Heaven

by Jeffrey Archer

  Lunch in the canteen. Potato bake and cabbage, followed by sponge cake covered, and I mean covered, in custard. I never eat the second course, but take it, because Carl can always eat two portions.

  3.00 pm

  Dr Harris is on duty and his first responsibility is to sign the discharge papers for eight prisoners who will be released tomorrow. All of them have been granted tagging status, which allows them to leave two months early as long as they remain in their homes between the hours of 7 pm and 7 am. These hours can be flexible if it affects their job.

  When I first arrived at NSC and worked as the orderly in the sentence management unit, the tagging board of Mr Berlyn and Mr Simpson used to agree to about 50 per cent of those eligible for this privilege. Now all eight are granted on the same day,25 including a twenty-three-year-old who’s already been to prison four times. Lee admits that he was shocked when the board granted him tagging status, as his offence was punching someone on the nose in a pub brawl and in any case he looks upon prison as a way of life. In fact, his last comment to Linda before leaving us was, ‘See you towards the end of the year, if not before.’ He turns to me and adds, ‘Let’s hope you’re out by then, Jeff.’

  4.15 pm

  I sweep out the ward and mop the floor. On alternate days I vacuum Linda’s little office removing Bessie’s paw prints. All very therapeutic.

  5.00 pm

  I call Mary. She thanks me for the flowers that I asked Alison to send her yesterday. She then brings me up to date on Angie Peppiatt and Mr Justice Potts.

  5.30 pm

  I collect my post. Eleven Valentine cards, which I display in the ward for all to see, plus several letters, including one from John Major and another from Billy Connolly.

  Many years ago when John was Chancellor of the Exchequer, I asked him to open the extension to our new folly at the Old Vicarage at our annual summer party. John described the building as ‘Mary’s second folly’. Billy spoke next and immediately closed it.

  DAY 212

  FRIDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2002

  5.23 am

  I’ve only just worked out why it’s the same five inmates who appear at the front of the queue every morning for medication; Linda as hospital sister will only allow them one day’s supply of drugs, whereas in a surgery ‘on the out’, she would prescribe enough for a week, and in some cases even a month. Why, you may ask.

  a. If a prisoner were given a month’s supply he might well take it all on one day.

  b. He could also trade his medication for other drugs.26

  c. They could be lost or stolen.

  Result, we have a long queue every morning for one day’s supply of medication, so they will all be back tomorrow.

  7.30 am

  Mr Beaumont the new governor has hit the ground running. He’s demanded that his office be repainted and all the furniture be replaced, and it all has to be completed by the time he gets back from a visit to the Home Office tomorrow.

  8.30 am

  Mr Vessey, a security officer, marches into the hospital. His appearance usually means that a prisoner is about to be nicked for some offence. I can’t think of any offence I’ve committed recently, other than being in possession of a bottle of Ribena (smuggled in by Doug). Mr Vessey, who never makes any attempt to be friendly, asks me to accompany him, and takes considerable pleasure in marching me out of the hospital and across the camp. Several prisoners stare in disbelief. He eventually tells me my name has come up on the computer for a random MDT test.

  He escorts me into a Portacabin, where I am locked in a room with five other prisoners. Three of them look relaxed and are happily chatting, while the other two are silent, twitchy and look distinctly nervous. A few minutes later I hear a key turning in the lock and another officer joins us.

  Four of us came up on the computer for a random test, while two others are here on ‘reasonable suspicion’. The serial grasser has undoubtedly offered up their names. The officer then reads his authority to carry out such a test (see overleaf) before asking who would like to be tested first.

  I stand up and follow him into an adjoining room. The procedure is then explained to me (see page 349), and I am requested to sign a form saying I agree to the test. I am then asked to strip and put on a dressing gown. Mr Vessey hands me a plastic beaker, and asks me to go to the lavatory next door and fill it with at least 60 ml of urine. Having managed this, I hand the beaker back to Mr Vessey, who unseals two plastic tubes in my presence and then pours half the urine into each tube. After I have initialled both, he seals them and places them in a plastic bag, which he also seals. The bag is then deposited in the fridge. He points out that my name is not on the bag, only my number, FF8282.

  MANDATORY DRUG TEST AUTHORISATION FORM

  PRISON SERVICE CHAIN OF CUSTODY PROCEDURE

  Having completed this procedure, I sign another form to confirm that I am satisfied with the way the test has been conducted. I am then released to return to the hospital.

  Despite this being a humiliating experience, it’s one I thoroughly approve of. Although I’ve never got on with Mr Vessey, he is a professional who cannot hide his contempt for anyone involved in drugs, especially the dealers.

  9.00 am

  One of the inmates up in front of the governor this morning has been charged with illegal possession of marijuana – but with a difference. When his room was raided they found him trying to swallow a small plastic packet. They wrestled him to the ground and extracted the evidence from his mouth. Had he swallowed the contents, they would not have been able to charge him. The packet was one of those we supply from the hospital containing six paracetamol pills. This one had an ounce of marijuana inside, and the inmate ended up with seven days added to his sentence.

