A Prison Diary Read online

  8.00 pm

  For the next two hours, I transcribe out Fletch’s words, adding to the script only when he has given me specific details, background or names. By the time I’ve completed the last sentence, I’m even more angry than I was when he read the piece to me last night.

  10.00 pm

  I lie awake in my thin, hard prison bed, my head resting on my thinner, harder prison pillow, and wonder how decent normal people will react to Fletch’s story. For here is a man of whom any one of us might say, there but for the grace of God go I.

  These are the words of the prisoner known as Fletch (murder, life imprisonment, minimum sentence twenty-two years).

  My name is…* I am thirty-eight years old and serving a life sentence for a murder I did not commit, but I only wish I had.

  My whole life has been a fuck-up from the start I was born in Morriston in Wales and although I loved my family, I have only had six real relationships in my life, or as real as I felt they could be. The sort of relationship you want to rush home to, and regret leaving in the morning when you return to work.

  I met my wife when I was seventeen, and even today would happily die for her. We had a twenty-year relationship, though both of us had other lovers during that time. Of the six relationships I’ve had, two have been with men, which is where the complication begins. Because of years of sexual abuse I suffered during my childhood, I have never really enjoyed sex, whether it be with a man or a woman.

  Even today, I detest sexual contact and accept that it is what has caused the break-up of my relationships. I was always able to perform, and perform it was, but in truth it was nothing more than a chore, and I gained no gratification from it.

  I never felt able to tell my wife the truth about my past, despite the twenty years we’d shared together. It’s so easy to claim you’ve been abused, and shift the blame onto someone else. It’s so easy to claim you couldn’t prevent it, and it’s also virtually impossible to prove it.

  The truth is that I had no idea that what I was experiencing wasn’t the norm. Wasn’t every child going through this? My childhood ended at the age of nine when I was sent to a home.

  Overnight I became a plaything for those who were employed to care for me, those in power. They even managed to secure a place of safety order from a court so I couldn’t be moved and they could carry on abusing me.

  During the 1970s corporal punishment was common in children’s homes. For some of the staff it was simply the way they got their kicks. First they caned little boys until they screamed, and then they buggered us until we were senseless; not until then did they stop. Nine other children from that home can confirm this statement; two are married with children of their own, two are gay, five are in jail.

  Two of the five in jail are serving life sentences for murder.

  After a time, the abuse becomes a form of love and affection, because if you didn’t want to be caned, or belted with a strap, you give in and quickly accept the alternative, sexual abuse. By the age of twelve, I knew more about perversion and violence than any one of you reading this have ever read about, or even seen in films, let alone experienced.

  By the age of twelve, I had been abused by the staff at my home in—, local social workers, care staff and a probation officer. All of these professions attract paedophiles, and although they are in the minority (20%), they are well aware of each other, and they network together, and most frightening of all, they protect each other.

  I know a child who was articulate enough by the age of fourteen to tell the authorities what he was being put through, so they just moved him around the country from home to home before anyone could begin an investigation, while other paedophiles carried on abusing him.

  At the age of thirteen I ran away and made my way to—When I reached—, I began sleeping rough in—. It was there that I first met a man called*****, who offered me somewhere to sleep. That night he got me drunk, not too difficult when you’re only thirteen. He raped me, and after that began renting me out to like-minded men. Whenever you read in the tabloid press about rent boys for sale, don’t assume that they do it by choice, or even that they’re paid. They are often locked up, and controlled like any other prostitute, and have little or no say in what happens to their life.

  ***** controlled me for about six months, bringing to the flat judges, schoolmasters, police officers, politicians and other upstanding citizens who are the back-bone of our country (I can tell you of birthmarks, wounds and peculiarities for almost every one of these men).

  One night in the West End when I was still thirteen, I was arrested by the police while ***** was trying to sell me to a customer. I was collected from the nick by a social worker, who took me to a children’s home in—. The home was run by a magistrate, *****. For the next fourteen days, [he] buggered me night and day before issuing a court order that I should be returned to [my original children’s home], where it was back to caning and systematic abuse.

  After a couple of months, I was transferred to—, a hospital for emotionally disturbed children. Once again, the staff abused me and this time they had a more effective weapon than caning. They threatened to apply EST, electric shock treatment should I try to resist. I ran away again, returning to—, and have lived there ever since. I was only fourteen at the time, and ***** soon caught up with me. This time he installed me in the flat of a friend where seven or eight men would bugger me on a daily basis. One or two liked to whip me with a belt, while others punched me, this could be before, during or after having sex. When they eventually stopped, they occasionally left a small present (money or gift) on my pillow. This wasn’t much use, because I never got out of the flat, unless I was accompanied by *****.

  By the age of fifteen, I was sniffing glue, regularly getting drunk, and having sex with countless men. But it didn’t hurt any more. I felt nothing, it was all just part of my daily life.

  This life, if that’s what you can call it, continued for another four years, during which time I was photographed for porn magazines, and appeared in porn films.

  By the age of eighteen, I no longer served any purpose for these men, so I was thrown out onto the street and left to fend for myself. That was when I committed my first crime. Burglary of a department store, Lillywhites. I was arrested and sent to Borstal for six months. When I was released, I continued with a life of crime, I wasn’t exactly trained for anything else.

  By now I was six foot one and weighed 190 pounds, so didn’t find it difficult to get a job in security, which is so often on the fringes of crime.

  In 1980, at the age of eighteen, I met my future wife, who had no idea what my real job was, or that for twelve years I had been sexually abused. During the next five years, we had two sons, and twelve years later in 1997, we decided to get married.

  I was already earning a good living as a criminal, and everything went well until I was arrested in 1997 for DSS fraud. I had been making false claims in several names for several years, to the tune of £2.8 million, for which I received a three year sentence, which caused my marriage to be put off.

  During my time in jail, I began by letter and telephone, to let my wife know that I had for sometime been involved in a life of crime. But it wasn’t until I was released that I revealed to her any details of the sexual abuse I had been put through. Her reaction was immediate and hostile. She was disgusted, and reviled, and said she couldn’t understand why I hadn’t reported these men to the authorities. What authorities were there for me to report to? ‘I was only nine years old when it all began. After all it was the authorities who were buggering me,’ I told her, ‘and by the age of eighteen, when I was no longer of any use to them, they threw me out onto the streets’

  She couldn’t come to terms with it So I was rejected once again, and this time it was by someone I cared for, which made it far worse. She described me as a filthy person, who allowed dirty old men to rape me, because I wanted love and affection. There was no way I could begin to make her understand.