Heaven (A Prison Diary 3)

Mary and William turn up almost an hour late for their visit because of the snow and ice that caused long hold-ups on the A1. My time with them is cut down to forty minutes.

It’s Mary’s birthday, and she’s wearing the emerald that Sergio purchased for me from the Green Mountains after he returned to Columbia.14 I wanted to also give her the pot I made at Wayland, but they told me it shattered in the kiln.

We chat about her forthcoming trip to Kenya for her nephew’s wedding. She’ll be away for the first ten days of January, but as my appeal won’t be heard until mid-February, this isn’t a problem. She hopes to see Sir Sidney Kentridge and Godfrey Barker before she leaves. If Godfrey signs an affidavit confirming that Mr Justice Potts discussed me adversely at a dinner party they both attended a year before my arrest, I could be out of here in a few weeks’ time. Will isn’t optimistic. He feels Godfrey will feel compromised because his wife works for the parole board. As Godfrey has sent me a Christmas card, I can only hope Will’s wrong.

Surely justice and truth matter to such a man. We shall soon find out.

DAY 158

SUNDAY 23 DECEMBER 2001

8.35 am

The Sunday Telegraph reports that I’ve written a 300,000-word novel entitled Sons of Fortune during the short time I’ve been in prison. It might seem short to them, but it’s been 158 days for me.

I actually wrote the first three drafts of the novel before my conviction. I had planned to drive from Boston (Connecticut) to Newhaven via Hartford, where the book is set, and research the final points before Mr Justice Potts intervened. I ended up spending the month of August not in the US, but in Belmarsh writing the first diary.

9.00 am

Five inmates’ names are called over the tannoy. They are told to report to the doctor, which means they’ve been charged and will later be up in front of the governor for adjudication: two for smoking cannabis, one for being drunk, one for secreting £25 in a cigarette tin, and finally Hal, who you will recall thumbed a lift back from Boston, while in possession of a bottle of vodka, a bottle of rum and a six-pack of Fosters. Hal did point out to me that it’s a twelve-mile round trip to Boston and back to NSC, and it was 2 degrees below zero. I don’t think the governor will consider these to be mitigating circumstances!

Hal loses all privileges, and has twenty-one days added to his sentence.

11.00 am

The governor, Mr Lewis, who has only a few days to go before retirement, pops into the hospital to check on the end of year audit, or was it just to enjoy a cup of coffee with Linda and a cigar during his morning break? As he’s leaving, I ask him to tell me a story.

‘What about my memoirs?’ he protests, but then recounts an anecdote from his time as governor of Oxford Prison: two brothers were charged with a burglary, but the elder did not feel his younger brother would be able to cope with a spell in jail, so he took the rap and was sentenced to six months. As it turned out, the younger brother couldn’t cope with being ‘on the out’ without his elder brother, so he stole a ladder, climbed over the prison wall and broke into jail. No one was any the wiser until roll-call that night, when the duty officer reported that they had one more prisoner than was on the manifest. The younger brother was arrested and charged with breaking into a prison. He got three months, and ended up sharing a cell with his brother.

Mr Lewis went on to tell me about two prisoners who escaped from Oxford Crown Court while handcuffed to each other. They ran down the street pursued by the police, but when they came to a zebra crossing, one decided to cross the road while the other kept on going. The handcuffs that bound them together collided with the Belisha beacon at full speed, and they swung round and knocked each other out.

DAY 159

CHRISTMAS EVE

Today is a nightmare for security. First there are the truly stupid inmates who abscond sometime during the morning and then return to the prison on Boxing Day evening. If they are also drunk, they are allowed to sleep it off, with twenty-eight days added to their sentence. Second are the group who slip out to Boston and arrive back with provisions and food. As long as they remain in their rooms and cause no trouble, the officers turn a blind eye. Should they cause any trouble, they also get twenty-eight days. This is known as ‘Nelson time’, and occurs only at Christmas.

It must seem madness to you, but when you have 211 inmates and only 5 officers on duty, it’s no more than common sense. Why aren’t there more officers on duty? Because the service is understaffed and underpaid. The average prison officer is paid £17,000 a year, and this year’s pay rise was 1.8 per cent. Why not send the offenders back to a closed prison? Because they are all already overcrowded (67,500 in Britain) and if you did, the D-cats would be empty. Then cut down on D-cats? If you did that, you would never rehabilitate anyone. Prisoners in a D-cat used to be released at 8 am (with the exception of lifers) on Christmas Eve and had to return to prison before 8 pm on Boxing Day. But Michael Howard put a stop to that when he became Home Secretary. This little break was more for the staff than the prisoners.

7.30 am

Dave (murder) is among the walking wounded, and comes to surgery doubled up with stomach cramps. Sister gives him painkillers that contain certain opiates. She then has to make out a separate form, which I take across to security because if Dave were to have an MDT he would show up positive. Sister is especially vigilant in these cases, looking out for those prisoners who fake the pain in order to get the drugs, especially when they know they’re about to be tested for heroin. In Dave’s case, there is no doubt that he’s in real pain, and any case, he’s been a model prisoner since the day he arrived at NSC. He’s desperate to impress the parole board and be released as soon as possible. He’s already served twenty-one years, and his wife says she can’t wait much longer.

9.00 am

Despite its being Christmas Eve, one inmate will not be able to avoid a nicking because he has pushed his luck a little too far. During an MDT, he attempted to exchange a tube of someone else’s urine for his while he was in the loo. It turns out that he got this drug-free sample from another prisoner in exchange for a Mars Bar.

11.00 am

Sue from accounts drops into the hospital to tell me that my private money has run out, and that’s why my canteen account only showed £1.20 in credit. Had she let me know a week ago, I could have asked Mary to top it up. However, Sue explains that she is not allowed to let a prisoner know that his money is running low, and can only inform him if he asks directly for his account balance. The reason is that most inmates are penniless, and don’t need to be continually reminded of that fact. Fair enough.

8.00 pm

Doug returns from the canteen laden with goodies, and tells me that an inmate has just been nicked for ordering a taxi to take him on a round trip to Boston. The cab company phoned the prison, so two officers were waiting when the inmate returned. He was caught in possession of forty-eight cans of lager and one bottle each of whisky, vodka and brandy. He also had six packets of fish and chips, a melon, a carton of strawberries, a pot of cream and a box of jellied eels.

The prisoner begged to be placed in the segregation cell overnight in case the inmates who had lost their ‘Christmas cheer’ thought he’d sold the goodies to someone else. The duty officer duly obliged, but he’ll still be up in front of the governor on Boxing Day.

DAY 160