Can Frank ever forgive the family who put him in a mental hospital? The boxer confronts his daughters over their agonising decision to have him sectioned

Boxer Frank Bruno did not speak to his daughters for nearly ten years

Nicola, 30, and Rachel, 26, had their father sectioned three separate times

Family is reunited but relationship is scarred by Frank's bipolar disorder

Frank Bruno remains one of Britain’s most beloved sporting heroes: the formidable fighter who wowed fans with his lightning left hook – then wooed them with his huge heart and winsome manner.

But the former heavyweight champion refused to talk to his oldest daughter Nicola, 30, for almost a decade, because he thought she had betrayed him by having him sectioned three separate times after he suffered breakdowns.

Speaking publicly for the first time about rift that has divided the family, Nicola says: ‘He didn’t have any interest in me or talk to me.

Reunited: Frank Bruno is finally talking to his daughter Rachel again after feeling his family betrayed him when they had him sectioned three times to be treated for his bipolar disorder

‘I have spent the past ten years worrying about him, and it feels as though he doesn’t care about me.

‘But what else could I have done? I was worried about his mental state. I was scared that if I didn’t intervene he would end up wrapping himself around a tree [in his car].’

Now she, her younger sister Rachel, 26, and their boxing legend father are finally talking again, but their relationship has been deeply scarred by his bipolar disorder.

Bruno, who was crowned world heavyweight champion in 1995, candidly admits he bears a grudge against daughter Nicola for having him committed – once in 2003 and then again twice last year.

‘She had the right to do what she had to do the first time, I agree I needed to be sectioned then,’ he admits awkwardly in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday. ‘But I hold a grudge for the second and third time. I am like an elephant, I never forget.

His girls: Boxing legend Frank with his daughters Rachel, right, then five, and Nicola, then nine, in 1992

‘I don’t accept that if I get a bit crazy or hyper someone can be sent round to my house and have me sectioned. It is wrong that your freedom can be taken away, you are locked up and put on very powerful drugs that turn you into a zombie.

‘It is the most degrading thing. I don’t want it to ever happen again. I don’t want to die and end up being known as “that bloke who kept getting sectioned”.’

Bruno acknowledges it will take time to repair his relationship with Nicola. She, too, is wary around her father. ‘I worry when I’m with him that he’s thinking, “I can’t have a laugh with Nicola, she’ll think I’m manic and could get me sectioned”. So we are both on edge, it’s very difficult,’ she admits.

Nicola was just 20 when she first signed the papers to have her father admitted to a mental hospital. As the eldest of his children and legally his next of kin, she bore the sole responsibility for having him confined to Goodmayes Hospital in Ilford, not far from his then home in Brentwood, Essex.

His fans were stunned by the news. In public his booming laugh and gregarious personality had earned him a reputation as one of the country’s most affable sportsmen. But his signature ‘Know what I mean, Harry,’ banter with fellow boxing commentator Harry Carpenter and his uproarious appearances on Comic Relief belied a private hell.

Rachel, then 16, was traumatised by the dramatic events of his sectioning. Bruno’s house was surrounded by police cars and ambulances and hours of delicate negotiation were needed to coax the boxer from his home.

‘It took nine hours to get Dad out of the house and into the ambulance,’ Rachel recalls as she twists her hands in anguish. ‘All the time Dad was begging us not to do it.’

But what the public did not know was that Bruno’s family had been growing concerned about his increasingly bizarre behaviour and feared that a breakdown was in the offing.

‘Dad put a big boxing ring in the garden and then slept in it constantly, he’d walk down the high street in his slippers and waft incense everywhere as well as hearing voices and thinking he was other people.

Family life: Rachel, Nicola and their brother Franklin watch home videos of themselves with their father during Rachel's documentary about living with a family member who has bi-polar disorder

‘I had no idea whether the next time I saw him he’d be like a zombie, crouched over, hardly able to lift his head because of the medication he was on. It was heartbreaking,’ adds Rachel.

‘I was starting college the day after my dad’s very public breakdown. Whenever I start at somewhere new I let people get to know me for a few months before I let them know that I am Frank Bruno’s daughter.

‘Then suddenly that first day at college everyone knew because it had been on the television and in the papers that my dad had been sectioned. It wasn’t really the way I wanted to introduce myself.’

Twice since, in April and May last year, Nicola has again had to section her father, who was forcibly removed from his sprawling home in Leighton Buzzard. He spent five weeks at St Andrew’s Hospital in Northampton – to his fury. And this time it caused a barrier between him and younger daughter Rachel.

Sitting next to her father in a central London hotel, she says haltingly: ‘All of last year Dad and I didn’t really have a relationship because he was in a very fragile state.

‘I never spoke to him about his illness because I thought it could ruin our relationship.

