Heaven: A Prison Diary Part 23

Within the hour, I have a second pillow, a blanket, two bottles of water, a KitKat and a copy of yesterday's Times. By the way, like Del Boy, Devon is West Indian. As Devon is on remand, he's allowed far longer out of his cell than a convicted prisoner. He's been charged with attacking a rival drug dealer with a machete (GBH). He cut off the man's right arm, so he's not all that optimistic about the outcome of his forthcoming trial.

'After all,' he says, flas.h.i.+ng a smile, 'they've still got his arm, haven't they.' He pauses. 'I only wish it had been his head.' I return to my cell, feeling sick.

6.00 pm I find it difficult to adjust to being banged up again for twenty-two hours a day, but imagine my surprise when, during a.s.sociation that forty-five-minute break when you are allowed out of your cell I b.u.mp into Clive. Do you remember Clive? He used to come to the hospital in the evening at North Sea Camp and play backgammon with me, and he nearly always won. Well, he's back on remand, this time charged with money laundering. As we walk around the yard, he tells me what's been happening in his life since we last met.

It seems that after being released from NSC, Clive formed a company that sold mobile phones to the Arabs, who paid for them with cash. He then distributed the cash to different banks right around the globe, while keeping 10 per cent for himself.

'Why's that illegal?' I ask.

'There never were any phones in the first place,' he admits.

Clive seems confident that they won't be able to prove money laundering, but may get him for failure to pay VAT. 38 During a.s.sociation, I phone Mary. While she's briefing me on Narey's attempts on radio and television to defend his decision to send me to Lincoln, another fight breaks out.

I watch as two more prisoners are dragged away. Mary goes on to tell me that Narey is backtracking as fast as he can, and the Home Office is nowhere to be seen. The commentators seem convinced that I will be transferred back to a D-cat fairly quickly. It can't be too soon, I tell her, this place is full of violent, drug-addicted thugs. I can only admire the way the officers keep the lid on such a boiling cauldron.39 While I roam around a.s.sociation with Jason, he points at three Lithuanians who are standing alone in the far corner.

'They're on remand awaiting trial for murder,' he tells me. 'Even the officers are fearful of them.' Devon joins us, and adds that they are hit men for the Russian mafia and were sent to England to carry out an execution. They have been charged with killing three of their countrymen, chopping them up into little pieces, putting them through a mincer and then feeding them to dogs.

DAY 438 - SUNDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2002.

11.00 am The cell door is opened and an officer escorts me to the chapel: anything to get out of my cell. After all, the chapel is the largest room in the prison. The service is Holy Communion with the added pleasure of singing by choristers from Lincoln Cathedral. They number seventeen, the congregation thirteen.

I sit next to a man who has been on A block for the past ten weeks. He's fifty-three years old, serving a two-year sentence. It's his first offence, and he has no history of drugs or violence.

The Home Secretary can have no idea of the damage he's causing to such people by forcing them to mix in vile conditions with murderers, thugs and drug addicts. Such men should be sent to a D-cat the day they are sentenced. 40 12 noon I go to the library and select three books, the maximum allowed. I spend the next twenty hours in my cell, reading.

10.00 pm I end the day with Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k's Stories To Be Read With The Doors Locked. Somewhat ironic. , DAY 439 - MONDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 2002.

6.00 am Over the past few days I have been writing furiously, but I have just had my work confiscated by the deputy governor so much for freedom of speech. He made it clear that his orders to prevent me from sending out any written material came from the Home Office direct. I rewrite my day, and have this copy smuggled out not too difficult with nearly a hundred prisoners on remand who leave the prison to attend court every day.

8.00 am After breakfast, I'm confined to my cell and the company of Jason for the next eight hours.

6.00 pm Mr Marsh, a senior officer, who has a rare gift for keeping things under control, opens the cell door and tells me I have a meeting with the area manager. 41 I am escorted to a private room, and introduced to Mr Spurr and Ms Stamp. Mr Spurr explains that he has been given the responsibility of investigating my case. As I have received some 600 letters during the past four days (every one of them retained), every one of them expressing outrage at the director-general's judgment, this doesn't come as a great surprise.

Mr Spurr's intelligent questions lead me to believe that he is genuinely interested in putting right an injustice. I tell him and Ms Stamp exactly what happened.

