BANGLADESHI GIRL MARRIED TO A BRITAIN MONSTER
BRIDE
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| CRIME |
Bangladeshi woman Fatema Saira Rehman end up married to Britain's most notorious prisoner Charles Bronson. She was a divorced single mother from Bangladesh who moved to the UK after being married against her will. Saira Rehman was struggling to cope after escaping to a women's refuge from her abusive husband.
BRIDEGROOM
1. Charles Bronson is known in the British media as the 'most violent prisoner in Britain'. He was, and still is, the most notorious man ever to be held in a British prison. Charles Bronson has been referred to in the British press as the "most violent prisoner in Britain" and "Britain's most notorious prisoner." He was the subject of the 2008 film titled “Bronson” starring Tom Hardy, a biopic based loosely around his life. By 2001, he had been moved around prisons 150 times for lashing out at prison guards, taking hostages and attacking other convicts. He has spent extended periods detained in high-security psychiatric hospitals as well. Bronson is one of the highest-profile criminals in Britain and has been featured in books, interviews, and studies in prison reform and treatment.
2. So, how did a petite Bangladeshi divorcee end up married to Britain's most notorious prisoner?
WHO IS SAIRA?
3. Fatema Saira Rehman, born Saira Ali Ahmed, moved to England without a word of English from her home in Habiganj, Bangladesh after being married against her will at 18 (or so claimed because underage marriage remains a frequent occurrence in the country) to a man who lived in Birmingham. She met him for the first time at the wedding ceremony. He used to regularly beat her because her dowry was not enough and because she could not cook. He threw her down the stairs when she was eight months pregnant with their daughter Sami.
4. Entirely alone, she gave birth after three days of labour, at Gateshead's Queen Elizabeth Hospital in January 1991. With the help of the hospital translator, her only friendly contact, she escaped to a woman's refuge and started divorce proceedings. Saira moved to a council flat, learned English and enrolled at college to study computer skills and women's studies. She found a job as a counsellor at a women's refuge centre. She even started dating a policeman.
LOVE OF SAIRA AND BRONSON
5. Saira fell for Bronson when she saw his photograph in a newspaper in December 1998. "When I first saw his picture I just couldn't get him out of my mind," she told the Manchester Evening News. “It’s just one of those things you really can't explain in words. I just can't put my finger on it. My feelings for him were very strong and I had to pursue them and see where it went". Despite that initial flush of feelings, Saira kept a lid on it for three years. Then in 2001, their fledgling relationship began, initially by letter and then by telephone.
6. "I thought he probably gets loads of letter from women everyday and would throw mine away. But after a few weeks I was surprised to see he wrote back. In his letter he asked many friendly questions wanting to know more about me and my daughter. "He said there was something about me that he couldn’t forget. We sent each other a couple of letters and then I sent him a picture of me just to let him see who the person behind the letters looked like." Saira met Bronson for the first time on March 4, 2001 at Woodhill Prison.
MARRIED IN PRISON
7. Three months and ten visits later, they married at Milton Keynes prison (we told you he was constantly getting moved around!). Saira was 31 and Bronson was 48 years old when they married. The wedding was a small civil ceremony. Saira wore a traditional red and gold lehenga with her 10-year-old daughter as a bridesmaid, according to the Manchester Evening News.
FADE TO BLACK
8. Saira faced a fair amount of lashing from the Asian communities in the UK. She was sacked from her job at the women's refuge centre due to her scandalous marriage. She wrote a book titled “Breaking Free: The True Story Of A Survivor” detailing how she had found peace through her love for him. They seemed happy for a while. Saira spent a lot of time giving interviews to the local and international media and campaigning for Bronson’s release. Meanwhile, Bronson converted to Islam. Saira’s daughter Sami even started calling Bronson dad. However, in 2005, for reasons still obscure, they divorced. Little to nothing can be found about who filed for the divorce, or even why. Bronson has remarried and renounced Islam since.
CURRENT WHEREABOUTS
9. Fatema Saira Rehman’s current whereabouts are unknown; one can guess she has had enough attention from the media. Thanks to her four years of marriage to the most violent prisoner in Britain. Maybe all she wants now is to be left in peace.
GUARDIAN TODAY - HEADLINES, THE ANALYSIS AND THE DEBATE
10. "There are not many people who have a strong enough voice to speak up about arranged marriages and the sort of things I have been through. I have been lucky enough to find love with someone who just happens to be in prison. "But parents should know that in many cases their daughters would be better off marrying a rickshaw driver in Bangladesh than marrying some of the men from our community here." The play tells of Mrs Bronson's youth in Sylhet, eastern Bangladesh, and records how she was flown to London to marry a restaurant worker at her parents' behest.
11. The couple moved to Birmingham and within eight months she was pregnant. But the relationship was troubled and became worse when she bore a girl rather than the boy her husband wanted. She divorced him and was liberated, but also became estranged from the family she had in the UK.
12. She began writing to Bronson after seeing his picture in a newspaper. Bronson, born Michael Petersen, was initially jailed 30 years ago, beginning with a seven-year term for armed robbery.
13. He has staged eight rooftops protests, assaulted more than 20 prison officers and has caused more than £500,000 worth of damage.
14. Over three decades he has served time in 120 different jails and spent 22 years in solitary confinement. He has taken hostages on 10 different occasions, one of whom he threatened to eat.
15. Uddin, who also edits the the Bengali newspaper Janomat, cast Afsana Mimi, one of the best-known actors in Bangladesh, to play Mrs Bronson.
16. Her image fills the publicity posters plastered all over Brick Lane, in the heart of London's Bengali community.
17. Casting Bronson was slightly trickier until Uddin discovered Nicholas Triantaillou, who trained in a local gym alongside another cast member.
18. "He was virtually a lookalike, with the beard and the build," Uddin said. "He was shocked when I told him who he would play and he has never appeared on stage before. But he said, 'I will do it. It will be a laugh.'"
19. Critics have assailed the playwright for opening old wounds but he now has allies of his own. After telling Mrs Bronson about two critical phone calls, he was contacted by a friend of Bronson, who volunteered to conduct security at the theatre. Others promised to attend as spectators.
20. Much has changed for Mrs Bronson since the wedding. Her husband has become a Muslim and is now known as Ahmed Ali, after her father. He writes her poems and sends drawings, some depicting birds and leaves and flowers, others featuring harsh scenes of prison life.
21. She has become accustomed to hostility from outsiders. "A lot of people just ignore me. They think I am a curse on my community," she said.
22. "But I just feel lucky to have found my husband. It was written in my fate. A lot of people say my marriage is a joke but many women do not see their husbands from one year to the next. At least I see mine every month."
23. Her daughter Sami, 13, has learned to be protective of her mother and of Bronson.
24. "People say he is the most dangerous inmate, but he is in jail with Ian Huntley and Peter Sutcliffe," she said. "We suffer a lot of hatred from a lot of narrow-minded people."
25. She never questions her mother about what has occurred. "It just seemed as if it was meant to happen," she said. For obvious reasons, Bronson will miss the premiere. His first chance of parole is in 2006. But his thoughts are with those who have turned his personal life into drama.
"Best wishes," he wrote to Uddin recently. "Bollywood next!"
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