Completed in 1863, it was built to a design by Sir Joshua Jebb, an officer of the Corps of Royal Engineers, and covered 53 acres (21 hectares) within its secure perimeter.

All schools in the area were required to keep procedures designed to ensure that in the event of a Broadmoor escape no child was ever out of the direct supervision of a member of staff.

The report that came out of the review initiated a new partnership whereby the Department of Health sets out a policy of safety, and security directions, that all three special hospitals must adhere to.

[13] One of the longest-detained patients at Broadmoor is Albert Haines, who set a legal precedent in 2011 when his mental health tribunal hearing was allowed to be fully public; he argued there that he had never been given the type of counselling he had always sought, and the panel urged the clinicians to work more collaboratively and clearly towards his psychiatric rehabilitation.

[14] Because of its high walls and other visible security features as well as the news reporting it has received in the past, the hospital is often assumed to be a prison by members of the public.

[17] Nearly all staff are members of the Prison Officers' Association, as opposed to other health service unions such as UNISON and the Royal College of Nursing.

The former director, who then became the CEO of the trust, quit in 2009 after Healthcare Commission/Care Quality Commission findings of serious failures to ensure patient safety at Broadmoor.

[29] A new head of security was appointed in March 2013, John Hourihan, who had thirty years' experience at Scotland Yard and had worked as a bodyguard for members of the royal family.

[36][37][38][39][40] A new unit called the Paddock Centre had already opened on 12 December 2005, to contain and treat patients classed as having a 'dangerous severe personality disorder' (DSPD).

[41] This was a new and much debated category invented on behalf of the UK government, based on an individual being considered a 'Grave and Immediate Danger' to the general public, and meeting some combination of criteria for personality disorders and/or high scores on the Hare Psychopathy Check list – Revised.

[43] From at least 1968 the television presenter and disc jockey Jimmy Savile undertook voluntary work at the hospital and was allocated his own room, supported by Broadmoor CEO Pat McGrath, who thought it would be good publicity.

[44][50][51] The civil servant who first proposed Savile's appointment to the task force at Broadmoor, Brian McGinnis, who ran the mental health division of the DHSS in 1987 before Cliff Graham, has since been investigated by police and prevented from working with children.

Eleven allegations of sexual abuse were known; this is thought to be a substantial under-estimate, due to how psychiatric patients in particular were disbelieved or put off from coming forward.

[55] The investigation also concluded that 'the institutional culture in Broadmoor was previously inappropriately tolerant of staff–patient sexual relationships,' and that when there were female patients they were required to undress and bathe in front of staff and sometimes visitors.

Healthcare assistant Robert Neave took payments from The Sun for several years to provide them with information, including copies of psychiatric reports; this was subsequently investigated by Operation Elveden.

[59] Mental health nurse Kenneth Hall was imprisoned in June 2015 for having repeatedly sold stories to the tabloids based on stolen medical notes and fabricated documents.

He is widely suspected to have been involved in the deaths of a number of people in Australia, including political rivals[162][163][164] [174] After his acquittal M'Naghten was transferred from Newgate Prison to the State Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Bethlem Hospital under the 1800 Act for the Safe Custody of Insane Persons charged with Offences.

[176][177] On 31 March 2018, six years into his sentence, the killer died in a suspected suicide in Full Sutton prison, a high-security jail in Yorkshire.

[186] The inquest in April 2023 heard that two weeks prior to his death, medical staff decided to refer him to Broadmoor Hospital.

[191] 1997 In January 1986, using a toy gun, he attempted to rob a betting shop and was subsequently arrested and examined in HM Prison Brixton.

[218] He received a three-year sentence and while being moved to HM Prison Grendon he was noted to be in a state of paranoia and aggression, and at one time tried to hang himself.