Heaven: A Prison Diary Part 3

Back in my room I write for two hours. Tomorrow I mustI repeat, must go to the gym.

DAY 98 - WEDNESDAY 24 OCTOBER 2001.

8.30 am.

Today is labour board. All inductees, having completed their other interviews, must now be allocated a job, otherwise they will receive no income. The board consists of two members from management (the farm and other activities) and a senior officer. Before any inductee faces the board I brief them on what to expect, as I went through the process only a week ago. I tell them it helps if they know what they want to do, and one of them, a bright young Asian called Ahmed, tells me he's after my job. Another, Mr Clarke, informs me that he's sixty-seven and wants a part-time cleaning job, perhaps a couple of hours a day. I immediately go upstairs and ask the board if he could be allocated to this office, which would allow me to concentrate on the weekly inductions and the several prisoners who pop in during the day to talk about their problems. They tell me they'll think about it.

12.15 pm.

I return to the SMU after lunch to find a drugs officer in the kitchen. His black Labrador Jed is sniffing around. I melt into the background, and listen to a conversation he's having with Mr New. It seems there's going to be another clampdown on drugs. The drugs officer tells Mr New that last year, thirty-six visitors were found with drugs on them, two of them solicitors and one a barrister. I am so surprised by this that I later ask Mr New if he believes it. He nods. Ironically, the headline in today's Times is, 'Cannabis to be legalized?' I leave the office at 1.30 pm as I have a visit myself today.

2.00 pm.

Alison, my PA, David, my driver, and Chris Beetles are sitting at a little square table in the visitors' room waiting for me. After we've picked up Diet c.o.kes and chocolate, mostly for me, we seem to chat about everything except prison; from Joseph my butler, who is in hospital, seriously injured after being knocked down by a bus on his way to work, and the 'folly' at the bottom of the garden in Grantchester being flooded, to how the public are responding to the events of 11 September.

Alison and I then go through my personal letters and the list of people who have asked to visit me at NSC. These weekly visits are a wonderful tonic, but they also serve to remind me just how much I miss my friends, holed up in this G.o.d-forsaken place.

4.00 pm I return to the office, to find Mr New and a security officer, Mr Hayes, waiting to see me.

The photographers just won't go away. One has even offered Mr Hayes 500 for the charity of his choice if I will agree to pose for a picture. I refuse, aware how much more will go into the journalist's pocket. It's against the law to take a photograph of a serving prisoner, not that that seems to bother any of the vultures currently hovering around. Both officers promise to do their best to keep them at bay. Mr New then tells me that a second camera has been found in an inmate's room, and the prisoner involved was transferred back to a closed prison this morning. I try to concentrate on my work.

7.00 pm I visit the canteen to discover I have 18.50 in my account: 10 of my own money, and 8.50 added as my weekly wage. My Gillette blades alone cost 4.29, and two phonecards 4.00, so there's not a lot over for extras like toothpaste, soap, bottles of Evian water and perhaps even a bar of chocolate. I mention this only in pa.s.sing lest any of you should imagine that I am, as the tabloids suggest, living the life of Riley.

7.15 pm I stroll across to the hospital, and enjoy the fresh country air, even if the surroundings are rather bleak. Doug tells me that my application to Spring Hill is being processed.

How does Doug know before Mr New? It turns out that he has a friend (inmate) who works in the administration block at Spring Hill.

I have a long, warm bath. Heaven.

DAY 99 - THURSDAY 25 OCTOBER 2001.

8.30 am Mr Simpson (probation) and Mr Gough (induction officer) are the first to arrive in the office. They supply me with today's list of appointments. This has two advantages. I can process those inmates who have booked in, while dealing with the ones that just drop by on the off chance. Mr Clarke (crime not yet identified), our sixty-seven-year-old cleaner, also turns up on time. Matthew runs through his duties with him, while I make tea for the officers.

