The Bedford Heist

by Frederick Linden-Wyatt

  I’m talking about discipline and not child cruelty as the latter is against the Law. Smacking a child has been seen by many as child cruelty for decades now but I’m not sure if we haven’t created a bigger problem for society by being too PC. All of us need to draw a line in the sand and know that if we cross that line then we would be in trouble. Mild smacking is allowed under a "reasonable chastisement" defence against common assault but very few parents these days smack an unruly child. There are however more ways to ensure that a child doesn’t cross the line. The withdrawing of games, mobile phones and TV for a few hours or days usually does the trick, yet many of today’s parents don’t use any form of punishment and just let the child run wild. Many bad parents allow their children to play war games on their computer. The child can also get to see adult material, join groups such as Facebook, Twitter and a host of other groups where many young people end up getting bullied on and in some sad cases the child hangs him/herself as they can’t take it anymore.

  IPhone’s are just as bad and parents must insist that they don’t take the computer or phone to bed with them as they will not get any sleep and their school grades will start to tumble. Education, both at home and school should make children aware of the bad side of the internet and social media. They need to be taught how to answer emails that are not nice and how to turn the ruddy contraption off or block the sender. I’ve lost count on how many times I have seen a young child in the supermarket having a paddy just because mummy said no, when the child wanted a bar of chocolate. I feel like telling the mother to take back control as if she can’t control her 3-year-old then she has no chance in hell when the child becomes a teenager.

  The rules of life are quite simple really. As a child you must be educated and do as you’re told. As an adult you must work until retirement age and as a pensioner you should sit back and start to enjoy life. If there is no discipline or sticking to the rules a child will not learn enough to get a decent job when they grow up and will do low paid manual work or be on the dole until he/she retires. Retirement will be miserable as they never earnt enough money to start a separate pension scheme and they will scrape by on the state pension until they die. It, however, need not be like that, if parents draw a line in the sand from word go. The likes of Ken Shoemaker would never have ended up in jail and I would probably be out of a job.

  I sat Ken down and tried to unravel where it had all gone wrong, in the vain attempt to try and turn his life around. I asked him about his early years at home and at school, but I already knew the answer as I have had hundreds of “Kens” sit in front of me over the years. He said he didn’t like school and started to skip school when he was around 8. He said he had an easy life at home as he always got his own way in the end. I asked him what he did with himself during the day and he said that he mainly spent time on his x-box. He said he liked the war and violent games like Fear 1 as it made him feel good when he killed. During his teen years he had been expelled from school on several occasions and his mum and dad were warned that they could be taken to court if the problem continued. He didn’t care if they went to prison as he could look after himself by then. I asked him where he would live if his mum and dad were in prison, but he hadn’t thought about that. He never thought about any consequences for his actions.

  I asked him what he thought the school could have done to ensure that he turned up every day. He said that he had made his mind up that education was a waste of time as he would probably end up being a professional footballer or winning the X Factor. I asked him why he hadn’t achieved any of those goals. He said that he did go for a trial with the Cobblers in Northampton but as he smoked every day (including cannabis) they weren’t interested. I asked him what work he did when he officially left school. He said he did nothing. I said haven’t you ever worked since leaving school? He said that he did get a job at MacDonald’s but it only lasted three weeks before they sacked him do to poor time keeping. I asked him how he survived on just the job seekers allowance. He said that he did a few jobs for cash in hand and he made up the shortfall of cash by selling dope to anyone who wanted to buy it. In the end he got caught several times dealing, but this was the first time he had to serve time. He just thought that they would keep letting him off with a slap on the wrist.

  As a prison councillor, I see more and more of these “uncontrollable kids” that turn out to be uncontrollable adults. As the regional rep for the Prison Officers Association, I had a young offender’s Institution in my region and the governor had told me that the problem just keeps on growing year on year, without anyone doing anything about it. It’s clear to me that more guidelines should be made available to parents informing them of the Law relating to smacking a child and suggesting other ways to keep control of their young. When the child starts to bunk off school the education authority needs to act fast. If the child doesn’t want to go to school, then they should be forcibly be taken as it’s the Law that they must be educated. Schools should not be able to expel a pupil as this is just moving the problem along the line. Instead every school should have a “sin bin” class which would house the school’s troublemakers. The children in the sin bin should have their breaks at different times to the other pupils. They should, however, arrive and leave at the same time as the rest of the children. If this didn’t bring the child back in line then they would be sent a residential school in the county and if their behaviour got better, they could return to the mainstream school but under close supervision.

