Charles Bronson has not taken the father of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes hostage in prison

A post on Facebook claimed on 12 December that the armed robber Charles Bronson (now known as Charles Salvador) has taken Thomas Hughes, father of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, hostage in his prison cell, where he has attacked him. 

This is not true—in fact, the Ministry of Justice confirmed the two men are not even in the same prison. 

A spokesperson described the claim as “definitely false”. 

On 3 December, Hughes was jailed for 21 years and his partner, Emma Tustin, for a minimum of 29 years, over the torture and killing of his six-year-old son Arthur. 

False claims about prison attacks are common

This post closely follows the format of other similarly false claims about prisoners attacking one another, which often rack up hundreds, if not thousands, of shares on social media. 

As we’ve written before, Bronson—who was jailed for seven years in 1974 for armed robbery, but has remained in prison almost continuously ever since due to violent behaviour—is often the focus of these posts. 

False posts have previously claimed Bronson has attacked other high-profile offenders such as Wayne Couzens, a Metropolitan Police officer who in September was sentenced to a whole-life prison term for murdering Sarah Everard.

We’ve also seen a number of false posts about Hughes being attacked in prison.