A Prison Diary Read online

  9.00 am

  When my cell door is opened, I don’t join the other prisoners to go to the workshop as I have an appointment with the Education Assessor, Judy Fitt, known amongst the prisoners as ‘Misfit’ – a joke she must be heartily sick of.

  When Ms Fitt arrives, the officer on the front desk calls for me, or to be more accurate, bellows out my name, as I’m on the top landing, and they never move from the ground floor unless they have to. I go down to meet her. Judy is a short – could lose a few pounds – blonde, of about forty with a happy, optimistic smile. I pick up two chairs from the pile by the TV and place them under the window at the end of the room. I think she’s surprised that I insist on carrying her chair. Once seated, she takes me through all the education curriculum has to offer, from teaching reading and writing skills, through to taking a degree. Her enthusiasm leaves me in no doubt that Judy is another public servant dedicated to her job. She also suggests that in my case I could learn to cook, draw, or even, after all these years of avoiding it, discover how to use a computer. That would impress Mary.

  I remind Judy that I’m only expecting to be at Belmarsh for a few more days, and would like to use my time to teach other prisoners to read and write. Judy considers this suggestion, but would prefer I gave a creative-writing course, as there are several inmates working on books, poems and essays who will have dozens of unanswered questions. I agree to her request and, aware of my escape plan, Judy suggests I ought to give my first lesson tomorrow morning. She pauses, looking a little embarrassed. ‘But first I have to enrol you in the education department.’ She passes me over yet more forms. ‘Can you complete these tests and let me have them back later today so that I can process them in a matter of hours?’

  ‘I’ll try to have them completed by the end of the morning.’

  She laughs. ‘It won’t take you that long.’

  I return to my cell, and as I have nothing to do for the thirty minutes before lunch, begin to fill in the little boxes headed Education Test. I’ve selected some random examples:

  1) English – spell these words correctly: wos, befor, wer, gril, migt, siad, affer.

  2) Maths –

  a) 13+34, 125+386?

  b) how much change do you get from £5 if you spend £1.20?

  3) what is 7.15pm on a twenty-four hour clock?

  4) how much time is there between 4.30 and 6.15?

  5) what is 25% of 300?

  6) if 1 biscuit costs 25p, 6 are £1.38, 12 are £2.64, and 24 are £6, which is the better buy?

  I complete the six pages of questions and return them to Ms Fitt, via Billy Little (murder), who has an education class this afternoon.

  12 noon

  Lunch. Provisions have not yet arrived from the canteen. Half a portion of macaroni cheese and a mug of Highland Spring. Have you noticed I’m beginning to eat prison food?

  1.40 pm

  My cell door is opened, and I’m told Ms Roberts wants to see me. I am accompanied to the Governor’s office by Mr Weedon. I don’t bother to ask him why, because he won’t know, and even if he does, he wouldn’t tell me. Only moments later I discover that Ms Roberts has nothing but bad news to impart and none of it caused by the staff at Belmarsh. My Category D status has been raised to C because the police say they have been left with no choice but to follow up Baroness Nicholson’s allegations, and open a full inquiry into what happened to the money raised for the Kurds. As if that wasn’t enough, the C-cat prison I’ve been allocated to is on the Isle of Wight. How much further away do they want me to be from my family?

  The raising of my status, Ms Roberts explains, is based on the fear that while a further inquiry is going on I might try to escape. Scotland Yard obviously has a sense of humour. How far do they imagine I could get before someone spotted me?

  Ms Roberts informs me that I can appeal against both decisions, and if I do, the authorities have agreed to make an assessment by Thursday. She points out that the Isle of Wight is a long way from my residence in Cambridge, and it’s the responsibility of the Home Office to house a prisoner as close to his home as possible. If that’s the case, I’m only surprised they’re not sending me to the Shetland Isles. She promises to have a word with my solicitor and explain my rights to them. If it were not for Ms Roberts and Ramona Mehta, I would probably be locked up in perpetual solitary confinement.

  I cannot express forcibly enough my anger at Emma Nicholson, especially after my years of work for the Kurds. One call to Sir Nicholas Young at the Red Cross and all her questions as to the role I played in the Simple Truth campaign could have been answered. She preferred to contact the press.

  Ms Roberts points out that as my lawyers are due to visit me at two o’clock, perhaps I should be making a move. I thank her. Baroness Nicholson could learn a great deal from this twenty-six-year-old woman.

  2.00 pm

  I join Alex Cameron and Ramona Mehta in the visitors’ area. This time we’ve been allocated a room not much bigger than my cell. But there is a difference – on three sides it has large windows. When you’re behind bars day and night, you notice windows.

  Before they go on to my appeal against conviction and sentence, I raise three other subjects on which I require legal advice. First, whether the Baroness has stepped over the mark. The lawyers fear she may have worded everything so carefully as to guarantee maximum publicity for herself, without actually accusing me of anything in particular. I point out that I am only too happy to cooperate with any police inquiry, and the sooner the better. The Simple Truth campaign was organized by the Red Cross, and the Treasurer at the time will confirm that I had no involvement whatsoever with the collecting or distributing of any monies. Ramona points out that several Red Cross officials, past and present, have already come out publicly confirming this.

  I then tell my lawyers the story of Ali (£28,000 stolen and returned, but now doing an eighteen-month sentence for breach of trust). I ask that the police be reminded that Mrs Peppiatt admitted in the witness box to double-billing, stealing a car, taking her children on a free holiday to Corfu, buying presents for mistresses that didn’t exist and claiming expenses for meals with phantom individuals. Can I hope that the CPS will treat her to the same rigorous inspection as Ali and I have been put through?

  Third, I remind them that Ted Francis, the man who sold his story to the News of the World for fourteen thousand pounds, still owes me twelve thousand. I’d like it back.

  The lawyers promise to follow up all these matters. However, they consider the reinstatement of my D-cat and making sure I don’t have to go to the Isle of Wight their first priorities.

  I ask Ramona to take the next five days of what I’ve written and hand the script over to Alison for typing up. Ramona leaves our little room to ask the duty officer if he will allow this. He turns down her request. Alex suggests I hold onto the script until I’ve been transferred to a less security-conscious prison. He also advises me that it would be unwise to think of publishing anything until after my appeal has been considered. I warn them that if I lose my appeal and continue to keep up my present output for the entire sentence, I’ll end up writing a million words.

  On the hour, an officer appears to warn us that our time is up. Ramona leaves, promising to deal with the problems of my D-cat and the Isle of Wight immediately.

  While I’m waiting to be escorted back to Block One, I get into conversation with a Greek Cypriot called Nazraf who is on remand awaiting trial. He’s been charged with ‘detaining his wife in a motorcar’ – I had no idea there was such a charge. I repeat his story here with the usual government health warning. Nazraf tells me that he locked his wife in the car for her own safety because he was at the time transferring a large sum of cash from his place of work to a local bank. He’s in the restaurant business and for several years has been very successful, making an annual profit of around £200,000. He adds with some considerable passion that he still loves his wife, and would prefer a reconciliation, but she has already filed for