On Friday 27 September, the Prison Service announced that 'further serious allegations' had been made against me. It turned out these related to a lunch I had attended on Wednesday 25 September in Zucchini's Restaurant, Lincoln (which is near the Theatre Royal) with Mr Paul Hocking, then a Senior Security Officer at North Sea Camp, and PC Karen Brooks of the Lincolns.h.i.+re Constabulary.

I explained to Mr Spurr that the sole purpose of the lunch as far as I was concerned was so that I could describe what I had seen of the drug culture permeating British prisons to PC Brooks, who had by then returned to work with the Lincolns.h.i.+re Police Drug Squad. After all, I'd had several meetings with Hocking and or Brooks in the past on the subject of drugs. I did not know that prison officers are not supposed to eat meals with prisoners, nor is there any reason I should have known this. Moreover, when a senior officer asks a prisoner to attend a meeting, even in a social context, a wise prisoner does not query the officer's right to do so.

As for SO Hocking, I have been distressed to learn that he was summarily forced to resign from the Prison Service on 27 September under the threat of losing his pension if he did not do so42. PC Karen Brooks was more fortunate in her employers. Her role was investigated comprehensively by Chief Inspector Gossage and Sergeant Kent of the Lincolns.h.i.+re Police, and she remains with the force. Chief Inspector Gossage and Sergeant Kent interviewed me during their later investigation of the same lunch, and made it very clear that they thought the Prison Service had acted hastily and disproportionately in transferring me to HMP Lincoln.

As Mr Spurr leaves, he a.s.sures me that he will complete his report as quickly as possible, although he still has several other people to interview. He repeats that he is interested in seeing justice being done for any prisoner who has been unfairly treated.

It was some time later that the Daily Mail reported that the Home Secretary had bullied Mr Narey into the decision to have me moved to HMP Lincoln.

The sequence of events, so far as I am able to establish them, are as follows. The Sun newspaper telephoned Martin Narey's office on the evening of Wednesday 25 September and the following day published a highly coloured account of the Gillian Shephard lunch.

This provoked the Home Secretary to send an extraordinary fax (see overleaf) to Martin Narey demanding that the latter take 'immediate and decisive disciplinary action' against me. Narey, who had previously stood up against the press's attempts to portray my treatment as privileged, buckled and instructed Mr Beaumont to transfer me forthwith to Lincoln. Narey also went on a number of TV and radio programmes to criticize me in highly personal terms in what the Independent on Sunday described as 'an unprecedented attack on an individual prisoner', especially in the light of later pious a.s.sertions that the Prison Service is 'unable to discuss individual prisoners in detail with third parties'.

Mr Beaumont found himself in even more difficulty: he had not asked me about the Zucchini lunch, so he could hardly make that the basis of an order to transfer me. In the event, the Notice of Transfer which he signed stated simply: 'Following serious allegations reported in the media and confirmed by yourself that on 15 September 2002, you attended a dinner party rather than spend the day on a Community Visit in Cambridge with your wife, it is not appropriate for you to remain at HMP North Sea Camp any longer.'

My licence did not restrict me to my home in Grantchester while on release. But, an e-847/907 mail was circulated within the Home Office which stated: 'The prison [HMP North Sea Camp] had granted JA home leave but his licence conditions stipulated that he should not go anywhere else but home. In light of this, he has breached his licence conditions, and will face adjudication.' At that time, the copy of my master pa.s.sbook (a record retained by the prison which records all a prisoner's releases on temporary licence) contained no such stipulation, nor did I ever face adjudication in respect of any breach of such a stipulation.

Mr Spurr later said in a letter he was 'unable to locate' my master pa.s.sbook when he conducted his investigation into my transfer, a fact which he acknowledged as 'regrettable'. One has to wonder why and how this pa.s.sbook disappeared. However, Mr Narey told me to stop writing to him on the subject as the matter was closed.

DAY 440 - TUESDAY 1 OCTOBER 2002.

6.00 am A frequent complaint among prison officers and inmates with which I have some sympathy is that paedophiles and s.e.x offenders are treated more leniently, and live in far more palatable surroundings, than the rest of us.

