Heaven

DAY 192 SATURDAY 26 JANUARY 2002

10.00 am

I weigh myself. Yuk. I’m fourteen stone two pounds. Yuk. I lost eleven pounds during my three weeks at Belmarsh, falling to twelve stone seven pounds. At Wayland I put that eleven pounds back on in ten weeks, despite being in the gym every day. At NSC the food is better, but because of my job I don’t have time to go to the gym (poor excuse). On Monday I must stop eating chocolate and return to the gym. I am determined to leave the prison, whenever, around twelve stone eight pounds.

1.00 pm

I have a visit from an inmate who was sentenced to three months, which means he’ll serve around five or six weeks. His crime? The theft of £120 while in a position of trust. He was a policeman. I am not going into much detail about his crime, as I’m more interested in the problems a police officer faces when being sent to jail. He’s remarkably frank.

On his arrival, he was placed in the north block, and within minutes recognized a drug dealer he’d arrested in the past. He reported this to Mr Hughes, the unit officer, and was immediately placed in segregation overnight. The duty governor had to make a decision the following morning as to which one to ship out. He chose the drug dealer, as he had recently proved positive for an MDT. The policeman was put back on the north block, given a job in the kitchen and told to keep his head down. That was a week ago. So far no one else has recognized him, but he still has two weeks to serve.

Incidentally, he was originally charged with stealing £1,000, which, by the time the case came to court, had dwindled to £120. However, that was three years ago, and during that time he was suspended on full pay (a little over £60,000).

The police and Prison Service don’t seem to care how much taxpayers’ money they spend. If either service were a private company, they would be declared bankrupt within a year. I’m not suggesting he shouldn’t have been charged, but I am saying it ought not to have cost over £100,000 and taken three years to discover if he’d stolen £120.

2.00 pm

I stand in the drizzle watching the prison football team do a little better than last week. However, one of our best strikers, Jean-Noel, is called off when Mr Masters (our coach) receives a call over the intercom to say that Jean-Noel has a young lady waiting for him in the visits hall. He runs off the pitch, quickly showers and changes, and joins his girlfriend.

At the time we are 1-0 in the lead. We lose 5-1.

5.00 pm

At tea I felt I had to chastise Jean-Noel for getting his priorities wrong and letting the team down. After all, surely the match was more important than seeing his girlfriend, and in any case, how could he forget that she was coming? He laughed, and explained that they’d had a row during the week, and she told him she wouldn’t be turning up. She did, and we lost.

6.00 pm

Another pile of letters awaits me in the hospital, including a long handwritten missive from John Major, who among other things mentions that he’s heard that I’m writing a prison diary. He suggests that reporting the facts will be both interesting and informative, but he also wants to hear about my personal feelings on the issues and the people involved. He adds that he’s not surprised that the public have been so supportive; he says he got far more sympathy and backing when he lost an election than when he won one.