Charles Bronson wore wife’s frilly knickers to ‘give the police a shock’

Charles Bronson has admitted he used to commit crimes in a pair of his ex-wife’s frilly knickers.

The notorious hardman – who is the UK’s longest serving prisoner – said he thought his first love Irene’s pants would bring him luck.

He said the girly undercrackers left officers speechless after he was hauled down to a police station during his crime heyday in the 1970s and they strip-searched him.

Bronson, 68, said it was “when I was married to Irene all them years ago and I used to go out with my pump-action shotgun doing me bits and bobs here and there.

“Every time I used to leave the house to go and do a bit of work on the pavement. And by that I mean my bits of work ain’t legal. I was a criminal back then.

“I would leave the house with my gun in the bag, me balaclava in the bag, gloves, boiler suit and what-have-you.

“But there was one thing I had on that nobody knows about, only me. I always used to wear a pair of Irene’s panties, to bring me luck.”

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He married his childhood sweetheart Irene Dunroe in 1972 and they had a son the same year. And Bronson said officers at a station in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw his saucy clobber.

He said: “And listen, when I got nicked by the old bill, you know what happens when they get you down the station.

‘They’re stripping me off and cutting my clothes off with scissors, and I had a pair of her panties on.”

But the long-term lag, in jail for 47 years, insisted it was nothing to do with a kinky fetish.

Bronson added: “The truth is it might make people think ‘Oooh he’s a bit kinky him mate, f***ing hell’, but it’s nothing to do with that.

“All it was, was I used to wear them to bring me luck. She was with me, if you know what I mean.”

He joked: “they didn’t bring me much luck in the end, did they? I must have picked the wrong colour.”

Bronson was first sentenced to seven years in jail over an armed robbery in 1974.

But his sentence has been regularly extended for causing damage, taking hostages and kidnapping a prison art teacher.

He is set to be up for parole later this year.