All language subtitles for Broadmoor.2024.S01E01.1080p.MY5.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

NARRATOR:
Deep in the Berkshire countryside

sits one of Britain's
most feared institutions...

My first impression was,
"This is a prison."

..Broadmoor Hospital...

It's notorious
because of who's there.

..a place where dangerous men
are sent...

..when there's nowhere else
for them to go.

You are dealing with people

who carry substantial
risk of harm to the public.

There's always that risk
that violence might erupt.

This is the inside story,

told by those who've worked
behind its walls...

One patient suddenly
turned on me and said,

"The trouble with you is
that you won't let me be mad."

..those once detained here...

..and by the most notorious
of all...

He called me Bob,
and I called him Peter.

PHONE RINGING

..secretly recorded and speaking
from beyond the grave.

This is the story of how to care

for Britain's
most dangerously unwell.

It can be sometimes very scary.

There's a risk,
there's no two ways about it.

40 miles from London,

perched on a hill
above the village of Crowthorne,

sits Broadmoor...

a psychiatric hospital
like no other.

You look out and you think,
"What a beautiful view."

Countryside, calmness,

seeing the green.

It was stunning,
to be honest with you, you know?

Broadmoor's setting,
these lovely grounds,

and there's a long drive up to it.

But then when Broadmoor
actually appears in front of you,

it's quite an intimidating place.

There's a huge wall that appears
like a blanket wrapped round it.

Is it protecting them from us
or us from them?

I wasn't ever sure.

These walls hold
some of the country's

most dangerously unwell offenders.

Men with mental illness
and personality disorders.

Some are dangerous to others,
some just a danger to themselves.

There's a very foreboding feeling

that you're going in

and how long this place has been
there, who it has housed.

Not only murderers,

but people totally, totally insane.

You have this feeling in Broadmoor,
it is fear.

I think my first impression was,
"This is a prison, not a hospital."

Today, Broadmoor is home
to over 200 men.

And for decades,

it's treated some of Britain's
most notorious criminals.

Ronnie Kray, one of the two
Kray brothers,

spent a good deal of time
at Broadmoor.

Peter Sutcliffe -
the Yorkshire Ripper.

Kenneth Erskine -
the Stockwell Strangler.

Charles Bronson -
real name Michael Peterson -

spent a goodish time at Broadmoor

on the way to being Britain's
most famous, or notorious, prisoner.

Michael Adebowale - one of
the killers of Lee Rigby,

is in Broadmoor.

This extraordinary collection
of high-profile inmates

literally goes on and on.

And that's why it is notorious.

It's notorious because
of who's there

and who they're trying to care for.

Broadmoor's patients are detained
under the Mental Health Act

and spend their lives
living under maximum security...

..something which staff
experience on a daily basis.

You go through
what we call the airlock,

so we give up our mobile phones
and bags are checked

and maybe clothing felt,

and on some occasions,
there's even a nice dog at the gate

sniffing for any real contraband.

Right from the moment of going in,
you're conscious,

even as a member of staff,

that you're going somewhere
slightly different.

I guess, deep down, I always wanted
to work at a high-secure.

I knew that these people,
patients, um...

..there was nowhere else
they could go to be managed,

to be treated.

While staff pass in and out
of Broadmoor's doors every day,

patients like Joshua
generally only came in once.

Many patients who are sent
to Broadmoor are unlike those

on any other
psychiatric hospital ward.

The first thing to remember
about patients in Broadmoor

is that the vast majority
committed a very serious offense.

You are dealing with people who,

certainly in the severe cases,

carry substantial risk of harm
to the public.

One such severe case came to public
attention in September 2014...

POLICE RADIO: He's got a large
knife, sort of machete.

He's trying to get into 3-0-4,
3-0-4.

We do have children
in these back gardens.

..when one man's psychotic breakdown

terrorised a street
in suburban North London.

There was no doubt
that he was intent in killing

anything in his path.

