Heaven: A Prison Diary (23 page)

As
it’s
Twelfth Night, I spend a couple of hours taking down my
Christmas cards (1,712), and packing them up so I can hand them over to Will
when he visits me this afternoon.

Linda tells me
that a nurse at the Pilgrim Hospital phoned urgently about the prisoner with
the groin injury. An officer is dispatched immediately to keep an eye on him
until he’s safely back in his room at NSC. Not a bad idea to get yourself
transferred to the local hospital if you plan to escape, but it’s not that
bright to ask a nurse where the exits are.

Will visits me,
accompanied by my Christmas present. Neither he nor James
have
heard a word from their mother since she landed in Kenya. Will reassures me by
suggesting she’s either having a good time, or she’s been eaten by a lion.

Doug arrives at
the hospital with the news that five prisoners who were out on a town leave
have failed to return. As none of them are murderers, only the local police
will be alerted. If a murderer absconds, the Home Office has to brief the
national press within twenty-four hours.

North Sea Camp
has been told to increase its bed space. Now that almost every room has a TV
set, the large television rooms can be converted into three dormitories, giving
the prison another thirteen beds. I don’t think this will go a long way to
solving the problem of overcrowding in prisons.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Two hundred and
eleven prisoners, and thirty-eight staff (including clerical) return to work.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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