The Bedford Heist
Page 19
I asked Graham what he thought had gone wrong at HMP Ford open prison in West Sussex which caused the riot. He said that it had a bad reputation as it was easy for inmates to get hold of booze and drugs and when the governor tried to tighten up on these two matters the inmates caused a riot. He did go on to state that a recent inspection found that the problems which caused the riot in 2011 had been addressed by the new governor and it had made a lot of progress in preparing prisoners for the outside world. In my opinion a more educational role of prisons should be made a priority instead of spending over a billion pounds on building new prisons. A new system must be found where training is made a priority and the last few years of an inmate’s prison sentence is spent working and living in the community. They would be tagged and must follow strict time schedules and curfews. After the two years in prison any new employers of such reformed prisoners would be financially rewarded as the cost will be far less than it would be to keep them locked up.
If the prisoner breaks any of the relaxed rules they would be arrested and sent to a hard prison. The softer prison option should be a thing of the past. I strongly believe that any prisoner who is an addict (drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc) should not be released back into the community until he/she had controlled their addiction and had been clean for six months. I strongly disagreed with the old IPPs [Indeterminate sentences for the Protection of the Public] as it was not managed correctly but with an addict it was easier to see whether they had beaten their habit and could survive on the outside. I’m convinced that we (the prison service) have got it wrong in the past and had given up hope of ever breaking the mould that kept returning the same prisoners to us on a regular basis.
For young offenders serving less than 12 months these should only be sent to prisons that were tough and the long-term prisoner (excluding the obvious murderers, rapist, etc) should be moved to an open prison to start their retraining so that he/she can make it in the real world. If you send a young offender to an open prison then they will be more trouble to the prison officers as they had not yet learnt about rules and disciplines and it was rumoured that it was these young hooligans that caused the riot at HMP Ford open prison in 2011 as they all thought that they were still above the law. The open prison route had never happened to Mike Hood as he was a professional prisoner and had spent more time in prison during his adult years than he had spent on the outside. Before being sent to prison the first time he was training as an electrician’s mate and he should be able to continue his training at an open prison before being released in the future. Mike was released from prison in January 2018 and I had helped to set him up in a half-way house where another of my team would keep an eye on him.
I’m glad to hear that he is doing well, and that Mike Hood will be my team leader for Team F.
Chapter 41. A runner in more ways than one
Tony Weston was 36 years old and married with two young girls. He lived in a small village called Lode which is in East Cambridgeshire on the southern edge of the fens. It lies just 8 miles to the north east of Cambridge. The village had an aged population and one pub (that had since closed) but it did have a post office and small general store. Tony said that he was a keen runner and he first found the village when he entered the villages’ yearly half marathon. He fell in love with the place and was happy to see a three-bedroom bungalow come on to the market, just at the time he and his wife were looking for their forever home.
Tony’s wife Jenny suffered from panic attacks and had an immune deficiency along with poor lungs (COPD) since she was a teenager. Jenny had been on tranquilisers and other medication ever since. Due to his wife’s poor lung condition she needed to rest every afternoon, so they wanted a quite village. Tony had moved there in 2006 and purchased his first home with his wife Jenny and at first it was everything they could wish for in a lovely quiet village on the edge of the Fens. At the time of buying they never planned on having children but to everyone’s surprise his wife gave birth to two lovely daughters in September 2008. There wasn’t a school in Lode, but the Bottisham Community Primary school is only a 5-minute drive away and it always gained good Ofsted reports. Tony went on to tell me that he had a standard upbringing and had done well at school and after college he worked for a large manufacturer of farm machinery.
When he was 21, he had got caught with cannabis and was given a caution. He tried to kick the habit but failed dismally and ended up in court for supplying a class A drug. He had been visiting a mate who was his supplier when his mate’s house got raided and as his mates phone number was on his mobile several times they assumed I was part of the supply chain and I was put away for 40 months. I asked Tony what started him on drugs. He said that there’s an old saying that goes like “Be careful what you wish for” and he had always thought it a load of rubbish until he met his nightmare neighbour’s next door. The family consisted of mum. Dad and two noisy teenage boys. The family had lived in the village for generations and his neighbours’ brother was on the parish council and his wife worked for the district council. After only a few weeks in our new home the amplified music from the teenage boys was very loud. I visited my neighbours and the man of the house wasn’t at home, so I spoke to his wife and explained that due to my wife’s medical condition she had to sleep for a couple of hours in the afternoon, so could she ask her sons not to play loud music between 2 and 5 in the afternoon. She said that she would discuss it with her husband when he returned.