On arriving at Lincoln you are immediately placed on A wing, described quite rightly by the tabloids as a Victorian h.e.l.lhole.

But if you are a convicted s.e.x offender, you go straight to E wing, a modern accommodation block of smart, single cells, each with its own television. E wing also has table tennis and pool tables and a bowling green.

During the past few days, I have been subjected to segregation, transferred to Lincoln, placed in A block with murderers, violent criminals and drug dealers, in a cell any selfrespecting rat would desert, offered food I am unable to eat and I have to share my cell with a man who thrashed someone to within an inch of their life. All this for having lunch with the Rt Hon Gillian Shephard in the company of my wife when on my way back to NSC from Grantchester.

s.e.x offenders can survive in an open prison because the other inmates are on 'trust' and don't want to risk being sent back to a B... cat or have their sentences extended.

However, these rules do not apply in a closed prison. An officer recently reported to me the worst case he had come across during his thirty years in the Prison Service. If you are at all squeamish, turn to the next page, because I confess I found this very difficult to write.

The prisoner concerned was charged and convicted of having s.e.x with his five-year-old daughter. During the trial, it was revealed that not only did the defendant rape her, but in order for penetration to take place he had to cut his daughter's v.a.g.i.n.a with a razor blade.

I know I couldn't have killed the man, but I suspect I would have turned a blind eye while someone else did.

10.34 am I have a visit from a Portuguese prisoner called Juan. He warns me that some inmates were seen in my cell during a.s.sociation while I was on the phone. It seems that they were hoping to get their hands on some personal memento to sell to the press.

English is Juan's second language, and I have not come across a prisoner with a better command of our native tongue; and I doubt if there is another inmate on A block who has a neater hand myself included. He is, incidentally, quietly spoken and well mannered. He wrote me a thank you letter for giving him a gla.s.s of blackcurrant juice. I must try and find out why he is in prison.

11.17 am An officer (Mr Brighten) unlocks my door and tells me that he needs a form filled in so that I can work in the kitchen. To begin with, I a.s.sume it's a joke, and then become painfully aware that he's serious. Surely the staff can't have missed that I've hardly eaten a thing since the day I arrived, and now they want to put me where the food is prepared? I tell him politely, but firmly, that I have no desire to work in the kitchen.

3.11 pm I look up at my little window, inches from the ceiling, and think of Oscar Wilde. This must be the nearest I've been to living in conditions described so vividly by the great playwright while he was serving a two-year sentence in Reading jail.

I never saw a man who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue Which prisoners call the sky.

5.15 pm Mr Brighten returns to tell me that I will be placed on report if I refuse to work in the kitchen. I agree to work in the kitchen.

DAY 443 - FRIDAY 4 OCTOBER 2002.

The end of the second longest week in my life.

Jason (GBH) has received a movement order to transfer him to HMP Stocken in Rutland (C-cat) later this morning. He's 'gutted' as he hoped to be sent directly to a D... cat. However, a conviction for violence will have prevented this. By the way, he and his wife did agree to get back together, and she will now visit him every Sat.u.r.day.

10.00 am An officer unlocks my cell door and bellows, 'Gym.' Twenty or thirty of us form a line by the barred gate at the far end of the brickwalled, windowless room. A few minutes later we are escorted down long, bleak, echoing corridors, with much unlocking and locking of several heavy gates as we make our slow progress to the gym situated on the other side of the prison.

We are taken to a changing room, where I put on a singlet and shorts. Clive (money laundering) and I enter the s.p.a.cious gym.

We warm up with a game of paddle tennis, and he sees me off in a few minutes. I move on to do a thousand metres on the rowing machine in five minutes, and end up with a little light weight training. When an officer bellows, 'Five more minutes,' I check my weight. Twelve stone twelve pounds. I've lost six pounds in six days. I join my fellow inmates in the shower room and have my first press-b.u.t.ton shower for a year, bringing back more unpleasant memories of Belmarsh.

As we are all escorted back to A block by Mr Lewis, the senior gym officer, we pa.s.s E Wing (paedophiles) and not one of the inmates even looks in the direction of the staring faces. Why? Because we are accompanied by an officer. Prisoners are warned that any abuse (shouting, foul language) will be treated as a disciplinary matter, with the loss of daily gym rights as punishment. When you're locked up for twenty-two hours a day, that's incentive enough to remain silent, whatever your thoughts.

