Criminal Convictions, Imprisonment

Including for political crimes

Apess, William

Apess's parents were itinerant basket-makers and he lived as a young child mostly with his grandparents, who were very cruel to him. When his grandmother broke his arm he was rescued by an ... [more]

Baca, Jimmy Santiago

When their parents divorced and abandoned them, Baca, aged two, and his siblings were sent to live with grandparents. By the time he was five his mother had been murdered by her second husb... [more]

Bellwood, James Charles

Bellwood was born James Charles Robertson to an unmarried Maori woman and a European salesman. He was fostered or adopted by the Bellwood family of Christchurch, who emotionally and physica... [more]

Bird, A. John

Bird is the founder of The Big Issue, the magazine produced and sold by the homeless in Britain. He was one of six sons of a poor London family. After his parents were evicted from their... [more]

Bokassa I

Jean-Bédel Bokassa was born to a married couple, and his father was a chief. His father was murdered by the French colonial occupiers when he was six, and his mother committed suicide a wee... [more]

Brimeyer, born in the Congo (Zaïre) made a living in Europe from about 1966 by pretending to be the holder of a number of titles of nobility, including Prince Alexis d'Anjou Romanov-Dolgorou... [more]

Brown, James

Brown was born into a poverty-stricken backwoods family in South Carolina (different sources give his year of birth as 1928 and 1933). His parents separated and when he was five he was sent ... [more]

Castelo Branco, Camilo

Castelo Branco was born illegitimate in Lisbon, and raised by relatives after being orphaned as a very young child. As a young man he led a wild life but then took minor orders in the Ch... [more]

Church, John

Church was a foundling , discovered on the steps of St. John's Church Clerkenwell, (hence his name) or St. Andrew's Church Holborn as a young toddler, barely able to walk. He was sent to t... [more]

Cullen, Eric Robertson

Cullen was adopted and had achondroplasia, a type of dwarfism. (He was adopted at birth because his mother was unmarried and unable to care for him; his achondroplasia was not diagnosed unt... [more]