Hateland (11 page)

    In the early part of 1983, officers on 'the Front Line' in Railton Road suffered several horrific attacks by mobs. These attacks received little or no publicity, presumably to avoid inciting copycat incidents. One day, I saw a policeman walking along one of the streets off Railton Road. A group of black youths hurled a milk bottle at him as he passed. The glass shattered at his feet. But he didn't even turn to look where it had come from. He just walked on and away. However much I despised the police, I still didn't like seeing them humiliated in this way.

    The situation sickened me and my friends. Our resentment stewed. We talked about the 'repatriation' of immigrants and, if that failed, leaving England ourselves.

    We used to drink with a couple of black blokes. They were friends of Ray's brother, Tony, and so were deemed 'OK'. We saw them as different from 'the others'. Of course, we didn't speak to any others.

    In April 1983, I stood trial at Stafford Crown Court for the glassing incident on New Year's Eve. Charged with wounding with intent, I pleaded not guilty, knowing that 'intent' is very difficult to prove. I told the jury I'd gone to the aid of a woman in distress. I'd been alone and outnumbered by a gang with a reputation for violence. As a good citizen, I'd remonstrated with them regarding their obnoxious and anti-social behaviour. One of this gang of notorious hooligans had then grabbed me and, acting totally out of fear, I'd pushed him away, forgetting I held a glass in my hand.

    The prosecution argued I couldn't 'forget' I was holding a glass. I said 'forget' probably wasn't the right word. I explained that I was wearing a pair of trousers, but I wasn't 'conscious' of that fact. I hadn't been conscious of holding the glass either.

    The trial lasted three days. My victim put on an outstanding performance in the witness box. At one stage, the judge even let him sit down after he appeared to faint. I was genuinely impressed. Until then, I hadn't realised I'd assaulted such a gifted actor. However, the photographs of his injuries turned the stomach. He had a track of stitches along the length of his neck. His ear had nearly been severed and its remnants looked like they'd been in a dog's mouth. I could see looks of horror and disgust on the faces of the jury. I didn't fancy my chances.

    On the morning of the third day, the jury retired to consider its verdict. Before leaving, the jurors had been given an alternative charge to consider: simple 'unlawful wounding', which is far less serious as there's no intent involved. They returned after six hours' deliberation. Not guilty to 'wounding with intent', but guilty to 'unlawful wounding'.

    My barrister read out both the testimonial in my army Certificate of Service and a reference written by my former troop leader, attesting glowingly to my good character. I'd told my troop leader in a letter I needed it for a job. He hadn't been fooled. On a separate piece of paper, he'd written, 'Hope this is OK and you get off. Good luck.'

    The judge told me that, because of my 'exemplary' military record, society owed me a debt. He said he'd considered sending me to prison for a considerably longer period, but, in the circumstances, nine months would suffice.

    My mother was in court. Her look of anguish tore through me. It affected me more than the sentence, which I thought was pretty lenient, given the injuries I'd inflicted.

    I served the first part in HMP Shrewsbury, known locally as 'The Dana'. Towards the end, I was moved to HMP Stafford, which had a bad reputation among prisoners, although to me it didn't seem any worse than 'The Dana'.

    In both establishments, boredom reigned supreme. Life proceeded slowly and with great tedium. I was issued with prison-tailored jeans, a blue-and-white striped shirt, a grey jumper with a light-blue neck and a remarkably ugly pair of shoes. I felt the shoes in particular had been designed to deter escape attempts, because I couldn't imagine how anyone with a shred of dignity would consider wearing them on the street, whatever the circumstances. For one pound twenty per week, I worked on a sewing machine in the prison workshop making mailbags and jeans. Contrary to tabloid myth, there were no TVs in the cells.

    The only TV I encountered was a long-haired effeminate Yorkshireman called Dan or Diane, depending on who was talking to him. I needed the patience of a saint to tolerate some of the fools around me. Occasionally, I'd meet an intelligent, interesting or amusing person, but by and large I found myself surrounded by idiots, fantasists, losers, bullies and the clinically insane, some of whom wore uniform and many of whom had very poor standards of personal hygiene. There was less violence than I'd imagined, but it happened now and again.