10.10 am Mr Hocking (security officer) appears in the kitchen to let me know that a Daily Mail photographer (whose hair is longer than that of any of the inmates), has entrenched himself on a local farmer's land. He'll be able to take a picture whenever I return to the north block. Mr Hocking is going to seek the farmer's permission to eject him.

10.30 am Mr Clarke has done a superb job; not only is the office spotless, but tomorrow he plans to get a grip on the waiting room which presently resembles a 1947 GWR tea room.

12 noon I have lunch with Malcolm (fraud and librarian orderly). He's quiet, well spoken and intelligent, and even in prison garb has the air of a professional man. What could he have done to end up here?

1.00 pm Mr New appears, then disappears upstairs to join Mr Simpson, the probation officer. This afternoon they'll conduct interviews with three prisoners to discuss their sentence plans. That usually means that the inmate concerned only has a few months left to serve, so judgments have to be made on whether he is ready to take up work outside the prison, and if he is suitable for tagging.

The main factors in any decision are: a. Is the prisoner likely to reoffend based on his past record? b. Has he any record of violence? c. Is he, or has he been, on drugs? d. Has he completed all his town visits, and his week's leave, without incident?

Ticks in all those boxes means he can hope for early release, i.e. a two-year sentence becomes one year with an extra two months off for tagging. All three of today's applicants leave SMU with smiles on their faces.

2.20 pm Mr Hocking returns, accompanied by a police officer. He tells me another camera has been found in an inmate's room. Once again, the prisoner concerned has been shipped off to a C-cat prison. The third in less than a week. No doubt whichever newspaper was responsible will try again. A few weeks of this, and I'll be the only prisoner still in residence.

4.30 pm Mr Lewis the governing governor calls in to discuss the problem of lurking photographers. He asks me if I wish to return to Wayland.

'You must be joking,' are my exact words.

Mr New later explains that he only asked to protect the Prison Service, so that when a picture eventually appears in the press, I won't be able to suggest that I wasn't given the opportunity to return to closed conditions.

5.00 pm Supper with Malcolm (fraud), Roger (murdered his wife), Martin (possession of a firearm which went off) and Matthew (breach of trust). All the talk is about an absconder who missed his girlfriend so much that he decided to leave us. He only had another nine weeks to go before his release date.

DAY 100 - FRIDAY 26 OCTOBER 2001.

A century of days in prison.

8.07 am Breakfast. As it's Friday, we're offered weekend provisions: a plastic bag containing half a dozen tea bags, four sachets of sugar, some salt and pepper and a couple of pats of b.u.t.ter. Those of you who have read the previous two volumes of these diaries will recall my days in Belmarsh when I was on a chain gang, along with five other prisoners, putting tea bags into a plastic bag. Well, they've finally turned up at North Sea Camp. Prisoners do make useful contributions that can then be taken advantage of in other prisons, thus saving the taxpayer money, and giving inmates an occupation as well as a small weekly wage. For example, the tea towels in the kitchen were made in Dartmoor, the green bath towels in Liverpool, the brown sheets and pillowcases at Holloway and my blankets at Durham.

Now don't forget the tea bags, because Doug has just told me over his eggs and bacon that a lifer has been shipped out to Lincoln Prison for being caught in possession of drugs. And where were they discovered? In his tea bags. Security staff raided his room this morning and found sixty tea bags containing cannabis, along with 40 in cash, which they consider proof that he was a dealer. But now for the ridiculous, sad, stupid, lunatic (choose your own word) aspect of this story the prisoner in question was due for parole in eleven weeks' time. He will now spend the next eighteen months in a B-cat, before going on to a C-cat, probably for a couple of years, before being allowed to return to a D-cat in around four years' time.

Doug adds that the security staff didn't know what he was up to, until another prisoner gra.s.sed on him.

'Why would anyone do that?' I ask.

'Probably to save their own skin,' Doug replies. 'Perhaps he was about to be shipped out for a lesser offence, so he offered them a bigger fish in exchange for a reprieve. It happens all the time.'

