Heaven

DAY 313 MONDAY 27 MAY 2002

9.07 am

A letter from the High Court informs me that my appeal date is set for Monday 22 July – in eight weeks’ time.

10.07 am

A prisoner called Morris arrived this morning. He is thirty-six years old and serving a four-year sentence for credit-card fraud. Morris has stolen over £500,000 since leaving school, and shows no remorse. He tells me with considerable pride that he still has just under £100,000 in cash safely stashed away, and that he and his co-defendant lead ‘the good life’. They share a large flat in London, drive a Mercedes, enjoy a wardrobe full of designer clothes and only stay at the best hotels. They fly first class, and work even while on holiday. He is a career criminal for whom prison is a temporary inconvenience, and as the authorities always transfer him to a D-cat within three weeks of being sent down, not that much of an inconvenience.

Morris has been found guilty of fraud four times in the last ten years, and received sentences of six months, eight months, twelve months and four years. However, he will have served less than three years in all by the time he’s released next January.

In 2003, he anticipates that he and his partner will have cleared over a million pounds in cash, and if they are caught, he will be happy to return to NSC.

In Dickens’s time Morris would have been known as ‘a dip’. While the artful dodger stole handkerchiefs and fob watches, Morris purloins credit cards. His usual method is to book into a four-star hotel which is holding a large weekend conference. He then works the bars at night when many of the customers have had a little too much to drink. After a good weekend, he can leave the hotel in possession of a dozen or more credit cards. By Sunday evening, he’s sitting in first class on a plane to Vienna (one card gone) where he books into a five-star hotel (second card). He then hires a car, not with a credit card, but with cash, because he needs to travel across Europe without being apprehended. He will then drive from Vienna to Rome, spending all the way, before returning to England in a car loaded with goods. He and his partner then take a short rest, before repeating the whole exercise.

Morris has several pseudonyms, and tells me that he can pick up a false passport for as little as a thousand pounds. He intends to spend another ten years rising to the top of his profession before he retires to warmer climes.

‘It’s a beautiful way of life,’ he says. ‘I can tell you more, Jeffrey.’

But I don’t want to hear any more.

11.45 am

A prisoner comes in asking to see the doctor urgently. I explain that he left about an hour ago, and sister is over at the administration block, but he could see the doctor tomorrow. He looks anxious, so I ask if I can help.

‘I’ve just come back from home leave,’ he explains, ‘and while I was out, I had unprotected sex, and I’d like to check that I haven’t caught anything.’

‘Did you know the girl?’ I ask.

‘I didn’t know any of them,’ he replies.

‘Any of them?’

‘Yes, there were seven.’

When I later tell sister, she doesn’t bat an eyelid, just makes an appointment for him to see the doctor.

12 noon

Among the new receptions today is a prisoner called Mitchell (drink driving, three months). While I’m checking his blood pressure, he tells me he hasn’t been back to NSC since 1968, when it was a detention centre.

‘It’s changed a bit since then,’ he adds. ‘Mind you, the hospital was still here. But before you saw the doctor, they hosed you down and shaved your head with a blunt razor, to make sure you didn’t have fleas.’

‘How about the food?’ I ask.

‘Bread and water for the first fortnight, and if you spoke during meals an officer called Raybold banged your head against the wall.’

I had to smile because I know one or two officers who’d still like to.

2.30 pm

The director-general, Martin Narey, has issued a directive requiring all prison officers to address inmates with the prefix Mr.

When an officer bellows across the car park, ‘Get your fuckin’ arse over here, Archer,’ I courteously point out to her that she must have missed the director-general’s missive.

‘I don’t give a fuck about the director-general,’ she replies, ‘I’ll fuckin’ well call you what I like.’

One prisoner found an unusual way around this problem a few years ago. He changed his name by deed poll to Mister Rogers, but then he did have a twenty-year sentence.

3.00 pm

If you work outside the prison, you can earn up to £300 a week, which allows you to send money back to your wife, partner and family, which you certainly can’t do on the amount you are paid working inside. An added bonus is that some companies offer full-time work on release to any prisoner who has proved himself while in their employ.

Once you’re qualified to work outside, you must first complete a month of CSV (Community Service Volunteer) work, partly as retribution, and also to prove you are both fit and safe to work in the community. Once this has been completed, you can then spend the rest of your sentence working outside, so that when you’re released, in the best scenario, it’s a seamless progression. In the worst…

Mike was only a few weeks away from that seamless progression when two prison officers turned up at his place of work, and accompanied him back to NSC. It seems that a young lady who worked at the same factory could do nothing to deter his unrequited advances. Her mother also worked there, and reported him to the management. The management, quite rightly, were not willing to condemn the prisoner simply on the mother’s word, and carried out their own investigation. A few days later they sent a full report to the prison governor.

Mike has subsequently been shipped out of NSC back to Lincoln Prison, a tough B-cat. He was only a few weeks away from parole, and the factory had already offered him a full-time job on release. He has now lost his D-cat status, lost his job, lost his income and possibly lost any chance of parole.

I am reminded of Robin Williams’s classic remark: ‘God gave man a penis and a brain, but not enough blood to work both at the same time.’