Heaven: A Prison Diary (33 page)

‘But that could
take days, and if you’re in the grip of a craving...’

‘It only takes
one phone call, and an hour later I check with the dealer and if he’s received
the cash, then I supply.’

‘If you were on
the outside and not a dealer, how much would you need to cover your own
addiction?’

‘Three hundred quid a day.’

‘But that’s a
hundred thousand pounds a year – cash.’

‘Yeah, but as a
dealer I can earn twice that, and still get my fix four times a day.’

Tony goes on to
talk about his fears after he’s released tomorrow morning. His parents will
come to pick him up at eight o’clock.

They believe
he’s kicked the habit following a spell in special prison in Devon, where they
weaned him off heroin for fifteen months.

But, once he
was considered cured, they transferred him to a D-cat, in this case NSC, where
it was ‘in his face’, and within weeks he was addicted again.

‘I won’t live
to see fifty,’ Tony says. ‘I’ll have been in jail for over half my life.’ He
pauses. ‘I wish I’d never taken that first freebie when I was fifteen. You’ll
pass ten of us in the street every day, Jeff, and you won’t have been aware.
Perhaps you will from now on.’

Tony left the
hospital at 7.28 pm.

I handed his
letter to sister the following morning.

Today’s list of
new inductees to see the doctor includes Patel, Patel, Patel and Patel. It’s hard
to believe that there isn’t a story there somewhere. When the prisoners appear,
it soon becomes clear we are dealing with a father and three sons. I later
discover that the mother is also in jail at Holloway; all five were charged
with the same offence.

The Patels are
Sikhs, and have very strong family values, so that when they discovered that
their daughter/sister was earning her living as a prostitute, they formed a
plan to kidnap her (the law’s views)/ rescue her (the Patel family’s value).
The first part of this plan was not too difficult to carry out for a bright,
reasonably determined team of Sikhs – they simply bundled the girl into a car
and whisked her off to the family home. However the pimp/ lover/friend-I can’t
be sure which – set out to rescue her, so that she could be put back to work.
Unfortunately for him, he had not taken into account the resolution of the
Patel family, so he ended up with a broken arm and nose after being beaten up.

The pimp
reported the incident to the police, which resulted in the father and three
brothers being sentenced to two years for kidnapping and ABH, and the mother to
eighteen months as an accomplice. All five went to jail, while the daughter was
set free to continue to ply her trade. As a novelist, I can come up with a
dozen scenarios as to what might happen when the Patel
family
are
all released in 2003.

Among the
prisoners who will be released today is Daryl, who is serving twelve months for
burglary. He has been a model prisoner, no sign of any drugs, never on report,
and whenever he visits the hospital, he’s always courteous and considerate, so
I was not surprised he had been granted his tag and would be leaving us after
only four months.

Once the doctor
has checked him out and signed him off, Daryl thanks sister and shakes hands
with me.

‘Good luck,’ I
offer, and add, ‘I hope we never meet again,’ – the traditional goodbye to
those you consider unlikely to reoffend.

Imagine my
surprise when I learned this evening that Daryl was back in jail. It happened
thus.

He was driven
to Boston station on the prison bus, where he was handed a rail voucher for
Manchester and £40 in cash.

Every prisoner
who is not picked up at the front gate is a travel voucher and £40 if they have
a known address to go to. If they are of no fixed abode (NFA) they are handed
£90, and the address of a hostel in the area they are heading for. After
fourteen days, if they have been unable to find a job they can go on the social
service register and collect unemployment benefit.
Back to
Daryl.

He boarded the
train at Boston, but had to change at Birmingham to catch another train to
Manchester. During the stopover at Birmingham, he picked up some fish and chips
before making his way over to platform six.

But as the
train was not due to arrive for a few minutes he popped into W. H. Smith and
picked up a magazine to read on the journey.

The magazine
rack is situated next to the bookshelf, and his eye lighted on the A section.
He left a few moments later with a magazine and three paperbacks by the same
author. He was about to board the train when a station policeman arrested him
for shoplifting.

When the police
learned that Daryl had been released from jail that morning on a tag, he was immediately
taken to Gartree Prison in Birmingham, where he will spend the next two months
completing his sentence, and whatever period of time is added because of the
shoplifting.

Daryl, however,
does not hold the record for being back in custody the quickest following his
release. Mr Belford assures me that that distinction belongs to Fingers Danny
of Pentonville.

Danny was
released from Pentonville at 8 am on a cold November morning. Clutching his
£90, he headed off on foot to Islington, not in search of the nearest hostel,
but the nearest Sainsbury’s. He arrived just as they were opening the front
doors. He proceeded to fill a trolley with products, and then walked slowly out
of the shop without making any attempt to pay. When the store detective approached
him on the pavement, Danny made a dash for it, but not too quickly.

Danny was
arrested, and appeared in front of the magistrate at ten o’clock that morning.

He pleaded
guilty. Before sentence was passed, Danny threw in a few choice observations
concerning the magistrate’s bald head, his lack of charisma and his doubtful
parentage, ensuring that he was back in his cell at Pentonville by midday.

However, the
difference between Danny and Daryl is that the Irishman had planned the whole
operation weeks before he was released. After all, it was November, and where
else could Danny be guaranteed a bed in a warm cell, three meals a day and the
companionship of his friends during the festive season?

He put his £90
release money in his canteen account.

Three inmates
absconded yesterday; it’s an hour to Boston on foot, about an hour and a half
to Skegness. The first, Slater (GBH) had a six-year sentence and had only been
at NSC for four days. Even more inexplicable is the fact that he was due for
parole in September, and having been transferred to a D-cat, could expect to
have been released.

Slater was
rearrested four hours after departing and taken off to HMP Lincoln, a B... cat,
where he will spend the rest of his sentence – two more years plus twenty-eight
days for absconding.
Madness.

