Heaven

DAY 179 SUNDAY 13 JANUARY 2002

11.00 am

Once Linda has closed the surgery for the morning, I settle down to read The Sunday Times. The lead story is about Prince Harry, and the revelation in the News of the World that he’s tried marijuana and has also been involved in heavy drinking, despite the fact that he’s still under age. Some of us are old enough to remember the shocking revelation that Prince Charles was caught drinking cherry brandy when he was still at Gordonstoun.

2.00 pm

My visitors this week are Stephan Shakespeare, my former chief of staff for the London mayoral campaign, Robert Halfon, senior adviser to Oliver Letwin MP, the Shadow Home Secretary, and my son Will.

The general view is that IDS is doing better than expected. I warn them that if the inmates and the prison staff are anything to go by most people simply don’t know who he is.

Will tells me that he won’t be returning to the States until after the appeal. He also reports that Godfrey Barker has had a change of heart and is no longer willing to help and may even leave the country rather than be forced to give evidence about the dinner party conversation that took place with Mr Justice Potts. His wife Anne has said she will divorce him if he does. [19]

8.00 pm

A lifer has absconded. He was out on an unaccompanied town visit and didn’t return for check-in by 7 pm. If he’s still absent in twenty-four hours’ time, the Home Office will release the name and his record to the press. When a young hooligan escapes, it rarely makes even the local paper, but the public has a right to know if a murderer is on the loose.

Doug fills me in on the background. It seems that the inmate failed an MDT (heroin) a few weeks ago and was moved out of the lifers’ unit back onto the north block. The result of his latest test last week is also expected to be positive. As this will be a second offence, he would automatically be transferred back to a B-cat, and have at least another eighteen months added to his sentence. This is a man who began with a twelve-year tariff, and has already served seventeen years.

If he’d been a model prisoner, he could have been released five years ago.