Charles Bronson proposes to Coronation Street actress

Notorious prisoner Charles Bronson has proposed to his actor girlfriend Paula Williamson, serenading her over the phone with a special version of Frank Sinatra’s My Way.

According to the Daily Mirror, the 64-year-old Category A inmate, who is regularly referred to as Britain's most violent prisoner, renamed the song "Our Way" for the occasion.

It adds: "The lifer changed the famous lyrics to 'regrets, we have none' and in another verse crooned about how they have brought one another from 'dark times into the light.'"

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Williamson, who has appeared in Emmerdale and Coronation Street, said she has been in a relationship with Bronson for the past five months.

"There are obviously difficulties him being in prison cause our relationship, but we feel so strongly about each other we're determined to make it work," she said.

She told the Mirror: "Nothing will stop us from being together. I don't care what anyone thinks.

"Despite what people think, he is the kindest, most genuine, caring and wickedly funny man I have ever met and he has saved me from a world of darkness. He says I have saved him, too.

"To the rest of the world, he might be the most dangerous man alive, but we have a connection no one else will understand. But no one else needs to – it's about us."

Bronson has been in jail for more than 40 years, most recently being transferred to Wakefield prison, West Yorkshire.

He has spent almost all of his time behind bars in solitary confinement for attacking prison staff and taking them hostage, for which his sentence was continually extended, reports The Independent.

He was eventually given a life sentence in 1999, after holding a prison art teacher hostage for 44 hours after having his sketches criticised.

He took up art while in jail and changed his name to Charles Salvador in tribute to the artist Salvador Dali.