investigation by KPMG on behalf of the Red Cross. Baroness Nicholson’s insinuation that I had stolen money from the Appeal was irresponsible and wholly without foundation, and on 23 January 2002, the police closed their enquiry ‘in view of… the lack of any evidence from the informant’.
[24] He later wrote to tell me that his old firm took him back the day he was released, and treated the six weeks absence as holiday on full pay.
[25] Caused by the problem of overcrowding.
[26] The analgesic the inmates most commonly ask for is Kapake which is a mixture of paracetamol and codeine. The reason is that codeine will show up in MDT as an opiate, and thus disguise illegal opiates. The user can then protest, ‘But I’m taking Kapake which the doctor prescribed.’ Prison doctors are now trying to limit the use of Kapake and diazepam when a prisoner has a record of taking drugs.
[27] Mr Leighton is unable to make the decision himself. He reports back the following day that the BBC had already been in touch with the Home Office, and they have been turned down.
[28] The full report was published in the
[29] I was president of the World Snooker Association until I was arrested, when the board asked me to resign. Two other bodies expelled me, the Royal Society of Arts and the MCC.
[30] Two prisoners absconded during their first week at work. Both were caught and transferred to a B-cat in Nottingham. Two were found in a pub and are back working on the farm; while three were sacked for inappropriate behaviour – unwanted advances to the female staff. And that was in the first week.
[31] Most sex offenders, when housed in an open prison, are given a cover story should anyone ask what they are in for.
[32] They did. It was published in the Sunday Mirror the next day. (See overleaf.)
[33] See map page 414.
[34] I had no idea how important this lunch would turn out to be on the evening I wrote these words.
[35] When I first entered the Liberal Club, an elderly gentlemen remarked, ‘Prison is one thing, Jeff, but the Liberal Club?’
[36] I assume that Mr Beaumont was given Dr Razzak’s advice. If so, he ignored it.
[37] One officer pushes the prisoner’s head down, while another keeps his legs bent; this is known as being ‘bent up’ or ‘twisted up’. In the rule book it’s described as ‘control and restraint’.
[38] I am pleased to learn that David, the friendly schoolmaster at NSC who joined Clive’s company on leaving prison, quickly realized what he was up to, and resigned.
[39] There was a riot the week after I left, and seventeen inmates ended up in hospital.
[40] I wrote this in A Prison Diary Volume One – Belmarsh: Hell, and the Home Office have shown scant interest. There aren’t any votes in prisons.
[41] An area manager is senior to a governor, and can have as many as fifty prisons under his remit. He reports directly to the deputy director-general.
[42] Since Mr Beaumont’s suspension, Mr Hocking has addressed the tribunal, and made it clear that he was forced to resign by Beaumont, with the threat of being sacked. But who bullied Mr Beaumont?
[43] Two years and two prison diaries later, and I have not received one letter of complaint from a prisoner or prison officer about the diaries despite receiving some 16,000 letters in the last three years.