5.00 pm The cell door is unlocked, and my new padmate enters carrying the inevitable plastic bag. Jason is replaced by Phil, an amiable,

good-looking despite the scar on his face twenty-eight-year-old.

He has been put in my cell because he doesn't smoke, which is very rare in jail. Phil talks a great deal, and tells me that he wants to return to work in the kitchen. He certainly seems to know his way round the prison, which turns out to be because he's paid several visits to Lincoln during the past ten years.

He is only too happy to tell me the finer details of his record. Twenty-eight other offences were taken into consideration before the judge pa.s.sed sentence on Phil this morning.

Phil tells me, 'Never again.' He now has a happy family life-I don't ask how he explains his latest conviction and a good job to go back to. He can earn 500 a week laying concrete and doesn't need another spell in jail. Phil admits that his problem is a short fuse.

'Strike a match and I explode,' he adds, laughing.

5.40 pm Mr Brighten unlocks the cell door to inform me that I start work in the kitchen tomorrow at eight o'clock. He slams the door closed before I can comment.

6.00 pm My cell door is unlocked again and Phil and I, along with three others, are escorted to the hospital. I'm told that I have to take a drugs test before I'm allowed to work in the kitchen. Despite the fact that I don't want to work in the kitchen, Phil tells me that five prisoners apply every day because the work is so popular. Phil and I pa.s.s the urine test to show we are drug free, and the duty officer tells us to report to the kitchen by eight. The other three fail.

6.40 pm During a.s.sociation I phone my agent, Jonathan Lloyd. He goes over the details of tomorrow's announcement of the publication of volume one of these diaries. I congratulate him on how well the secret has been kept.

Not one newspaper has picked up that A Prison Diary by FF8282 will be published tomorrow. This is quite an achievement remembering that at least twenty people must have known at Macmillan and ten or more at the Daily Mail.

DAY 444 - SAt.u.r.dAY 5 OCTOBER 2002.

5.52 am This is my tenth day of incarceration at Lincoln.

6.01 am The publication of A Prison Diary Volume One Belmarsh: h.e.l.l, is the lead item on the news. The facts are fairly reported. No one seems to think that the Home Office will try to prevent the publication. However, the director-general is checking to see if I have broken any prison rules. Mr Narey is particularly exercised by the mention of other prisoners' names. I have only referred to prisoners' surnames when they are major characters in the diary, and only then when their permission has been granted. 43 A representative of the Prison Officers' a.s.sociation said on the Today programme that as I hid in my room all day, I wouldn't have anything worthwhile to say about prisons.

Perhaps it might have been wiser for him to open his mouth after he's read the book, when he would have discovered how well his colleagues come out of my experience.

7.32 am My cell door is unlocked so I can be transferred from A to J wing. This is considered a privilege for that select group who work in the kitchen. The cells are a lot cleaner, and also have televisions. My new companion is a grown-up non-smoker called Stephen (age thirty-nine), who is number one in the kitchen.

Stephen is serving a seven-year sentence for smuggling one and a half tons of cannabis into Britain. He is an intelligent man, who runs both the wing and the kitchen with a combination of charm and example.

8.00 am A group of fourteen prisoners is escorted to the kitchens. Only two of the five who reported for drugs testing yesterday evening are still in the group.

I am put to work in the vegetable room to a.s.sist a young twenty-three-year-old called Lee, who is so good at his job chopping potatoes, slicing onions, grating cheese and mas.h.i.+ng swedes that I become his incompetent a.s.sistant. My lack of expertise doesn't seem to worry him.

The officer in charge of the kitchen, Mr Tasker, turns out to be one of the most decent and professional men I have dealt with since being incarcerated. His kitchen is like Singapore airport: you could eat off the floor.

He goes to great pains to point out to me that he only has 1.27 per prisoner to deliver three meals a day. In the circ.u.mstances, what he and his staff manage to achieve is nothing less than a miracle.

DAY 445 - SUNDAY 6 OCTOBER 2002.

11.14 am On this, my eleventh day, I have a second visit from Mr Spurr and his colleague Ms Stamp.