  3.00 pm

  Mr Hocking appears in the hospital carrying a large attaché case and disappears into Linda’s office. A few minutes later they both come out and join me on the ward. The large plastic case is placed on a hospital bed and opened to reveal a drugs kit: twenty-one square plastic containers embedded in foam rubber show the many different drugs currently on the market. For the first time I see heroin, crack cocaine, ecstasy tablets, amphetamines and marijuana in every form.

  Linda and Mr Hocking deliver an introductory talk that they give to any prison officer on how to recognize the different drugs and the way they can be taken. Mr Berlyn and his security team are obviously determined that I will be properly briefed before I am allowed to accompany Mr Le Sage when we visit schools.

  It’s fascinating at my age (sixty-one) to be studying a new subject as if I were a first-year undergraduate.

  5.00 pm

  The new governor, Mr Beaumont, is making a tour of the camp and spends seven minutes in the hospital – a flying visit. He has heard the hospital is efficiently run by Linda and Gail, and as long as that continues to be the case, gives them the impression that he will not be interfering.

  DAY 213

  SATURDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2002

  8.45 am

  Yesterday I was frog-marched off to do an MDT. Today there’s an announcement over the tannoy that there are voluntary drugs tests for those with surnames beginning A-E. These are known as dip tests, because once again you pee into a plastic beaker, but this time the officer in charge dips a little stick into the beaker and moments later is able to give you a result.

  I walk across to the Portakabin, supply another 60ml of urine and I’m immediately cleared, which makes yesterday’s test somewhat redundant.

  I later learn that one of the Bs came up positive, and he had to call his wife to let her know that he won’t be allowed out on a town visit this weekend. As it was a voluntary test, I can’t work out why he agreed to be tested.

  10.00 am

  Surgery is always slow at the weekend because the majority of inmates who appear with various complaints during the week in the hope that they will get off work remain in bed, while all those who are fit never visit us in the first place.

  11.00 am />
  Carl and an inmate called Jason who is only with us for two weeks (motoring offence) turn up at the hospital. Together we remove all the beds from the ward and push them into the corridor, before giving the hospital a spring clean.

  Jason tells me that ‘on the out’ he’s a painter and decorator, and could repaint the ward during his two-week incarceration. I shall speak to the governor on Monday, because at £8.20 a week this would be quite a bargain. You may well ask why Carl and Jason helped me with the spring clean. Boredom. The spring clean killed a morning for all of us.

  2.00 pm

  I watch the prison football team lose 72, and witness two more pieces of unbelievable stupidity by fellow inmates. Our goalkeeper, who was sent off by the same referee the last time we played, shouts obscenities at him again, and is surprised when he’s booked. I fear he will be back in prison within months of being released. But worse, our centre forward is a prisoner who’s just come out of the Pilgrim Hospital after a groin injury, and has been told to rest for six weeks. He will undoubtedly appear at surgery on Monday expecting sympathy. It’s no wonder the NHS is in such crisis if patients behave so irresponsibly after being given expert advice.

  DAY 214

  SUNDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2002

  6.01 am

  If I had been given the same sentence as Jonathan Aitken, I would have been released today. Jonathan was sentenced to eighteen months, and because he was a model prisoner, only had to serve seven (half minus two months on tag). Tomorrow I will not be returning home to my wife and family because Mr Justice Potts sentenced me to four years. Instead I will be meeting Mark Le Sage, an officer from Stocken Prison who visits schools in Lincolnshire, warning children of the consequences of taking drugs.

  I will remain at NSC until I know the result of my appeal, but for the first time in seven months (since my mother’s funeral) I will be able to leave the prison and return to the outside world.

  DAY 215

  MONDAY 18 FEBRUARY 2002

  10.00 am

  Mr Le Sage does not turn up for our meeting.

  The governor of HMP Stocken has decided that they should not have to bear the cost of my accompanying Mr Le Sage on any school visit, as it would no longer be a voluntary activity that Mr Le Sage would normally pursue in his off-duty time.

  As so often is the case in prisons, someone will look for a reason for not doing something rather than trying to make a good idea work. I cannot pretend that I’ve become so used to this negative attitude that I am not disappointed. Mr Berlyn is also unable to mask his anger, and seems determined not to be thwarted by this setback. He has decided that NSC will send its own officer (Mr Hocking) as my escort, so that I might still attend Mark Le Sage’s lectures. As I won’t know if this suggestion will be vetoed until Mr Berlyn has spoken to the Stocken’s governor, I will continue in my role as hospital orderly.

  11.30 am

  Alan Purser, the prison drugs counsellor, comes across to the hospital to give me a copy of The Management of Drug Misuse in Prisons by Dr Celia Grummitt. Dr Grummitt will become my new bedtime companion.

  4.00 pm

  Mr Vessey has charged Chris (lifer, murder) and David (lifer, murder) with being on the farm in possession of four potatoes and a cabbage. In normal circumstances this would have caused little interest, even in our self-contained world. However, this will be the new governor’s first adjudication, which we all await with bated breath.

