Heaven (A Prison Diary 3)

2.07 pm

As part of my preparation for talking to children about the dangers and consequences of drugs, I have a visit from a police officer attached to the Lincolnshire drug squad. Her name is Karen Brooks. She’s an attractive, thirty-five-year-old blonde, and single mother of two. I mention this only to show that she is normal. Karen has currently served two and a half years of a four-year assignment attached to the drug squad, having been a member of the force for the past fourteen years: hardly the TV image of your everyday drug officer.

She gives me a tutorial lasting just over an hour, and perhaps her most frightening reply to my endless questions – and she is brutally honest – is that she has asked to be transferred to other duties as she can no longer take the day-to-day strain of working with drug addicts.

Karen admits that although she enjoys her job, she wishes she’d never volunteered for the drugs unit in the first place, because the mental scars will remain with her for the rest of her life.

Her son, aged twelve, is a pupil at one of the most successful schools in Lincolnshire, and has already been offered drugs by a fourteen-year-old. This is not a deprived school in the East End of London, but a first-class school in Lincolnshire.

Karen then tells a story that brings her almost to tears. She once arrested a twelve-year-old girl from a middle-class, professional family for shoplifting a pair of socks from Woolworth’s. The girl’s parents were horrified and assured Karen it wouldn’t happen again. Two years later the girl was arrested for stealing from a lingerie shop, and was put on probation. When they next met, the girl was seventeen, going on forty. Three years of experimentation with marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin, and a relationship with a twenty-year-old drug dealer, had taken their toll. The girl died last month at the age of eighteen. The dealer is still alive – and still dealing.

As Karen gets ready to leave, I ask her how many officers are attached to the drug squad.

‘Five,’ she replies, ‘which means that only about 10 per cent of our time is proactive, while the other 90 per cent is reactive.’ She says that she’ll visit me again in two weeks’ time.

DAY 228

SUNDAY 3 MARCH 2002

6.30 am

Yesterday I read Celia Grummitt’s pamphlet on the misuse of drugs in prisons and the following facts bear repeating:

a. Seven million people in Britain take drugs on a regular basis (this does not include alcohol or cigarettes).

b. Sixteen million people in Britain smoke cigarettes.

c. Drug-related problems are currently costing the NHS, the police service, the Prison Service, the social services, the probation service and courts – the country – eighteen billion pounds a year.

d. If Britain did not have a drug problem, and by that I mean abuse of Class A drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine, we could close 25 per cent of our jails, and there would be no waiting lists on the NHS.

e. In 1975, fewer than 10,000 people were taking heroin. Today it’s 220,000, and for those of you who have never had to worry about your children, just think about your grandchildren.

DAY 231

WEDNESDAY 6 MARCH 2002

10.00 am

Mark Le Sage, the young prison officer from HMP Stocken, visits me at the hospital. He’s been in the Prison Service for the past twelve years, and for the last eight, has spent many hours as a volunteer addressing schools in the Norfolk area.

Mr Berlyn joins us, as it was his idea that I should attend a couple of Mark’s talks before I venture out on my own. As I have not yet passed my FLED, I’ll have to be accompanied by Mr Hocking, who has also agreed to carry out this task in his own time, as NSC do not have the funds to cover the extra expense (£14 an hour). Mr Berlyn says that he’ll write to the governor of HMP Stocken today, as Mr Le Sage comes under his jurisdiction.

11.00 am

Blossom (traveller, see page 193) is at the High Court today for his appeal. He’s currently serving a five-and-a-half-year sentence for stealing cars and caravans. He’s grown his beard even longer, as he’s hoping that the judge will think he’s a lot older than he is, and therefore shorten his sentence. He intends to shave the beard off as soon as he returns this evening.

6.00 pm

Blossom returns from his appeal and announces that a year has been kn

ocked off his sentence. It had nothing to do with the length of his beard, because he was only in the dock for a couple of minutes and the judge hardly gave him a second look. He had clearly read all the relevant papers long before Blossom showed up.

7.00 pm

Blossom has already shaved off the beard.

The other interesting piece of information to come out of Blossom’s visit to the High Court was that three cannabis dealers had their sentences halved from seven to three and a half years. A sign of things to come?