Hell

hoping to achieve for someone who’s been caught driving without a licence?

I’ve received over a thousand letters of support since I arrived a Belmarsh and even at sixty-one I have found prison a difficult experience to come to terms with. Peter is twenty-three, with his whole life ahead of him. Hundreds of people are being sent to this Category A top-security prison who should never be here.

But what can I do about it? I can hear the Home Secretary asking one of his officials.

Classify anyone who is arrested as A, B, C or D before their trial begins, not after. Then, if they’re D-cat – first- time offenders with no record of violence – they can, if convicted, be sent direct to an open prison. That way they won’t have to share cells with murderers, drug dealers or professional criminals. And don’t listen to officials when they tell you it can’t be done. Sack them, and do it. I was allocated D-cat status within twenty-four hours because of my mother’s funeral, so I know it can be done.

Home Secretary, you are doing irreparable damage to decent people’s lives and you have no right to do so.

While I’m trying to take in Peter’s plight, the pile of plastic bags has grown into a mountain in front of me. Another prisoner who I hadn’t noticed before, obviously an old lag, slots quickly into the one position that ensures the chain moves back into full swing.

‘This place is more about retribution than rehabilitation, wouldn’t you say, Jeffrey?’ What is it about the Irish that always makes you relax and feel you’ve known them all your life? I nod my agreement. He smiles, and introduces himself as William Keane.

Before I repeat what William told me during the next couple of hours, I must warn you that I haven’t a clue how much of his tale can be authenticated, but if only half of it is true, God help the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, the Secretary of State for Health and the Education Secretary.

William was born in Limerick, the home of the Blarney Stone, son of a prize fighter (Ireland must be the last country on earth that still has prize fighters) and a local beauty – William is a handsome man. Mrs Keane produced seven sons and five daughters.

Now William’s accent is quite difficult to follow, so I often have to ask him to repeat whole sentences. His present home is a few hundred yards from the prison, so family visits are not a problem. It’s the family that’s the problem. One of them, the youngster, as William describes him, is on the far bench – marmalade and jam sachets – and at some point, William tells me, all seven brothers and one sister were in jail at the same time, serving sentences between them of one hundred and twelve years. I can only feel sorry for their mother.

William is completing a ten-year sentence for drug dealing, and has only twelve weeks left to serve. You notice he doesn’t say three months, because three months would mean thirteen weeks.

He’s actually quite fearful about how the world will have changed when in October he steps out of prison for the first time in a decade. He flatters me, a natural pastime for the Irish, by saying he’s read all my books, as it seems half the leading criminals in England have.

During his time in six prisons (he’s a post-graduate on such establishments), William has taken a degree, and read over four hundred books – I only point this out to make you aware that we are not dealing with a fool. He adds his condolences over my mother’s death, and asks how the police and prison staff dealt with me when it came to the funeral. I tell him that they couldn’t have been more thoughtful and considerate.

‘Not like my brother’s funeral,’ he says. ‘Not only were the whole family in handcuffs, but they had helicopters circling overhead. There were more police by the graveside than mourners.’

‘But in my case,’ I pointed out, ‘no one thought I would try to escape.’

‘Houdini couldn’t have escaped from that bunch,’ William retorts.

What puzzles me about William is that if the rest of the family are as bright and charismatic as he is, why don’t they combine their talents and energy and do something worthwhile, rather than settling for a life of crime?

‘Drugs,’ he replies, matter-of-factly. ‘Once you’re hooked, you can never earn enough to satisfy the craving, so you end up becoming either a thief or a pusher. And I have to admit,’ William adds, ‘I’m lazy.’

I’ve watched him carefully since he’s joined the chain, and the one thing he is not, is lazy. He has filled more plastic bags than Peter and me put together. I point this out to him.

‘Well, when I say lazy, Jeffrey, I mean lazy about settling down to a nine-to-five job, when you can pick up a couple of grand a week selling drugs.’

‘So will you go back to the drug scene once you’re released?’

‘I don’t want to,’ he says. ‘I’m thirty-five, and one thing’s for certain, I don’t need to come back inside.’ He hesitates. ‘But I just don’t know if I’m strong-willed enough to stay away from drugs or the quick rewards that are guaranteed when you sell them.’

‘How much are we talking about,’ I ask, ‘and which drugs in particular?’

‘Heroin,’ he says, ‘is the biggest money-spinner. A joey’ – even after an explanation, I’m still not quite sure what a joey is – ‘has come down in price from one hundred pounds to forty since I’ve been in prison [ten years], which is a clear indication how the market has grown. And some people need as many as ten joeys a day. When I first came into prison,’ William continues, ‘cocaine was the designer drug Today it’s heroin, and it’s often your lot who are on it,’ he says, looking directly at me.

‘But I’ve never taken a drug in my life,’ I tell him, ‘I don’t even smoke.’

‘I knew that the moment you walked in,’ he said.

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘The first thing I check is the pallor of the skin – not bad for sixty-one,’ he says, displaying that Irish charm again. ‘Then I look at the nose, followed by the lips and finally the arms, and it’s clear you’re not a potential customer. But I’d be willing to bet there’s something you need Del Boy to supply you with.’

‘Bottled water, still, preferably Highland Spring.’

‘How many bottles do you order from the canteen?’

‘Four, maybe five a week.’

‘Don’t let the screws find out.’

‘Why not? I pay for them.’

‘Because while cannabis and cocaine remain in your bloodstream for a month, heroin can be flushed out in twenty-four hours. If it wasn’t you, Jeffrey, the screws would assume you were a heroin addict trying to show up negative whenever you were called in for a Mandatory Drug Test, and it’s all the fault of Ann Widdecombe.’

‘How can it possibly be Ann Widdecombe’s fault?’

‘Because it was Widdecombe who first brought in the MDT. That single decision has turned some cannabis smokers into heroin addicts.’

‘That’s quite a quantum leap,’ I suggest, ‘and some accusation.’

‘No,’ says William, ‘it was inevitable, and it only happened because Widdecombe knew nothing about the drug culture in prisons. How could she? Neither did you, before you were sent to Belmarsh. And worse, no one seems to have explained the problem to Blunkett either, because both are indirectly responsible for an unnecessary rise in heroin addicts, and even in some cases their deaths.’

‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘That’s accusing Blunkett and Widdecombe of manslaughter and cannot be either fair or accurate.’

‘When you take an MDT, they test you for marijuana [cannabis], cocaine, crack cocaine and heroin,’ continues William, ignoring my comment. ‘It’s a urine test, and your sample is sent to an independent laboratory and then returned to the prison a week later with the result.’

‘I’m with you so far.’

‘Marijuana can show up in urine for as long as twenty-eight days. You may well have smoked a joint three weeks ago, even forgotten about it, but it will still come up as positive on an MDT, which is not the case with heroin. Because if you drink pints of water immediately after taking the drug, you can clear any trace of heroin out of your system within twenty-four hours, which means you won’t test positive.’

Pay attention, Home Secretary.

‘If the test comes back positive for marijuana, the Governor can add twenty-eight days to your sentence and take away all your privileges. Twenty-eight days for one joint,’ says William. ‘So in prison some marijuana smokers who are on short sentences turn to heroin as an alternative because there’s less chance of their sentence being lengthened. Result? They often leave prison as heroin addicts, having never touched a hard drug on the outside. Fact: a percentage of them die within weeks of being released. Why? Because the heroin in prison is considerably