11.00 am
When Mr Berlyn drops into the hospital, Linda tells him that she’s applying for a job at the coroner’s office in Boston. He assures me later that he doesn’t believe she’ll ever leave. He seems surprised, and frowns when I tell him that she’s already completed an application form.
He then reveals that, of the five prisoners who failed to check back in by seven the previous evening, two turned up late and will be in front of the governor this morning, two were caught drunk in an amusement arcade in Skegness and have already been shipped out to Lincoln, where they’ll complete their sentence with a further twenty-eight days added, and one is still on the run.
‘It can’t be worth it,’ I declare when discussing the absconders with Jim (antiques only) over lunch.
‘It may not be worth it for you, Jeffrey, but we don’t know their domestic situation. Has the wife run away with his best mate? Are the children OK? Are they all being turfed out of their home? Are they …’
I agree with Jim. I can’t begin to imagine such problems.
DAY 174
TUESDAY 8 JANUARY 2002
10.00 am
HM PRISON SERVICE RACE RELATIONS POLICY STATEMENT
The Prison Service is committed to racial equality. Improper discrimination on the basis of colour, race, nationality, ethnic or national origins or religion, is unacceptable, as is any racially abusive or insulting language or behaviour on the part of any member of staff, prisoner or visitor, and neither will be tolerated.17
This statement is publicly displayed in every prison in England, and I must admit that I have never witnessed an officer showing any racial prejudice at any time. On the contrary, I have witnessed several prisoners play the race card to their advantage.
’You’re only saying that because I’m black …’
‘You’re picking on me because I’m a Muslim …’
Unfortunately, I’ve not seen a black or Asian officer at either Wayland or North Sea Camp, otherwise I might have tried, ‘You’re only picking on me because I’m white …’
Can you name one country on earth that has a race relations policy to protect the whites? Certainly not Zimbabwe, which is in the headlines again today. I mention this only because a circular was sent to all departments today, which clearly shows how seriously the Prison Service takes minority rights.
12 noon
Mr Belford drops into the hospital and reports a conversation he heard between two elderly ladies standing at a bus stop in Boston:
First lady: ‘Did you see Jeffrey Archer in the pub last night?’
Second lady: ‘No, I thought he was in jail.’
First lady: ‘No, he’s down at our local almost every night, drinking pint after pint, before he’s driven back to the prison by his chauffeur in a Rolls Royce.’
Second lady: ‘It’s a disgrace.’
The officer pointed out to the ladies that I have never once left the NSC since the day I arrived, and I don’t drink.
‘That’s what you think,’ came back the immediate reply.
DAY 175
WEDNESDAY 9 JANUARY 2002
5.14 am
I wake and consider the future.
Everything rests on the result of my appeal. I currently have a four-year sentence. In present circumstances, assuming I remain a model prisoner, I’ll serve two, subject to my parole board report being positive, which means I will be released on 19 July 2003. However, I am appealing against sentence and conviction, and if my conviction is overturned, then I’ll be released the same day. If not, all will depend on my sentence being reduced. If the three appeal judges were to lower my sentence from four years to three, I would no longer be subject to the parole board, and would be eligible for automatic release in eighteen months. If my record remains unblemished, I will be released on a tag two months before that, after sixteen months – on 17 November 2002. Ten months’ time. If the appeal court judges reduce my sentence to two years, I will be released on 17 May, which is only another four months. If my sentence is reduced to the common length for perjury, i.e. eighteen months, I will be released on 17 March – in six weeks’ time.
Perhaps now you can understand why I am so anxious about my appeal, and wait daily to hear from the courts when I will appear before them.
10.00 am
A trainee nurse joins us. Simon will spend three weeks at NSC on secondment from the Pilgrim Hospital. He will quickly discover that prisoners are treated far better than the general public. At seven, you can pick up your paracetamol, aspirins, lozenges, mouthwash and prescribed medication. At nine, you can see the doctor, and you never have to wait for more than twenty minutes. At eleven, if you are stressed or want to give up smoking or come off drugs, you can attend an acupuncture course. At twelve, you can come back and get some more medication. At two-thirty you can attend a talk on giving up smoking; nicotine patches are handed out when the talk is over. At four-thirty you can come back for more medication. After 5 pm, the orderly can supply aspirin or paracetamol to any prisoner who has a slip from an officer. If you are seriously ill, an ambulance will have you tucked up in the Pilgrim Hospital within the hour.
In any one day, a determined prisoner can spend hundreds of pounds of taxpayers’ money, whereas in truth, I doubt if 10 per cent of them would visit a doctor ‘on the out’ and certainly wouldn’t go to a chemist if it meant parting with a penny of their own cash. So what, our new intern will learn is that if you are ill, it’s better to be in prison than an infirm old-age pensioner or a sick child.
