Hell (A Prison Diary 1)

Day 12

Monday 30 July 2001

6.03 am

Overslept, but then woken by the Alsatians off on their morning rounds. They are every bit as reliable as an alarm clock, but not as cheerful or optimistic as a cockerel. I put on a tracksuit, sit down at my desk and write for two hours.

8.10 am

A bowl of cornflakes with UHT milk, plus the added luxury of a banana which Del Boy has smuggled out of the canteen. I sit on the end of the bed and wait to see what fate has in store for me.

10.00 am

I’m told I must report to the workshops, despite putting my name down for education. Another long trek to a different part of the building. This time we’re escorted into a large square room about the same size as the chapel, but with whitewashed, unadorned brick walls. The first person I recognize is Fletch, who is seated next to a prison officer behind a trestle table at the top of the room. He’s obviously the works manager.

The work room has five rows of tables, each about thirty feet in length, with prisoners seated on both sides making up a chain gang. My group consists of four inmates whose purpose is to fill a small plastic bag with all the ingredients necessary to make a cup of tea. In the centre of the table placed between us are large plastic buckets heaped with small packets. At the bottom end of the table sits a silent Serb, who places four sachets of sugar in each bag and then pushes his contribution across the table to a Lebanese man who adds three sachets of milk. He then passes the bag on to an inmate from Essex who drops in three teabags, before it’s passed over to me. My job is to seal up the bag and drop it in the large open bucket at my end of the table.

Every fifteen minutes or so another prisoner, whose name I never discover, comes and empties the bucket. This mind-numbing exercise continues for approximately two hours, for which I will be credited with two pounds in my canteen account.

The Serb (sugar) who sits at the other end of the table is, I would guess, around thirty. He’s unwilling to discuss anything except the fate of ex-President Miloševic, and the fact that he isn’t cooperating with the European Court in the Hague. He will not talk about his crime or the length of his sentence.

Ali, the Lebanese man (powdered milk) who sits opposite me, is more forthcoming. He’s been found guilty of ‘breach of trust’. Ali tells me that he worked for a well-known credit-card company, and after several years was promoted to manager of a London branch. During that time he became infatuated with an American lady, who could best be described as high-maintenance, and used to the sort of lifestyle he couldn’t afford. Ali began to borrow (his words) money from the company safe each night. He would then take her to a casino, where they would have a free meal, before he began working the tables. If he won, he would put the money back in the safe the next morning. If he lost, he would borrow even more the following evening. One night he won £5,000 and returned every penny the following day.

By the time his girlfriend had dumped him and flown back to the States, Ali had ‘borrowed’ £28,000. He decided to come clean and report the whole incident to his boss, assuring the company that it was his intention to repay every penny.

Ali then sold his house, cashed in his life-insurance policy, pawned a few valuables and reimbursed the company in full. He was later arrested, charged with breach of trust, and last Friday sent down for eighteen months. He will probably end up serving seven months and is due to be transferred to Ford (D-cat) next week. He is fifty-three, an intelligent and articulate man, who accepts that he will never be able to work in this country again. He plans to go to America or return to the Lebanon, where he hopes to begin a new life.

My former secretary, Angie Peppiatt, the Crown’s main witness in my case, admitted to the same offence – breach of trust – while giving evidence at my trial. In her case she wasn’t able to explain how thousands of pounds went missing, other than to smile at the judge and say, ‘I have done things I am ashamed of, but it was the culture of the time.’ I have recently asked my solicitor to place the full details in the hands of the police and see if she is subject to the same rigorous inquiry as I was. You may well know the answer by the time this book is published.

The Essex man (teabags) sitting next to Ali boasts to anyone who cares to listen that he is a professional gangster who specializes in robbing banks. The gang consists of his brother-in-law, a friend and himself. He tells me they make a very profitable living, but expect to spend at least half of their working lives in jail. He and Ali could not be more different.

The prisoner who turns up every fifteen minutes to empty the large bucket at the end of the table doesn’t hang around, so I can’t discover much about him, other than he’s twenty-three, this is his first offence, his case hasn’t come before the court yet, and he’s hoping to get off. If he doesn’t, he tells me, he’ll use the time to study for an Open University history degree. I don’t think he realizes that he’s just admitted that he’s guilty.

A hooter blasts to indicate that the one hundred and twenty minutes are finally up, we are all escorted back to our separate spurs, and banged up again until lunch.

12 noon

Lunch. What’s on offer is so bad that I have to settle for a small tin of Heinz potato salad (61p) and three McVitie’s biscuits (17p). As I return from the hotplate I see Andy leaning up against the fence that divides the spur from the canteen area. He pushes a bottle of Highland Spring through a triangle of wire mesh – the high point of my day.

2.00 pm

The Chaplain, David Powe, makes an unscheduled visit to my cell. He’s wearing his dog collar, the same beige coat, the same dark grey trousers, and the same shoes as he has at the previous meetings. I can only conclude that he must be paid even less than the prison officers. He’s kept his promise and got hold of some drawing paper for Derek Jones, who can’t afford more than one pad a week.

The Chaplain goes on to tell me that he and his family will be off on holiday for the next three weeks, and just in case he doesn’t see me again, he would like to wish me luck with my appeal, and hopes I’ll be sent in the near future to somewhere a little less foreboding than Belmarsh. Before he leaves, I read to him my description of the service he conducted last week. He chuckles at the Cain and Abel reference – a man able to laugh at himself. He leaves me a few moments later to go in search of Derek, and hand over the drawing pads.

It was some hours later that I felt racked with guilt by the thought he must have paid for the paper out of his own pocket.

2.48 pm

My door is unlocked by Ms Taylor who enters the cell carrying what looks like a tuning fork. She goes over to my window and taps the four bars one by one.

‘Just want to make sure you haven’t loosened them, or tried to replace them,’ she explains. ‘Wouldn’t want you to escape, would we?’

I’m puzzled by Ms Taylor’s words because it’s a sheer drop of some seventy feet from the third floor down to the exercise yard, and then you would still have to climb over a thirty-five-foot wall, topped with razor wire, to escape. Houdini would have been stretched to consider such a feat. I later learn that there’s another thirty-five-foot wall beyond that

, not to mention a few dozen Alsatians who don’t respond to the command, ‘Sit, Rover.’

I can only conclude it’s in the prison manual under the heading, ‘tasks to be carried out, once a day, once a week, once a year, once in a lifetime’.*