Mr Downs sighs, phones for a taxi, and instructs an officer to travel with the inmate to Pilgrim Hospital (cost £20).
That means tonight we have 191 prisoners being guarded by four officers – one of them a young woman who’s recently joined the service.
Good night.
DAY 182
WEDNESDAY 16 JANUARY 2002
10.00 am
Martin, the inmate who lost two months for attempting to steal some prison clothes on the morning he was due to be released, has had another twenty-five days added to his sentence, this time for being caught with marijuana in his room. He was originally due to leave NSC on 14 December, and now he won’t be released until 14 March. At this rate I might even get out before him.
It’s not uncommon for inmates to end up serving a longer period than their original sentence. However it will take Martin a number of ‘knock backs’ before he can beat a prisoner in Wayland (A Prison Diary, Volume II) who started with a three-year sentence for possession of heroin and is still a resident of that establishment eight years later.
3.00 pm
Among the new inductees are a policeman and a man who was sentenced to five years for attempting to kill his mother-in-law. The rest are in for the usual tariff – burglary, driving offences, drugs, drugs and drugs. Still, I sense one or two stories among this lot.
7.00 pm
I have a visit from Keith (class B drugs), which is a bit of a surprise as he was on the paper chase last Monday, and should have been discharged yesterday. I can’t believe he’s committed another crime in the last twenty-four hours. No. It turns out that the parole board, having informed the prison that he could be released on Monday, have now told him he must wait until one or two more pieces of paper are signed. Why couldn’t they tell him that last Monday rather than unnecessarily raise his hopes?
I tell Keith about a prisoner who was transferred from Leicester yesterday and is being returned to that prison today. The authorities forgot to send all his parole details. The man travelled to NSC in a sweat box, spent the night here, and now has to go back to Leicester Prison. By the way, we expect him to return to NSC next week. This bureaucratic incompetence will be paid for out of taxpayers’ money.
DAY 183
THURSDAY 17 JANUARY 2002
After a month of being hospital orderly, I have my work schedule mastered.
5.00-7.00 am Write first draft of previous day’s events.
7.00-7.30 am Draw curtains, make bed, put on kettle, shave, bathe and dress.
Prepare lists and make coffee for Linda – dash of milk, one sweetener.
7.30-8.00 am Surgery, usually twenty to thirty inmates who collect prescriptions or need to make an appointment to see the doctor at nine.
8.00-8.30 am Deliver slips for absentees from work to the farm, the works, stores, mess, education department, north and south blocks and the gate.
8.30-8.45 am Breakfast in the dining room.
9.00-10.30 am Doctor’s surgery.
11.00 am Acupuncture, usually three or four inmates.
11.10-11.40 am Read this morning’s draft of this diary.
11.50 am Wake up patients having acupuncture; Linda
removes needles.
12 noon Lunch.
12.40 pm Phone Alison at the penthouse, and collect my mail from south unit office.
1.00-3.00 pm Continue second draft of yesterday’s work.
3.00-4.00 pm Check in arrivals from other prisons. Give short introductory talk, then take their blood pressure and weight, and carry out diabetes test (urine).
4.30-4.50 pm Evening surgery. Those inmates who ordered prescriptions this morning can pick them up as they’ll have been collected from a chemist in Boston during the afternoon.
4.50 pm Linda leaves for the day.
5.00 pm Supper.
5.30-7.00 pm Final writing session, totalling nearly six hours in all.
7.00 pm Unlock the end room for use by outside personnel, e.g. Listeners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, drug and alcohol counselling sessions and prison committees.
7.10-8.00 pm Read through the day’s mail, make annotated notes and post to Alison.
8.00-10.00 pm Doug and Carl join me for a coffee, to chat or watch a film on TV.
10.30 pm Read until I feel sleepy.
The hospital orderly has the longest and most irregular hours of any prisoner. It’s seven days a week. On Saturday and Sunday after Linda and Gail have left I sweep the hospital ward, lobby, lavatory and bathroom before mopping throughout. (Although I can’t remember when I last did any domestic chores, I find the work therapeutic. I wouldn’t, however, go so far as saying I enjoy it.)
I then check my supplies, and restock the cupboards. If I’m short of anything, I make out an order form for the stores (memo pads, lavatory paper and today for a new vacuum cleaner – the old one has finally given up).
Some prisoners tell me that they would rather work in the kitchen or the officers’ mess because they get more food. I’d rather be in the hospital, and have a bath and a good night’s sleep.
DAY 184
FRIDAY 18 JANUARY 2002
5.26 am
The night security guard has just walked in and tells me with a smile that I can abscond. I put my pen down and ask why.
‘We’ve got one too many on the manifest.’
‘How did that happen?’ I ask.
‘A lad who was released yesterday arrived home and no one wanted him, so he crept back in last night and dossed down in his old room.’
‘So what did you do?’ I ask.
‘Marched him back to the gate and threw him out for a second time.’
I feel sorry for a man who has nowhere to go, and can only wonder how long it will be before he reoffends.