    Just because I was in jail didn't mean I escaped the attention of the police. Detectives from my home town came to visit me at one stage. I guessed they hadn't come out of concern for the progress of my rehabilitation. They produced a list of around 20 petty crimes which they said I'd committed. I'd had nothing to do with any of them. My unwanted visitors had even prepared a statement they wanted me to sign. They said I wouldn't have to go to court. The crimes wouldn't even appear on my record of convictions. They'd simply be recorded as 'TICs' ('taken into consideration'). It was a popular police method of massaging the crime figures to boost the clear-up rate. I told them to fuck off. They said, 'Fair enough, Bernie. We'll arrest you at the gate and we can discuss it then.' That's something all prisoners fear. On the day you're released, the police are waiting for you outside. You walk your first steps of freedom into the back of a police car. I signed the statement. Such was the system that demanded my respect.

    I fought back in little ways. At Stafford, I shared a cell with an Irish traveller called Finbar. He'd do anything for prison currency (biscuits, Mars bars, tobacco). We were on the third-floor landing. On the ground floor stood the Wing Office, outside which prison officers congregated every morning to drink tea and stroke each other's egos. I used to give Finbar a packet of biscuits or a Mars bar to fill a large plastic tea-mug with piss and throw the contents down onto the screws through the open metal grids underneath our feet. The screws would think they'd been accidentally splashed with tea or water by a careless prisoner. They'd shout up, 'Oi! Watch what you're bloody well doing.' Finbar would either apologise profusely or deny all knowledge. Little things like this helped me through.

    I only had to serve six months of my nine-month sentence. Getting parole is easy, so long as you're prepared to toe the line and be dishonest.

    'Do you regret your crime?'

    'Deeply.'

    'How do you feel about your victim?'

    'Sorrow and remorse.'

    'Will you offend again?'

    'No, never.'

    'Which lessons have you learnt for the future?'

    'The importance of discipline and self-control.'

    I just told them what they needed to hear. Lie, lie, lie. They didn't want me in their overcrowded hate-factory anyway. They were under-staffed, under pressure and underpaid. The truth was that the only regret I had was that I'd been caught and convicted. That's the only regret most prisoners have. But you can hardly be honest if you want to get out of jail. The system would find honesty 'unacceptable'. But perhaps if young offenders could be genuinely honest, then the roots of their behaviour could be explored in a constructive way. As it is, honesty only opens you up for additional punishment.

    After prison, I returned to London to live with Lofty, the pacifist friend from my army days. He was renting a three-bedroom house in Perivale, west London, with his girlfriend Cathy. Lofty hadn't changed much since the army. He still spent his time puffing weed, reading Greenpeace leaflets and strumming his guitar. He didn't seem to be able to get his head together, probably because he couldn't find it.

    Lofty's commitment to non-violence made him an unlikely pal for me. We were chalk and cheese, really, but I liked him. His semi-detached outlook on life and our cash-strapped situation always made me laugh. Each week was a struggle to meet the rent. On Friday nights, when the landlord called to collect his dues, Lofty would play the record 'Let's Lynch the Landlord' by The Dead Kennedys. I don't think the landlord ever got it.

    One evening, my brother Paul came over from Clapham to see me. We were sitting in the front room watching TV when we heard a loud bang on the front door. Cathy had just gone to visit a neighbour and at first I thought it was her returning. Several more loud, urgent bangs followed. I became alarmed, because it sounded like someone was trying to kick the door down. I was concerned for Cathy I thought something might be happening to her. I picked up a hammer and ran to the front door. Paul got there before me.

    Whoever was outside was kicking the door and shouting, 'Open the door! Open the fucking door!'

    Paul pulled it open and two men in their early 20s burst in and ran towards me. I swung the hammer and hit the first one on the side of the head. A jet of blood spattered the wall as he went down. His friend turned and ran back out. I stamped on the man at my feet until he stopped moving. Then 1 dragged him outside by his feet. It had been snowing. He lay there motionless with a bleeding head. His friend had disappeared. I didn't know the man, and neither did Paul nor Lofty, who'd joined us outside. Suddenly, the stranger sat up in the snow and began moaning, blood all down his head, chin and chest.

