Hell (A Prison Diary 1)

d up its meaning in the dictionary, and until they do I’m afraid you’ll have to report to the workshops.’ I can’t imagine what the words ‘until they do’ mean. I retrace my steps, walking as slowly as I can in the direction of the workshops, and find I am the last to arrive.

This time I’m put on the end of the chain gang – a punishment for being the last to turn up. My new, intellectually challenging job is to place two small packets of margarine, one sachet of raspberry jam, and one of coffee into a plastic bag before it’s sealed up and taken away for use in another prison. The young man opposite me who is sealing up the bags and then dropping them into a large cardboard box looks like a wrestler. He’s about five foot ten, early twenties, wears a spotless white T-shirt and smart designer jeans. His heavily muscled arms are bronzed, so it’s not difficult to work out that he hasn’t been in Belmarsh that long. The answer to that question turns out to be three weeks. He tells me that his name is Peter. He’s married with one child and runs his own company.

‘What do you do?’ I ask.

‘I’m a builder.’ When a prisoner say’s ‘I’m’ something, and not ‘I used to be’ something, then you can almost be certain that their sentence is short or they’re on remand. Peter goes on to tell me that he and his brother run a small building company that specializes in buying dilapidated houses in up-and-coming areas of Essex. They renovate the houses and then sell them on. Last year, between them, they were able to earn around two thousand pounds a week. But that was before Peter was arrested. He comes across as a hard-working, decent sort of man. So what’s he doing in Belmarsh? I ask myself. Who can he possibly have murdered? His brother, perhaps? He answers that question without my having to enquire.

‘I was caught driving my brother’s van without a licence. My brother usually does the driving, but he was off sick for the day, so I took his building tools from the work site to my home and for that the judge sentenced me to six weeks in jail.’

Let me make it clear. I have no objection to the sentence, but it’s madness to have sent this man to Belmarsh. I do hope that the Home Secretary, Mr Blunkett – who I know from personal dealings when John Major was Prime Minister to be a decent, caring man – will read the next page carefully.

‘Are you in a cell on your own?’ I enquire.

‘No, I’m locked up with two other prisoners.’

‘What are they in for?’

‘One’s on a charge of murder awaiting his trial, the other’s a convicted drug dealer.’

‘That can’t be much fun,’ I say, trying to make light of it.

Are you still with me, Home Secretary?

‘It’s hell,’ Peter replies. ‘I haven’t slept for more than a few minutes since the night they sent me here. I just can’t be sure what either of them might get up to. I can handle myself, but the two men I’m sharing a cell with are professional criminals.’

Are you still paying attention, Home Secretary?

‘And worse,’ he adds. ‘One of them offered me a thousand pounds to beat up a witness before his trial begins.’

‘Oh, my God,’ I hear myself say.

‘And he’s putting more and more pressure on me each day. Of course I wouldn’t consider such an idea, but I’ve still got another three weeks to go, and I’m beginning to fear that I might not be safe even when I get out.’

Home Secretary, this hard-working family man is fearful for his own safety. Is that what you’re hoping to achieve for someone who’s been caught driving without a licence?

I’ve received over a thousand letters of support since I arrived a Belmarsh and even at sixty-one I have found prison a difficult experience to come to terms with. Peter is twenty-three, with his whole life ahead of him. Hundreds of people are being sent to this Category A top-security prison who should never be here.

But what can I do about it? I can hear the Home Secretary asking one of his officials.

Classify anyone who is arrested as A, B, C or D before their trial begins, not after. Then, if they’re D-cat – first-time offenders with no record of violence – they can, if convicted, be sent direct to an open prison. That way they won’t have to share cells with murderers, drug dealers or professional criminals. And don’t listen to officials when they tell you it can’t be done. Sack them, and do it. I was allocated D-cat status within twenty-four hours because of my mother’s funeral, so I know it can be done.

Home Secretary, you are doing irreparable damage to decent people’s lives and you have no right to do so.

While I’m trying to take in Peter’s plight, the pile of plastic bags has grown into a mountain in front of me. Another prisoner who I hadn’t noticed before, obviously an old lag, slots quickly into the one position that ensures the chain moves back into full swing.

‘This place is more about retribution than rehabilitation, wouldn’t you say, Jeffrey?’ What is it about the Irish that always makes you relax and feel you’ve known them all your life? I nod my agreement. He smiles, and introduces himself as William Keane.

Before I repeat what William told me during the next couple of hours, I must warn you that I haven’t a clue how much of his tale can be authenticated, but if only half of it is true, God help the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Health and the Education Secretary.

William was born in Limerick, the home of the Blarney Stone, son of a prize fighter (Ireland must be the last country on earth that still has prize fighters) and a local beauty – William is a handsome man. Mrs Keane produced seven sons and five daughters.

Now William’s accent is quite difficult to follow, so I often have to ask him to repeat whole sentences. His present home is a few hundred yards from the prison, so family visits are not a problem. It’s the family that’s the problem. One of them, the youngster, as William describes him, is on the far bench – marmalade and jam sachets – and at some point, William tells me, all seven brothers and one sister were in jail at the same time, serving sentences between them of one hundred and twelve years. I can only feel sorry for their mother.

William is completing a ten-year sentence for drug dealing, and has only twelve weeks left to serve. You notice he doesn’t say three months, because three months would mean thirteen weeks.

He’s actually quite fearful about how the world will have changed when in October he steps out of prison for the first time in a decade. He flatters me, a natural pastime for the Irish, by saying he’s read all my books, as it seems half the leading criminals in England have.

During his time in six prisons (he’s a post-graduate on such establishments), William has taken a degree, and read over four hundred books – I only point this out to make you aware that we are not dealing with a fool. He adds his condolences over my mother’s death, and asks how the police and prison staff dealt with me when it came to the funeral. I tell him that they couldn’t have been more thoughtful and considerate.