8.30 am When I arrive at SMU, Mr Clarke is already standing by the door. He immediately sets about emptying the bins and mopping the kitchen floor. While we're working, I discover that it's his first offence, and he's serving a fifteen-month sentence for misappropriation of funds and is due to be released in March.

10.00 am In the morning post there is a registered letter from my solicitors. I read the pages with trembling hands. My leave to appeal against conviction has been turned down. Only my leave to appeal against length of sentence has been granted. I can't describe how depressed I feel.

12 noon Lunch. Doug nods in the direction of another prisoner who takes a seat at the next table.

'That's Roy,' he says, 'he's a burglar serving his fifteenth sentence. When the judge sentenced him this time to six months, he said, thank you, my Lord, I'll do that standing on my head.'

'Then I'll add a couple of months to help you get back on your feet,' replied the judge.

3.00 pm I call my barrister, Nick Purnell QC. He feels we should still go for an appeal on conviction because three elements of our defence have been overlooked. How can Ted Francis be innocent if I am guilty? How can Mrs Peppiatt's evidence be relied upon when she confessed in the witness box to being a thief?

How can I have perverted the course of justice, when the barrister representing the other side, Mr Shaw, said he had never considered the first diary date to be of any significance?

We also discuss the witness who could help me prove that Potts should never have taken the case. Nick warns me that G.o.dfrey Barker is getting cold feet, and his wife claims she cannot remember the details.

5.30 pm I see David (murder) in the corridor; he has a big grin on his face. He'll be spending tomorrow with his wife for the first time in two decades. He's very nervous about going out on his own, and tells me the sad story of a prisoner who went on a town visit for the first time in twenty-five years and was so frightened that he climbed up a tree. The fire service had to be called out to rescue him.

The police drove him back to prison, and he's never been out since.

6.00 pm My evenings are now falling into a set pattern. I join Doug at six-thirty and have a bath, before watching the seven o'clock news on Channel 4.

8.15 pm I report for roll-call, and then return to play a few games of backgammon with Clive.

10.00 pm Final roll-call.

DAY 101 - SAt.u.r.dAY 27 OCTOBER 2001.

8.07 am There are some prisoners who prefer to remain in jail rather than be released: those who have become inst.i.tutionalized and have no family, no friends, no money and no chance of a job. And then there is Rico.

Rico arrived at NSC from Lincoln Prison this morning. It's his fourth burglary offence and he's always welcomed back because he enjoys working on the farm. Rico particularly likes the pigs, and by the time he left, he knew them all by name. He even used to sleep with them at night well, up until final roll-call. He has a single room, because no one is willing to share with him. That's one way of getting a single room.

9.00 am I check in at SMU, but as there are no officers around I write for two hours.

11.00 am I try to phone Mary at Grantchester, but because the flash flood has taken the phones out, all I get is a long burr.

12 noon On the way to lunch, I pa.s.s Peter (lifer, arson), who is sweeping leaves from the road.

Peter is a six-foot-four, eighteen-stone Hungarian who has served over thirty years for setting fire to a police station, although no one was killed.

I have lunch with Malcolm (fraud) who tells me that his wife has just been released from Holloway having completed a ninemonth sentence for money laundering. The 750,000 he made was placed in her account without her knowledge (Malcolm's words) but she was also convicted. Malcolm asked to have her sentence added to his, but the judge declined.

Wives or partners are a crucial factor in a prisoner's survival. It's not too bad if the sentence is short, but even then the partner often suffers as much, if not more, being alone on the outside. In Mary's case, she is now living her life in a glare of publicity she never sought.

4.15 pm There's a timid knock on the door. I open it to find a prisoner who wants to talk about writing a book (this occurs at least once a week). His name is Saman, and he's a Muslim Kurd. He is currently working on a book ent.i.tled The History of Kurdistan, and wonders if I'll read a few chapters. (Saman read engineering at a university in Kurdistan.) When he has completed his sentence, Saman wants to settle down in this country, but fears he may be deported.