Nicholas Salvador was a 25-year-old

who had come to this country
with his parents from Nigeria

in his teens.

On the 4th of September 2014,
Salvador had a psychotic break.

That morning, he'd gone into a cafe
and left without paying,

and the waiter said later,

"He seemed very depressed
and a bit upset."

Well, he certainly was.

He was sharing a house in Edmonton.

He goes back to the house,

takes his shirt off,

picks up a machete
and a broom handle,

walks back out
into the street and proceeds...

to completely lose it.

He's exploded.

He's like a volcano who's gone off.

He's kicking over garden fences,

he's leaping over walls,
he's threatening....

In this rampage, he begins by
beheading two cats with his machete.

POLICE RADIO: He's got a large
knife, sort of machete.

He's now smashing the fences up.

We're evacuating kids
from next door.

What set all this off,
we really cannot tell.

But the tragedy, the awful tragedy
of this psychotic break,

is the dear lady...

..called Palmira Silva,

who was 82,

and who lived just down the road
from where Salvador was staying.

She sees all this happening
and comes out.

INDISTINCT
RADIO CHATTER

He simply attacks her viciously,
suddenly, out of the blue,

stabs her.

And then, for no reason whatever,

beheads this poor 82-year-old woman.

So the police arrive in numbers.

It is not easy
to subdue Nicolas Salvador.

POLICE RADIO: He's currently trying
to get into 3-0-4, 3-0-4.

We do have children
in these back gardens.

REPORTER: The alleged killer
was eventually cornered

and tasered in the...

REPORTER 2: He repeated phrases
such as,

"Red is the colour,"
and, "I am king."

One of the psychiatrists who
assessed him after the attack

said Salvador thought Mrs Silva
was Hitler in a different form.

This was the ultimate
psychotic break,

the ultimate explosion of something

which had been building up
inside him quietly for some time.

What's unusual about this trial

is that Nicolas Salvador
accepts that he killed Mrs Silva,

but he has pleaded not guilty.

He claims he was insane
at the time of the killing.

Salvador was actually found
not guilty of murder

by reasons of insanity,

and the Recorder of London,
Nicholas Hilliard,

actually sent him to Broadmoor.

Most people with mental illness
pose no danger to others,

but for individuals like Salvador,

the symptoms can be severe
and deadly.

Many of the homicides committed

by someone with mental illness
or disorder

were because they were maybe
hearing command voices

which are telling them,

"Oh, you're a bastard, you're
no good, go out and kill yourself,"

or, occasionally,
"Go out and kill somebody else."

Now, they're hearing these voices

very, very much as though
they're real voices.

It can take total control
of their thoughts, their moods,

their behaviour.

Before he came to Broadmoor,

former patient Joshua's
auditory hallucinations

were dangerously out of control.

For Broadmoor, the first challenge
is to safely contain new arrivals

who are acutely
and dangerously unwell.

This happens in the place
where all new patients enter -

the admissions ward,
previously known as Luton Ward.

Mental health nurse Paul Deacon
worked in admissions.

Admissions wards
can be very chaotic.

All these illnesses
that people have under one roof,

it's a challenge for them
and for the staff, you know?

But you learn quickly, you learn.

They could present
quite differently, really.

You could have somebody
come in high as a kite.

Swinging, seriously.

You could have somebody
who's so depressed

and near enough catatonic.

On the admissions ward,

all patients are under
constant observation

because staff need to diagnose
their condition, and do so quickly.

The absolutely crucial reason
for making a diagnosis

is to know which treatment to give,

especially for somebody
who's been very dangerous

because you want to get
their symptoms under control

as quickly as possible

to reduce the risk to them
and to those around them.

But many of Broadmoor's patients
arrive from prison,

and for them,
even the turbulent admissions ward

can feel like a sanctuary.

Most patients can move
around the hospital,

but new arrivals will stay
on the admissions ward

for at least three to nine months

for a period of intense assessment.

