Heaven Read online

  10.00 am

  In the morning post there is a registered letter from my solicitors. I read the pages with trembling hands. My leave to appeal against conviction has been turned down. Only my leave to appeal against length of sentence has been granted. I can’t describe how depressed I feel.

  12 noon

  Lunch. Doug nods in the direction of another prisoner who takes a seat at the next table. ‘That’s Roy,’ he says, ‘he’s a burglar serving his fifteenth sentence. When the judge sentenced him this time to six months, he said, thank you, my Lord, I’ll do that standing on my head.’

  ‘Then I’ll add a couple of months to help you get back on your feet,’ replied the judge.

  3.00 pm

  I call my barrister, Nick Purnell QC. He feels we should still go for an appeal on conviction because three elements of our defence have been overlooked. How can Ted Francis be innocent if I am guilty? How can Mrs Peppiatt’s evidence be relied upon when she confessed in the witness box to being a thief? How can I have perverted the course of justice, when the barrister representing the other side, Mr Shaw, said he had never considered the first diary date to be of any significance?

  We also discuss the witness who could help me prove that Potts should never have taken the case. Nick warns me that Godfrey Barker is getting cold feet, and his wife claims she cannot remember the details.

  5.30 pm

  I see David (murder) in the corridor; he has a big grin on his face. He’ll be spending tomorrow with his wife for the first time in two decades. He’s very nervous about going out on his own, and tells me the sad story of a prisoner who went on a town visit for the first time in twenty-five years and was so frightened that he climbed up a tree. The fire service had to be called out to rescue him. The police drove him back to prison, and he’s never been out since.

  6.00 pm

  My evenings are now falling into a set pattern. I join Doug at six-thirty and have a bath, before watching the seven o’clock news on Channel 4.

  8.15 pm

  I report for roll-call, and then return to play a few games of backgammon with Clive.

  10.00 pm

  Final roll-call.

  DAY 101

  SATURDAY 27 OCTOBER 2001

  8.07 am

  There are some prisoners who prefer to remain in jail rather than be released: those who have become institutionalized and have no family, no friends, no money and no chance of a job. And then there is Rico.

  Rico arrived at NSC from Lincoln Prison this morning. It’s his fourth burglary offence and he’s always welcomed back because he enjoys working on the farm. Rico particularly likes the pigs, and by the time he left, he knew them all by name. He even used to sleep with them at night — well, up until final roll-call. He has a single room, because no one is willing to share with him. That’s one way of getting a single room.

  9.00 am

  I check in at SMU, but as there are no officers around I write for two hours.

  11.00 am

  I try to phone Mary at Grantchester, but because the flash flood has taken the phones out, all I get is a long burr.

  12 noon

  On the way to lunch, I pass Peter (lifer, arson), who is sweeping leaves from the road. Peter is a six-foot-four, eighteen-stone Hungarian who has served over thirty years for setting fire to a police station, although no one was killed.

  I have lunch with Malcolm (fraud) who tells me that his wife has just been released from Holloway having completed a nine-month sentence for money laundering. The £750,000 he made was placed in her account without her knowledge (Malcolm’s words) but she was also convicted. Malcolm asked to have her sentence added to his, but the judge declined.

  Wives or partners are a crucial factor in a prisoner’s survival. It’s not too bad if the sentence is short, but even then the partner often suffers as much, if not more, being alone on the outside. In Mary’s case, she is now living her life in a glare of publicity she never sought.

  4.15 pm

  There’s a timid knock on the door. I open it to find a prisoner who wants to talk about writing a book (this occurs at least once a week). His name is Saman, and he’s a Muslim Kurd. He is currently working on a book entitled The History of Kurdistan, and wonders if I’ll read a few chapters. (Saman read engineering at a university in Kurdistan.) When he has completed his sentence, Saman wants to settle down in this country, but fears he may be deported.

  ‘Why are you at NSC?’ I ask him.

  Saman tells me that he was convicted of causing death by dangerous driving, for which he was sentenced to three years. He’s due to be released in December.

  DAY 102

  SUNDAY 28 OCTOBER 2001

  6.00 am

  Today’s is my mother’s birthday. She would have been eighty-nine.

  8.15 am

  After breakfast I read The Sunday Times in the library. Rules concerning newspapers differ from prison to prison, often without rhyme or reason. At Wayland the papers were delivered to your cell, but you can’t have your own newspaper at NSC.

  While I’m reading a long article on anthrax, another prisoner looks over his copy of the News of the World, and says, ‘I’m glad to find out you’re earning fifty quid a week, Jeff.’ We both laugh. He knows only too well that orderlies are paid £8.50 a week, and only those prisoners who go out to work can earn more. Funnily enough, this sort of blatant invention or inaccuracy has made my fellow inmates more sympathetic.

  10.00 am

  Phone Mary in Grantchester and at last get a ringing tone. She’s just got back from Munich, which she tells me went well. Not all the Germans are aware that her husband is a convict. Her book, Clean Electricity from Photovoltaics, was received by the conference with acclaim. After struggling for some years to complete volume one, she ended up selling 907 copies. Mind you, it is £110 a copy, and by scientific standards, that is a best-seller. I use up an entire phonecard (twenty units) getting myself up to date with all her news.

  11.00 am

  A message over the tannoy informs inmates that they can report to the drug centre for voluntarily testing. A negative result can help with parole or tagging applications. By the time I arrive, there’s already a long queue. I stand behind Alan (fraud) who is being transferred to Spring Hill tomorrow. He says he’ll write and let me know how the place compares to NSC and try and find out how my application is progressing.

  I reach the head of the queue. Mr Vessey — he of the hatchet face who never smiles — points to a lavatory so I can give him a sample of urine in a little plastic bottle. He then places a filter into the bottle that will show, by five separate black lines, if I am positive or negative, for everything from cannabis to heroin. If two little black lines come up opposite each drug, then you’re clear, if only one line appears, you’ve tested positive and will be up in front of the governor first thing in the morning.

  An inmate three ahead of me tests positive for cannabis, and explodes when Mr Vessey says he’ll be on report tomorrow. He storms out, mouthing expletives. Mr Vessey smiles. My own test comes up with only double lines, which is greeted with mock applause by those still waiting in the queue.

  ‘And pour your piss down the drain, Archer,’ says Mr Vessey. ‘If you leave it hanging around, this lot would happily sell it to the News of the World.’

  12 noon

  Lunch. I’m joined by Brian (chapel orderly and organist). He was convicted of conspiracy to defraud an ostrich farming company of seven million pounds. His barrister convinced him that if he pleaded not guilty, a trial could take ten months, and if he were then found guilty he might end up with a six- or seven-year sentence. He advised Brian to plead guilty to a lesser charge, so that he would be sentenced to less than four years. He took the advice, and was sentenced to three years ten months. His two co-defendants decided on a trial and the jury found them not guilty. Brian considers that pleading guilty was the biggest mistake of his life.

  2.00 pm

  Write for two hours.