Heaven: A Prison Diary (24 page)

A lifer has
absconded. He was out on an unaccompanied town visit and didn’t return for
check-in by 7 pm. If he’s still absent in twenty-four hours’ time, the Home
Office will release the name and his record to the press. When a young hooligan
escapes, it rarely makes even the local paper, but the public has a right to
know if a murderer is on the loose.

Doug fills me
in on the background. It seems that the inmate failed an MDT

(
heroin
) a few weeks ago and was moved out of the lifers’
unit back onto the north block.

The result of
his latest test last week is also expected to be positive. As this will be a
second offence, he would automatically be transferred back to a B-cat, and have
at least another eighteen months added to his sentence. This is a man who began
with a twelve-year tariff, and has already served seventeen years.

If he’d been a
model prisoner, he could have been released five years ago.

When the doctor
arrives each morning, he first signs the discharge papers of any prisoner due
to be released. He then signs applications for a five-day leave, showing a
clean bill of health. His next task is to see all the new prisoners who have
just arrived from another jail. Finally, the doctor handles ‘nickings’:
prisoners who have been put on a charge, and again must be passed fit both
mentally and physically before punishment can be administered. Once all these
inmates have been dealt with, the doctor moves onto the genuinely sick.

Today we have
three ‘nickings’. Two are commonplace, but the third even took the governor by
surprise. The first was for swearing at an officer, and that has to be pretty
extreme for the prisoner to end up in front of the governor. The second was an
inmate found to have £20 in his room. The first ended up with four days added
to his sentence; the second seven days, but the third …

All prisoners
out on town leave have to report back to the gate sober before 7 pm. This
particular inmate was a few minutes late and was, to quote the gate officer,
legless. Out there you can be breathalysed if you’re
driving,
in here we are when we’re walking.

When charged
with being drunk, the prisoner claimed that he’d swallowed half a bottle of
mouthwash thirty minutes before returning to the prison. It is true that a
bottle of mouthwash contains alcohol, and it will register on the breathalyser
at 0.5 per cent.

The trouble was
that the breathalyser was showing 3.5 per cent. Next, they checked his medical
records, and as the prisoner had not visited the surgery for over a month, and
never requested a mouthwash, he was asked to explain why he suddenly drank half
a bottle.

‘Because I was
giving my partner a blow job,’ he replied.

When the
officer recovered from this revelation, he thumbed through the rule book and
came up with a winner. ‘Did you sign the trust agreement for prisoners who are
on a town visit?’ he asked innocently.

‘Yes,’ came
back the immediate reply.

‘And who did
you select as the person who would be responsible for you at all times?’

‘My mother,’
the prisoner replied.

‘And did your
mother witness the action you have just described?’

The inmate
paused for a moment, pleaded guilty, and had twenty-eight days added to his
sentence.

Linda leaves
the hospital and walks across to reception, where two prisoners have just been
taken from their rooms without warning, as they are to be shipped out to
Lincoln (B-cat). They have both failed an MDT and came up positive for heroin.

Prisoners are
never given any warning they are on the move in case they decide to abscond
rather than be transferred back to closed conditions.

The Derby Five
are on the paper chase, and each of them comes to the hospital to say goodbye.
Eamon, who shared a room with me for a short time, is particularly friendly and
says he hopes we will meet again. I nod.

Over supper I
sit next to John (murder) who makes an interesting point about Chris (murder)
who is still on the run. If he’s managed to escape to certain European
countries (Sweden, Portugal or Italy) whose governments do not approve of our
tariff system for lifers, it’s possible that the authorities in that country
may turn a blind eye, especially after the Home Office announced today that
they did not consider Chris to be a danger to the public.

I’m going over
today’s script when an inmate staggers into the hospital. He’s sweating
profusely,
and badly out of breath. I take his blood
pressure, 176/109, and immediately brief the unit officer, but not until I’ve
taken my own (130/76) to check the machine is not faulty.

Mr Downs (who
replaced Mr New as PO) is on duty and I tell him that Gail has been keeping an
eye on this patient for the past four days, and told me that if the monitor
went over 105 again, he was to be taken straight to Pilgrim Hospital for a full
checkup.

‘It’s not quite
that easy,’ explains Mr Downs. ‘I’ve only got five officers on duty tonight,
and this inmate hasn’t been risk assessed, so one of us would have to accompany
him.’

Mr Downs sighs,
phones for a taxi, and instructs an officer to travel with the inmate to
Pilgrim Hospital (cost £20).

That means
tonight we have 191 prisoners being guarded by four officers – one of them a
young woman who’s recently joined the service.

Good night.

Martin, the
inmate who lost two months for attempting to steal some prison clothes on the
morning he was due to be released, has had another twenty-five days added to
his sentence, this time for being caught with marijuana in his room. He was
originally due to leave NSC on 14 December, and now he won’t be released until
14 March. At this rate I might even get out before him.

It’s not
uncommon for inmates to end up serving a longer period than their original
sentence. However it will take Martin a number of ‘knock backs’ before he can
beat a prisoner in Wayland (
A Prison
Diary
,
Volume II) who started
with a three-year sentence for possession of heroin and is still a resident of
that establishment eight years later.

Among the new
inductees are a policeman and a man who was sentenced to five years for
attempting to kill his mother-in-law. The rest are in for the usual tariff –
burglary, driving offences, drugs, drugs and drugs.

Still, I sense
one or two stories among this lot.

