Boris Becker says the prisons where he served his sentence didn't lack alcohol and drugs, and not only that, but claims it wasn't that hard to get to those substances.
On April 29th, 2022, the judge ruled that Becker was found guilty of hiding assets after declaring bankruptcy. On the same day, the former three-time Wimbledon champion was sent to Wandsworth Prison in London, where he started serving his two-and-a-half-year sentence. The German, who was 55 at the time when his sentence began, spent his first couple of weeks in Wandsworth before being transported to Huntercombe Prison near Oxford.
Becker: Alcohol was easy... There were drugs as well
As the days went by, I learned that you could get anything you wanted in prison. Alcohol was easy. People made it themselves with sugar, fruit and other things you could buy legitimately with your allowance from the canteen then there were the drugs. Weed, pills, heroin. Sometimes they came in the prison version of internal mail. Up the back passage. Sometimes it was the wardens someone taking a cut, someone with a weakness or a problem left vulnerable to a bribe," Becker said in his autobiography.
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While prisoners had access to certain staff, Becker highlights that it was all but an easy and ideal life behind bars. As an example, the German tennis legend recalled showering with cold water and being told to wear flip-flops because nobody was sure what could be inside the bathtub.
Some days those showers would be icy cold. You never knew why. It was just another unpleasant fact in a day you dont control. Dirt all over the floor, on the tiles. I was lent a pair of flip-flops. Boris, wear them, because we dont know who was there before. The first time in my life I ever showered in flip-flops," the 57-year-old said.
After serving around eight months of his prison sentence in Great Britain, Becker was deported to Germany and his sentence automatically ended.