They say they wish to tidy up a few minor points. I'm impressed by Mr Spurr's grasp of what's going on at North Sea Camp, and once again he gives the impression of being concerned.

He leaves promising that he will be able to tell me the outcome of his enquiry on Friday.

DAY 450 - FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER 2002.

7.30 am A particularly officious, ill-mannered officer unlocks my cell door and thrusts some papers at me. He tells me with considerable pleasure that I will be on a charge at 4 o'clock this afternoon.

I read the papers several times. I don't have a lot more to do. It seems that by publis.h.i.+ng A Prison Diary I have broken prison Rule 51 Para 23, in 'naming staff such that they could be identified', contrary to SO 5 Para 34 (9) (d).

8.10 am On leaving my cell to go to work in the kitchen, I am surprised to find Mr Spurr and Ms Stamp awaiting me. I am escorted into a side room. Mr Spurr tells me that he has completed his enquiry, and I will be transferred to Hollesley Bay (D-cat) some time next week. Do you recall Governor Lewis's words, 'Whatever you do, don't end up in Hollesley Bay...'?

10.30 am I take a break from peeling the spuds, not that I can pretend to have done that many. I notice that Mr Tasker is sitting in his office reading the Daily Mail. He beckons me in, and tells me to close the door.

'I've just been reading about your time at Belmarsh,' he says, jabbing a finger at the centre pages, 'and I see you're suggesting that seventy per cent of prisoners are on drugs and as many as thirty per cent could be on heroin.' He looks up, gives me a pained expression and then adds, 'You're wrong.'

I don't comment, expecting him to dismiss my claims, and remind me of the official statistics always parroted by the Home Office whenever the question of drugs is raised.

'Which would you say is the most popular job in the prison?' Mr Tasker asks, folding his newspaper.

'The kitchen, without question,' I reply, 'and for all the obvious reasons.'

'You're right,' he says. 'Every day, at least five inmates apply to work in the kitchen.'

He pauses, sips his coffee and adds, 'Did you take a drugs test yesterday?'

'Yes,' I reply, 'along with four others.'

'And how many of you were invited to work in the kitchen?'

'Just Phil and me,' I reply.

'Correct, but what you don't know is that I'm ent.i.tled to have twenty-one prisoners working in the kitchen, but currently employ only seventeen.' He takes another sip of his coffee. 'I have never managed to fill all the vacancies during the last ten years, despite the fact that we never have fewer than seven hundred inmates.' Mr Tasker rises from his seat. 'Now I'm no mathematician,' he says, 'but I think you'll find that seventeen out of seven hundred does not come to thirty per cent.'

3.00 pm The same officious, ill-mannered lout who unlocked my cell door this morning returns to pick me up from the kitchen and escort me to segregation. This time I am only left there for about forty minutes before being hauled up in front of Mr Peac.o.c.k, the governing governor. Mr Peac.o.c.k sits at the top of the table with the deputy governor on his right and my wing officer on his left. The thug stands behind me in case I might try to escape. The governor reads out the charge and asks if I wish to plead guilty or not guilty.

'I'm not sure,' I reply. 'I'm not clear what offence I've committed.'

I am then shown the prison rules in full. I express some surprise, saying that I handed over every page of Belmarsh: h.e.l.l to the prison censor, and he kindly posted them on to my secretary, and at no time did he suggest I was committing any offence. The governor looks suitably embarra.s.sed when I ask him to write down every word I have said.

He does so.

Mr Peac.o.c.k points out that every inmate has access to a copy of the prison rules in the library. 'Yes, but anyone who reads my diary,' he has a copy of Belmarsh on the table in front of him 'would know that I wasn't allowed to visit the library, or have access to education while at Belmarsh.' I direct him to the pa.s.sage on the relevant page. At least he has the grace to smile, adding that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

Mr Peac.o.c.k then calls for my wing officer to make his report. 'Archer FF8282, works in the kitchen and is a polite, well-mannered prisoner, with no history of drugs or violence.' The governor also writes these words down, before clearing his throat and p.r.o.nouncing sentence.

'Loss of all privileges for fourteen days, and of canteen during the same period,' the governor pauses, 'to be suspended for six months.'