I have a visit
from Keith (class B drugs), which is a bit of a surprise as he was on the paper
chase last Monday, and should have been discharged yesterday. I can’t believe
he’s committed another crime in the last twenty-four hours. No. It turns out
that the parole board, having informed the prison that he could be released on
Monday,
have
now told him he must wait until one or
two more pieces of paper are signed. Why couldn’t they tell him that last
Monday rather than unnecessarily raise his hopes?

I tell Keith
about a prisoner who was transferred from Leicester yesterday and is being
returned to that prison today. The authorities forgot to send all his parole
details.

The man
travelled to NSC in a sweat box, spent the night here, and now has to go back
to Leicester Prison. By the way, we expect him to return to NSC next week. This
bureaucratic incompetence will be paid for out of taxpayers’ money.

After a month
of being hospital orderly, I have my work schedule mastered.

5.00-7.00 am
Write first draft of
previous day’s events.

7.00-7.30 am
Draw
curtains,
make bed, put on kettle, shave, bathe and dress.

Prepare lists
and make coffee for Linda – dash of milk, one sweetener.

7.30-8.00 am
Surgery, usually twenty to
thirty inmates who collect prescriptions or need to make an appointment to see
the doctor at nine.

8.00-8.30 am
Deliver slips for absentees
from work to the farm, the works, stores, mess, education department, north and
south blocks and the gate.

8.30-8.45 am
Breakfast in the dining
room.

9.00-10.30 am
Doctor’s
surgery.

11.00 am
Acupuncture, usually three or
four inmates.

11.10-11.40 am
Read this morning’s draft
of this diary.

11.50 am
Wake up patients having
acupuncture; Linda removes needles.

Lunch.

12.40 pm
Phone Alison at the penthouse,
and collect my mail from south unit office.

1.00-3.00 pm
Continue second draft of
yesterday’s work.

3.00-4.00 pm
Check
in arrivals from other prisons. Give short introductory talk, then take their
blood pressure and weight, and carry out diabetes test (urine).

4.30-4.50 pm
Evening surgery. Those
inmates who ordered prescriptions this morning can pick them up as they’ll have
been collected from a chemist in Boston during the afternoon.

4.50 pm
Linda leaves for the day.

5.00 pm
Supper.

5.30-7.00 pm
Final
writing session, totalling nearly six hours in all.

7.00 pm
Unlock the end room for use by
outside personnel, e.g. Listeners, Jehovah’s Witnesses, drug and alcohol
counselling sessions and prison committees.

7.10-8.00 pm
Read through the day’s
mail,
make annotated notes and post to Alison.

8.00-10.00 pm
Doug and Carl join me for
a coffee, to chat or watch a film on TV.

10.30 pm
Read until I feel sleepy.

The hospital
orderly has the longest and most irregular hours of any prisoner.
It’s
seven days a week. On Saturday and Sunday after Linda
and Gail have left I sweep the hospital ward, lobby, lavatory and bathroom
before mopping throughout. (Although I can’t remember when I last did any
domestic chores, I find the work therapeutic. I wouldn’t, however, go so far as
saying I enjoy it.)

I then check my
supplies, and restock the cupboards. If I’m short of anything, I make out an
order form for the stores (memo pads, lavatory paper and today for a new vacuum
cleaner – the old one has finally given up).

Some prisoners
tell me that they would rather work in the kitchen or the officers’ mess
because they get more food. I’d rather be in the hospital, and have a bath and
a good night’s sleep.

The night
security guard has just walked in and tells me with a smile that I can abscond.

I put my pen
down and ask why.

‘We’ve got one
too many on the manifest.’

‘How did that
happen?’ I ask.

‘A lad who was
released yesterday arrived home and no one wanted him, so he crept back in last
night and dossed down in his old room.’

‘So what did you
do?’ I ask.

‘Marched him
back to the gate and threw him out for a second time.’

I feel sorry
for a man who has nowhere to go, and can only wonder how long it will be before
he reoffends.

I bump into
Keith (‘knowingly concerned’ with a class B drug) on his way back from
breakfast. He must still be waiting for his missing papers to be signed before
they can release him. You _ might be – as I was – puzzled by what his charge
means.

Keith ran a
small transport company, and one of his
lorries
had
been fitted with spare fuel tanks. When the driver came through customs, the
spare fuel tanks were found to contain 249 kilos of marijuana. Keith was
sentenced to nine years.

Whenever a
judge passes a sentence on drugs, there’s a tariff according to the class of
the drug – A, B or C. Also relevant is whether you are considered to be ‘in
possession of’ or a
supplier,
and the amount involved.

Drugs’
classification:

Class A
heroin, ecstasy, cocaine,
opiates
Class B
cannabis (marijuana)
(now Class C), amphetamines
Class C
anabolic
steroids, keratin,
amyl
ni-trite (poppers)

Here’s a rough
guide to the
maximum
penalties:

Class A
possession, seven years
supplier, life (fine or both) (fine or both)

Class B
possession, five years supplier,
fourteen years
Class C
possession,
two years supplier, five years
Many
of the inmates
feel unjustly treated when sentences can vary so much from court to court, and
as over 50 per cent of prisoners are in on drug-related charges, comparisons
are made all the time. A few admit to having got off lightly, while most feel
hard done by.

The man who was
sentenced to five years for attempting to murder his mother-in-law turns out to
be another unusual case. This particular inmate hit his mother-in-law when she
refused to allow him access to visit his children. She collapsed and was taken
to hospital. As she didn’t die, and the police didn’t have proof that he
intended to murder her, the charge was dropped to aggravated burglary and he
was sentenced to five years.

It would take a
trained legal mind to understand how the second charge came about.

The prisoner
explains that when he went in search of his children, he entered his
mother-in-law’s house when she had not invited him in – and this offence is
aggravated burglary.