DAY 176
THURSDAY 10 JANUARY 2002
1.15 pm
Although the fire alarm is tested every day at one o’clock, today it sounds for a second time at one-fifteen. Security are carrying out a full-scale fire drill.
All staff, prison officers and inmates have to report to the farmyard, where we line up in separate pens. I go to the one marked hospital, and join Linda, Gail and Simon. On my left is north block one, on my right the lifers’ unit – a score of murderers gathered together.
Everyone from the governor to the most recently arrived inmate is on parade. We wait to be checked off by Mr Hocking, the senior security officer. It’s the first time I’ve seen the whole community in one place, and it highlights how disproportionate the numbers of staff are to prisoners. This is fine in a D-cat where everything is based on trust, but would be impossible in closed conditions. If you had a fire drill in an A- or B-cat, you could only hope to carry it out spur by spur, in a C-cat perhaps block by block, unless you wanted a riot on your hands or a mass escape.
1.45 pm
Two hundred and eleven prisoners, and thirty-eight staff (including clerical) return to work.
8.00 pm
I watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. The last time I saw this film was with my two sons – Will was then nine and James seven. It was produced by one of my oldest friends, Frank Marshall.18
DAY 177
FRIDAY 11 JANUARY 2002
6.03 am
I’d like to bring you up to date on a couple of matters you may wish to have resolved.
Six prisoners have absconded in the past ten days, and I have already accounted for five of them. But not McGeekin. McGeekin had a town visit, which allowed him to leave the prison at eight in the morning, as long as he reported back to the gate by seven the same night. He did not return, so the matter was placed in police hands. ‘He’s already back in custody,’ the gate officer was informed by the local desk sergeant. He’d reported to his nearest police station and told them he wanted to be sent back to HMP Wayland in Norfolk, rather than return to North Sea Camp.
It’s not uncommon for an inmate to want to return to the more regulated life of a closed prison. Some will even tell you they feel safer with a wall around them. Lifers in particular often find the regime of an open prison impossible to come to terms with. After fifteen years of being banged up, often for twenty-two hours a day, they just can’t handle so much freedom. Within hours of arriving,
they will apply to be sent back, but are told to give it a month, and if they then still feel the same way, to put in a transfer application.
Frankly they’d have to drag me back to Wayland and I’d abscond rather than return to Belmarsh.
DAY 178
SATURDAY 12 JANUARY 2002
10.00 am
The hospital bath plug has been stolen which is a bit of a mystery, because it’s the only bath in the prison available to inmates, so the plug can’t be of much use to anyone else. However, I have a reserve one, which makes me king, because I am now ‘controller of the bath plug’. I will still have to make an application for a new one, which will mean filling in three forms and probably waiting three months.
2.00 pm
The camp is playing football against the local league leaders. When our team runs out onto the pitch, I hardly recognize any of them. Mr Masters, gym officer and coach, points out that the rapid turnover of inmates has meant he’s put fifty-four players on the pitch since the opening match of the season. That’s something even Man United couldn’t handle. Added to this is the fact that our star goalkeeper, Bell, has been suspended for one match after using foul and abusive language when the referee awarded a penalty to the opposition. He was a little unlucky that an FA official was assessing the referee that afternoon, and therefore the ref couldn’t pretend not to have heard Bell. Indeed they could have heard, ‘Get some glasses, you fuckin’ muppet,’ in the centre of Boston.
Our reserve goalkeeper is Carl (fraud), the SMU orderly who took over from me and comes over most evenings to watch TV in the hospital. He gamely agreed to stand in for the one fixture, while Bell watches from the sidelines.
I felt it nothing less than my duty to turn up and support the team in such dire circumstances. I left at half time, when we were trailing 7-1, just after our prison reporter, Major Willis (stabbed his wife with a kitchen knife – two years), told me that the Boston Standard had given him so little space to report the match that he would only be able to list the names of the scorers. I was also amused by his chivvying from the touchline: ‘Well played, Harry,’ ‘Good tackle, David,’ and ‘Super shot, Reg,’ as if he were a house master addressing the 3rd XI of a minor public school.
5.00 pm
I join Carl for supper, but he doesn’t look too happy.
‘What was the final score?’ I ask.
‘We had a better second half,’ he offers.
‘So what was the final score?’ I repeat.
‘15-3.’
The only man who has a big smile on his face is the suspended Bell, whose position as ‘first choice goalkeeper’ remains secure.
DAY 179
SUNDAY 13 JANUARY 2002
11.00 am
Once Linda has closed the surgery for the morning, I settle down to read The Sunday Times. The lead story is about Prince Harry, and the revelation in the News of the World that he’s tried marijuana and has also been involved in heavy drinking, despite the fact that he’s still under age. Some of us are old enough to remember the shocking revelation that Prince Charles was caught drinking cherry brandy when he was still at Gordonstoun.