  Any teenager who didn’t find work within four weeks of leaving the education system should be given a free bus pass so that they could get to and from the job centre ‘every weekday’ to sign on. If a local business required casual labour, then they could call upon these unemployable youngsters to fill the part time vacancy. There would be an incentive for the job seeker for any casual work done. The employer would only be allowed to have temporary jobless staff for a short period as some would use the route to get work done cheaply rather than take people on full time. I had mentioned this idea to several people in my local job centre and got some silly objections put in the way. The usual one was “who would manage the jobless drop-in centre”. My answer was that some of the older unemployed people could be paid a higher rate of benefit for helping. It would also give the unemployed adult work experience and help him/her feel part of the community rather than sitting at home doing nothing.

  Lazy school leavers have far too much spare time on their hands to join gangs and create problems for society. The young men that sleep around without taking any protection and some of the young girls welcome the attention and are quite happy to get pregnant as the baby will give them a free benefit ticket for the next 16 years. There needs to be a system that deals with these young studs and slags. The single mothers and their offspring should be housed in a block of flats that are warden controlled. The block should cater for 10 young mothers at a time. There should be a ban on male visitors after 6pm and two of the young mothers should be trained as child minders and the other 8 mothers be forced to work. Getting pregnant at a young age shouldn’t be a fast track to social housing and benefits for a long time.

  At present there are far too many teenage girls sleeping around and expecting the taxpayer to pick up the bill. The Child Support Act 1991 was a great disappointment and was replaced in 2012, with the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). If the sperm donor (so called father) doesn’t pay, then he can be sued by the authorities but when they don’t pay there is little that can be done. In the real world the sperm donor should pay 14% of his weekly salary for the first child he sires raising to 19% if he sired three children. The CMS has legal powers to get the child maintenance paid but this is only good if the sperm donor has money and is in work. If the sperm donor has zilch, then they can’t get blood out of a stone. They may be able to get a percentage of the stud’s job seekers allowance paid to them but with the present system that allows a layabout to sign on every 14 days, there is little incentive to get w
ork.

  Unmarried mothers

  I should explain that I’m not having a go at single mothers in general as there are many cases where the mother had been in a relationship and her partner dumped her and the child. There are also the unfortunate single parents who have lost a partner who served in the forces and many more sad cases where the state should do all it can to make the system work better for these ladies. Having said that, there are what I would call “The opt-out mothers” who use a baby to get the benefits system to work better for them. Myra Butterworth in the daily Telegraph ran a piece called “The benefit of being a single mother”. In the article she mentions two young ladies and decides that the life of a single mum has its attractions – financially at least. Myra wrote how single mums can manipulate their status to their financial advantage as two of her best friends fell into this category. She wrote “One of the girls enjoys the support of more than £1,000 in working tax credits to top up her part-time job working several days a week for the council (where she finishes at 4.30pm on the dot and has a gold-plated public sector pension). Her income also includes child maintenance from the father and child benefit. It all makes for a rather attractive bank balance as her take home pay is equivalent to a £70,000 per annuum salary. The other is in a similar position, but doesn’t work and so has a beautifully located house thrown in. The Sun newspaper said in an article called 'I’m entitled to every penny’ it wrote that Emma Lawlor, 27, first became pregnant when she was 17 and has been a full-time mum ever since. In the article Ms Lawlor says she puts her kids first and says it difficult to make her benefits stretch far enough to give them everything they need. She went on to state: "I am not doing anything illegal or wrong. I must look after my kids; I love them all and I must treat them occasionally. It's stressful looking after my five kids on my own. I do buy a few takeaways for them because sometimes I just can't face cooking and yes, I do smoke, but I can't cope otherwise.

  In 2016 the government reduced the benefit cap from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and £20,000 elsewhere to try and stop those abusing the benefit system. It was rumoured that the government were also considering stopping child benefit after the second child. It is said that this would hopefully stop mothers on benefits having an extra child so that it increased the family’s income. If introduced the start date would be 12 months from its introduction. The child benefits cap would only affect new-born children and not affect current families with more than two children.

  By introducing the sign on daily system, it will take some managing, but the savings would be greater than the current bill. I would have a bet (but I’m totally anti-gambling) that the jobless figure would be cut in half within six months of such a scheme being in place. Signing on should be at 8.30 am and the day would finish at 5pm. The job centre would need to move to a building that gave the space for some activities such as snooker, table tennis, etc to take place along with a tea/coffee facility and a soup & sandwich option at lunch time. The job centre could assign casual jobs to anyone attending such as picking up litter, cleaning off graffiti, mowing a pensioner’s lawns and a host of other things. The rules would be strict and if a claimant failed to turn up then they would not be paid any benefit for that day. The only exception would be if they were genuinely ill and they would need to supply a signed letter from their GP stating such. Things such as having a hangover or claiming that they can’t work as they are cannabis dependent will not be allowed. The country needs to get these young people working and if it doesn’t then the country will be paying for these youngsters for the rest of their sorry lives. The scheme will need a lot of planning but sitting on your backside isn’t an option. For those that live in villages that don’t have a bus service and is more than three miles from the job centre, there will be a need for the jobless to be able to sign on at the local post office or store.