‘I did fear what had happened between Dad and Nicola could happen with me. So I was incredibly nervous about asking him questions.’

When the illness was diagnosed, the family was handed a leaflet and told to get on with it, but Rachel has been desperate to understand the disorder. So she agreed to film a BBC documentary about it with her father.

Despite his image as a man of the people, Bruno has always been guarded about his private life and allowing a camera to film him in the aftermath of his latest struggle with mental illness – and while still heavily medicated – surprised many, not least Rachel.

While not someone who seems comfortable with signs of affection, it is evident both in the documentary and in person that Bruno’s youngest daughter is the apple of his eye.

Several times in the documentary he reassuringly tells her to stop worrying that she will upset him. ‘I will tell you if I’m not happy,’ he says.

But the fractured dynamics within the family are exposed as videos of an idyllic and privileged childhood contrast with the raw emotion of two sisters dealing with their father’s mental illness.

Tough times: Oldest sister Nicola breaks down during filming as they discuss the trauma of having to section their own father

Dressed in a striped blue polo shirt, black trousers and loafers, Bruno looks healthy and relaxed as he chats. He hasn’t yet seen the documentary but plans to watch it alone before it is screened this month.

The star vividly recalls being sectioned in April last year. He was dancing to music on his iPod when there was a knock at the door. He opened it to six policemen who told him he would have to leave his Bedfordshire home.

He was taken to a specialist mental health unit at Basildon Hospital but released seven days later when doctors said he should be allowed home.

Then on May 6 the police were back on his doorstep and he was admitted to St Andrew’s.

While Bruno still enjoys the financial benefits of his glittering career, his daughters fear that his home and fleet of cars could disappear while he is in the throes of his illness.

‘One of the symptoms of bipolar is spending huge amounts of money. There was one time when my dad was in New York and he couldn’t just buy one tracksuit, he had to come back with ten suitcases full of them,’ says Rachel who, along with Nicola and younger brother Franklin, 18, lived with their mother Laura after their parents split up in 2001.

Today, Bruno says he feels he has to monitor his behaviour day and night. ‘I don’t look for sympathy, I know what I have got but I don’t want people looking at me thinking I’m not right. But I am careful about what I do, what I say, how I act. I keep to myself. I’m not a recluse but I’ve always enjoyed my own company. I don’t want the things I do to be taken in the wrong way’.

He says he still has to take tablets twice a day but hopes to wean himself off them and would like eventually to be free of medication.

‘I don’t like the drugs, they make me feel lethargic, lazy and heavy. I have terrible nightmares with them as well.

‘At the moment we think the best way is to put people in hospital and give them medicine. But for me being in hospital didn’t make me feel better; it made me feel worse. I would be talking to other patients, having a perfectly sensible conversation, and then they are given a tablet and suddenly they are out of it. That can’t be right.’

Support: Frank greeted his youngest daughter Rachel at the finishing line when she ran the London Marathon

While many bipolar patients seek the help of support groups, Bruno’s celebrity has made him wary of opening up in front of strangers.

‘I was worried that someone would leak a story to the press and so it seemed easier not to go and have that worry. I have a lot of distrust with people that I didn’t have before which is why I live quietly, in the country.’

Bruno’s career ended abruptly in 1996 after he was beaten by Mike Tyson and risked going blind if he fought again. With divorce a few years later, life outside the ring hit him hard.

No one knows whether it was these events that triggered his bipolar disorder or whether previous symptoms had been disguised by the intensity of his life as a boxer.

‘You can’t replace the buzz of training camp, the press conferences and the love and hate relationship you have with an opponent,’ he concedes.

Rachel wants to see her father happy again and would love him to settle down. ‘My parents aren’t together any more but that doesn’t mean I want to see them on their own. I’d like to know someone was at home looking after him.’

Although he has been dating hairdresser Nina Coletta since last year, he has no plans for them to move in together.

‘She lives in Glasgow and it is good having her in my life but I am happy living on my own,’ Bruno says. ‘I’ve lived on my own for ten years now and I don’t see myself living with anyone full-time again.’

The boxer spends much of his free time at the gym. He is still loved by the public and is stopped by well-wishers wherever he goes – from young children to star-struck grandmothers. But Rachel says: ‘People think they know my dad because of his public image but they have no idea. I ran the London Marathon this year for mental health charities but I know that there is still a stigma attached to mental illness.

‘I’d like to think that because our family has been so open about the way it has been torn apart by Dad’s illness, maybe people will start to adopt a different attitude.’

For the future, Rachel is hopeful. ‘When I finished the marathon, Dad was there to meet me at the finishing line and he gave me a hug. It was the first time in years I’d had a hug from my dad. I feel like I am finally getting him back.’