High Hollywood location manager, 37, locked up for killing grandmother complains about prison

A Hollywood location manager who killed a grandmother in a drink and drug car smash has complained that ‘it’s horrid’ in prison because it’s ‘full of drunks and drug addicts’.

Umberto Schramm, 37, worked on Wonder Woman and Rocketman before he was jailed for six years in November last year after killing 70-year-old Francis Filby.

The court heard how he was driving on the wrong side of the road, when he smashed head on into Ms Filby’s Ford Fiesta while driving in Elstead in Surrey.  

Kingston Crown Court heard how the 37-year-old, who also worked on Bohemian Rhapsody, was driving his powerful Mitsubishi Outlander while twice the drink drive limit and high on cocaine on May 31 2019. 

The grandmother-of-seven was rushed to hospital, but died the day after the crash.

In November last year, Schramm, of Wembley, North London, admitted causing death by dangerous driving while under the influence of drink, and causing death by careless driving while under the influence of cocaine. and was jailed for six years.

Writing in the latest edition of lags’ mag Inside Time, however, the German-born killer – who graduated with a degree in psychology from Queen Mary University of London in 2013 – said jail was like a ‘human warehouse’ and full of ‘drunks’ and ‘drug addicts’.

Umberto Schramm, 37, was jailed for six years in November last year after killing 70-year-old Francis Filby

He said: ‘I had never been to prison before, so I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at HMP Wandsworth last November.

‘There was no induction, not even a booklet in the cell to explain how prison works. Due to the pandemic the prison was in lockdown, which means over 23-hours per day lock-up, exercise once a week for 25 minutes, no library, no gym, no workshops, no education except in-cell packs.

‘You can’t get a parcel sent in or dropped off, if you got a family member to order a book via Amazon it would sit down in reception with your property for at least three weeks.

‘The mattress was so old and worn that it made my back hurt, even though I am young and fit, and if your cell chair was missing there was no effort made to replace it as there weren’t any.

‘Nearly everyone was smoking Spice, my cellmate was even distilling a kind of vodka in our cell every night.

‘When he was drunk, he wouldn’t let me sleep he would get sick all over the cell, and there was nothing I could do as I didn’t want to get him in trouble.

‘What he needed was help, but that’s not available in a prison like Wandsworth.’

He said that ‘luckily’ he had now been moved out of category B HMP Wandsworth in London to less strict cat C HMP Highpoint in Suffolk.

He said: ‘Since I have been moved here to Highpoint the situation has changed drastically.

Schramm worked  on Hollywood movies Wonder Woman and Rocketman before he was jailed

Writing in the latest edition of lags’ mag Inside Time, however, the German-born killer – who also worked on Bohemian Rhapsody – said jail was like a ‘human warehouse’ and full of ‘drunks’ and ‘drug addicts’

‘I’m in a single cell, there is green spaces, we get 2 hours exercise a day. The reason this is possible here is because 100 prisoners occupy the same amount of space allowed to 500 prisoners at Wandsworth.

‘I understand the need to keep people safe during lockdown but at what cost?

‘The reason Wandsworth isn’t able to work a humane regime during lockdown is because it is a prison designed to hold 800 people which now holds 1,600, and it has half the staff that are needed.

‘Prisons such as this should simply not exist in a country as wealthy as the UK.’

Judge Stephen John told Schramm ‘You deprived a loving family of their mother and grandmother.

‘This lady would be alive today if you had not behaved in such a criminally irresponsible manner. You took a wholly unnecessary risk and caused a wholly avoidable accident.’