- Writing
- BBC News World
image source, Average AP
For the first time since his time in jail in the UK, legendary German tennis player Boris Becker has spoken publicly.
He did so in a television interview in which he commented on the trial against him and recounted through tears how he feared for his life on up to two occasions while in custody.
“There were two moments in which I feared for my life”declared the former tennis star through tears in an exclusive interview with the German channel Sat.1 broadcast last Tuesday night.
One was in London’s Wandsworth prison, where Becker spent the first few weeks after his conviction. There an inmate tried to blackmail him.
“I wanted to get my money,” explained the 55-year-old German tennis player. Luckily, however, he met three inmates who “saved his life” and protected him from the man, who had already served 25 years behind bars for multiple murder.
Another difficult moment was with a fellow prisoner who threatened him during his time in Huntercombe prison, west of the British capital, where Becker spent most of his eight-month sentence. “He wanted to kill me”he noted over the inmate.
“I was shaking a lot,” Becker described the moment, again unable to hold back the tears. “He wanted to get in my pants and he verbally told me what he wanted to do to me.. That was now in October,” he explained about the inmate who had been in prison for 16 years for having killed two people at the age of 18.
But Becker explained that he was so well connected that many other inmates came to his aid. The next day, the man threw himself on the ground in front of him and apologized. Becker picked him up and hugged him, the former athlete explained.
image source, Getty Images
Becker served time in the English prisons of Wandsworth and Huntercombe.
“A different world”
However, it seems that the winner of six Grand Slam tournaments also had pleasant experiences with his fellow prisoners.
For his 55th birthday, he received three cakes from his fellow prisoners. He had never experienced that in freedom, he commented. “They had to take some of his little money and give it to me as a gift.” She then ate the cakes for days together with other people.
In his opinion, prison is “a different world.” “It is a matter of survival“. At first, I looked a lot at the ground. I was afraid of other prisoners. “This is the prison that receives criminals from London. Murderers, pedophiles,” he stated of his first days in prison, which he entered wearing black clothes: “I wanted to look cool, to be a bit of a gangster.” But he could only wear jogging pants and they couldn’t be black.
She hadn’t experienced such cohesion with other people, she acknowledged. “When you really fight together for survival, it’s something that unites you.” He would no doubt keep in touch with some fellow inmates. “We needed each other.”
Becker was sentenced in April to two and a half years in prison after being found guilty on four counts under the British Bankruptcy Act for failing to correctly declare part of his assets in his bankruptcy proceedings.
After less than eight months, he was released last Thursday, after 231 days behind bars. He is now in Germany, after being deported by the UK.
“Of course he was guilty,” Becker acknowledged publicly for the first time when asked by the interviewer if he was innocent, recalling the 24 charges against him in the trial in which he pleaded not guilty.
“If I had been found guilty of all charges, I don’t want to say ‘life sentence’, but clearly more than eight months. It was almost a matter of life and death,” he said about his defense at the trial for which he prepared by watching ” many retransmissions of the judge”, to whom he does not hold a grudge.
“Maybe I should have shown myself more apologetic in court. But it could have ended much worse.” In any case, he did not benefit from a celebrity bonus in court, Becker stresses: “The jury didn’t even know who was sitting across from them. Half were under 30.”
image source, Average AP
The main point of the jury that found him guilty was that he had withdrawn money from a company account. In addition, among other things, he had kept secret the house in his hometown Leimen, where his mother lives, the 55-year-old man testified.
teacher in jail
During the interview of more than an hour and a half, the German legend also spoke about his state of health.
“Of course I lost a lot of weight“, he said. “I entered prison with 97 kilos and at one point I weighed just under 90 kilos” and “I felt hungry for the first time in my lifeSo I went to bed hungry.”
But his body did not suffer from his stay in prison, he stated, quite the contrary. In prison he did not drink alcohol, did not smoke, and ate very little for weeks or even months. “So my time in prison was definitely good for my health.”
In addition, Becker told how he got his I work in prison teaching English and math. “The problem you have at the beginning is that you don’t have a job.” Later, at some point, you can work in the kitchen, clean the prison, take various courses… “but it usually takes weeks before they make you a job offer.”
However, thanks to the help of other prisoners, he received an offer after only ten days: “Could I teach English and mathematics? In an English prison they ask a German if he can teach English and mathematics. Of course, I was delighted to accept.” .
From then on, he gave two classes in the morning and two in the afternoon, with 25 to 30 prisoners per class. “Then my life got a little easier because I got out of the cell.” And the 55-year-old man added: “You go crazy in the cell. But thanks to work, after ten days my life normalized a bit in jail.”
Relationship with your partner
During his stay, Becker reported that several prominent friends were not allowed to visit him in prison. For example, the application of the German soccer coach Jürgen Klopp was rejected by the authorities. “Jürgen is not allowed to visit you because he is too well known. We fear for his safety and we don’t want to be hyped up,” Becker recounted the conversation.
The one with whom he was able to maintain daily contact was his partner Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro, whom he said goodbye to before entering prison, telling her that she did not have to wait for him. “You are a young woman, you fend for yourself in life.” However, she Lilian hugged him and said, “Don’t say such nonsense here, we can do it together.”
image source, Getty Images
The couple began their relationship in mid-2020.
In those months in prison, he never doubted his relationship with Lilian De Carvalho Monteiro. “I never had a moment where I felt like something was going to fall apart or that she was going to lose patience or desire or love,” Becker said. “I don’t know how we got by, but we talked on the phone at least once a day.”
Thanks to Lilian’s love and her decision to stay together despite the imprisonment, he said, he survived and they survived as a couple.
His partner had also visited him regularly in prison, but after the two hours they had spent together, saying goodbye had always been very difficult. “The bad thing is that later you want to go home, together, to an Italian restaurant and drink a glass of white wine.”
Now he doesn’t know what he will do with his life. “I still want to have a good 25 years ahead of me. I hope with my great love Lilian. She is the great love of my life,” she stated.
“For the first time I can think about what I want to do for the rest of my life, where to live, where I want to grow old,” he said while acknowledging that I don’t know where he will go, but he doesn’t think it’s Germany, he added happily at “the possibility to be able to think about it and be able to earn money again, buy things…something that was not possible for a long time”.
Now you can receive notifications from BBC Mundo. Download the new version of our app and activate them so you don’t miss out on our best content.
