Tennis legend Boris Becker has spoken of his fear of being killed during the eight months he spent in a British prison, but insisted the overall experience, including small portions of food and no alcohol or cigarettes, had been good for his health.
The former Wimbledon champion looked significantly slimmer and fitter than when he last appeared in public in April, before he was jailed for two-and-a-half years for hiding assets worth £2.5million. He was speaking for the first time since being released from prison and deported to Germany on a friend’s private jet almost a week ago.
Becker told broadcaster Sat 1 in an emotional interview shown in Germany on Tuesday night that he was a “more insightful and humble” person than the man who went to jail.
He said he lost 7kg of body weight largely due to what he described as insufficient food portions, saying: “I felt hungry for the first time in my life.” He added that not drinking alcohol also helped.
The German said he was surprised, within 10 days of his arrival, to be assigned to teach maths and English to his cellmates – “although I did ask myself how do I teach English to English people?” But he admitted that his English was too weak to understand much of the “terrible” swearing and insults that the prisoners hurled at each other, especially at night.
He had taken classes in Stoicism and ended up instructing other prisoners in philosophy, and had also helped give fitness instruction, acting “as a sort of father.”
The main entrance to HMP Huntercombe near Henley-on-Thames, where Boris Becker served most of his eight months in prison. Photo: AP
Becker recalled how three men, Jake, Russell and Billy, assigned to Hunterscombe Prison, near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, as so-called ‘listeners’ to ease new inmates into the daily challenges of prison life, took him under their wing . He said: “I will never forget them. They saved my life.”
They intervened after an argument with a cellmate, a convicted murderer, who Becker said threatened to kill him. Becker broke down as she described how the man later came to apologize. “He threw himself on the floor and hugged my legs. I picked him up, hugged him and told him I had a lot of respect for him.
He described feeling “a sense of camaraderie like never before. You put everything in one hat, share clothes, sugar, salt. On his 55th birthday on November 22, he was given three chocolate cakes, which he shared with his cellmates.
Becker told interviewer Stephen Goetjen that the dozens of letters he received from friends and fans each day helped keep his spirits up and insisted he would answer every single one at Christmas. He broke down again when he described his gratitude at receiving a three-page letter from his rival and compatriot Michael Stich, who defeated him in straight sets in the 1991 Wimbledon final.
Visits are more problematic, he said. When Liverpool FC manager Jurgen Klopp, whom he described as a good friend, tried to arrange to visit him, the request was turned down by the governor of Hunterscombe, where he was transferred in May, due to concerns for Klopp’s safety, according to Becker.
A request from his former trainer and agent Jon Tiriac was rejected three times for similar reasons, he said. Becker was told that anyone associated with a lot of money was considered a kidnapping risk. “They Googled someone like Tiriac and saw how rich he was and immediately thought he was going to be in danger,” he said.
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Sat 1 described London’s Wandsworth prison, where Becker spent the first few weeks of his sentence, as “a particularly bad place of confinement” even by British prison standards, with “a reputation for violence, overcrowding and filth, and a chronic problem with the pests’.
In a report accompanying the interview, Sat 1 said the decision to release Becker after eight months was “due to the fact that there is no room in UK prisons”. He adds: “They are happy to get rid of any of the foreign prisoners they can by deporting them.”
Becker described how his heart sank when he was sentenced in April by Judge Taylor at Southwark Crown Court, who accused him of showing no remorse. He said he spent every day in the three weeks between the jury finding him guilty on four Bankruptcy Act charges and his sentencing attending a church near his home in Knightsbridge, where he prayed for a short jail term.
Only twice did he mention his status as a tennis icon and the effect it may have had on his experience. The jurors who found him guilty, he said, were too young to remember his three Wimbledon victories. If they knew him, it might have swayed their decision, he believes. When he entered prison, he described how he “was scared and cowered in a corner, not daring to look anyone in the eye. But then I realized that some of them recognized me: “This is Boris Becker!” And then I thought: OK, this could really help me.
Speaking about his financial problems and the crime of hiding his assets, Becker said he had not been able to pay enough attention to money matters since he started earning from his tennis as a teenager in the 1980s. “I was never in it for the money,” he said. “Sometimes I even forgot to take my prize money.” After his sports career ended, he made the mistake of “wanting to live like before. But you don’t earn as much as you used to. Then there’s taxes, divorce, childcare…before I knew it, I was earning too little to cover my expenses.”
He said he would not have survived had it not been for the support of his four children or his girlfriend Lilian de Carvalho Monteiro. She sat on the sidelines throughout the interview.
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