I am informed
by an officer that the second inmate, Benson (ABH), was anticipating a positive
MDT back from the Home Office, and as it was his second offence in three
months, the governor would have been left with little choice but to ship him
out to a B-cat. So he shipped himself out. He was picked up in Boston early
this morning, and is now on his way to Nottingham (A-cat) with twenty-eight
days added to his sentence.

The third
inmate, Blagdon (pub stabbing), is a more interesting case. He was due out in
July, having already served nine years. He walked into a police station this
morning, and gave himself up after being on the run for only seven hours. He is
also now safely locked up in an A-cat. However, in Blagdon’s case, he never
intended to make good his escape. His cell-mate tells me that he didn’t think
he could handle the outside world after nine years in jail – eight of them in
closed conditions (banged up for twenty-two hours a day) – so now he’ll return
to those conditions for at least a further five years, at the end of which he
will have to come up with another way of making sure he isn’t set free, because
he’ll never return to a D-cat.

Every day this
week, an inmate called Jenkins has been popping into hospital to ask me how
many new inductees we were expecting that day, and added ‘Are any of them from
HMP Lincoln?’ I assumed Jenkins was hoping that one of his mates was being
transferred to NSC. On the contrary, he is fearful of the imminent arrival of
an old enemy.

Yesterday
morning the hospital manifest showed that six prisoners were due in from
Lincoln, and when Jenkins studied the list of names, he visibly paled before
quickly leaving the hospital. That was the last I saw of him, because he missed
the 11.45 am rollcall. Three hours later he gave himself up at a local police
station. He was arrested and shipped off to Lincoln.

I sat next to
Jenkins’s room-mate at lunch,
who
was only too happy
to tell me that Jenkins had been sleeping with the wife of another prisoner
called Owen whenever he was out on a fortnightly town leave. He went on to tell
me that Owen (manslaughter) had recently found out that his wife was being
unfaithful, and she had even told him the name of her lover. Owen, who had just
been given D-cat status after eight years in jail, immediately applied to be
sent to NSC and is due to arrive this afternoon. Now I understand why Jenkins
absconded.

A group of five
prisoners arrive from Lincoln, but Owen is not among them. When they walk
through the door, I report to sister that we seem to have lost one.

‘Oh yes, Owen,’
she says, looking down at her list. ‘He committed some minor offence this
morning and had his D-cat status taken away. So he’ll be remaining at Lincoln
for the foreseeable future.’

A letter from
the High Court informs me that my appeal date is set for Monday 22 July – in
eight weeks’ time.

A prisoner
called Morris arrived this morning. He is thirty-six years old and serving a
four-year sentence for credit-card fraud.

Morris has
stolen over £500,000 since leaving school, and shows no remorse. He tells me
with considerable pride that he still has just under £100,000 in cash safely
stashed away, and that he and his co-defendant lead ‘the good life’. They share
a large flat in London, drive a Mercedes, enjoy a wardrobe full of designer
clothes and only stay at the best hotels. They fly first class, and work even
while on holiday. He is a career criminal for whom prison is a temporary
inconvenience, and as the authorities always transfer him to a D-cat within
three weeks of being sent down, not
that
much
of an inconvenience.

Morris has been
found guilty of fraud four times in the last ten years, and received sentences of
six months, eight months, twelve months and four years. However, he will have
served less than three years in all by the time he’s released next January.

In 2003, he
anticipates that he and his partner will have cleared over a million pounds in
cash, and if they are caught, he will be happy to return to NSC.

In Dickens’s
time Morris would have been known as ‘a dip’. While the artful dodger stole
handkerchiefs and fob watches, Morris purloins credit cards. His usual method
is to book into a four-star hotel which is holding a large weekend conference.
He then works the bars at night when many of the customers have had a little
too much to drink. After a good weekend, he can leave the hotel in possession
of a dozen or more credit cards.

By Sunday
evening, he’s sitting in first class on a plane to Vienna (one card gone) where
he books into a five-star hotel (second card).

He then hires a
car, not with a credit card, but with cash, because he needs to travel across
Europe without being apprehended.

He will then
drive from Vienna to Rome, spending all the way, before returning to England in
a car loaded with goods. He and his partner then take a short rest, before
repeating the whole exercise.

Morris has
several pseudonyms, and tells me that he can pick up a false passport for as
little as a thousand pounds. He intends to spend another ten years rising to
the top of his profession before he retires to warmer climes.

‘It’s a
beautiful way of life,’ he says. ‘I can tell you more, Jeffrey.’

But I don’t
want to hear any more.

A prisoner
comes in asking to see the doctor urgently. I explain that he left about an
hour ago, and sister is over at the administration block, but he could see the
doctor tomorrow.

He looks
anxious, so I ask if I can help.

‘I’ve just come
back from home leave,’ he explains, ‘and while I was out, I had unprotected
sex, and I’d like to check that I haven’t caught anything.’

‘Did you know
the girl?’ I ask.

‘I didn’t know
any of them,’ he replies.

‘Any of them?’

‘Yes, there
were seven.’

When I later
tell sister, she doesn’t bat an eyelid, just makes an appointment for him to
see the doctor.

Among the new
receptions today is a prisoner called Mitchell (drink driving, three months).
While I’m checking his blood pressure, he tells me he hasn’t been back to NSC
since 1968, when it was a detention centre.

‘It’s changed a
bit since then,’ he adds.

‘Mind you, the
hospital was still here. But before you saw the doctor, they hosed you down and
shaved your head with a blunt
razor,
to make sure you
didn’t have fleas.’

‘How about the food?’
I ask.

‘Bread and
water for the first fortnight, and if you spoke during meals an officer called
Raybold banged your head against the wall.’