BROADMOOR 2

Killers and rapists are being moved from Broadmoor to a branch of the luxury Priory celebrity clinic. About 12 of Britain's most dangerous criminals will have a pool, gym and private phones at their swish new home, costing taxpayers £3 million a year. The pampered inmates include double killer Charlie Smith, who was gangster Ronnie Kray's boyfriend behind bars, serial sex attacker Michael Fox and kidnap fiend Paul Burton. One source said, "It's disgraceful that these people are getting such privileges. While they live a life of luxury it seems their victims have been ignored."

Accommodation at Chadwick Lodge Hospital, near Milton Keynes, Bucks - where the brochure promises "spacious living", is a far cry from grim Broadmoor. It is advertised on the internet as part of the Priory group, which includes the famous clinic at Roehampton, south west London, where burnt-out or addicted stars seek treatment. A wing is being built for the new "guests" at 40-bed Chadwick Lodge, where art, yoga and swimming classes are all part of the service. The source said it will cost £250,000 a year to keep each inmate there, well over DOUBLE the £100,000 it takes at Broadmoor.

The patients are now deemed to be "medium risk" and their move will ease chronic overcrowding at the Berkshire hospital for the criminally insane. The source added, "Chadwick Lodge is very expensive and very comfortable, like a luxury hotel. Patients are allowed to move freely within their wards and some are allowed out on shopping trips. Surely with people this dangerous there is a high risk of them re-offending. Is this the right place for them? I don't think local people will be too happy if serial rapists and murderers are let out among them."

Smith escaped from a secure unit in 1996. He was jailed for life at Northampton in 1977 for the sadistic murder of a stranger he met in a park. He was called "extremely disturbed and unstable" when he was sent to Broadmoor two years later for strangling a cellmate. For years Smith was the lover of fellow killer Ronnie Kray. Former psychiatric nurse Fox was given nine life sentences in 1994 for kidnapping and raping mentally handicapped women. He and Smith have been joined at Chadwick Lodge by Wayne Drinkell, 25, who was convicted of GBH.

He recently vanished for eight days before turning himself in. He had slipped his escort on a shopping trip a day after being allowed to attend an Eminem concert. Burton is also due to be moved. In 1990 the schizophrenic seized an eight-year-old girl and held her captive for 56 hours. He bound and gagged her and tried to rape her. A Broadmoor spokesman said, "This is a system where patients are well enough to leave a high-security unit but not to get on a number nine bus. If the transfers do not work out they will be brought straight back." A Home Office spokesman promised that moves would be "subject to a strict risk assessment."

A Boadmoor nurse was suspended for stepping on a terror suspect's prayer mat. The male psychiatric nurse trod on the mat when he walked into Palestinian Abu Rideh's cell at the high-security hospital. But Jordanian-born Rideh complained that he had been "insulted" by the nurse. Rideh started up a petition to get the nurse kicked out for "bullying" him, for not showing enough respect and for verbally abusing him. A Broadmoor source said staff could not believe it when the nurse was suspended. The source said, "It was totally outrageous. He was set up by Rideh by putting his mat in front of his cell door so that the nurse would stand on it. All this nurse tried to do is his job. But the authorities seem to be on Rideh's side."

Rideh caused mayhem since he was sent to the secure mental hospital in Berkshire, according to an insider. The source said he attacked a female occupational therapist last summer, breaking several of her ribs. He then threatened to set her hair on fire before staff calmed him down. He would beat himself with his shoe if he did not get his own way. The source said, "Rideh is a truly nasty piece of work. He has assaulted staff, threatened to kill people and is a complainer. He is also a dangerous person with a personality disorder who should not have been let out." Rideh did not want to be tagged after he was released, the source said.

<<< Prev