8.00 am
I bump into Keith (‘knowingly concerned’ with a class B drug) on his way back from breakfast. He must still be waiting for his missing papers to be signed before they can release him. You _ might be – as I was – puzzled by what his charge means.
Keith ran a small transport company, and one of his lorries had been fitted with spare fuel tanks. When the driver came through customs, the spare fuel tanks were found to contain 249 kilos of marijuana. Keith was sentenced to nine years.
Whenever a judge passes a sentence on drugs, there’s a tariff according to the class of the drug – A, B or C. Also relevant is whether you are considered to be ‘in possession of’ or a supplier, and the amount involved.
Drugs’ classification:
Class A heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, opiates
Class B cannabis (marijuana) (now Class C), amphetamines
Class C anabolic steroids, keratin, amyl nitrite (poppers)
Here’s a rough guide to the maximum penalties:
Class A possession, seven years supplier, life (fine or both) (fine or both)
Class B possession, five years supplier, fourteen years
Class C possession, two years supplier, five years
Many of the inmates feel unjustly treated when sentences can vary so much from court to court, and as over 50 per cent of prisoners are in on drug-related charges, comparisons are made all the time. A few admit to having got off lightly, while most feel hard done by.
5.00 pm
The man who was sentenced to five years for attempting to murder his mother-in-law turns out to be another unusual case. This particular inmate hit his mother-in-law when she refused to allow him access to visit his children. She collapsed and was taken to hospital. As she didn’t die, and the police didn’t have proof that he intended to murder her, the charge was dropped to aggravated burglary and he was sentenced to five years. It would take a trained legal mind to understand how the second charge came about. The prisoner explains that when he went in search of his children, he entered his mother-in-law’s house when she had not invited him in – and this offence is aggravated burglary.
DAY 185
SATURDAY 19 JANUARY 2002
2.00 pm
&n
bsp; I was hoping to see Mary, Will and James today, but the authorities have decreed that I’ve used up all my visits for this month, and therefore can’t see them until the beginning of February.
3.00 pm
This week’s football match has also been cancelled, so once again I come face to face with the prisoner’s biggest enemy, boredom.
DAY 186
SUNDAY 20 JANUARY 2002
10.51 am
Mr Hart (an old-fashioned socialist) visits the hospital to tell me that there’s a double-page spread about me in the News of the World. It seems that Eamon (one of the Derby Five) is the latest former inmate to take his thirty pieces of silver and tell the world what it’s like to share a room with Jeff.
I am surprised how many prisoners visit me today to tell me what they think of Eamon. Strange phrases like ‘broken the code’, ‘not the done thing’ come from men who are in for murder and GBH. After Belmarsh, Fletch, Tony, Del Boy and Billy said nothing, while Darren, Jimmy, Jules and Sketch from Wayland also kept their counsel. Here at NSC, I trust Doug, Carl, Jim, Clive and Matthew. And they would have stories to tell.
4.00 pm
I’ve started a prison tea club as I love to entertain whatever the circumstances. Admittedly it would have been impossible at Belmarsh or Wayland, but as I now reside in the hospital, I am even able to send out invitations. Membership is confined to those over the age of forty.
My guests are invited to attend ‘Club Hospital’ on Sunday between the hours of 4 pm and 6 pm. They will be served tea, coffee, biscuits and scones supplied by Linda. The current membership is around a dozen, and includes David (fraud, schoolmaster), John (fraud, accountant), John (fraud, businessman), Keith (knowingly in possession of drugs), Brian (ostrich farm and chapel organist), Doug (importing cigarettes), the Major (stabbed his wife), the Captain (theft, drummed out of the regiment), Malcolm (fraud) and Carl (fraud).
The talk is not of prison life, but what’s going on in the outside world. Whether the IRA should be given rooms in Parliament, whether Bin Laden is dead or alive, the state of the NHS and the latest from the Test Match in India. All of my guests keep to the club rules. They remove their shoes and put on slippers as they enter the hospital, and no smoking or swearing is tolerated. Two of them will be leaving us next week, Keith will have served five years, and Brian nearly three. We raise a cup to them and wish them luck. Carl and David stay behind to help me with the washing-up.
DAY 187
MONDAY 21 JANUARY 2002
730 am
I’m becoming aware of the hospital regulars: five prisoners who turn up every morning between 7.30 and 8 am to collect their medication. I couldn’t work out why these five need the same medication for something most of us would recover from in a few days. Sister has her suspicions, but if a prisoner complains of toothache, muscle sprain or arthritis, they are entitled to medications that are opiate based – for example codeine, co-codamol or dextropropoxyphene. These will show up as positive on any drugs test, and if a prisoner has been on them every day for a month, they can then claim, ‘It’s my medication, guv.’ However, if an inmate tests positive for heroin, the hospital will take a blood sample and seek medical advice as to whether his daily medication would have registered that high. Several prisoners have discovered that such an element of doubt often works in their favour. Doug tells me that some addicts return to their rooms, flush the pills down the lavatory and then take their daily dose of heroin.
