Although they were allowed to open prisoners’ mail, they weren’t allowed to open anything that was marked as coming from the prisoners’ lawyers. They didn’t even bother to hide the fact that they were flouting that rule in my case.
Tut in a complaint then,’ the security officer suggested when I mentioned it. ‘You’re good at that, aren’t you?’
One day when I got back to my cell I found that all my plastics had gone. I knew the rules; I could get nicked for losing them because they were my responsibility. I went to one of the screws.
‘Boss, I’ve no plastics. Someone’s had them off.’
‘You must have thrown them away.’
‘I’ve not thrown them away.’
‘Well, what do you want me to do about it?’
‘Well, I’ve got nothing to eat off. I need a bowl.’
‘Leave it with me, I’ll sort you out.’
He went down to the courtyard, where the rats and pigeons congregated, and picked up a bowl that had been standing on the ground under a drainpipe. He brought it back in and banged out all the mud and shit in front of me. It was scuffed and grimy with age.
‘There you go,’ he said, handing it to me.
‘What am I meant to do with that?’
‘You wanted a bowl. You’ve got one now.’
‘You expect me to eat out of that? I wouldn’t expect a dog to eat out of that.’
‘I’m not asking a fucking dog to eat out of it,’ he said. ‘I’m asking you to. That’s the only bowl you’re getting. If you don’t want it, give it back, but that’s all you’re getting.’
I took the bowl, knowing I had no option at that stage, and tried to scrub it as clean as I could. It was about a month before I was able to get a replacement off someone who was leaving. It was just like eating from the dog bowls Dad used to make us lick out.
Wherever I went, whenever I passed a screw, they had a smart-arse comment to make. It was like being the unpopular kid in a school playground where the bullies have been given free run to do whatever they please.
Whenever I had a visit it always meant I would have to spend a few hours in the sweat room on the way there or back, and I would be amongst lads I’d never met before, never knowing anything about them, often witnessing fights, always terrified. I was always the last to be let out. Now I was no longer in the maximum-security cells they didn’t have to strip-search me each time unless they felt there was a good reason to suspect I was carrying something. Even though they had never ever found anything on me, they continued to single me out every time.
Smith often seemed to be on duty when I had visits. I would be able to feel his eyes piercing into my back.
‘Is he looking at me?’ I’d ask Tracey.
‘Yeah, but don’t worry about it.’
But I couldn’t concentrate on the visit as long as I felt him prowling around behind me, looking for an excuse to have a go or make a remark. Sometimes a screw would just come up and stand right next to us, so we couldn’t talk in private. It was very intimidating. When Tracey came in I would stand up to give her a hug.
Tucking sit down, Howarth!’
If she got up to get herself a drink of water during the visit I would watch their eyes following her.
Knowing that they knew all my private business, I was soon aware that they were searching through my cell whenever I was away working in the servery, reading my diary. I would deliberately leave markers in it and find them moved when I got back. They weren’t allowed to search a cell without the prisoner being present but they didn’t care about that. What was I going to do about it? Make another complaint? All my mail was slowing down now, coming through already opened. The screws took pleasure in letting me know they knew my business before I did.
‘How’s Tracey doing in that job?’ one would ask.
‘You what?’
‘Oh yeah, you haven’t had that letter yet, have you?’
It seemed they just wanted to let me know that I couldn’t put anything past them, that they were the ones in charge.
‘It’s your missus’ birthday today, isn’t it? How old is she? Forty? She doesn’t look it, does she? She looks well for her age.’
Chapter Nineteen
PICTURES OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD
A few weeks later I was on the move again because they needed my space for someone else, and I ended up in a cell on my own in B Wing. I knew a couple of the lads on there, which made the move easier.
I put in applications for home leave and for tagging, which meant I had to go and see one of the governors.
‘Do you think you’ve been a good prisoner while you’ve been in here?’ he asked.
‘I think I’ve done my best, given the circumstances.’ ‘It’s a very serious offence you’ve been convicted of. We don’t think you are ready to go home on detention curfew.’ He sat back and looked straight at me. ‘Do you intend pursuing these complaints?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘With all that’s going on we don’t think you should be going home on curfew.’
‘This is a joke, isn’t it? All you’ve brought me in here for is to see if I’ll drop these complaints. Are you telling me that if I drop them I can have a tag?’
‘It’s nothing to do with the complaints.’
I knew there was no point arguing and asked to be taken back to the wing. I was determined not to be intimidated into withdrawing my complaints. It just didn’t seem right that the people who were supposed to be rehabilitating me should be able to get away with abusing me further. If I didn’t stand up for myself, what was to stop them going on doing it to other people? Someone had to say that enough was enough and things should change. I was desperate to get out of prison, since every hour in there reminded me of my childhood and I desperately missed Tracey every moment we were apart, but I wasn’t willing to be blackmailed.
