Heaven

DAY 434 WEDNESDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2002

Five idylic weeks working at the Theatre Royal. Annie goes into rehearsal with Su Pollard, Mark Wynter and Louise English. I’ve been in charge of the children and in particular their accommodation needs, as they go on tour around the country. After the terrible events in Soham, Mr Moreno is adamant that their safety must be paramount. I spend hours organizing where the young girls and their chaperones will stay in each town.

Today, I attend the 2.30 pm dress rehearsal of Annie at the Liberal Club and leave the cast after Chris Colby has run through his notes. [35] I wish them all luck and depart a few minutes before six. I now feel not only part of the team, but that I’m doing a worthwhile job.

I arrive back in Boston at six and go to the Eagles restaurant for what I didn’t then know was to be my last steak and kidney pie.

On my arrival back at the camp, Mr Elsen, a senior officer, asks me to accompany him to the governor’s office. I am desperately trying to think what I can possibly have done wrong. Mr Beaumont, the governor, and Mr Berlyn, the deputy governor, are sitting waiting for me. The governor wastes no time and asks me if, on Sunday 15th, I stopped on the way back to the camp to have lunch with Gillian Shephard MP.

‘Yes,’ I reply without hesitation, as I don’t consider Gillian or any of her other guests to be criminals.

Mr Beaumont tells me that I have breached my licence by leaving my home in Cambridge. This, despite the fact that I remained within the permitted radius of the prison, had been with my wife, hadn’t drunk anything stronger than apple juice and returned to NSC well in time.

Without offering me the chance to give an explanation, I am marched to the segregation block, and not even allowed to make a phone call.

The cold, bleak room, five paces by three, has just a thin mattress on the floor against one wall, a steel washbasin and an open lavatory.