Your dad's Britain's most violent prisoner
Irene with son Mike as a lad. Mike's dad is Charles Bronson
Saturday 15th September 2007
It was the conversation I'd been dreading for the past 26 years.
'Your Dad's been in touch,' I told my 29-year-old son, Mike. 'He wants to see you.'
'Really?' he cried.
Despite everything, I saw his eyes sparkle. Even after all these years, he wanted his dad's approval.
We rarely talked about my son's father and it wasn't any wonder considering he is the notorious prisoner Charles Bronson, 54. With the exception of three months, he's been in prison for the past 33 years. He was jailed in 1974 for armed robbery and after violent attacks on fellow prisoners and jail workers his sentence kept being extended.
Mike hadn't seen his dad since he was a toddler. He was 15 before he realised who he was. A girl at his school had pointed out the similarity between him and Bronson.
'I knew my dad was in prison but I didn't realise it was him,' Mike had said to me, shocked.
After all, Charles Bronson was always in the papers and had been branded 'Britain's most violent prisoner'. Imagine the shame.
When I first met Charles it was 1969 and he was called Michael Peterson. He changed his name to Charles Bronson around five years later when he got involved in boxing. Mick, as I called him, was so different from any other boys I knew. He always wore tailored suits, had perfectly-groomed sideburns and a cockney accent.
We started dating and eight months later, when I was 4 months pregnant, we married at Chester Register Office in December 1970.
Mick had always liked a drink but as the years went by it became a problem.
'He would disappear for days and come back drunk and covered in bruises,' I told Mike. 'He'd wreck the house.'
Then a few hours later he'd be back to his charming old self, putting
Mike on his shoulders and playing daft games with him.
'It was like living with Jekyll and Hyde,' I shuddered.
I'd thought about leaving him but I was young and naive. Then in February 1974, Mick had gone missing. He went out one morning and never came back. After he'd been gone for a week, I was frantic. Then police raided the house looking for him. Ten police officers stormed in while a terrified Mike clung to me, crying.
'You were only 3 but you were scared stiff,' I said.
'I remember that night,' Mike gasped. 'I was terrified the policemen would take me away.'
Shame cut through me. That had to be one of my son's earliest memories.
A week later police told me Mick had been arrested for armed robbery. He'd robbed a tobacconist shop in Little Sutton, Merseyside with a sawn-off shotgun. The next day I'd gone to Ellesmere Port police station to see him.
'Why?' I'd cried.
Mick had just shaken his head and looked down.
In the summer of 1974 I ran out of Chester Crown Court in tears when he was sentenced to seven years. I was 22 with a 3-year-old son. How was I going to cope?
He was supposed to get out after three years but his sentence was extended after he got into a fight with another prisoner. Every time it looked like he'd get out, he got in more trouble. He held prison sieges and rooftop protests.
Finally, five years after he'd been sentenced, I wrote to him.
'I want a divorce, I can't wait my whole life for you.'
My solicitor confirmed he'd signed the papers. Just like that.
Two years later I married David, and we had two children Leicia, now 30, and James, now 28. Over the years Mick's been involved in ten jail sieges, attacked 50 prison officers and caused £500,000 worth of damage in rooftop protests. He's been moved 150 times. He was transferred from prison to prison, often in solitary confinement and high security cells.
'Is that any claim to fame?' I said to Mike.
'He's happy to court publicity but he's not been in touch with me for the last 26 years.
'Now you know what kind of man your father is are you going to
see him?' I asked.
Mike stared at the floor.
'Yes, I am,' he whispered.
I sighed heavily. What could I do? Mike was a grown man now, worked as a chef and lived in his own flat. How could I tell him what to do?
So two months later in March 2000, Mike went to visit his father in a high-security prison. All day I was going out of my mind with worry. I must have wiped down the sideboard a thousand times until…
'Dad cried and hugged me,' said Mike when he called.
How touching. This thug, this career criminal, had done nothing to earn his son's respect and now he was crying over him? What about the 29 years I'd spent raising him while he did everything he could to make sure he stayed in prison?
Mike didn't notice my resentment, he was too busy gushing about his new hero.
'Dad wants to open a restaurant,' he said. 'When he gets out we can run it together.'
'He's never getting out,' I wanted to scream.
From then on Mike and his dad were in regular contact. Charles would send long letters about plans for their prison-themed restaurant and phone Mike from prison every week.
Then six months later, I was having a cuppa with Mike at his flat. I could tell something was up by the way he kept fiddling with his keys.
'How's your dad?' I asked.
'I don't know,' he muttered. 'I haven't heard from him for four months.'
I looked at my son's disappointed face and anger surged through me.
A month later I switched on the telly to see a news report about how, 'Charles Bronson' aka Mick, had married Saira Rehman, a Muslim woman who'd read about him in the newspaper and started writing to him. He'd even converted to Islam for her and called himself Charles Ali Ahmed.
I hesitated to tell Mike. But he'd already seen it on the news.
'He's obviously got more important things to think about now,' Mike shrugged.
Surprise, surprise, fours years later we read in the papers that Charles and Saira had got divorced. And in 2005, Mike got a letter from his dad.
'I'm so sorry son,' he'd written. 'Please come and see me.'
Mike went to see his dad in Wakefield prison where he's currently serving life for taking a jail worker hostage but he takes his promises with a pinch of salt now.
People still stop me in the street to hear about 'Charles Bronson'. They're fascinated by his story. Ironic really because he's caused a lot of heartache and pain.
The really interesting man here is my son, who despite living in the shadow of his violent father has gone onto achieve great things. He's 35 now and a talented chef. He makes me so very happy and proud.
Surely that's worth a million more headlines?
Check out our stories about other unusual parents only in Pick Me Up.
Living with the Devil's People
Please get help, mum