Hell: A Prison Diary Part 16

AT RISK OF CAUSING SEVERE.

SYSTEMIC SEPSIS.

IN INJECTING DRUG USERS.

All inmates will be aware that possession, or use, of any controlled drug is an offence against prison discipline. However, any inmate who chooses to ignore this should be aware of possible health risks a.s.sociated with injecting drugs.

It is possible that parts of a batch of heroin, which may have been responsible for a number of deaths in Scotland, Ireland and various parts of England last year, may be circulating on the drugs market again.

Any inmate who injects drugs is therefore placing himself at extreme risk.

I'm about to leave when I see five roses on his window sill. Fletch is obviously a man who likes to have flowers in his room. I look at the little bunch more closely. He makes the petals out of bread, and the raindrop effect on the red petals are grains of sugar. He paints them with a brush made up of hairs that have fallen out of a shaving brush. They are attached to the end of a pencil with the aid of a rubber band. He finally produces the colour by using a wet brush and applying it to the end of a red crayon. He's made six of these bread roses and planted them in a bread roll, as he's not allowed a flower pot because when broken it could be used as a weapon.

'Why won't they let you have a paintbox?' I ask.

'No boxes or tins are allowed in Belmarsh,' he explains, 'because they can also be turned into a weapon and weapons are a ma.s.sive problem for the screws. They have to allow you a new Bic razor every day, otherwise all the cons would be unshaven. Last month a con glued two Bic razor blades to the end of a toothbrush, caught someone in the shower and left him with a scar across his face that no plastic surgeon will be able to disguise.

Whenever you open a can of anything,'

Fletch continues, 'you have to tip the contents out onto a plate, and pa.s.s the empty can back to an officer, as you could cut someone's throat with the serrated edge of the lid. However,' Fletch adds, 'there are still many other ways a determined prisoner can make himself a weapon.' I don't interrupt his flow.

'For example,' he continues, 'you could hit someone over the head with your steel Thermos flask You could pour the hot water from your Thermos over another prisoner; you could remove one of the iron struts from under your bed and you'd have a crude knife; I've even seen someone's throat cut with a sharpened phonecard. Fletch picks up his plastic lavatory brush. 'One prisoner quite recently used his razor supply to shave down the handle [nine inches in length] so that he turned his bog brush into a sword, and then in the middle of the night stabbed his cellmate to death.'

'But that would only ensure that he remained in prison for the rest of his life,' I reminded him.

'He already had a life sentence,' said Fletch without emotion. 'If a prisoner is determined to kill his cell-mate or even another prisoner, it's all too easy, because once you're banged up, the screws can't spend all night checking what's taking place on the other side of the iron door.'

Only two weeks ago I would have been appalled, horrified, disgusted by this matter-offact conversation. Am I already becoming anaesthetized, numbed by anything other than the most horrific?

When I leave Fletch's cell, Colin (football hooligan) is waiting to see me. He hands me a copy of his rewritten critique on Frank McCourt's latest book, ' Tis, as well as a poem that he's written. Colin offers me a banana, not my usual fee for editing, but a fair exchange in the circ.u.mstances.

I return to my cell and immediately commit to paper everything Fletch has told me.

12 noon Lunch. Tony has selected a jacket potato covered in grated cheese. I eat his offering slowly while listening to the cricket on the radio. England have already collapsed, and were all out for 161 in their second innings, leaving Australia to chase a total of 156 to win the match and retain the Ashes. I leave the radio on, kidding myself that if Gough and Cadd.i.c.k make an early breakthrough, we could be in with a chance. Wrong again.

3.00 pm Exercise. I haven't been out of the building for three days, and decide I must get some fresh air. After being searched, I step out into the yard, and immediately spot the two tearaways who threatened me the last time I took some exercise. They're perched up against the wire at the far end of the yard, skulking. I glance behind to find Billy and Colin are tracking me. Billy adds the helpful comment, 'You need a haircut, Jeffrey.' He's right.

I'm joined on the walk by Peter Fabri, who is all smiles. He's out on Monday, to be reunited with his wife and six-week-old child.

As I have been writing about him this morning, I check over my facts. 'You were offered a thousand pounds to beat up a witness, in a trial due to be heard at the Bailey in the near future?'

