Boxing legend Frank Bruno reveals he has been sectioned twice in 18 months in emotional message to Lib Dem conference on mental health

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Former Boxing champion Frank Bruno today made an emotional plea for better mental health treatment after revealing he had been sectioned twice in the last 18 months.

The ex-heavyweight told the Lib Dem conference in Glasgow that he had struggled to cope with mental illness problems after retiring from professional boxing,

In a video played to delegates today, Bruno revealed that he was a Lib Dem supporter because of the party’s backing for mental health.

Former heavyweight  boxing champion Frank Bruno said he had been sectioned twice in the past 18 months

Bruno lost his world heavyweight boxing belt to Mike Tyson in 1996. His mental health problems first came to light in 2003

Bruno, who won his world title in 1995 and lost it to Mike Tyson the following year, first hit the headlines over his mental health problems in 2003, when police escorted him to hospital after he suffered a severe bout of depression. He has also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

In today’s film, introducing Lib Dem health minister Norman Lamb, Bruno said: ‘My name is Frank Bruno and I’m talking from experience of being sectioned about three times, two times in the last 18 months.

‘I’m just a nobody really, I’m just a human being. Yesterday I used to do boxing and I used to be a celebrity, but I’m talking to you as a human being from experience.

Bruno recorded a video to introduce health minister Norman Lamb

‘I met Norman Lamb and he’s changed a lot of different things for mental health people. 

'He’s very concerned ... very, very passionate.’ He said he hoped the Lib-Dems ‘do very, very well’ so Mr Lamb can stay in his job.

Mr Lamb hailed Bruno’s bravery in opening up about his mental health problems.

He said: ‘He came to talk to me about his experience ... the acute embarrassment and humiliation of three police cars arriving at your house, as if a dreadful crime had been committed. But he was ill.’

In Mr Lamb's speech today he pledged to introduce a new ‘carers’ bonus’ worth £250 a year, and a ‘carers’ passport’ offering help such as free hospital parking or gym and cinema vouchers.

He attacked Labour for being ‘resistant to change’ in the NHS and claimed the public should not trust Labour or the Tories with the NHS.

Addressing the Lib Dem conference in Glasgow, the Health Minister said Labour had made ‘great promises a fortnight ago about saving the NHS’, but attacked their record on the economy which he said would imperil the service.

‘They just do not get it,’ Mr Lamb said. ‘Ed Miliband of course forgot to mention the deficit. In Labour's world it seems unimportant.

‘Yet as our national debt grows year by year as we borrow to keep public services going, so the amount we spend on interest to service that debt grows. £52 billion pounds this year alone in interest on debt.

‘Every pound we spend on interest on debt means a pound not spent to support someone with dementia, to provide therapy for someone with severe mental ill health or to ensure that a cancer patient gets access to drugs that can keep them alive.’

Labour leader Mr Miliband used his party conference speech last month to pledge a £2.5billion 'time to care' fund for the NHS, while David Cameron committed the Conservatives to a five-year ringfencing of the service's budget.

Despite the pledge, Mr Lamb also hit out at the Tories, saying the party leadership would be ‘constantly under pressure’ from its right-wing to ‘cut funding to the NHS’ if it won the 2015 election.

‘Liam Fox has already called for an end to protection of the NHS budget in the next parliament,’ he said. ‘But that is tantamount to calling for an end to the NHS as we know it.’