We would be encouraged
to sit with them

and try and glean as much as you can
out of them by conversation.

We were encouraged to interact,

see what they wanted to do -
chess or anything silly like that.

Another task for staff
on the admissions ward

is flushing out those who might
be trying to fake their way in.

Faking mental illness
is actually pretty common

amongst people in prison.

But most people who think it through

probably don't want
to go to Broadmoor.

I'm well aware
of a few exceptions to that.

We had a chap who was in prison,

but he knew that it would
be easier and quieter for him

to act, as he put it, "mad",

and get transferred to Broadmoor.

And that's exactly what happened.

And when he walked in
and he was on the wards...

..he was mortified,
absolutely mortified.

He cried to be sent back to prison.

In 1999, one of Britain's
most hated men

was about to put Broadmoor's
admissions process to the test.

That April, a wave of vicious
bombings rocked the capital.

NEWS REPORT: Emergency services
poured onto the streets of Brixton

within minutes of the blast.

Everyone move back for us, please!

Finding those responsible
for this bomb attack

is now the number-one priority
of the Metropolitan Police.

Over a period of two weeks,

bombs ripped through Brixton,
Brick Lane and then Soho.

There had been no warning.

The bomb was clearly designed
to bring carnage

to the streets of the capital

on a night when those streets
were packed with people

out to enjoy themselves.

Three people died,
four had limbs amputated.

I can remember it vividly.

It was utterly shocking.

One of the people who died
was a pregnant mother.

London was shocked.

At first it was thought

that this might be some sort of
terrorist organisation.

But the police investigation

unearthed some CCTV
of the Brixton bombing.

And in particular,

it identified one man
as having planted the bomb...

..David James Copeland.

Copeland confessed
to his crimes immediately,

but he would soon
find an opportunity

to try to get away with murder.

His lawyer put in a plea
for diminished responsibility.

So the courts then have to assess

whether he's mad or bad,
basically, you know?

If he's mad, he's not responsible.
If he's bad, he goes to prison.

So he was sent to Broadmoor
to be assessed.

Author Bernard O'Mahoney

wrote letters under
various pseudonyms

to men who'd harmed
women and children

to ensure they were convicted.

He'd previously gained confessions
from others before their trials.

Now he was determined
to prove that Copeland

was faking his mental illness.

I invented this name,
a name - Patsy.

So I wrote to him,
and he wrote back,

and he clearly
developed feelings for her.

He was very revealing,
really, about himself.

Soon, Copeland was writing regularly

from his room
on Broadmoor's Luton Ward.

As I got to know him
through these letters,

I could see that
he didn't care who he blew up,

he just wanted to blow the world up,
do you know what I mean?

At Broadmoor, five psychiatrists
diagnosed Copeland

with paranoid schizophrenia,

but his letters to Patsy
were revealing another side.

He was a critical of the doctors,

he was saying, "This place
is a joke. So are the doctors.

"They think they're clever,

"but they are as stupid
as the fools...

"in here."

And then in another letter
he's saying,

"Things here are so boring,
as usual.

"Someone keeps writing 'kill'
on the walls.

"What he writes isn't disturbing,

"but the fact he writes it
in his own shit is.

"This is what this place is like."

Copeland's claims
had landed him on a ward

with people who really
were disturbed.

But he was hopeful
that his insanity plea

would get him
a fast track to freedom.

He said, "Things are not looking
too bad for my trial.

"I could, if I'm lucky,
get diminished responsibility,

"and then it will be up to
the doctors when I am released."

But Bernard's net was closing in.

He makes the ultimate mistake
on 20th December 1999.

"I can't believe
that I have fooled all the doctors."

And when he wrote that line,
it was just, you know,

I could have wept with joy,
to be honest.

Because I knew that was him.
He was stuffed.

He'd shot himself in the head,
never mind the foot.

