The most important credo for Boris Becker during his time in prison was: just don’t attract attention. “I looked at the floor a lot,” he said in his first interview after his release. The fact that he was special as a celebrity was well known. “I was classified as ‘high risk’ (high risk). Like murderers, child molesters – or people who have something to lose,” Becker explained in an interview with Steven Gätjen.
His greatest fear – a double cell – was unfounded. Nevertheless, Becker was attacked several times, as he himself said. In the first prison, Wandsworth Prison, he met three inmates whom he calls “listeners”. “I think they wanted to protect me,” he said of the three men James, Russel and Bill, even revealing that they saved his life.
Violence also broke out in Huntercombe Prison, to which he was taken four weeks later. Another prisoner unequivocally threatened Becker. “He wanted to do my laundry, told me verbally what he was going to do with me. That was only in October. But he underestimated that I had a position in prison, that the other inmates in the wing were paying attention, came out,” said the 55-year-old.
“I was shaking so much. With the food tray in my hand,” he said. “He’s been in prison for over 16 years because he killed two people when he was 18. So he was dangerous,” Becker told Sat.1.
His cellmate, Ike, was one of the inmates who stood by him. The next day, the man who wanted to kill him apologized to him. “He threw himself on the ground, kissed my hand and asked for forgiveness. I picked him up and hugged him and said that I had great respect for him,” said Becker, visibly moved.
Not attracting attention and maintaining friendships are the most important ways in prison to avoid being attacked, he knows today. Because you can’t rely on the guards. On the contrary: Most of the time they even looked away.
What: Sat.1
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