Heaven

DAY 440 TUESDAY 1 OCTOBER 2002

6.00 am

A frequent complaint among prison officers and inmates – with which I have some sympathy – is that paedophiles and sex offenders are treated more leniently, and live in far more palatable surroundings, than the rest of us.

On arriving at Lincoln you are immediately placed on A wing, described quite rightly by the tabloids as a Victorian hellhole. But if you are a convicted sex offender, you go straight to E wing, a modern accommodation block of smart, single cells, each with its own television. E wing also has table tennis and pool tables and a bowling green.

During the past few days, I have been subjected to segregation, transferred to Lincoln, placed in A block with murderers, violent criminals and drug dealers, in a cell any self-respecting rat would desert, offered food I am unable to eat and I have to share my cell with a man who thrashed someone to within an inch of their life. All this for having lunch with the Rt Hon Gillian Shephard in the company of my wife when on my way back to NSC from Grantchester.

Sex offenders can survive in an open prison because the other inmates are on ‘trust’ and don’t want to risk being sent back to a B-cat or have their sentences extended. However, these rules do not apply in a closed prison. An officer recently reported to me the worst case he had come across during his thirty years in the Prison Service. If you are at all squeamish, turn to the next page, because I confess I found this very difficult to write.

The prisoner concerned was charged and convicted of having sex with his five-year-old daughter. During the trial, it was revealed that not only did the defendant rape her, but in order for penetration to take place he had to cut his daughter’s vagina with a razor blade.

I know I couldn’t have killed the man, but I suspect I would have turned a blind eye while someone else did.

10.34 am

I have a visit from a Portuguese prisoner called Juan. He warns me that some inmates were seen in my cell during association while I was on the phone. It seems that they were hoping to get their hands on some personal memento to sell to the press.

English is Juan’s second language, and I have not come across a prisoner with a better command of our native tongue; and I doubt if there is another inmate on A block who has a neater hand – myself included. He is, incidentally, quietly spoken and well mannered. He wrote me a thank you letter for giving him a glass of blackcurrant juice. I must try and find out why he is in prison.

11.17 am

An officer (Mr Brighten) unlocks my door and tells me that he needs a form filled in so that I can work in the kitchen. To begin with, I assume it’s a joke, and then become painfully aware that he’s serious. Surely the staff can’t have missed that I’ve hardly eaten a thing since the day I arrived, and now they want to put me where the food is prepared? I tell him politely, but firmly, that I have no desire to work in the kitchen.

3.11 pm

I look up at my little window, inches from the ceiling, and think of Oscar Wilde. This must be the nearest I’ve been to living in conditions described so vividly by the great playwright while he was serving a two-year sentence in Reading jail.

I never saw a man who looked

With such a wistful eye

Upon that little tent of blue

Which prisoners call the sky.

5.15 pm

Mr Brighten returns to tell me that I will be placed on report if I refuse to work in the kitchen. I agree to work in the kitchen.