Heaven (A Prison Diary 3)

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 Godfrey 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

SATURDAY 27 OCTOBER 2001

8.07 am

There are some prisoners who prefer to remain in jail rather than be released: those who have become institutionalized 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 pass 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 nine-month 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.