'Even that's changed since I last saw you,' said Peter. 'He's now offering me forty thousand to b.u.mp off the witness. He told me that he's made a profit of two hundred thousand on the crime for which he's been charged, so he reckons it's worth forty to have the only witness snuffed out. You know,' says Peter, 'I think if I was in this place for another fortnight, he'd be offering me a hundred grand.'

Home Secretary, I hope you're still paying attention.

Peter remains with me for three more circuits of the yard before he returns to his friends three other prisoners with sentences of six weeks or less. I continue walking and notice that Billy and Colin have been replaced by Paul and Del Boy. I spot Fletch standing in the far corner. He likes corners, because from such a vantage point he can view his private domain. It becomes clear he has a protection rota working on my behalf, and I feel sure the officers loitering on the far side of the yard are only too aware of what he's up to.

I pa.s.s William Keane leaning against the wire fence chatting to his brother. He jumps up and runs across to join me. Paul and Del Boy immediately take a pace forward, and only relax when I put my arm round William's shoulder. After all, I haven't let anyone know which one of those sitting round the perimeter is the cause of problem.

Once again, I use the time to check the facts that William told me in the workshop.

He corrects a couple of errors on the price of cocaine and once again explains how pure heroin is diluted/cut before becoming a joey or bags. When he has completed this explanation, I ask him what he intends to do when he's released in twelve weeks' time.

'Salvage,' he says.

'Salvage?' I repeat, thinking this must have something to do with s.h.i.+pping.

'Yes, I'm going to buy old cars, patch them up, see that they get their MOT certificate and then sell them on the estates round here.'

'Can you make an honest living doing that?' I ask.

'I hope so, Jeffrey,' he says, 'because I'm getting too old [thirty-five] for this game. In any case, there's enough of my family costing the government a thousand pounds a week without me adding to the taxpayers' burden.

Mind you,' he adds, 'if they had let me out last week I might have ended up murdering someone.' I stop in my tracks and Paul and Del Boy almost collide into the back of me.

'My brother's just told me' he points to the other side of the yard where a tall, darkhaired young man is leaning up against the fence 'that my sister Brinie was kidnapped last week and repeatedly raped, and as most of the family are in jail, there's not a lot we can do about it.' I'm speechless. 'The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's been arrested, so we must hope that the judge gets it right this time.' He pauses.

'But for his sake let's hope he doesn't end up in the same prison as one of my brothers.

Mind you,' he adds, 'don't bet on that, because the odds are quite short.'

As we turn the corner, he points up to a tower block in the distance. 'That's where another of my brothers, Patrick, fell to his death.' (Have you noticed that Mrs Keane has named all her sons after saints or kings?) 'You'll remember, that was the occasion when the whole family attended his funeral along with half the Metropolitan Police.' He pauses. 'They're now saying he might have been pushed. I'll find out more as soon as I get out of here, and if he was...' What hope has this man of remaining on the outside? I ask myself. I found out a few months later when I met up with yet another brother. *

When William slips off to rejoin his brother, I notice that Del Boy and Paul have been replaced by Tony and David. David (fiftyfive, in possession of a gun) is overweight, out of shape and finding it difficult to keep up with me. The next person to join me is a young, bright, full-of-life West Indian, whose story I will not repeat, as it is the mirror image of Peter Fabri's. He too has no intention of even going through an amber light once they release him from Belmarsh. However, he admits that he's learnt a lot more about crime than he knew before he came into prison. He's also been introduced to drugs in the cell he shares with two other inmates.

'I'm clean, man,' he says rubbing his hands together. 'But one of the guys in my cell who's due out next week has tried heroin for the first time. He's hooked now, man, I tell you he's hooked.'

Are you still paying attention, Home Secretary?

I pa.s.s the tearaways, who haven't moved an inch for the past forty minutes and have to satisfy themselves with malevolent stares.

I feel confident that they aren't going to risk anything this time.

At four o'clock, we're called back in block by block. Several prisoners who are leaving next week including Peter (offered forty thousand to murder a witness), Denzil (come and see me when I'm a star), and Liam (do I need a barrister or should I represent myself?) come across to shake hands and wish me luck. I pray that they never see the inside of Belmarsh again.

4.00 pm When I arrive back in my cell there's another stack of letters waiting for me on my bed, three stacks to be accurate. I start reading.

It's turned out to be most helpful that the censor has to open every one. I'm particularly touched by a letter Freddie Forsyth sent to the Daily Telegraph about the length of my sentence, and the money I've raised for charity. The editor did not publish it.

