Boris Becker reveals fellow inmates saved his life while serving time in UK prison: ‘I was a nobody’ | tennis news
Boris Becker reveals fellow inmates saved his life while serving time in UK prison: ‘I was a nobody’ | tennis news
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Boris Becker has revealed fellow inmates saved his life while he served time in prison and admitted he was “a nobody” in his first interview since being released from behind bars.
Becker, 55, was serving eight months in UK prisons – in Wandsworth and then Huntercombe – for bankruptcy offenses after his two-and-a-half-year sentence was reduced under an accelerated deportation scheme.
Now back in his native Germany, the tennis great and six-time Grand Slam champion has opened up about his experiences for the first time, revealing that his life has been in danger twice.
“I thought I would lose my life in Wandsworth,” Becker told the German broadcaster Sat.1 by image. “Someone, a murderer that I later found out, wanted my coat and he wanted money and he said he would kill me if he didn’t get it.
“Then in Huntercombe another killer said they wanted to kill me. My food tray was shaking.”
A tearful Becker said prison authorities appeared to have tried to ensure his safety, assigning him a solitary cell and tricking three experienced inmates or listeners into leading him into his new life behind bars.
“[The inmate] I underestimated that other inmates would come to my aid and threaten him,” added Becker. “You saved my life.”
Image: Becker spoke in his first interview since his release with the German broadcaster Sat1
While Becker intends to keep in touch with some of the friends he’s made, he also admitted that he was the “loneliest thing I’ve ever been in my life.”
“You’re nobody in prison,” said the German, three-time Wimbledon winner. “You’re just a number. Mine was A2923EV. My name wasn’t Boris, I was a number.
For Becker, who rose to stardom in 1985 at the age of 17 when he became the first unseeded player to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon, imprisonment was a heavy blow.
When asked about the judge’s statement that Becker had shown no humility, he admitted in an interview: “Maybe I should have been clearer, more emotional.
Becker also admitted mistakes.
“Of course I was guilty,” he said of the four of 29 counts on which he was convicted.
Now he’s hoping to turn a new page and avoid the mistakes he’s made in the past, many of which he blamed on laziness and poor financial advice from others.
“For years I made mistakes, I had fake friends,” he said. “I think that time in prison brought me back.”