At Copeland's trial
at the Old Bailey,

Bernard's Patsy letters
were used as evidence

to show that he was of sound mind
when he planted the bombs.

When the trial happened
at the Old Bailey,

the public gallery was full
of these misfortunate people

who had lost limbs,
had lost friends,

lost, you know, legs, arms,
God knows, there was terrible burns.

And he'd sat there
with his arms folded,

and he never battled an eyelid.
It didn't bother him.

At one point in the trial
the prosecution said to Copeland,

"You've been corresponding
with somebody called Patsy."

And he went, "Yeah."

And they said, "Are you aware
that Patsy doesn't exist?

"It's actually a man called
Bernard O'Mahoney from Basildon."

And he had his arms folded,
and they said he slumped forward

and just put his head on the desk,

and it killed him,
you know what I mean?

He became aware
that he'd been exposed.

The jury found Copeland
guilty of murder,

and he was given six life sentences.

He was sent to prison,

where he remains to this day.

PHONE RINGS

But another hated figure
DID make Broadmoor his home.

In calls secretly recorded
by his brother,

Peter Sutcliffe
speaks from beyond the grave.

Broadmoor might look like a prison,

but it's a hospital providing
treatment for men in secure wards.

All patients start
on the admissions ward,

but where they go next

depends on how ill they are
and how well they're behaving.

If people are acutely unwell

or a bit disturbed
in their behaviour,

then obviously the wards
are quite tightly controlled,

there aren't many activities
you can have.

Whereas, for a more settled patient,

you want as much activity
as possible,

and the atmosphere day to day is
a very orderly, peaceful, calm one.

Former patient Joshua
was sent to Kent House -

a relatively relaxed ward.

Whichever ward a patient ends up in,

they could be living
at close quarters

with some of Britain's
most hated men.

CROWD CHANT: Men off the streets!
Men off the streets!

For over 30 years,

the hospital was home
to serial killer Peter Sutcliffe.

He called me Bob,
and I called him Peter.

That's as much as I can say,
I think.

We knew what he'd done.

We've seen enough newsreels of it.

He was quite insular.
He was never a mixer.

He didn't play pool or card games.

And then gradually,
he became accepted

and would, like, just chat,

nothing more.

He frightened me to start with

because his eyes
were like looking into a shark.

There was no life there at all.

Like all Broadmoor patients,

Sutcliffe was encouraged to maintain
contact with family on the outside.

PHONE RINGS
Every week, he would call

his brother Carl...

who was secretly recording
their conversations.

We had supervised phone calls.

So he would say,

"Can you put my name down
for a seven o'clock phone call?"

And you went into a little booth
with the two glass panes

so that people could see
you were OK.

And then, latterly,
it was headphones,

and I'd monitor it
and write down "nothing untoward".

"End your phone call, Pete,
we're going."

And he was,
"OK. Thank you very much."

With no release date in sight,

Sutcliffe's thoughts turned
to life as a pensioner in Broadmoor.

He tried persistently
to get his state pension,

telling the world
or anybody who cared to listen that,

"I've worked hard all my life,
and I've paid my taxes,

"so why can't I have my pension?"

CARL: Bloody hell.

When he asked
to get his state pension,

he pointed out specifically,

"This is a hospital, not a prison.

"I'm therefore entitled
to my pension."

There would have been
the most enormous public outcry.

Because, after all, Sutcliffe was
living at the taxpayers' expense.

Three square meals a day,
no need to pay board or lodging.

Why on Earth should he be entitled
to his state pension?

Sutcliffe didn't get his pension,

but he was trusted enough
to be allowed the mundane task

of collecting fellow patients'
food orders,

which would then be delivered
to former head chef Neil Wheatcroft.

It's a meal order,

a meal order for all
the patients on that ward,

compiled by our friendly...

The Ripper Man did that
on this ward in 1990.

He would go round in the mornings
and ask them what they wanted,

and they told him,

and then he gave it to the nurse
to send off to us at the kitchen.

