Inside Broadmoor

Book excerpt: Broadmoor. Few place names in the world have such chilling resonance. For over 150 years, it has contained the UK's most violent, dangerous and psychopathic. Since opening as an asylum for the criminally insane in 1863 it has housed the perpetrators of many of the most shocking and appalling crimes in history; including Jack the Ripper suspect James Kelly, serial killers Peter Sutcliffe, John Straffen and Kenneth Erskine, murderer and rapist Robert Napper, the teacup poisoner Graham Young, armed robber Charles Bronson, East End gangster Ronnie Kray, child killer Ian Brady, London nail bomber David Copeland and cannibal Peter Bryan. The truth about what goes on behind the Victorian walls of the high-security hospital has largely remained a mystery, but now with unprecedented access investigative journalist Jonathan Levi and cultural historian Emma French reveal all, after spending 12 months observing and speaking to those on the inside. Based on research from Broadmoor's closely guarded archives, interviews with the staff that work there - including nurses, psychiatrists, therapists, security guards - and above all the patients themselves, Inside Broadmoor is the most comprehensive study of the institution to-date. Published on the dawn of a new era as a £242m, state-of-the-art new building opens, this is the full story of Broadmoor's past, present and future and a dark but enlightening journey into the minds of Britain's most evil and how they are treated.