4.49 pm Last call for supper. Spur one is always let out first and called back last, because most of the inmates are lifers who will spend more time inside than anyone else on the block.

It's prison logic and works because the turnover on the other three spurs is between 10 per cent and 20 per cent a week, so no one thinks of complaining.

I stroll down to the hotplate, but only so that my name can be ticked off, pick up a Thermos of hot water and return to my cell. I make myself a Cup a Soup (tomato, 22p) and eat a Mars Bar (31p) and a prison apple, as I continue to read today's letters.

6.00 pm I pick up Colin's critique of Frank McCourt's ' Tis. The improvement is marked since I read his first effort. He has now sorted out how much of the story he should reveal before he offers his critical opinion. This is obviously a man who once you tell him something is able to respond immediately. I then turn my attention to his poem.

Education Belmarsh Open the labyrinths of time blow out the cobwebs and past life of crime full of knowledge held within the mind is truly a wonderful thing It can be educated, it can be evolved without education can the problems be solved?

While locked away, there is plenty to see they entrap the body but your mind is still free to wonder the universe and grow like a tree So go to the library and pick up a book watch your mind grow while other cons look It's not down to them to make you move so go ahead read and your mind will improve Colin Kitto, May 2001 House Block 1, HMP Belmarsh This poem reveals a lot about the man, where he's going, and where he's come from.

I feel sure that before he completes his sentence, he will have that degree from Ruskin College. And don't forget, this is a man who couldn't read or write before he came into prison.

There is a polite knock on the door and I look up to see one of the officers peering through my little oblong window. He asks if I would be willing to sign autographs for his two daughters, Joanna and Stephanie. 'They both enjoy your books,' he explains, before adding, 'though I must admit I've never read one.'

He doesn't unlock the cell door, just pushes two pieces of paper underneath. This puzzles me. I later learn that an officer cannot unlock a cell door if he is not on duty.

Once he has retrieved them, he adds, 'I'll be off for the first part of next week, so if I don't see you again, good luck with your appeal.'

7.00 pm.

I begin reading a book of short stories that had been left on a table by the TV on the ground floor. It's t.i.tled The Fallen and the author, John MacKenna, is someone I've not read before. He's no storyteller, as so often the Irish are, but oh, don't I wish I could write as lyrically as he does.

10.50 pm.

I finish reading John MacKenna in one sitting (on the end of the bed) what a.s.sured, confident prose, with an intimate feel for his countrymen and his country. I conclude that G.o.d gave the Irish the gift of language and threw in some potatoes as an afterthought.

Day 18 - Sunday 5 August 2001.

6.00 am.

Another good night's sleep.

Yesterday I wrote for six hours, three sessions of two, read for three including my letters and slept for eight. Out there where you are, five hours' sleep was always enough.

In truth, the writing is an attempt to fill the day and night with nonstop activity. I feel sorry for the prisoners who have to occupy those same hours and cannot read or write.

8.00 am.

Breakfast. Egg and beans on toast, two mornings in a row. I don't grumble. I've always liked egg and beans.

9.30 am.

I hear the officer on duty holler up from his desk, 'RCs.'

I press the buzzer which switches on a red light outside my door known as room service to indicate that I wish to attend chapel. No one comes to unlock the door.

When they yell a second time, I press the buzzer again, but still no one responds. After they call a third time, I start banging on my door, but to no avail. Although I am not a Roman Catholic, after William Keane's recommendation I would have liked to hear Father Kevin preach.

10.03 am Mr Cousins finally appears to explain that as I am not a Roman Catholic, the officer on duty a.s.sumed my name had been put on the wrong list, and transferred me back to C of E.

I curse under my breath as I don't want to be put on report. A curse for me is d.a.m.n or blast.

'You can always go next week,' he says.

'Just be sure you give us enough notice.'

'I was rather hoping that I won't be with you next week,' I tell him.

He smiles. I can see he accepts that his colleague has made a mistake, so I decide this might be a good opportunity to ask about the drug problem as seen from the other side of the iron barrier. To my surprise Mr Cousins is frank almost enthusiastic about pa.s.sing on his views.

Mr Cousins doesn't try to pretend that there isn't a drug problem in prisons. Only a fool would. He also admits that because of the casual way officers have to conduct their searches, it's not that difficult to transfer drugs from spur to spur, block to block and even across a table during family visits.