    I said, 'What the fuck's going on, mate? Why were you trying to kick the fucking door in?' He saw the hammer still in my hand, so he lay back again in the snow, covering his face with his hands. He said, 'Please don't hit me again.'

    With a little coaxing, he explained that he and his friend had been chased from a nearby fairground by a gang wielding weapons. He said they'd run for their lives to the nearest house. They'd banged on our door for help. I said, 'You should have said something, mate.'

    He said, 'You didn't give us a chance.'

    I felt bad about the poor bloke. But I believed that, in the circumstances, a forgivable misunderstanding had taken place. I gave him a towel to mop up the blood, called him a taxi and wished him a safe journey home. Lofty had been watching everything in disbelief.

    Cathy came home and saw the blood in the snow, the damaged door and the arc of blood up the hallway wall. I couldn't pretend nothing had happened. Lofty filled her in and she went berserk. I was already feeling shitty, so I didn't need her on my case. Anyway, I thought her outrage stemmed from the minor damage to the interior decoration, rather than my inhospitable treatment of a fugitive seeking sanctuary. In the end, I told her it had fuck all to do with her. Lofty joined in on her side and, in a flash of temper, I ended up bashing him too, though not with the hammer. He was, after all, a friend.

    The following day, I packed my possessions and moved to south London to live in a bedsit near Paul.

CHAPTER 6

AWAY DAYS

Once my self-righteous anger had died down, I felt really awful about having beaten up a hippy. Lofty was a good bloke and I liked his company. Bashing him was hardly the best way to cement our friendship. I disliked myself for having lost my temper yet again. Sometimes, I just can't control it. I have this anger in me that never seems to go away. It can just well up and then explode, often for quite petty reasons.

    I decided I needed to apologise to Cathy and Lofty. I thought I'd apologise first to Cathy at her workplace, then later I'd go round and take her and Lofty out for a drink. Cathy worked in a high-street shoe shop. I walked in and saw her at the other end, serving a customer at the counter. As I reached the shop's mid-point, her eyes met mine. The colour seemed to drain from her face and her mouth opened slightly, as if about to let out a scream.

    In a few more steps, I was standing in front of her. I hadn't even opened my mouth when she shouted, 'Get out! Just get out! Or I'll call the police.' I tried to explain I wanted to apologise, but she didn't want to listen. To this day, I don't know quite how I did it, but I accidentally stepped back into some sort of glass display. It broke. The shop filled with the tinkling of glass. I was deeply embarrassed. Standing up to my ankles in plate glass, I said, 'Shit. I'm really sorry Can I clear it up?'

    Cathy just screamed at me, 'Get out now. I'm calling the police. Go!'

    I found myself getting angry again, so I left. I never saw Cathy or Lofty again.

    Moving back to south London brought me back into more regular contact with Adolf and the lads. They used to travel over to east London to sell National Front newspapers in Brick Lane, an area with a significant Asian population. I began joining them. There'd usually be no more than ten to fifteen of us selling the papers. At our side stood four police officers. Across the road, a group of Anti-Nazi League protesters would be screaming abuse. Another five policemen would keep them at bay.

    There were no skinheads among the paper-sellers. Apart from me and my friends, the other regulars were three men in their 50s, sombrely dressed in dark suits, and two blokes in their early 30s who looked like City computer operators. Most of the people who ambled past the market stalls in 'the Lane' were Asians. Some would stop and buy a paper, which surprised me as they usually bore the brunt of the abuse inside. White customers would often shuffle up ashamedly, head down, as if buying a porn mag.

    The paper, which I only rarely bothered to read, blathered on about 'war on the streets' and 'direct action', but when I once suggested to one of the suits that, instead of standing in silence, we ought to try now and again to bash the howling reds across the road, I was told to 'show restraint'. All in all, it was rather tedious.

    Adolf invited me to a few meetings, usually held in the locked back-room of a pub. Behind closed doors, our 'leaders' bravely displayed bloodlust - before telling us to make sure we didn't leave any rubbish behind and to stack the chairs neatly. Equally tiresome.