Bruno locked into the hardest fight of his life

To the world at large, Frank Bruno had it all: a WBC heavyweight boxing champion, a consummate media performer with a talent for singing, and a father of four.

But what the ex-boxer — who remains one of Britain’s great sporting heroes — kept hidden for years was his biggest contest of all: an ongoing and heartbreaking fight against mental illness.

Frank, 51, describes his torment in a revealing TV documentary in which he is interviewed by his youngest daughter Rachel, 26.

His tenure as world champion was a bare six months. He retired after being beaten by Mike Tyson in 1996 and began to suffer mentally ever since, exhibiting unpredictable behaviour that grew more and more bizarre. At one stage, he took to sleeping in a huge boxing ring that he had erected in the garden of his home in Essex.

His behaviour got so erratic that he was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in September, 2003, aged 41, and admitted to a mental health unit. His youngest daughter, Rachel, was only 16-years-old at the time and her elder sister, Nicola, who was 20, had to sign the papers to have him sectioned.

In the TV documentary Rachel describes seeing him being dragged away by police: “They took nine hours to get him in the ambulance.”

“I did not want to surrender to it, but now I realise that it was the best thing that could have happened to me,” he said on RTÉ’s John Murray Show with Miriam.

According to psychologists, the end of his boxing career, the breakdown of his marriage, and the suicide of his former trainer George Francis in 2002 all contributed to his condition.

Frank was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2003, a condition that has waxed and waned ever since.

The BBC Three documentary, Rachel Bruno: My Dad and Me, which aired last night and is available online, follows Rachel, a former drama student now working as a waitress, as she sets out to understand and come to terms with her father’s illness.