Hell Read online

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 divorce.

  Nazraf comes across as a bright, intelligent man, so I have to ask him why he isn’t out on bail. He explains that the court demanded a sum of £40,000 to be put up by at least four different people, and he didn’t want his friends or business associates to know that he was in any trouble. He had always assumed that the moment he was sent to jail, his wife would come to her senses and drop the charges. That was five weeks ago and she hasn’t budged. The trial takes place in mid-September…

  This is all I could find out before we were released from the waiting room to continue on our separate paths – I to Block One, Nazraf to Block Four. His final destination also puzzles me, because Block Four usually houses terrorists or extremely high-security risks. I’d like to meet Nazraf again, but I have a feeling I never will.

  6.00 pm

  Supper. Provisions have arrived from the canteen and been left in a plastic bag on the end of my bed. I settle down to a plate of tinned Spam, a bar of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut, two McVitie’s digestive biscuits and finally a mug of blackcurrant juice, topped up with Evian water. What more could a man ask for.

  8.00 pm

  Association. I am asked to join a group of ‘more mature’ prisoners – at sixty-one I am by far the oldest, if not the most mature – for their weekly committee meeting in Fletch’s cell. Other attendees include Tony (marijuana only), Billy (murder), Colin (GBH) and Paul (murder).

  Like any well-run board meeting, we have a chairman, Fletch, and an agenda. First we discuss the hours we are permitted to be out of our cells, and how Mr Marsland has made conditions more bearable since he became the senior officer. Fletch considers that relations between the two parties who live on different sides of ‘the iron barrier’ are far more tenable – even amicable – than at any time in the past. Colin is still complaining about a particular warder, who I haven’t yet come across. According to Colin, he treats the prisoners like scum, and will put you on report if you as much as blink in front of him. He’s evidently proud of the fact that he’s put more people on report than any other officer, and that tells you all you need to know about him, Colin suggests.

  I decide to observe this man from a distance and see if Colin’s complaint is justified. Most of the officers make an effort ‘to keep a lid on things’, preferring a calm atmosphere, only too aware that lifers’ moods swing from despair to hope and back to despair again in moments. This can, in the hands of an unthinking officer, lead to violence. Colin, I fear, is quick to wrath, and doesn’t need to take another step backwards, just as things are going a little better for him.

  The next subject the committee discuss is prison finance. Tony reports that the Governor, Hazel Banks, has been given a bonus of £24,000 for bringing Belmarsh Prison costs down by four hundred thousand. Hardly something a free enterprise merchant like myself could grumble about. However, Paul feels the money would have been better spent on inmates’ e