Saira Ali Ahmed: Reader, I married him

Eighteen months ago, Saira Ali Ahmed tied the knot with one of Her Majesty's most notorious guests, the inmate formerly known as Charles Bronson. What was she thinking? Julia Stuart finds out

Hanging in the lounge of a council house in a grim terrace in Luton is a self-portrait in pencil. It depicts a serene-looking man with a long beard, framed by delicately detailed flowers. Above his hairless head are the words "Ali Charles Ahmed". Most would know the artist by the name he used before converting to Islam – Charles Bronson.

The portrait shows a side of the notoriously violent prisoner that his Muslim wife, Saira Ali Ahmed, would rather the world saw. Since their wedding in 2001, the man who has been in prison for 29 years, 25 of which have been spent in solitary confinement because of his aggression, has changed, she insists.

The image of Bronson as a Mahatma Gandhi-reading peacenik couldn't be more at odds with the prisoner who wrote Insanity: My Mad Life, a foul-mouthed boast of the violence he has witnessed and perpetrated while inside, published next week. Bronson, who is currently in solitary confinement at Full Sutton, near York, was first jailed for seven years in 1974 for armed robbery. Apart from a few brief spells, he has been in prison ever since because of his attacks on prison staff and inmates, serial hostage-taking and rooftop protests. He was given a life sentence in 2000 after holding a prison lecturer hostage for two days, tugging him around the cells with a skipping rope tied around his neck.

Saira says she hoped for a future with Bronson after seeing his photograph in a local newspaper six years ago. At the time the 32-year-old divorcée, who has a 12-year-old daughter, Sami, was working as an assistant in an Asian women's centre that helped victims of domestic violence, which she herself had once been.

"There was something about his eyes. I could see my whole life in them. I read why he was in prison. It didn't put me off because he's not a murderer, he's not a child-killer, he's not a woman-abuser. I couldn't get him out of my mind. I've no idea why," says Saira, who left her middle-class family in Bangladesh at 19 to come to Britain with her husband after an arranged marriage. "I knew love would happen to me one day, but not like that. I wanted somebody to love me more than anything in the world because I never had any love in my life."

In December 2000, she ended a two-year relationship with a police officer because she was still fixated on Bronson. "The police officer was nice, but I felt he didn't love me enough. He didn't love me in the way I wanted to be loved. I didn't feel complete," she explains. Enclosing a photo and contact details, she sent a letter to Bronson about her life.

The pair started writing to each other every day. Three weeks later, during their third phone call, Bronson said: "You know, Saira, we're going to get married soon." Saira replied that she knew, because she felt the same way. "We meant so much to each other, and didn't want to lose each other. We knew we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, so why wait to get married? It was the best decision in my life."

They met, two months later, at Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes. "When I walked into the room, he gave me the biggest hug in the world. Then he held my face with both hands and gave me a kiss on my lips. I've never felt that nice in my life. There was more loving feelings than anything else, more closeness. Nobody had ever hugged me like that."

They married in prison in June 2001, after having met 10 times. Sami, who had joined her mother on some visits which, at that stage, were open, was at the ceremony. Since then, the couple have met six or seven times. They refuse to see each other more often, in protest at the prison authorities' insistence on closed visits, in which they are separated by a glass screen. At one stage the couple did not see each other for nine months. Saira says she doesn't know why the visits are closed. It may have something to do with the fact that two weeks after the wedding, her husband fought with warders.

The couple keep in contact by daily letters and twice-weekly 10-minute phone calls. It is enough to have changed Saira's world. "He brings me happiness every day. I wake up in the morning and open my eyes, and him being part of my life and me being part of his puts a smile on my face. With us, just holding hands is like heaven. We argue like any couple, but even that's fun."

Saira has been accused of marrying Bronson for financial gain. It's a subject that provokes a furious scowl, much finger-jabbing and coarse language. It's a shocking transition. "I will make money, and I will make money out of my husband the day he comes out," she almost shouts. "I'll lock him up in the house, I'll line people like you outside my house in a long queue. If they want an interview with him, if they want to even see him, I will say, 'Sign a blank cheque in my name or fuck off.' I'll do it because I've been accused of it."

The £9,000 from press interviews and photos at the time of the wedding went not to her but to an associate of her husband, she says. As was the case with his other books, she says, the proceeds from Insanity: My Mad Life will go to charity. However, the publisher says the money is going "to the family", and the only member of the family Bronson is in touch with is his mother.

After her relationship with Bronson became known, Saira was suspended from working at the women's centre and now works part-time as a translator. "I didn't want to go back and work in a place where they are not going to respect him." Nor have locals taken kindly to her new husband, and she has been verbally abused. Her daughter, who apparently dotes on her stepfather, has had three months off school because of bullying about Bronson. She has had to undergo counselling. Her mother says it is because she is upset at the closed visits.

Bronson, who like his wife is not a practising Muslim, is due for parole in 2005. A preliminary hearing relating to his appeal against his life sentence is due to be heard next month. If he is released, the couple hope to have children and move to Bangladesh, where Saira's brothers will set Bronson up in the restaurant trade.

How does she think her husband, who has lived alone in a cell for 25 years, and who has repeatedly responded to problems with violence, will cope with family life? The profanities start spilling out again, and her voice rises with indignation. "I'll help him every step of the way, and I mean bloody every step of the way!" she storms.

Whether Saira's determination is enough to rehabilitate Bronson is open to question. More important, will she find that arguing with him remains, as she puts it, "fun"?

'Insanity: My Mad Life' is published by John Blake (£15.99)