  Every unemployed person would be supplied with a ‘Jobs 4 all’ card (similar to the plastic driving license) and with this card they would be able to get free bus rides to and from the job centre or use it to sign on for the day at the local post office or shop. As well as the card the new system would need to also have a fingerprint recognition check system else the yobs would get someone else to sign on for them. If they lose the card, then they will be charged £10 for a new one and will lose two days benefit as they will not be able to electronically register for work. If someone needs help mowing their lawns, painting a fence or general cleaning or ironing, then they could register their need via the ‘Jobs 4 all’ website or via post and a suitable job seeker would be sent out to do the work. They will have to show their ‘Jobs 4 all’ card and get the homeowner to sign that they have done the work. Job seekers should be made aware that if they abuse or steal from the homeowner then they would end up in prison for a fixed 5-year period. It’s time to get tough as having one and a half million people unemployed can’t be tolerated for any longer. Post Covid-19 unemployment will shoot up and only add to the problem.

  I strongly believe that first offenders should be placed in a prison farm environment where the rules are better suited to get these offenders use to a working environment. They should be tagged and if they work hard then they could gain benefits such as home weekend leave, a drink and video on a Friday night, etc. If the offender doesn’t want to play ball, then they should be placed in isolation until they agree to work. There should also be training programs to teach these offenders a trade such as bricklaying, plumbing or any trade that the construction industry is crying out for. The scheme should also work with the construction industry to provide jobs for these offenders. The government would subsidise their salary for the first year as this would cost less than keeping them behind bars and becoming regular re-offenders.

  Ken Shoemaker will be my second guest in Team C.

  Chapter 33. Autistic sibling problems

  One inmate that caught my eye was Glen Toogood who lived in Bedfordshire. Glen was in his early 40’s when he first came to see me for counselling, and he was a clean-shaven man with mousy blond hair and stunning sea blue eyes. It was a wonder that he was still single as I knew from his records that he wasn’t gay, yet he appeared very shy and timid and perhaps that was the reason he never married. This was his third time in prison but the first time he came under my wing and he had been caught again for dealing in drugs.

  During the sessions I tried to get a breakdown on the inmates’ childhood and Glen said that one of the worse childhood experiences was to do with his brother Tom who suffered from Autism. I told him that I also had an autistic brother and could understand how hard his childhood had been. Glen went on to say that his brother was born with a bent spine and had surgery in his first year of life to try and correct the problem but with little success. Apart from this he seemed like a normal infant but that ended when he was around 20 months of age when we were told that he also suffered from autism. He said that he had felt that his brother got all the attention and that his parents didn’t see that he was hurting and feeling left out of things. He said that he now understood why his parents had to give all their time to his brother and once he left school he had a lonely life as he lived with his parents and brother in a small village on the fens. He couldn’t drive (and even if he could he certainly couldn’t afford a car) and eventually the job centre sent him to a residential college for training as a chef. He liked cooking and did well on his course, but he was lonely and his roommate at college introduced him to cannabis and that was the slow path to becoming a junkie.

  I thanked Glen for his honesty but was unsure how I could help him as this was his third time in prison and has he was now in his 40’s getting a job on the outside would be difficult but all we could do was to try. I did put him on the drug rehabilitation course, but I wasn’t expecting a miracle. It would be hard for his parents to cope with one child in a residential care home and another in a more secure care home called prison, so I hoped some good would come out of it. To my surprise Glen did well on his drug rehabil
itation course and when I checked him out a few months after leaving us he was still off the weed but finding a job was nearly impossible. More on Autism and how it affected Glen and his family can be read in the “afterword’s” section at the end of the book.

  I liked Glen and could understand the poor deck of cards he had been dealt and decided to invite him to the heist in Bedford.

  Chapter 34. Neo-Nazi supporter needs extra protection

  Geoff Laxly aged 35 was born in Harrow and educated to a higher level at the Whitefriars School before joining the Nationwide Building Society when he left school at 16. Geoff never married but had lived with a few ladies along the line but none of them stayed around for exceptionally long as they soon realised that he loved football more than them.

  He was a Millwall supporter, if ‘supporter’ is the right word, and he got into trouble fighting other football rivals on a regular basis. He openly told me he wasn’t there for the football but being a football hooligan gave him great satisfaction after a boring week at the bank. He was also a racist and this is what brought him time in prison. He was on my list to try and put him on the right track, so that when he left prison, he would leave a better man than when he came in. I had dealt with a few neo-Nazi supporters before, but Geoff would prove to be a difficult case to handle.