highlights on the BBC’s Match of the Day in his cell.

Prison officials, who have spent £500,000 handling rooftop protests by Bronson, agreed.

In a letter to a friend, Bronson, 54, said: ‘Well, I’m finally being compensated over them at Full Sutton smashing my specs.

‘Now don’t that prove everything I’ve said about what went on there? Why compensate me if it was my doing?

‘They’ve studied CCTV of the incident. They’ve seen the cowardly screw who broke them and it’s as simple as that.

‘The truth always creeps out in the end. Watch this space!’

But Bronson’s fellow inmates were unamused. One said: ‘Everyone else is really upset about this, when we heard he had won the case we couldn’t believe it.

‘Some of us have to struggle by but they’ve sorted him with a lovely pair. He’s been cock of the walk since he got the news.’

Another said: ‘Charlie really kicked up a stink about his specs and the screws were worried he would kick off when he started complaining that he couldn’t see the ball when he was watching the football.

‘They thought it would just be easier to stump up the cash for the specs that he wanted.’

Blair Gibbs, campaign director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It doesn’t seem to matter how despicable the prisoner.

‘The unbelievably generous duty of care extended by our warped Prison Service is always the same.

‘Big cash grants like this are routinely handed out to inmates instead of the cheaper alternative Whatever happened to NHS specs?’ Since he was jailed for armed robbery in 1974, Bronson has developed a reputation as Britain’s most dangerous convict.

During his time in prison, Bronson, a serial hostage-taker, has been involved in at least ten jail sieges.

He is deemed so dangerous that he has been moved 150 times and has spent more than 22 of his 30 years in jail in solitary confinement. He is currently in Wakefield Prison.

Bronson changed his name from Michael Peterson. He passes the time by painting and doing up to 3,000 press-ups a day.

He was given a life sentence in 1999 for holding a prison art teacher hostage for 44 hours because the man criticised some of his sketches.

He was filmed on jail CCTV leading his victim around like a dog with a rope around his neck.

In another siege, Bronson demanded a helicopter so he could fly to Cuba and compare his beard to Fidel Castro’s – and a cheese sandwich in case he got hungry on the flight.

A Prison Service spokesman said: ‘A prisoner has been offered compensation of under £200 after a control and restraint incident.’ The prisoner’s compensation victory will fuel the controversy over payouts to serving criminals.

In the last financial year, £8.8million in compensation was paid out – almost 15 times the amount two years earlier.

Cases included a record £2.8million payout for medical treatment for a prisoner who failed in a suicide attempt.

Around £750,000 was paid to nearly 200 drug addicts who had withdrawal symptoms after they were forced to go ‘cold turkey’.

In other cases, prisoners were given £200 each after their DVD players were taken away because they watched pornography.

FACTUAL INACCURACIES

• Charlie is NOT Britain's most dangerous prisoner
• He has been moved MORE THAN 150 times
• He has spent 34 years in prison
• He has spent 28 years in solitary confinement
• He was sentenced to life in 2000
• He did not take Danielson hostage because he criticised his art
• How does the nameless con who can't see or talk with Charlie know that he is "cock of the walk"?