Hospital food is famously bland,

but Broadmoor's menu caters
for a wide range of palates.

And with recovery taking years
for many patients here,

food takes on
a new meaning in their lives.

One of the greatest delights

a patient can experience
is the delight of food.

You can never speak to somebody
who is on the inside,

so to speak, and talk about food

and come away
thinking about food the same way.

You'll appreciate it
at a far greater level.

Up to eight choices per meal.

Very big portions,
pretty wholesome food.

Fresh meats, fresh fish...

Cheeses, things like that.
It was all pretty wholesome.

Like, a chicken in a hospital
will do eight people.

This would do four.

So it's... Yeah, difference.

Infamous long-term patient
Ronnie Kray

had some specific requests when
it came to his diet in Broadmoor.

We asked if we could
take him in sausages,

but you couldn't take in
the sausages,

he had to have their sausages,
which he said was not nice.

So we had a little talk,
Charlie Kray, to the chef,

and I said, "He likes
Cumberland sausages, good sausages."

He said, "Well,
they don't supply us with them."

Charlie Kray said,
"He'll pay for them."

From then on,
he had Cumberland sausages...

in Broadmoor.

Whatever he wanted.

But in a high-secure environment,

even mundane activities
like mealtimes come with risks.

Every single item of cutlery
had to be accounted for.

When they finished their meal,

all the cutlery would be
collected back up,

washed and put back into the boxes.

It may seem innocuous,

but one of the worst things
to be missing was a teaspoon.

Because the handle of the teaspoons

could be made into
an impromptu knife.

So it'd have a very sharp point,

but it'd have the base
of the teaspoon,

which would be placed
under the fingers, inside the hand,

and that could be used to stab.

So when a teaspoon
was unaccounted for,

we had to search everybody.

There was a particular patient
who used to swallow cutlery

as a regular feature,

more because of his
mental health condition,

rather than his desire
to pass out a weapon.

And we would take him sometimes
to the hospital infirmary,

and they'd show us
X-rays of his stomach,

with all these knives and forks
and spoons in there.

But it was more the fear
during that meal time

that an item would go missing.

And then you would just take
as long as you had to take

to find that item of cutlery.

And if you didn't find it,

that was quite a nervous time
for us on the ward,

cos you didn't know
whether you were going to get,

you know, knifed in the back
or whatever.

In between meals, patients
attend classes and workshops,

including therapy,
art, drama and music.

Everybody had a timetable.

We would aim to keep the timetable
reasonably full.

I'm not saying every minute
of the day was occupied,

but again, how do you guarantee
security on a ward like that?

Part of it is keeping people busy.

But whatever activities
patients are doing,

their behaviour is monitored
for signs of progress

or anything of concern -

even if this is just watching TV.

They're obviously
watching TV with staff,

so you would certainly
notice any odd behaviour.

You know, that's why

some people can find
the hospital environment oppressive,

because there's never any
real free time.

You're watching TV with a nurse.

You'd never be watching TV
in a group without a nurse present.

So any behaviour you display
is sort of...

it can be put into the mix
of how you're getting on.

For one Broadmoor patient,

the journey to recovery would result
in a shocking confession -

one that would unmask him
as a double killer.

They said, and I quote,

"It's so hard to live with
in my head,

"I fear I might do it again."

Hastings, January 1998.

The bodies of two vulnerable women
are found in their homes.

They've been strangled and burnt.

It's a horrifying crime.

They lived a matter of yards apart
from one another.

For ten years,

the violent murders of
Claire Letchford and Beryl O'Connor

went unsolved.

But in 2008, in a therapy room
inside Broadmoor Hospital,

a confession
would blow the case open.

For patients at Broadmoor Hospital,
treatment is everything...

because no-one can leave
until they've made progress.

But the therapeutic journey
is no walk in the park.

Over the decades, patients have
endured all sorts of treatments,

like insulin shock therapy...