2.00 pm
My visitors this week are Stephan Shakespeare, my former chief of staff for the London mayoral campaign, Robert Halfon, senior adviser to Oliver Letwin MP, the Shadow Home Secretary, and my son Will.
The general view is that IDS is doing better than expected. I warn them that if the inmates and the prison staff are anything to go by most people simply don’t know who he is.
Will tells me that he won’t be returning to the States until after the appeal. He also reports that Godfrey Barker has had a change of heart and is no longer willing to help and may even leave the country rather than be forced to give evidence about the dinner party conversation that took place with Mr Justice Potts. His wife Anne has said she will divorce him if he does.19
8.00 pm
A lifer has absconded. He was out on an unaccompanied town visit and didn’t return for check-in by 7 pm. If he’s still absent in twenty-four hours’ time, the Home Office will release the name and his record to the press. When a young hooligan escapes, it rarely makes even the local paper, but the public has a right to know if a murderer is on the loose.
Doug fills me in on the background. It seems that the inmate failed an MDT (heroin) a few weeks ago and was moved out of the lifers’ unit back onto the north block. The result of his latest test last week is also expected to be positive. As this will be a second offence, he would automatically be transferred back to a B-cat, and have at least another eighteen months added to his sentence. This is a man who began with a twelve-year tariff, and has already served seventeen years.
If he’d been a model prisoner, he could have been released five years ago.
DAY 180
MONDAY 14 JANUARY 2002
9.00 am
When the doctor arrives each morning, he first signs the discharge papers of any prisoner due to be released. He then signs applications for a five-day leave, showing a clean bill of health. His next task is to see all the new prisoners who have just arrived from another jail. Finally, the doctor handles ‘nickings’: prisoners who have been put on a charge, and again must be passed fit both mentally and physically before punishment can be administered. Once all these inmates have been dealt with, the doctor moves onto the genuinely sick.
Today we have three ‘nickings’. Two are commonplace, but the third even took the governor by surprise. The first was for swearing at an officer, and that has to be pretty extreme for the prisoner to end up in front of the governor. The second was an inmate found to have £20 in his room. The first ended up with four days added to his sentence; the second seven days, but the third …
All prisoners out on town leave have to report back to the gate sober before 7 pm. This particular inmate was a few minutes late and was, to quote the gate officer, legless. Out there you can be breathalysed if you’re driving, in here we are when we’re walking.
When charged with being drunk, the prisoner claimed that he’d swallowed half a bottle of mouthwash thirty minutes before returning to the prison. It is true that a bottle of mouthwash contains alcohol, and it will register on the breathalyser at 0.5 per cent. The trouble was that the breathalyser was showing 3.5 per cent. Next, they checked his medical records, and as the prisoner had not visited the surgery for over a month, and never requested a mouthwash, he was asked to explain why he suddenly drank half a bottle.
‘Because I was giving my partner a blow job,’ he replied.
When the officer recovered from this revelation, he thumbed through the rule book and came up with a winner. ‘Did you sign the trust agreement for prisoners who are on a town visit?’ he asked innocently.
‘Yes,’ came back the immediate reply.
‘And who did you select as the person who would be responsible for you at all times?’
‘My mother,’ the prisoner replied.
‘And did your mother witness the action you have just described?’
The inmate paused for a moment, pleaded guilty, and had twenty-eight days added to his sentence.
11.00 am
Linda leaves the hospital and walks across to reception, where two prisoners have just been taken from their rooms without warning, as they are to be shipped out to Lincoln (B-cat). They have both failed an MDT and came up positive for heroin.
Prisoners are never given any warning they are on the move in case they decide to abscond rather than be transferred back to closed conditions.
DAY 181
TUESDAY 15 JANUARY 2002
9.00 am
The Derby Five are on the paper chase, and each of them comes to the hospital to say goodbye. Eamon, who shared a room with me for a short time, is particularly friendly and says he hopes we will meet again. I nod.
5.00 pm
Over supper I sit next to John (murder) who makes an interesting point about Chris (murder) who is still on the run. If he’s managed to escape
to certain European countries (Sweden, Portugal or Italy) whose governments do not approve of our tariff system for lifers, it’s possible that the authorities in that country may turn a blind eye, especially after the Home Office announced today that they did not consider Chris to be a danger to the public.
8.30 pm
I’m going over today’s script when an inmate staggers into the hospital. He’s sweating profusely, and badly out of breath. I take his blood pressure, 176/109, and immediately brief the unit officer, but not until I’ve taken my own (130/76) to check the machine is not faulty.
Mr Downs (who replaced Mr New as PO) is on duty and I tell him that Gail has been keeping an eye on this patient for the past four days, and told me that if the monitor went over 105 again, he was to be taken straight to Pilgrim Hospital for a full check-up.
‘It’s not quite that easy,’ explains Mr Downs. ‘I’ve only got five officers on duty tonight, and this inmate hasn’t been risk assessed, so one of us would have to accompany him.’