Heaven

DAY 177 FRIDAY 11 JANUARY 2002

6.03 am

I’d like to bring you up to date on a couple of matters you may wish to have resolved.

Six prisoners have absconded in the past ten days, and I have already accounted for five of them. But not McGeekin. McGeekin had a town visit, which allowed him to leave the prison at eight in the morning, as long as he reported back to the gate by seven the same night. He did not return, so the matter was placed in police hands. ‘He’s already back in custody,’ the gate officer was informed by the local desk sergeant. He’d reported to his nearest police station and told them he wanted to be sent back to HMP Wayland in Norfolk, rather than return to North Sea Camp.

It’s not uncommon for an inmate to want to return to the more regulated life of a closed prison. Some will even tell you they feel safer with a wall around them. Lifers in particular often find the regime of an open prison impossible to come to terms with. After fifteen years of being banged up, often for twenty-two hours a day, they just can’t handle so much freedom. Within hours of arriving, they will apply to be sent back, but are told to give it a month, and if they then still feel the same way, to put in a transfer application.

Frankly they’d have to drag me back to Wayland and I’d abscond rather than return to Belmarsh.