Aidan Wallace

A man who served for 43 years in some of Britain's toughest jails has labelled Charles Bronson 's toughness as a mere act. A fellow cellmate of Bronson, John Massey, now 76, served 43 years for the murder of pub doorman Charlie Higgins in Hackney, east London, in 1975 - making him the longest-serving prisoner in the UK at the time. Nearly 50 years on from the incident, Mr Massey has alleged that Mr Bronson's notoriously fierce character - having been convicted of wounding while inside prison in 1975, 1978 and 1985 - was put on in order to make him appear more fearsome.

The 71-year-old prisoner hit Robert Donaldson with two hooks and two uppercuts when the sick killer tried to attack him on a wing of Category A HMP Woodhill last week. Donaldson, 48, was jailed in 2005 for murdering Paul Bourke, 38, weeks before gagging a deaf 100-year-old woman and beating up her 76-year-old son while they slept. He also slashed the throat of another inmate in a different prison in 2014. Bronson's former wife, Irene Dunroe, who shares a son with the infamous prisoner, said she was 'gutted' to hear about the 'violent' incident. She said: 'I'm gutted as I'd love to see him out. As far as we're concerned, we're still living in that time he went away.

Charles Bronson (right), 71, hit killer Robert Donaldson (left) with two hooks and two uppercuts when the sick killer tried to attack him on a wing of Category A HMP Woodhill (inset) on Monday, a source revealed. Donaldson, 48, was jailed in 2005 for murdering Paul Bourke, 38, weeks before gagging a deaf 100-year-old woman and beating up her 76-year-old son while they slept. In 2014, while serving his sentence in HMP Grendon Underwood, he slashed the throat of another inmate using an improvised weapon, severing the jugular vein, and grabbed a prison officer and threatened to cut his neck. The former crack addict has been detained at HMP Woodhill alongside Bronson for two-and-a-half years but Bronson was so disgusted by his crimes that he had always avoided him, a source said.