a prisoner may have been committed.
12.30 pm
I call Alison. Mary has been invited to Margaret and Denis Thatcher’s golden wedding anniversary on 13 December. James will be making the long journey to visit me on Saturday.
7.15 pm
Doug tells me that his contact in the administration office at Spring Hill isn’t sure if they’ll have me. I’ll bet that Doug finds out my fate long before any of the officers at NSC.
8.15 pm
A fight breaks out on spur six. It involves a tragic young man, who has been a heroin addict since the age of fourteen. He is due to be released tomorrow morning. Leaving ceremonies are common enough in prison, and an inmate’s popularity can be gauged by his fellow prisoners’ farewells on the night before he departs. This particular prisoner had a bucket of shit poured over his head, and his release papers burned in front of him. There’s a lookout posted at the end of the spur, and the nearest officer is in the unit office at the far end of the corridor, reading a paper, so you can be sure the humiliation will continue until he begins his right rounds.
When I return to the hospital, I tell Doug the name of the prisoner involved. He expresses no surprise, and simply adds, ‘That boy won’t see the other side of forty.’
10.30 pm
Returning to my room, I pass Alan (selling stolen goods) in the corridor. He asks if he can leave a small wooden rocking horse in my room, as his is a little overcrowded with two inmates. He paid ?20 for the toy (a postal order sent by someone on the outside to the wife of the prisoner who made it). It’s a gift for his fourteen month old grandson.
As I write this diary, in front of me are several cards from well-wishers, a pottery model of the Old Vicarage, a photo of Mary and the boys and now a rocking horse.
Alan is due to be released in two weeks’ time, and when he leaves, no excrement will be poured over his head. The prisoners will line up to shake hands with this thoroughly decent man.
DAY 107 FRIDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2001
6.19 am
Absconding is a D-cat phenomenon. It’s almost impossible to escape from an A- or B-cat prison, and extremely difficult to do so even from a C-cat (Wayland, for example). In order for a prisoner to become eligible for D-cat status, he or she must be judged likely to complete their sentence without attempting to abscond. In practice, prisons are so overcrowded that C-cat establishments, which are desperate to empty their cells, often clear out prisoners who quite simply should not be sent to an open prison.
One intake of eleven such prisoners arrived from Lincoln last year and was down to seven before the final roll- call that night. I discovered today that because of the chronic shortage of staff, there are only five officers on duty at night, and two of them are on overtime, so absconding isn’t too difficult.
Prisoners abscond for a hundred and one different reasons, but mainly because of outside family pressures: a wife who is having an affair, a partner who takes the children away or a death in the family that doesn’t fulfil the criteria for compassionate leave. The true irony is that these prisoners are the ones mostly likely to be apprehended, because the first place they turn up at is the family abode and there waiting for them on the doorstep are a couple of local bobbies who then return them to closed conditions and a longer sentence.
Before I was sent to prison I would have said, ‘Quite right, too, it’s no more than they deserve.’ However, after 106 days of an intense learning curve I now realize that each individual has to be judged on his own merits. I accept that they have to be punished, but it rarely falls neatly into black or white territory.
Then there’s a completely different category of absconders – foreigners. They simply wish to get back to their country, aware that the British police have neither the time nor the resources to go looking for them.
For every Ronnie Biggs there are a hundred Ronnie Smalls.
Mr New tells me about two absconders who are part of North Sea Camp folklore. Some years ago Boston held a marathon in aid of a local cancer charity, and the selected route took the competitors across a public footpath running along the east side of the prison. One prisoner slipped out of the gym in his running kit, joined the passing athletes and has never been seen since.
The second story concerns a prisoner who had to make a court appearance on a second charge, while serving a six-year sentence for a previous conviction. When the jury returned to deliver their verdict, his guards were waiting for him downstairs in the cells. The jury delivered a verdict of not guilty on the second charge. The judge pronounced, ‘You are free to leave the court.’ And that’s exactly what he did.
The reason I raise this subject is because Potts, who’s had a bad week, absconded yesterday following his suicide attempt. It turns out that the final straw concerned the custody of his children – the subject he was going to raise with his solicitor.
8.15 am
After the frantic rush of events following the arrival of fifteen new prisoners yesterday, today is comparatively quiet. Allen (cannabis, six years) drops in to tell me that his weekend leave forms still haven’t been processed, and it’s this weekend. The duty officer Mr Hayes deals with it. Thomas (in charge of a gun that discharged) says his town visit form has not been authorized and asks how much longer he will have to wait to find out if he will be allowed out. Mr Hayes deals with it. Merry (embezzlement) arrives with still no word as to when Group 4 will be transporting him to Sudbury so that he can be nearer his family. Mr Hayes deals with it.
Mr Hayes is an unusual officer. He’s not frightened of making decisions and standing by them. He also makes his own tea. When I asked him why, he simply replied, ‘You’re not here to serve me, but to complete your sentence. I don’t need to be waited on.’
10.00 am
Mr Hocking and I agree it would be better for the press to take a photograph and then go away, leaving his little band of security officers to get on with their job.
I walk out of the SMU building and deliberately stop to chat to Peter (lifer, arson), who is sweeping leaves from the path. He keeps his back to the cameras. Three minutes later I return to the building and, true to form, the photographers all disappear.
12 noon
Major Willis comes to SMU to hand back his red induction folder. He tells me that he’s sixty-four, first offence, GBH, sentence one year, and that he’ll be released in March. He was a major in the army, and after retiring, fell in love with a young Nigerian girl (a prostitute), whom he later married. She soon began to bully him, and to spend what little money he had. One day he could take no more, blew his top and stuck a kitchen knife in her. She reported him to the police. He will end up doing ten months (if he gets his tag), six of them at NSC.
He’s puzzled as to why I got four years.
2.30 pm
A quiet afternoon. A fleeting visit from Mr Berlyn to check that I’m wearing a prison shirt as the press keep reporting that mine isn’t regulation issue. He checks the blue and white HMP label, and leaves, satisfied.
9.00 pm
Fall asleep in front of the TV. Doug says I snore. I’m writing five hours a day, on top of a thirty-four-hour week, and I’m not even going to the gym.
DAY 108 SATURDAY 3 NOVEMBER 2001
I’ve written several times about the boredom of weekends, but something takes place today that turns the normal torpor into frantic activity.
8.50 am
The photographers have returned. They either missed getting a good shot yesterday, or work for the Sundays