..electroconvulsive therapy.

But today, for mental illness,

treatment most often begins
with medication.

Medication is incredibly important.

It really is one of the heartening
things to see in psychiatry,

the treatment of schizophrenia
with anti-psychotics.

These are not just tranquilisers,

they're very specific
anti-psychotic,

anti-schizophrenic medications.

And in 90% of cases
of schizophrenia,

they're going
to produce an improvement,

often a very dramatic improvement.

I mean, it would be quite unlikely
that people with a psychosis,

schizophrenia, would be able
to manage without any medication.

But while medication
can bring relief,

it can also lead
to horrific side effects.

Medication is just
the starting point of treatment.

Once the symptoms of mental illness
are under control,

patients must engage
in talking therapies.

When you think about therapy,
any therapy, really,

we're talking about
the possibilities of change.

My first thought is,

"How did this person
come to do this?", really.

"What's happened?"

The recovery journey
that Broadmoor patients must go on

is to face up to their crimes and
make sure they never happen again.

Usually, those leading the therapy

know patients' index crimes
in grim detail.

One of the things
that I disciplined myself to do

was to look at the entire story
of the crime.

I would see all the police reports,

I would see the photographs
of the scene of crime

so that I was under no illusions
about what had happened.

But occasionally, a therapy session
can unlock dark secrets.

When Graham Fisher arrived
in Broadmoor in 2001,

his index crime
was the indecent assault

of two students at knife point.

But after seven years in treatment,

he made a shocking confession
to his doctor.

Graham Fisher confessed to targeting
lonely and vulnerable women.

Graham Fisher had committed
two murders

in Hastings in East Sussex in 1998.

Following on from
committing the murders,

he set fire to their properties
as well.

After ten years of silence,

Fisher revealed he'd killed
these two vulnerable women

as part of a wider campaign
of terror.

Not only did he kill
two women who lived alone,

he then proceeded to attack a woman
on a train from Hastings to London.

But his grim revelations
didn't end there.

One of the things
that Fisher liked to claim

during his confession to the crimes

is that the younger of his victims,
a 40-year-old...

..that he'd not only killed her,
but he'd eaten part of her arm,

and that the police found
other parts of her

in a frying pan on the stove.

Fisher's confession
may have been shocking,

but it also marked progress
in his rehabilitation.

One of the things that Fisher
said to the psychiatrist

during the confession
was he said, and I quote,

"It's so hard to live with
in my head,"

and that was at the same time
he said,

"I think I'm too dangerous
to be let out."

When you can start to have
a conversation with somebody

where their view of their problems

is closer to the clinician's view,

then you're making progress.

Fisher remains in Broadmoor
to this day.

And indeed, that is really
the story of Graham Fisher -

that he settled into Broadmoor,

that this was my family, my home.

He ballooned in weight
while he was there,

I think ending up at 23 stone -
enormous man -

and even had a gastric band
operation on the NHS,

which cost the taxpayer £15,000,
so that he could lose weight.

And now, by all accounts,
he's very happy.

He's become a chef, and he likes
cooking all sorts of things,

including chicken curry,

and he's become assimilated
into the Broadmoor community.

Some Broadmoor patients
will never be well enough

to live back in the community,

but Joshua is living proof

that Broadmoor's
treatment programme can work.

Next time - while some
patients make progress

and prepare for release,

for Broadmoor's most acutely unwell,
it's a distant dream.

They are sent
to the intensive care ward.

You'd give warning
you were going in,

you'd then go through
like an airlock.

The fact is, they are secluded
in a locked room

for their own and others' safety.

Broadmoor's most secure ward was
formerly known as Norfolk House...

There was no natural light,

there would be a mattress
on the floor,

no bedding, chamber pot,

and that would be it.

..and it was the most secret
and feared place in Broadmoor.

He said he would never ever, ever
want to go there again.

It absolutely terrified him.