'Not many officers,' he tells me, 'would relish the idea of having to use rubber gloves to search up prisoners' backsides three or four times a day. And even if we did go to that extreme, the inmates would simply swallow the drugs, which would only cause even more problems. But,' he continues, 'we still do everything in our power to prevent and cure, and we've even had a few successes.' He pauses. 'But not that many.'

When a prisoner enters Belmarsh he has an MDT. This takes the form of a urine sample which is all very well until it comes to heroin, a substance that can be flushed through the body within twenty-four hours.

Most other drugs leave some signs in the blood or urine for at least four weeks. On the day they enter prison, 70 per cent of inmates show positive signs of being on drugs, and even with the twenty-four-hour proviso, 20 per cent indicate of heroin. If Mr Cousins had revealed these figures to me only three weeks ago, he would have left me staggered by the enormity of the problem. Already I have come to accept such revelations as part of everyday prison life.

'Our biggest success rate,' continues Mr Cousins, 'is among those prisoners coming up for parole, because towards the end of their sentence, they have to report regularly to the Voluntary Drug Testing Centre there's one in every prison to prove they are no longer dependent on drugs, which will be entered on their report, and can play a part in shortening their sentence. What we don't know,' he adds, 'is how many of them go straight back on drugs the moment they're released. But in recent years we've taken a more positive step to stamp out the problem.

In 1994 we set up a Dedicated Search Team, known as the ghost-busters, who can move in at any time without warning and search individual cells, even whole spurs or blocks. This team of officers was specifically formed following the IRA escape from Whitemoor Prison in '93, but after all the terrorists were sent back to Ulster following the Good Friday Agreement, the unit switched their concentration from terrorism to the misuse of illegal substances. They've had remarkable success in uncovering large amounts of drugs and charging offenders.

But,' he reflects, 'I have to admit the percentage of drug takers still hasn't fallen, and I speak as someone who was once a member of the DST. Mind you,' he adds, 'it's just possible that standing still is in itself an achievement.'

I hear the first bellow from downstairs for C of E, and thank Mr Cousins for his tutorial and his candour.

10.30 am I report to the middle floor and join those prisoners who wish to attend the morning service. We line up and are put through the usual search before being escorted to the chapel. Malcolm (Salvation Army officer) is surprised to see me, as I had told him yesterday that I intended to go and hear Father Kevin preach. Before I take my seat in the second row, I give him the precised version of how I ended up back in his flock.

No backing group this week, just taped music, which makes Malcolm's job all the more difficult, especially when it comes to stopping the chattering in the back six rows.

My eyes settle on a couple of Lebanese drug dealers sitting in the far corner at the back.

They are deep in conversation. I know that they're from different spurs, so they obviously use this weekly get together to exchange information on their clients. Every time I turn to observe them, their heads are bowed, but not in prayer.

The sermon this week is taken from Luke.

It's the one about the ninety-nine sheep who are safely locked up in the pen while the shepherd goes off in search of the one that's strayed. Malcolm faces a congregation of over two hundred that have strayed, and most of them have absolutely no intention of returning to the pen.

But he somehow battles on, working a.s.siduously on the first six rows, with whom he is having some success. Towards the end of the service his wife reads a lesson, and after the blessing, Malcolm asks his congregation if they would like to come forward and sign the pledge. At least forty prisoners rise from their places and begin to walk forward. They are individually blessed before signing the register.

They look to me like the same forty who offered themselves up for salvation last week, but I am still in no doubt that Malcolm and his wife are performing a worthwhile mission.

12 noon Lunch. I settle for more beans on toast, an apple and a mug of water. I suppose I should have stated the obvious at some point, namely that alcohol is forbidden, which is no great loss to me as I rarely drink more than a gla.s.s of red wine in the evening.

4.00 pm a.s.sociation. I run downstairs, phonecard in hand, thirteen units left for Mary. A long queue has already formed behind the two payphones. One of the disadvantages of living on the top floor.

I turn my attention to the large TV in the middle of the room. Several prisoners are watching the Sunday afternoon film with Tom Hanks and Geena Davis. It's the story of a women's baseball team set up in 1942 when, because of the outbreak of the Second World War, the men's teams had to be disbanded.

I turn my head every few moments but the queue doesn't seem to diminish, so I go on watching the film. Several prisoners join me during the next half-hour.

Del Boy (murder) to tell me he's somehow purloined a copy of the weekly menu for my diary.