11.20 am
A lifer called Bob (twelve years, murder) is due to appear in front of the parole board next week. He’s coming to the end of his tariff, and the Home Office usually recommends that the prisoner serves at least another two years before they will consider release. This decision has recently been taken out of the hands of the Home Office and passed to the parole board. Bob received a letter from the board this morning informing him he will be released next Thursday.
Try to imagine serving twelve years (think what age you were twelve years ago) and now assume that you will have to do another two years, but then you’re told you will be released on Thursday.
The man is walking around in a daze, not least because he fell off a ladder yesterday and now has his ankle in a cast. What a way to start your re-entry back to Earth.
MAY 188
TUESDAY 22 JANUARY 2002
11.00 am
Andrew Pierce of The Times has got hold of the story that Libby Purves will be interviewing Mary tomorrow. The BBC must have leaked it, but I can’t complain because the piece reads well, even if Mr Pierce is under the illusion that NSC is in Cambridgeshire. I only wish it were.
4.00 pm
Among my afternoon post is a Valentine’s card, which is a bit like getting a Christmas card in November, one proposal of marriage, one offer of a film part (Field Marshall Haig), a request to front a twelve-part television series and an invitation to give an after-dinner speech in Sydney next September. Do they know something I don’t?
8.00 pm
An officer drops in from his night rounds for a coffee. He tells me an alarming story about an event that took place at his last prison.
It’s universally accepted among prisoners that if one particular officer has got it in for you, there’s nothing you can do about it. You can go through the complaints procedure, but even if you’re in the right, officers will always back each other up if a colleague is in trouble. I could fill a book with such instances. I have experienced this myself at such a petty level that I have not considered the incident worth recording. On that occasion, the governor personally apologized, but still advised me not to put in a complaint.
However, back to a prisoner from the north block who did have the temerity to put in a written complaint about a particular officer. On this occasion, I can only agree with the prisoner that the officer concerned is a bully. Nevertheless, after a lengthy enquiry (everything in prison is lengthy) the officer was cleared of any misdemeanour, but that didn’t stop him seeking revenge.
The inmate in question was serving a five-year sentence, and at the time he entered prison was having an affair that his wife didn’t know about, and to add to the complication, the affair was with another man. The prisoner would have a visit from one of them each fortnight, while writing to both of them during the week. The rule in closed prisons is that you leave your letters unsealed in the unit office, so they can be read by the duty officer to check if you’re still involved in any criminal activity, or asking for drugs to be sent in. When the prisoner left his two letters in the unit office, the officer on duty was the same man he had made a complaint about to the governor. The officer read both the love letters, and yes, you’ve guessed it, switched them and sealed the envelopes and with it, the fate of the prisoner.
How do I know this to be true? Because the officer involved has just told me, and is happy to tell anyone he considers a threat.
DAY 189
WEDNESDAY 23 JANUARY 2002
9.00 am
Mary is on Midweek with Libby Purves.
12.15 pm
I call Mary. She’s off to lunch with Ken Howard RA and other artistic luminaries.
2.00 pm
My visitors today are Michael Portillo and Alan Jones (Australia’s John Humphreys). I must first make my position clear on Michael’s leadership bid. I would have wanted him to follow John Major as leader of the party. I would also have voted for him to follow William Hague, though I would have been torn if Malcolm Rifkind had won back his Edinburgh seat.
It is a robust visit, and it serves to remind me how much I miss the cut and thrust of Westminster, stuck as I am in the coldest and most remote corner of Lincolnshire. Michael tells us about one or two changes he would have made had he been elected leader. We need our own ‘Clause 4’ he suggests, which Tony Blair so brilliantly turned into an important issue, despite it being of no real significance. Michael also feels that the party’s parliamentary candidates should be selected from the centre, taking power away from the con
stituencies. It also worries him how few women and member of minority groups end up on the Conservative benches. He points out that at the last election, the party only added one new woman to its ranks, at a time when the Labour party have over fifty.
‘Not much of an advertisement for the new, all-inclusive, modern party,’ he adds.
‘But how would you have handled the European issue?’ ask Alan.
Michael is about to reply when that red-hot socialist (local Labour councillor) Officer Hart tells us that our time is up.
Politics is not so overburdened with talent that the Conservatives can survive without Portillo, Rifkind, Hague, Clarke and Redwood, all playing important roles, especially while we’re in opposition.
When the two men left I was buzzing. An hour later I wanted to abscond.
5.00 pm
I call Mary. She has just left the chambers of Julian Malins QC, and is going to dinner with Leo Rothschild.
DAY 191
FRIDAY 25 JANUARY 2002
8.15 am
I’m called out of breakfast over the tannoy and instructed to return to the hospital immediately. Five new prisoners came in last night after Gail had gone home. She needs all the preliminaries carried out (heart rate, weight, height) before Dr Walling arrives at nine. One of the new intake announces with considerable pride that although this is his fifth offence, it’s his first visit to NSC.