What was claimed
Charles Bronson has taken Wayne Couzens hostage in his cell and has been beating him up.
Our verdict
This is not true. Charles Bronson is at HMP Woodhill and Wayne Couzens is likely still in Belmarsh.
No evidence Charles Bronson attacked Wayne Couzens in jail
4 October 2021
A number of posts on Facebook all repeat the same false claim: that the armed robber Charles Bronson has barricaded himself in murderer Wayne Couzens’ cell in prison and has been beating him up “since 9.30am this morning”.
The posts encourage users to share it, and some imply that the “FULL STORY” can be found at a YouTube link titled “Charles Bronson Britain’s Most Violent Prisoner”, which doesn’t mention Couzens at all.
But the claims in the post are false, because the men are in two different prisons.
Most recent reports show that Bronson (who is now known as Charles Salvador) is still in HMP Woodhill in Milton Keynes.
Couzens, a Metropolitan Police officer who was sentenced to a whole-life prison term for murdering Sarah Everard, is reportedly being held at HMP Belmarsh in London, where he was previously held on remand.
Bronson was jailed for seven years in 1974 for armed robbery, but has remained in prison almost continuously ever since due to violent behaviour.
We’ve fact checked posts like this before, claiming that Bronson has attacked the murderer Ian Huntley in prison, which also wasn’t true.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because the two inmates are not in the same prison.