Heaven

Today, I attend the 2.30 pm dress rehearsal of Annie at the Liberal Club and leave the cast after Chris Colby has run through his notes. [35] I wish them all luck and depart a few minutes before six. I now feel not only part of the team, but that I’m doing a worthwhile job.

I arrive back in Boston at six and go to the Eagles restaurant for what I didn’t then know was to be my last steak and kidney pie.

On my arrival back at the camp, Mr Elsen, a senior officer, asks me to accompany him to the governor’s office. I am desperately trying to think what I can possibly have done wrong. Mr Beaumont, the governor, and Mr Berlyn, the deputy governor, are sitting waiting for me. The governor wastes no time and asks me if, on Sunday 15th, I stopped on the way back to the camp to have lunch with Gillian Shephard MP.

‘Yes,’ I reply without hesitation, as I don’t consider Gillian or any of her other guests to be criminals.

Mr Beaumont tells me that I have breached my licence by leaving my home in Cambridge. This, despite the fact that I remained within the permitted radius of the prison, had been with my wife, hadn’t drunk anything stronger than apple juice and returned to NSC well in time.

Without offering me the chance to give an explanation, I am marched to the segregation block, and not even allowed to make a phone call.

The cold, bleak room, five paces by three, has just a thin mattress on the floor against one wall, a steel washbasin and an open lavatory.

DAY 435 THURSDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2002

5.00 am

I have not slept for one second of the ten hours I have been locked in this cell.

8.00 am

My first visitor is Dr Razzak who assures me that she will inform the governor I should not be moved on medical grounds. [36]

10.00 am

I have a visit from Mr Forman (chairman of the IMB, the prison’s Independent Monitoring Board), who assures me that I will not be moved if my only offence was having lunch with Gillian Shephard.

11.30 am

I am escorted to adjudication. It quickly becomes clear that all decisions are being made in London by Mr Narey, the director-general of the Prison Service. Once I realize this, I accept there is no hope of justice.

Mr Beaumont tells me that as a result of this breach of licence, I am being transferred to B-cat Lincoln Prison, despite the fact that I have, until now, had an exemplary record, and have never once been placed on report. He adds that I have embarrassed the Prison Service, following a press story. The paper accused me of drinking champagne at a Tory bash.

‘Which paper?’ I ask innocently.

‘The Sun,’ says Mr Beaumont, thus revealing which paper Mr Narey reads each morning, and which editorials help him make his decisions.

At North Sea Camp last week, a prisoner who arrived back late and drunk was stripped of all privileges for a month; another, who brought vodka into the camp, was grounded for a month. Only last week, an NSC inmate nicknamed Ginger went on home leave and returned three days late. His excuse was that his girlfriend had held him captive (this provoked a mixture of envy and hilarity among other inmates). His only punishment was confinement to NSC for a short period. Several former inmates have since contacted my wife pointing out that they regularly visited friends and in-laws on their home leave days, as well as taking their children on outings to the park or swimming pool, and it was never once suggested this was against the regulations.

I was given no opportunity to appeal.

I learn later that Dr Walling (the prison’s senior doctor) protested about my being put in segregation and moved to Lincoln Prison. Dr Walling told me that he was warned that if he made his feelings public, his days at NSC would be numbered.

3.45 pm

One officer, Mr Masters, is so appalled by the judgement that he comes to the side of the Group 4 van to shake my hand.

***

BACK TO HELL

4.19 pm

The Group 4 sweat box drives through the gates of HMP Lincoln just after 4 pm. Lincoln Prison is less than a mile from the Theatre Royal, but may as well be a thousand miles away.

I am escorted into reception to be met by a Mr Fuller. He seems mystified as to what I am doing here. He checks through my plastic bags and allows me to keep my shaving kit and a pair of trainers. The rest, he assures me, will be returned when I’m transferred to another prison, or released. He fills in several forms, a process that takes over an hour, while I hang around in a dirty smoke-filled corridor, trying to take in what has happened during the past twenty hours. When the last form has been completed, another officer escorts me to a double cell in the notorious A wing.

When I enter the main block, I face the usual jeering and foul language. We come to a halt outside cell fourteen. The massive iron door is unlocked, and then slammed behind me. My new cell-mate looks up from his bed, smiles and introduces himself as Jason. While I unpack what’s left of my belongings and make up my bed, Jason tells me that he’s in for GBH. He found a man in bed with his wife, and thrashed him to within an inch of his life.

‘I wish I’d gone the extra inch,’ he adds.

His sentence is four years.

Jason continues to chat as I lie on my hard mattress and stare up at the green ceiling. He tells me that he’s trying to get back together with his wife. He will be seeing her for the first time since his conviction (ten weeks ago) at a visit on Saturday. I also learn that Jason served ten years in the airforce, winning three medals in the Gulf, and was the RAF’s light heavyweight boxing champion. He left the forces with an exemplary record, which he feels may have helped to get his charge reduced from attempted murder to GBH.

I fall asleep, but only because I haven’t slept for thirty-nine hours.

DAY 436 FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2002

I wake to the words, ‘Fuck all screws,’ echoing through the air from the floor above.

I haven’t eaten for two days, and force down a slice of bread and an out-of-date lemon sorbet.

When they let me out of the cell (forty-five minutes a day), I phone Mary. An inmate from the landing above spits on me, and then bursts out laughing.

Despite the fact that the officers are friendly and sympathetic, I have never been more depressed in my life. I know that if I had a twenty-five-year sentence I would kill myself. There have been three attempted suicides at Lincoln this week. One succeeded – a lad of twenty-two, not yet sentenced.

Jason tells me that he’s heard I am to be moved to C wing. He says that it’s cleaner and each cell has a television but, and there’s always a ‘but’ in prison, I’ll have to work in the kitchen. If that’s the case, I’ll be stuck on A wing for however long I’m left in here. Jason passes over his newspaper. The Mirror gives a fair report of my lunch with Gillian and Tom Shephard; no one suggests I drank any alcohol. The Times adds that Martin Narey has said it will not be long before I’m moved. It cheers me up – a little, and then I recall the reality of ‘not long’ in