A man locked up with Charles Bronson said the man known as "Britain's most violent prisoner" helped him survive the "torture" of prison.
Stephen Gillen felt suicidal during nearly 12 years as a Category A prisoner, a category deemed to pose a threat to public safety and national security. He spent some of that time locked in a cell in segregation for 23 hours a day, living amid the "institutional smell" of stale food and disinfectant, with shouting people and the "echoing clanging" of metal "that just carries forever".
Now 51, he told the ECHO: "It's a living hell every day. It's like Groundhog Day, but you have to deal with it. It's emotionally, mentally, spiritually and physically soul destroying and crushing. It's killing a little bit more of you every day that passes."
