Hell (29 page)

She couldn’t
come to terms with it
So
I was rejected once again,
and this time it was by someone I cared for, which made it far worse. She
described me as a filthy person, who allowed dirty old men to rape me, because
I wanted love and affection. There was no way I could begin to make her
understand.

By being open
and honest, I had lost the one person I truly loved. My life had been ruined by
these evil men, and now they had even robbed me of my wife and two children.

All I now
wanted was to kill the five monsters
who
were
responsible, and then die in the hands of the police.

There were five
paedophiles
who had taken away my life, so I planned
to take away theirs. I quickly discovered that two of them had already died, so
there were only three left for me to deal with.

Their names
were ***, **** and *****

I carefully
planned how I would kill them, and then later die in the hands of the police I
drove down to–and kidnapped *** and brought him back to–, leaving him at my
flat with three friends, who agreed to guard him while I returned to the coast
to pick up *****. I then planned to go onto–and collect **** and bring them
both back to–.

I arrived back
in–at one-thirty in the afternoon, when *****’s next door
neighbour
told me that I had just missed him. I phoned–to warn them that I would be late,
because I couldn’t risk grabbing him in broad daylight. It was then that they
told me the news. They had already killed ***.

I was enraged.
I’ve always been a cold person emotionally, but I cried on the journey back to
London, because I had wanted to kill *** myself. I had needed to cleanse myself
of these three evil men, and all I had now was a dead body on my hands and
three terrified associates.

I drove back
to–, breaking the speed
limit
most of the way. On
arrival, I cleaned all the finger-prints from my flat and told the others that
I would deal with ***** and **** in my own way.

That was when
the police burst in; twenty-four armed officers pinned the three of us to the
ground, handcuffed and arrested me.

I discovered
later that ***** had already phoned the police and told them he feared for his
life. I gave my solicitor all the details, and he said that because I was in
Hastings at the time of ***’s death, they wouldn’t charge me with murder, but
they could charge me with conspiracy to murder. They charged me with murder,
and I was sentenced to a minimum of twenty-two years.

Yes, I am doing
a twenty-two year sentence for a crime I didn’t commit. I only wish I had, and
I also wish I had killed **** and ***** at the same time.

I am now a
Listener at
Belmarsh
and feel useful for the first
time in my life. I know I’ve saved one life, and hopefully helped many others.

My demons still
haunt me, of course they do, but I somehow keep them at bay. I won’t complete
my twenty-two year sentence, but I will choose the time and manner of my death
*

It’s only shame
that prevents me from contacting anyone I know. A feeling of worthlessness, a
dirty little rent boy that allowed older men to use, beat and abuse him,
because he needed to be loved, and no longer cared what happened to him. How
can I ever expect my wife, my children, or my family to understand?

I hope by
telling this story, I may save someone else from the horror I’ve been put
through, so that that person will never be visited by the same demons, and
worse, will not end up in jail on a charge of murder.

I go to bed
asking myself should the man known as Fletch have to spend the rest of his life
in
jail?
If the answer is yes, don’t we perhaps have
some responsibility to the next generation, to ensure that there aren’t other
children whose lives will end by the age of nine?

I have a better
night’s sleep. Perhaps
Fletch’s
allowing his story to
be committed to paper has helped. I write for two hours.

Breakfast.
Frosties
and the last dribble from the second carton of long-life milk.
Not quite enough left to soak my cereal. Canteen provisions due in today, and
as I’m leaving on Thursday I will be able to repay all my bubbles: Del Boy
(water and biscuits), Tony (Mars Bar), and Colin (stamps, twelve
firstclass
).

Association.
I am strolling around the ground floor, when I
notice that one of the prisoners, Joseph (murder), is playing pool.

He’s by far the
best player on the spur and occasionally clears the table. This morning he’s
missing simple shots that even I would sink. I lean against the wall and watch
him more carefully. He has that distant look on his face, so common among
lifers.

When the match
is over and the cues have been passed on to waiting inmates, I comment on his
standard of play. I think the word I select is rubbish.

‘I’ve got
something on my mind, Jeff,’ he says, still distant.

‘Anything I can
help with?’ I ask.

‘No thanks,
it’s a family matter.’

I see that my
name is chalked up on the board for a legal visit from my solicitor, Tony
Morton-Hooper.

Over the years
I have found that professional relationships fall into two categories.

The ones that
remain
professional,
and the ones when you become
friends. Tony falls firmly into the second category. We have a mutual love of
athletics – he has represented many track stars over the years – and despite a
considerable age difference, we relax in each other’s company.

We meet up in one
of those small rooms where I come in from one side and am locked in, and
moments later he enters by a door on the opposite side, and is also locked in.
The first thing I notice is that Tony is wearing a thick yellow rubber band
around his wrist; it will allow him to eventually escape, but for the next hour
he is also incarcerated.

Tony begins by
telling me that Wayland Prison is certain to be a far more relaxed regime than
Belmarsh
, and as good a place as any to be until I am
reinstated as a Category D prisoner. I ask Tony what the latest is on that
subject.

‘It’s all good
news,’ he tells me. ‘The media have worked out that you have nothing to answer,
and we’ve been through your files and they show the matter was raised in
Parliament in 1991 when Lynda
Chalker
was Overseas
Development Minister and she gave a robust reply. She also wrote you a long
letter on the subject at the time.’ He slides both the letter and the
Parliamentary reply across the table.

‘Was
Ms
Nicholson an MP then?’ I ask.

‘She most certainly
was,’ says Tony, ‘and more importantly, a full investigation was carried out by
the Foreign Office, so we’re sending all the relevant papers to the police and
pointing out that a second inquiry would be an irresponsible waste of public
money.’

‘So can I sue
her for libel?’ I ask.