For the next few weeks I kept a low profile, just serving out my time. One of the hardest things about being in prison is not really being able to understand what is going on in the outside world, because you only see it through the newspapers and television. So when there was rioting in Oldham, around the area where Mum’s pub was, I immediately feared the worst. Mum and Trevor lived right on the border between two areas, one of which was almost exclusively white and the other almost exclusively Asian. There had been trouble brewing for years, but it finally ignited and I saw television news pictures of the streets round the pub filled with angry mobs, riot police and burning cars. There were also some shots of a wrecked pub, although I knew it wasn’t Mum’s.
I was back on cleaning duties so I was able to get to a phone to call home and one of the cleaners at the pub picked up. I could hear strange noises in the background, like the sweeping up of broken glass.
‘What’s that noise?’ I wanted to know.
‘I don’t know that I should tell you, love,’ she said.
‘What is it?’ I insisted.
‘The pub was attacked last night.’
I had a sudden vision of the wrecked pub I had seen on the news that morning and imagined Mum and Trevor standing in the middle of something similar.
‘How’s me mum? What happened?’
‘Well, Clare was down in the bar last night helping to collect glasses. There were only a few people left and they were just getting ready to go and then bricks started flying through the windows. Clare was frightened and screaming and Trevor went to the door to see what was going on. There were hundreds of Asians outside, hurling these bricks. He got a pool cue in case they tried to come in while your mum phoned the police, and then he went back out to plead with them to go. Then one of the bricks hit him and they all started attacking him. Your mum tried to wade in and help him and she got punched.’
Picturing the scene was making me panic and I started to tremble.
‘Are they all right?’
‘Trevor’s in hospital with a fractured skull, but your mum’s all right, just a bit shaken up.’
&nb
sp; I was crying and shaking as I put the phone down and turned round, coming face to face with two Asian guys.
‘You bastards,’ I shouted. ‘This is your mob!’ I knew they were from Oldham and in for riotous behaviour. ‘What you fucking on about, mate?’
Everything was a bit of a haze after that, but I do remember getting into a fight with these two guys, the alarms going off and prison officers running around getting everyone into their cells. Once the wing was locked down they turned their attention to me and about twenty of them surrounded me. Usually at that point they get you down on the floor with a knee on your head and your arms twisted up your back, pinning you down until things have calmed. But for some reason they didn’t pounce on me like that.
‘Right, Howarth, you’re gonna come quietly.’
I had no fight left in me. It had been an illogical outburst of fear and anger and it had passed now. I let them lead me down to the underground cells, knowing there was no point in protesting. I had been out of order and I was going to have to accept the consequences. I was going to have to serve time in the block.
‘Get all your clothes off, except your underpants.’
I did as they ordered and then they locked me in, just as Dad had used to lock me naked in the cellar at Cranbrook Street. I sat on the mat, which was the only thing in the room, and waited.
‘You’re being charged with a racist attack,’ the security officer told me when he eventually arrived. ‘You’ll stay down here until it’s time for you to see the governor.’
The hours ground past and the boredom became excruciating. I found a piece of fluff on the floor and started flicking it around, just to give myself something to think about. Then I found a spider and played with that for a while, putting it on one side of the cell and counting how long it took for it to get to the other side, just waiting for someone to decide it was time for me to do something else. I had no idea what the time was or how long I had been in there. It was much quieter than being in the main block. I could hear the odd movements, but I couldn’t work out what they were.
Suddenly there was a commotion outside and I pressed my eye to the tiny flap in the thick steel door. I saw a lad with his arms twisted up his back and his legs contorted. He was covered in blood and screaming as the officers battered him to the ground, and kept on kicking and punching.
‘Leave him alone!’ I shouted, banging on the door. ‘Leave him alone!’
I heard them throwing him into a cell and slamming and locking the door. Then they left and the only sound was the lad banging on the inside of the locked door and crying. The screws said he got his injuries by hitting his head against the walls, but I had seen them laying into him. I realized I’d got off lightly. It seemed they beat up small guys more readily than big lads like me. They were cowards and they knew the smaller guys couldn’t fight back, unlike me.
When I went to see the governor he sentenced me to twenty-eight days on the block and took away all my privileges, and I was given an extra thirty days on top of my sentence. It was disappointing, since I had been starting to count down the days till I would be home, and now I had to go back a month.
The only thing to alleviate the boredom was when they served food. I only knew that a meal time was close because I would start to get the same hunger pains I remembered from my childhood and I would sniff round the door like a dog, hoping to detect the scent of approaching food. When they opened the door I had to follow a yellow line to the serving hatch, and then follow the same line all the way back. If you veered off the line and just took the shortest route you would be reported again and be in even more trouble. I guess that could be where the expression ‘toe the line’ came from. They wouldn’t let the next person out until I was back in my cell.
There was a guy in the cell next to me who must have been a long-termer, transferred from another prison. When they let him out he took no notice of the line and went straight to the serving hatch.
