Broadmoor: Channel 5 series to feature unheard words from Yorkshire serial killer Peter Sutcliffe

Broadmoor, based in Crowthorne, is a high security psychiatric hospital where Peter Sutcliffe and Ronnie Kray were admitted.

The new Channel 5 series, with the same name as the hospital, is a four-part exclusive documentary featuring testimonies from former patients and staff that reveals new insights and untold stories.

In the series viewers will find out all about the inner workings of the facility, both in recent times as well as over its 160 years of existence.

It will feature shocking historical accounts of staff brutality, first-hand testimony of former staff-on-patient violence and even murder within its high walls.

In the Berkshire countryside, Broadmoor Hospital is one Britain’s most feared institutions, where more than 200 men with mental illness or personality disorders are sent when there is nowhere else for them to go.

These stories will be told for the first time by those who have worked there and those once detained there, as former staff and former patients unveil what it is like inside one of the most secretive institutions in the country.

In the first episode, which airs on Monday, October 21 at 10pm, former patient ‘Joshua’ speaks exclusively for the first time since being discharged about his seven years in the institution, after being diagnosed with mental illness and hearing voices while in prison, sectioned under the Mental Health Act, and sent to Broadmoor.

‘Joshua’ - which is a fake name to protect his identity - was treated with medication and therapy.

He started life at Broadmoor in the admissions ward where all new patients arrive before being moved onto other wards as he showed signs of progress and recovery.

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Some men try to fake their way in to avoid going to prison, such as London nail bomber, David Copeland.

Journalist Bernard O’Mahoney reveals how he wrote to Copeland in Broadmoor under a pseudonym, Patsy, to get him to admit that he was trying to fool the doctors.

Viewers will also hear previously unheard words from Peter Sutcliffe on a secretly recorded phone call from inside Broadmoor with his brother Carl.

Viewers will also learn of his attempt and failure to get his state pension and how he was trusted enough to be allowed the task of collecting fellow patients’ food orders.

Hospital food is famously bland, but Broadmoor’s menu catered for a wide range of palates, and with recovery taking years for many patients here, food took on a new meaning in their lives. The show reveals long term patient Ronnie Kray had some specific requests when it came to his diet in Broadmoor - Cumberland sausages.

Other lesser known patients include Broadmoor killers Graham Fisher, who revealed to his psychiatrist during therapy that he’d murdered a further two victims, helping the police to solve two cold cases, and Nicholas Salvador who, armed with a machete went on the rampage in a North London street, killing two cats and his elderly neighbour before being found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.

The first episode of Broadmoor will air on Monday, October 21, 2024 on Channel 5 at 10pm.