  DAY 216

  TUESDAY 19 FEBRUARY 2002

  10.00 am

  Mr Beaumont dismissed the charges against Chris and David as a farm worker came forward to say he’d given them permission to take the potatoes and the cabbage.

  2.07 pm

  As part of my preparation for talking to children about the dangers and consequences of drugs, I have a visit from a police officer attached to the Lincolnshire drug squad. Her name is Karen Brooks. She’s an attractive, thirty-five-year-old blonde, and single mother of two. I mention this only to show that she is normal. Karen has currently served two and a half years of a four-year assignment attached to the drug squad, having been a member of the force for the past fourteen years: hardly the TV image of your everyday drug officer.

  She gives me a tutorial lasting just over an hour, and perhaps her most frightening reply to my endless questions – and she is brutally honest – is that she has asked to be transferred to other duties as she can no longer take the day-to-day strain of working with drug addicts.

  Karen admits that although she enjoys her job, she wishes she’d never volunteered for the drugs unit in the first place, because the mental scars will remain with her for the rest of her life.

  Her son, aged twelve, is a pupil at one of the most successful schools in Lincolnshire, and has already been offered drugs by a fourteen-year-old. This is not a deprived school in the East End of London, but a first-class school in Lincolnshire.

  Karen then tells a story that brings her almost to tears. She once arrested a twelve-year-old girl from a middle-class, professional family for shoplifting a pair of socks from Woolworth’s. The girl’s parents were horrified and assured Karen it wouldn’t happen again. Two years later the girl was arrested for stealing from a lingerie shop, and was put on probation. When they next met, the girl was seventeen, going on forty. Three years of experimentation with marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and heroin, and a relationship with a twenty-year-old drug dealer, had taken their toll. The girl died last month at the age of eighteen. The dealer is still alive – and still dealing.

  As Karen gets ready to leave, I ask her how many officers are attached to the drug squad.

  ‘Five,’ she replies, ‘which means that only about 10 per cent of our time is proactive, while the other 90 per cent is reactive.’ She says that she’ll visit me again in two weeks’ time.

  DAY 228

  SUNDAY 3 MARCH 2002

  6.30 am

  Yesterday I read Celia Grummitt’s pamphlet on the misuse of drugs in prisons and the following facts bear repeating:

  a. Seven million people in Britain take drugs on a regular basis (this does not include alcohol or cigarettes).

  b. Sixteen million people in Britain smoke cigarettes.

  c. Drug-related problems are currently costing the NHS, the police service, the Prison Service, the social services, the probation service and courts – the country – eighteen billion pounds a year.

  d. If Britain did not have a drug problem, and by that I mean abuse of Class A drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine, we could close 25 per cent of our jails, and there would be no waiting lists on the NHS.

  e. In 1975, fewer than 10,000 people were taking heroin. Today it’s 220,000, and for those of you who have never had to worry about your children, just think about your grandchildren.

  DAY 231

  WEDNESDAY 6 MARCH 2002

  10.00 am

  Mark Le Sage, the young prison officer from HMP Stocken, visits me at the hospital. He’s been in the Prison Service for the past twelve years, and for the last eight, has spent many hours as a volunteer addressing schools in the Norfolk area.

  Mr Berlyn joins us, as it was his idea that I should attend a couple of Mark’s talks before I venture out on my own. As I have not yet passed my FLED, I’ll have to be accompanied by Mr Hocking, who has also agreed to carry out this task in his own time, as NSC do not have the funds to cover the extra expense (£14 an hour). Mr Berlyn says that he’ll write to the governor of HMP Stocken today, as Mr Le Sage comes under his jurisdiction.

  11.00 am

  Blossom (traveller, see page 193) is at the High Court today for his appeal. He’s currently serving a five-and-a-half-year sentence for stealing cars and caravans. He’s grown his beard even longer, as he’s hoping that the judge will think he’s a lot older than he is, and therefore shorten his sentence. He intends to shave the beard off as soon as he returns this evening.

  6.00 pm

  Blossom returns from his appeal and announces that a year has been kn
ocked off his sentence. It had nothing to do with the length of his beard, because he was only in the dock for a couple of minutes and the judge hardly gave him a second look. He had clearly read all the relevant papers long before Blossom showed up.

  7.00 pm

  Blossom has already shaved off the beard.

  The other interesting piece of information to come out of Blossom’s visit to the High Court was that three cannabis dealers had their sentences halved from seven to three and a half years. A sign of things to come?

  DAY 234

  SATURDAY 9 MARCH 2002

  8.00 am

  Blossom comes in to see sister. He’s in a dreadful state. His wife has written to let him know that his oldest son (aged twenty-nine) is on heroin. He asks me to fill out a form so that he can apply for compassionate leave. He tells me that he’s already got hold of a pair of handcuffs and he plans to chain the boy to a water pipe until he comes off the drug. He’s quite serious.