‘Not yet,’ he
replies. ‘I talked to the police yesterday, and although they will not release
a copy of the letter she sent to them, they made it clear that the accusations
were such that they had no choice but to follow them up.’

‘If we issue a
writ, will she have to release that letter?’

‘Yes. It would
automatically become part of the evidence.’

‘Then we must
have grounds to sue her.’

‘Not yet,’ Tony
repeats. ‘Let’s wait for the police to drop their inquiry before we take any
further action. And that could be quite soon, as Radio 4’s
Today
Programme
have
been in touch with Mary. Their research
team are
also
convinced that you have no case to answer, and they want her to appear on the
programme
.’

‘Of course they
do,’ I say, ‘because all they’ll want to talk to her about is my appeal.’

‘As long as she
doesn’t discuss the case while an appeal is pending, I’m in
favour
of her doing the interview.’

‘She could of
course quote from Lynda
Chalker’s
letter and the
Parliamentary reply,’

I suggest.

‘Why not?’ says
Tony. ‘But let’s proceed slowly, step by step.’

‘Not something
I’m good at,’ I admit. ‘I prefer proceeding quickly, leap by leap.’

Tony then
removes some papers from his briefcase, and tells me that the appeal will be
officially lodged tomorrow. I have to sign an agreement to appeal against
sentence, and another against conviction.

Tony would give
me a fifty-fifty chance of having the verdict overturned if it were not for the
‘Archer’ factor. ‘If you weren’t involved it would be thrown out without a
second thought. There wouldn’t even have been a trial in the first place.’ He
puts the odds even higher on getting the sentence reduced.
Mr
Justice Potts’s comment that mine was the worst example of perjury he had ever
known has been greeted by the legal profes
sion with raised eyebrows.*

We then turn to
the subject of the prison diary, of which I have now completed fifty thousand
words, and I warn him that it’s going to come as a shock to most of my regular
readers. He asks how I’m getting the script through to Alison, remembering this
is the tightest-security prison in Europe. I remind him that I am still
receiving two to three hundred letters a
day,
and the
censors allow me to turn them round and send them back to my office the
following morning, so another ten handwritten pages aren’t causing the censor
any concern.

‘Which reminds
me,’ I continue, ‘could you ask James to wear a cheap watch the next time he
visits me, and then I can exchange my
Longines
.’ I
hadn’t for a moment imagined I would end up in prison, so I was wearing my
favourite
watch on the day of the verdict, and after twenty
years I’d be sorry if it was stolen. James has hankered after it for some time
and has already asked me to leave it to him in my will (mercenary brat). ‘
Will can
have the rest of the estate as long as I can have
the watch,’ James insists.
Longines
have stopped
making that particular slim model. Nevertheless, William had agreed to the deal
as he considers the overall arrangement very satisfactory.

‘I think you’d
better wait until you’ve left
Belmarsh
before you
start swapping watches,’ advises Tony. ‘And then only when you can be sure that
the regulations are a little more relaxed.’

We complete all
legal matters, and as he can’t escape until the hour is up, we turn our
thoughts to the World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, where I had hoped to
be spending my summer holiday with Michael
Beloff.*
Tony tells me the
fant-astic
news that Jonathan Edwards has taken the gold in
the triple jump.

‘He won easily,’
Tony adds, ‘clearing nearly eighteen
metres
. He’s so
relaxed since his gold in Sydney that I doubt if he will be beaten before the
next Olympics at Athens in 2004, and even
Mr
Justice
Potts won’t be able to stop you being there to witness that.’

When the prison
officer returns to open the door on Tony’s side of the room, I leave him in no
doubt that the number one priority is sorting out the Kurdish debacle, so that
my D-cat can be reinstated as quickly as possible. I also add that I do not
require any lawyers to travel to Norfolk at vast expense.

They can relay
messages through Mary, who’s as bright as any of them. Tony smiles, agrees and
shakes hands. He has the hands of a heavyweight boxer, and I suspect he’d
survive well in prison. They release him, but as I don’t have a yellow band
around my wrist, I slump back into the seat on the other side of the table and
wait.

12 noon
In
the
lunch queue – always a great place to catch up on the gossip – Fletch briefs me
on Joseph’s problem. I now understand why he couldn’t pot a ball on the pool
table this morning. When I reach the hotplate, Tony recommends the ‘spaghetti
vegetarian’, which is disguised to look like bolognaise.

‘Au gratin?’
I suggest.

‘Of course, my Lord.
Liam, fetch his lordship the grated Parmesan.’
A small plastic packet of grated cheese is produced from under the hotplate,
opened in front of the duty officer and sprinkled over my spaghetti. This is
greeted with a huge round of applause from the prisoners and laughter from the
officers. In a lifer’s day, this is an event Back in my cell I enjoy the dish,
but then it is my twentieth day on prison rations. I’ve been able to take
another notch in on my belt. So I reckon I’ve lost about half a stone.

When the cell
door is opened again, I dash down to the middle level, already dressed in my
gym kit, and keep running on the spot by the barred gate. This time I am ticked
off the select list of eight from our spur. After a search followed by a route
march to another part of the building I’ve never been to before we arrive in a
changing room where we are all supplied with a light blue singlet and dark blue
shorts. This, I assume, is just in case any prisoner has spent time at both
Oxford and Cambridge.

The gym is
divided into two sections. The larger room is the size of a basketball court,
where twelve of the prisoners play six-a-side football. We currently have one
former Arsenal and
Brentford
player residing at
Belmarsh
. There is also a weight-lifting room, about a
third of the size of the basketball court, where forty-seven sweaty, tattooed,
rippling muscled youths pump iron, so that when they get out of here they will
be even more capable of causing grievous bodily harm.