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.
By being open and honest, I had lost the one person I truly loved. My life had been ruined by these evil men, and now they had even robbed me of my wife and two children.
All I now wanted was to kill the five monsters who were responsible, and then die in the hands of the police.
There were five paedophiles who had taken away my life, so I planned to take away theirs. I quickly discovered that two of them had already died, so there were only three left for me to deal with. Their names were ***, **** and *****
I carefully planned how I would kill them, and then later die in the hands of the police
I drove down to—and kidnapped *** and brought him back to—, leaving him at my flat with three friends, who agreed to guard him while I returned to the coast to pick up *****. I then planned to go onto—and collect **** and bring them both back to—.
I arrived back in—at one-thirty in the afternoon, when *****’s next door neighbour told me that I had just missed him. I phoned—to warn them that I would be late, because I couldn’t risk grabbing him in broad daylight. It was then that they told me the news. They had already killed ***.
I was enraged. I’ve always been a cold person emotionally, but I cried on the journey back to London, because I had wanted to kill *** myself. I had needed to cleanse myself of these three evil men, and all I had now was a dead body on my hands and three terrified associates.
I drove back to—, breaking the speed limit most of the way. On arrival, I cleaned all the finger-prints from my flat and told the others that I would deal with ***** and **** in my own way. That was when the police burst in; twenty-four armed officers pinned the three of us to the ground, handcuffed and arrested me.
I discovered later that ***** had already phoned the police and told them he feared for his life. I gave my solicitor all the details, and he said that because I was in Hastings at the time of ***’s death, they wouldn’t charge me with murder, but they could charge me with conspiracy to murder. They charged me with murder, and I was sentenced to a minimum of twenty-two years.
Yes, I am doing a twenty-two year sentence for a crime I didn’t commit. I only wish I had, and I also wish I had killed **** and ***** at the same time.
I am now a Listener at Belmarsh and feel useful for the first time in my life. I know I’ve saved one life, and hopefully helped many others.
My demons still haunt me, of course they do, but I somehow keep them at bay. I won’t complete my twenty-two year sentence, but I will choose the time and manner of my death*
It’s only shame that prevents me from contacting anyone I know. A feeling of worthlessness, a dirty little rent boy that allowed older men to use, beat and abuse him, because he needed to be loved, and no longer cared what happened to him. How can I ever expect my wife, my children, or my family to understand?
I hope by telling this story, I may save someone else from the horror I’ve been put through, so that that person will never be visited by the same demons, and worse, will not end up in jail on a charge of murder.
11.23 pm
I go to bed asking myself should the man known as Fletch have to spend the rest of his life in jail? If the answer is yes, don’t we perhaps have some responsibility to the next generation, to ensure that there aren’t other children whose lives will end by the age of nine?
Day 20
Tuesday 7 August 2001
6.16 am
I have a better night’s sleep. Perhaps Fletch’s allowing his story to be committed to paper has helped. I write for two hours.
8.00 am
Breakfast. Frosties and the last dribble from the second carton of long-life milk. Not quite enough left to soak my cereal. Canteen provisions due in today, and as I’m leaving on Thursday I will be able to repay all my bubbles: Del Boy (water and biscuits), Tony (Mars Bar), and Colin (stamps, twelve first-class).
10.00 am
Association. I am strolling around the ground floor, when I notice that one of the prisoners, Joseph (murder), is playing pool. He’s by far the best player on the spur and occasionally clears the table. This morning he’s missing simple shots that even I would sink. I lean against the wall and watch him more carefully. He has that distant look on his face, so common among lifers.
When the match is over and the cues have been passed on to waiting inmates, I comment on his standard of play. I think the word I select is rubbish.
‘I’ve got something on my mind, Jeff,’ he says, still distant.
‘Anything I can help with?’ I ask.
‘No thanks, it’s a family matter.’
11.00 am
I see that my name is chalked up on the board for a legal visit from my solicitor, Tony Morton-Hooper.
Over the years I have found that professional relationships fall into two categories. The ones that remain professional, and the ones when you become friends. Tony falls firmly into the second category. We have a mutual love of athletics – he has represented many track stars over the years – and despite a considerable age difference, we relax in each other’s company.
We meet up in one of those small rooms where I come in from one side and am locked in, and moments later he enters by a door on the opposite side, and is also locked in. The first thing I notice is that Tony is wearing a thick yellow rubber band around his wrist; it will allow him to eventually escape, but for the next hour he is also incarcerated.
Tony begins by telling me that Wayland Prison is certain to be a far more relaxed regime than Belmarsh, and as good a place as any to be until I am reinstated as a Category D prisoner. I ask Tony what the latest is on that subject.
‘It’s all good news,’ he tells me. ‘The media have worked out that you have nothing to answer, and we’ve been through your files and they show the matter was raised in Parliament in 1991 when Lynda Chalker was Overseas Development Minister and she gave a robust reply. She also wrote you a long letter on the subject at the time.’ He slides both the letter and the Parliamentary reply across the table.
‘Was Ms Nicholson an MP then?’ I ask.
‘She most certainly was,’ says Tony, ‘and more importantly, a full investigation was carried out by the Foreign Office, so we’re sending all the relevant papers to the police and pointing out that a second inquiry would be an irresponsible waste of public money.’
‘So can I sue her for libel?’ I ask.
‘Not yet,’ he replies. ‘I talked to the police yesterday, and although they will not release a copy of the letter she sent to them, they made it clear that the accusations were such that they had no choice but to follow them up.’
‘If we issue a writ, will she have to release that letter?’
‘Yes. It would automatically become part of the evidence.’
‘Then we must have grounds to sue her.’
‘Not yet,’ Tony repeats. ‘Let’s wait for the police to drop their inquiry before we take any further action. And that could be quite soon, as Radio 4’s Today Programme have been in touch with Mary. Their research team are also convinced that you have no case to answer, and they want her to appear on the programme.’
‘Of course they do,’ I say, ‘because all they’ll want to talk to her about is my appeal.’
‘As long as she doesn’t discuss the case while an appeal is pending, I’m in favour of her doing the interview.’
‘She could of course quote from Lynda Chalker’s letter and the Parliamentary reply,’ I suggest.
‘Why not?’ says Tony. ‘But let’s proceed slowly, step by step.’
‘Not something I’m good at,’ I admit. ‘I prefer proceeding quickly, leap by leap.’
Tony then removes some papers from his briefcase, and tells me that the appeal will be officially lodged tomorrow. I have to sign an agreement to appeal against sentence, and another against conviction.
Tony would give me a fifty-fifty chance of having the verdict overturned if it were not for the ‘Archer’ factor. ‘If you weren’t involved it would be thrown out without a second thought. T
here wouldn’t even have been a trial in the first place.’ He puts the odds even higher on getting the sentence reduced. Mr Justice Potts’s comment that mine was the worst example of perjury he had ever known has been greeted by the legal profession with raised eyebrows.*
We then turn to the subject of the prison diary, of which I have now completed fifty thousand words, and I warn him that it’s going to come as a shock to most of my regular readers. He asks how I’m getting the script through to Alison, remembering this is the tightest-security prison in Europe. I remind him that I am still receiving two to three hundred letters a day, and the censors allow me to turn them round and send them back to my office the following morning, so another ten handwritten pages aren’t causing the censor any concern.
A Prison Diary Page 20
