Heaven

DAY 138 MONDAY 3 DECEMBER 2001

9.40 am

Mr New comes in cursing. It seems the prison is overcrowded and there are applicants from Nottingham, Lincoln, Wayland, Birmingham and Leicester who will have to be turned away because every bed is occupied. Apparently it’s all my fault.

This would not be a problem for Spring Hill, because they always have a long waiting list, and can be very selective. At NSC it now means that if any inmate even bends the rules, he’ll be sent back to the prison he came from, as three inmates discovered to their cost last week. This was not the case when there were dozens of empty beds.

10.50 am

I see Leon walking back from the gatehouse to the stores where he works, and leave the office to have a word with him. Yesterday’s visit went well. ‘But I have a feeling,’ he adds, ‘there’s something she isn’t telling me.’

I press him as to what this might be, but he says he doesn’t know, or has he become wary about how much of his story will appear in this diary? He then asks me to change all the names. I agree and have done so.

2.15 pm

Doug gives me some good news. Mrs Tempest (principal officer in charge of resettlement) has assured him that if he gets an interview with another haulage company, she will accompany him, assuming they fulfil all the usual police and prison criteria. If they then offer him a job, she will recommend he starts immediately, and by that she means next Monday.

It’s becoming clear to me that there are several officers (not all) who are determined that NSC will be given resettlement status, and not just remain a D-cat open prison. Should the Home Office agree to this, then several of the inmates will be allowed out during the day on CSV work and eventually progress to full-time jobs. It’s clear that Doug is a test case, because he’s an obvious candidate for outside work, and if they can get him started, the floodgates might well open and this prison’s future would no longer be in doubt. So suddenly my fortunes could be reversed. Once again I envy the reader who can simply turn the pages to discover what happens next in my life.

4.00 pm

Mr Simpson (senior probation officer) has completed his interviews with the three inmates who are on sentence planning. He comes down to the kitchen for a glass of water.

Over the past six weeks, I’ve come to know Graham Simpson quite well, despite the fact that he’s fairly reserved. I suppose it goes with the territory. He is a consummate professional, and wouldn’t dream of discussing another prisoner, however good or bad their record. But he will answer general questions on the penal system, and after thirty years in the profession he has views that are worth listening to. I suspect that the majority of people reading this diary would, in the case of lifers, lock them up and throw away the key, and in some cases, hang them. However…

All murderers are sentenced to ninety-nine years, but the judge will then set a tariff that can range from eight years to life. At NSC we have an inmate who is serving his thirty-second year in jail. There are over 1,800 prisoners in the UK doing life sentences, of whom only a tiny percentage ever reach a D-cat open prison. There are twenty-two lifers currently at NSC. After being sentenced, they begin their life in an A-cat and progress through to B and C, and finally arrive at a D-cat with the expectation of release. At NSC, of the twenty-two resident lifers, these tariffs are set from twelve years to Her Majesty’s pleasure, and Mr Simpson confirms that although some will become eligible for release, they will never make it. The Home Office simply won’t take the risk.

Mr Simpson explains that it’s his responsibility to assess which of these prisoners should be considered for release, but he will always err on the side of caution because, however many successes you have ‘on the out’, it only takes one failure to hit the front pages.

Mr Simpson admits to one such failure – a man with no previous convictions, who had, until murdering his unfaithful wife, led a perfectly normal existence. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a tariff of twelve years. Once in prison, his model behaviour saw him progress quickly (by lifers’ standards) from A, to B, to C, to NSC in under eight years. While at NSC his record remained unblemished, until he fell in love with a member of staff who had to resign her position, and look for another job. After twelve years he was released, and they were married shortly afterwards. The man found a good job, and settled down into the community. Three years later, on the anniversary of his first wife’s murder, he killed his new spouse and then took his own life.

Mr Simpson sighs. ‘There was nothing to suggest this would occur, and if he’d not been released, no lifer ever would be. The majority will never be a danger to the public as most murders are one-off crimes and first-time offences; 90 per cent of those released never commit another crime.’

It is possible for a lifer to be released after eight years, but the vast majority serve over twenty, and some never leave prison – other than in a coffin.