'Why are you at NSC?' I ask him.

Saman tells me that he was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving, for which he was sentenced to three years. He's due to be released in December.

DAY 102 - SUNDAY 28 OCTOBER 2001.

6.00 am Today's is my mother's birthday. She would have been eighty-nine.

8.15 am After breakfast I read The Sunday Times in the library. Rules concerning newspapers differ from prison to prison, often without rhyme or reason. At Wayland the papers were delivered to your cell, but you can't have your own newspaper at NSC.

While I'm reading a long article on anthrax, another prisoner looks over his copy of the News of the World, and says, 'I'm glad to find out you're earning fifty quid a week, Jeff.' We both laugh. He knows only too well that orderlies are paid 8.50 a week, and only those prisoners who go out to work can earn more. Funnily enough, this sort of blatant invention or inaccuracy has made my fellow inmates more sympathetic.

10.00 am Phone Mary in Grantchester and at last get a ringing tone. She's just got back from Munich, which she tells me went well. Not all the Germans are aware that her husband is a convict. Her book, Clean Electricity from Photovoltaics, was received by the conference with acclaim. After struggling for some years to complete volume one, she ended up selling 907 copies. Mind you, it is 110 a copy, and by scientific standards, that is a best-seller. I use up an entire phonecard (twenty units) getting myself up to date with all her news.

11.00 am A message over the tannoy informs inmates that they can report to the drug centre for voluntarily testing. A negative result can help with parole or tagging applications. By the time I arrive, there's already a long queue. I stand behind Alan (fraud) who is being transferred to Spring Hill tomorrow. He says he'll write and let me know how the place compares to NSC and try and find out how my application is progressing.

I reach the head of the queue. Mr Vessey he of the hatchet face who never smiles points to a lavatory so I can give him a sample of urine in a little plastic bottle. He then places a filter into the bottle that will show, by five separate black lines, if I am positive or negative, for everything from cannabis to heroin. If two little black lines come up opposite each drug, then you're clear, if only one line appears, you've tested positive and will be up in front of the governor first thing in the morning.

An inmate three ahead of me tests positive for cannabis, and explodes when Mr Vessey says he'll be on report tomorrow. He storms out, mouthing expletives. Mr Vessey smiles.

My own test comes up with only double lines, which is greeted with mock applause by those still waiting in the queue.

'And pour your p.i.s.s down the drain, Archer,' says Mr Vessey. 'If you leave it hanging around, this lot would happily sell it to the News of the World. '

12 noon Lunch. I'm joined by Brian (chapel orderly and organist). He was convicted of conspiracy to defraud an ostrich farming company of seven million pounds. His barrister convinced him that if he pleaded not guilty, a trial could take ten months, and if he were then found guilty he might end up with a six- or seven-year sentence. He advised Brian to plead guilty to a lesser charge, so that he would be sentenced to less than four years.

He took the advice, and was sentenced to three years ten months. His two co-defendants decided on a trial and the jury found them not guilty. Brian considers that pleading guilty was the biggest mistake of his life.

2.00 pm Write for two hours.

6.30 pm I go to chapel to be joined by five other prisoners. Brian the ostrich man is playing the organ (very professionally). I take Holy Communion in memory of my mother, and can't help reflecting that it's my first sip of wine in three months. The vicar offers each of us a tiny plastic thimble of wine. It's only later that I work out why: some prisoners would attend the service just to drain the chalice.

The vicar, the Rev Johnson, is over seventy. A short, dapper man, he gives us a short, dapper sermon on why he is not quite sure about born-again Christians. We then pray for those Christians who were murdered while taking part in a church service in Pakistan.

Covering the wall behind the altar and part of the ceiling is a painting of the Last Supper.

After the service, the vicar tells me that a former prisoner painted it, and each of the disciples was modelled on an inmate. He chuckles, 'Only Christ isn't a convict.'

DAY 103 - MONDAY 29 OCTOBER 2001.