‘Where the fuck do you think you’re going?’
‘To get my dinner.’
‘Walk the fucking line.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Go and check your rulebook. We haven’t had to walk the line for the last five years and I know because I’ve been inside the last fifteen years.’
Colm, Mum and others wrote to everyone they could think of asking if I could be moved to a category B prison. A question was even asked of a minister in the House of Commons, but he replied that I was considered too much of a risk and had to stay wherever the prison service decided to put me. How could I be that much of a risk if they were planning to release me into the community anyway in a few months’ time?
Other prisoners warned me to be careful at night, in case they came to beat me up, but there wouldn’t have been much I could do about it. I had trouble sleeping, expecting someone to come busting through the door at any moment. Even though I could now see the finishing post for my ordeal, I still lived in fear almost every hour of the day and night, just as I had done when I was a kid.
A month before I was due to be released I was given an appointment to see a probation officer. Her name was Pat. She explained that I was going to be released after serving only fourteen months on the understanding that I was going to be good and law abiding.
‘You mustn’t communicate with any known criminals,’ she explained, ‘and you have to come and see me at least once a week so we can see how things are going. I’ve read your case notes. Do you want to tell me a bit more about yourself?’
She seemed a kind woman and so I started telling the story of Dad and my sisters.
‘He was our stepdad actually, at least I think he was, but he adopted us.’
‘You were adopted?’ She looked startled. ‘Where were you adopted?’
‘Ashton Magistrates’ Court.’
‘And this was the man who abused you and who you killed?’
‘Yeah, there was me and my two sisters, one of whom, Shirley, was in a wheelchair, but even that didn’t stop him.’
She had fallen silent and I looked up to see if she was all right and whether she wanted me to go on talking. She had her hand over her mouth and her eyes were wide with shock. I felt suddenly frightened. Was it something I’d said?
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘Are you OK?’
She took her hand away from her mouth and spoke very slowly and deliberately as if trying to piece something together in her head as she went. ‘I have a terrible feeling I was the one who dealt with your adoption. I was a magistrate in charge of adoption matters at the time. I remember the case because I remember your sister in the wheelchair.’
‘There were three of you there,’ I said and she nodded. ‘And when you asked if I liked my new daddy I said I didn’t like it when he hurt me, but I was frightened of upsetting him so I laughed.’
Her hand had gone back over her mouth and she was shaking her head from side to side in horror. She must have felt bad to think that she could have done something to save us at that stage, but in fact there was no way she could have known what was going on behind the facade that Mum and Dad put up that day In fact he must have looked like a very noble man, willing to take on three children, one of whom was so severely disabled. Pat was always very nice to me after that and I never found it in my heart to bear her any ill will. There were plenty of other people along the way who could have guessed what was going on behind our closed family doors but never did. If even my own mother didn’t realize I was being sexually abused, what chance was there that a stranger would have picked up on it?
‘These sorts of things wouldn’t happen today,’ she kept saying to me, although I was never convinced by that — you only have to read the papers to see that they still do.
Geoff Hadfield came in to see me a few times and he kept saying things like, ‘You’re a grand lad; I’d have you as me son any day.’ His words meant a great deal to me, as I would happily have had him as my dad.
‘I knew the first day I saw you,’ he said, ‘that
you had something special inside you. I’m not talking about friendship or anything like that, but the way you conducted yourself in business impressed me. I have been so shocked by what I’ve found out about you.’
Talking to him would upset me because it made me wonder why I couldn’t have had a dad like him, someone who would have praised and encouraged me and told me that I was a great lad.
I was looking forward to having some in-depth counselling once I was out of prison to try to help with some of the issues that were still making life seem so hard. Apart from my sessions with Neil, I never received any help or support from within the prison, and even when it came time for me to leave there was no action plan. There were no doctor’s appointments, exit strategy, counselling or even any thoughts as to how I would come to terms with what I had done, let alone the abuse I had suffered which had led to it. Prison was lock down and then they kick you out. They didn’t see it as their job to worry about me when I was gone: that was somebody else’s problem.
My overwhelming desire was to be a good boy, a good person, to be normal like everyone else. I also wanted to help other people who had been through similar experiences. I knew I was one of the lucky ones because I had been given the strength to survive everything that had happened to me and to try to fight for a fairer deal in life. I knew most people who suffered from abuse never managed to get that far. If any one of my failed suicide attempts had worked I would just have been one more statistic, one more of the many casualties of childhood abuse.
There is so much ignorance still in the world about the damage that happens to a child when they are physically, mentally or sexually abused. When I heard about a little girl who had been tortured to death by her uncle and aunt and someone on the television wondered why she didn’t tell anyone what was happening to her, I couldn’t help myself from shouting at the screen: ‘Because she didn’t know that it was wrong. She didn’t realize that everyone else’s life wasn’t like hers!’
Please, Daddy, No: A Boy Betrayed Page 19