Within 30 minutes there was a knock on my front door, and I was expecting to see my neighbour but instead it was their son who we called drummer boy. He said that they had lived in the village a long time and wouldn’t be told what to do by any newcomer. I asked him why he couldn’t agree to not play loud music at a set time each day, but he said he would play music when he liked. For the next few weeks, the loud music got worse and I had no choice but to ask the local environment officer from the council to get involved. He said that he would write to the family and gave me a load of sheets to log down the start and finish time of every session. We logged the times down and the worst spell was during a two-day school holiday where they played loud music 19 times. The worst thing about the situation was not knowing when it would start. If it were a nice summer evening, we would sit out on the patio, but no sooner had we got settled the loud music would start up. There was a tall brick wall between their house and ours so how they knew we were outside in the garden I’ll never know. After a month we sent the forms back into the council but didn’t get a reply from them.
I chased the council and spoke to my MP and after her intervention the council came around and set up a noise monitoring recorder. If the monitor heard a noise the recorder would wait 30 seconds before recording. For that week there was a lot of stop and start sessions that only lasted 20 to 25 seconds, so they must have been warned from someone in the council that we had a recording device installed. After a week, the council collected the kit and the noise started up again only this time it would be louder and more frequent. A year went by hoping that our neighbour’s boys would grow tired and move on to other things, but this didn’t happen. I went back to the council and we started the whole process again and logged every noise nuisance. The council then decided to install the sound recording system again, but I had told him what had happened last time and if we only got 20 to 25 seconds again I would call the police. The officer from the council set up the system yet again and said that we needed to ensure that everything was correct at time of recording as it must be like for like.
During that week in June we had a heat wave so when the wife went for her afternoon kip, I opened the bedroom window to try and get some fresh air in to the bedroom. After a week, the officer collected the machine and said that he would report back when it had been analysed. I never heard back so after two weeks I called him. On the fifth time of calling I managed to speak with him, and he said that he could hear the noise, but I had cheated by opening the bedroom window. I reminded him that he had sa
id that the recording should be true, and I told him it was. He said that as I had opened the window, I had ruined our chances. I said that most people in the UK would open their bedroom window during a hot spell, but he wasn’t budging.
It was making my wife’s condition worse so I got our local solicitor involved and he set up a meeting in Bottisham where all of our neighbours attended along with the boy’s grandmother who said that she had taught the two boys and that they were good boys. My solicitor went through all the log sheets that I had kept a copy of and he said on paper it looked as there was a noise problem and suggested that a curfew be set between 13.00 and 16.00 hours every afternoon. The boy’s parents had said that they had never had a problem with the boys, and one was due to start university soon. I didn’t mention the noise they made in an evening when their mother was working the late shift at the local supermarket and the boy’s father was out drinking. They would gather in the street with their mates and although underage they drank cans of beer and threw the empties in to my garden. Other neighbours had also complained but they didn’t stand up to them like I did. The meeting and the following letters cost me nearly a grand, but I thought it would be money well spent if it stopped my wife from killing herself as the constant noise was making her suicidal.
Things did quieten down, and the curfew was honoured but as soon as it was over the loud music would start again. One summer afternoon my neighbours were having a party by their pool in their back garden and the music got really load. Another of my neighbours had called around and heard the noise so he picked up a plank of wood and started banging loudly on their wall and told them to turn it down. The only response we got back was a load of verbal abuse and the boys dad threatened to come around and knock my f**king head off. They however did turn it down, but this was mainly due to his wife coming home after a long shift at the supermarket and she would have heard the loud music when she entered our street.
Things carried on but only got better due to one of the boys going away to university. However, on the day after his return they held a party to celebrate one of the son’s birthdays and the loud music went on until the early hours. I let this go as it was a birthday celebration but on the next day the loud music started at 15.00 hours and continued non-stop for nearly four hours. I called the police and explained what had happened and a police officer came around. I told him that he had just missed the mammoth session and he went around to our neighbour’s door and knocked loudly but no one was answering. When the policeman came back to our house, I said that I hadn’t seen the boy leave and no sooner had I said that I noticed the boy walking down the street. I said to the policeman that that’s him walking down the street and the copper went after him. He called the boy back several times, but he just kept on walking. This upset the policeman and he caught hold of the boy and made him return to his house and I assumed that he was reading him the riot act. After that things went incredibly quiet but even to this day my wife can’t settle as she expects the loud music to start up again. It was only due to the neighbour threatening violence that the police would take it seriously and if he hadn’t, we would still be facing the same problem now.
Tony went on to say that the council was totally useless, and it annoyed him that the environment officer for the council was as useful as a chocolate teapot. Noise nuisance is a major problem all over the country and the government must do something to correct this injustice. I asked him how this had ended up with him sitting where he is now and he told me that a few months after the police had become involved he had been visiting a local village fete and he saw the useless environment office strutting around but what made him see red was the person he was holding hands with. It was none other than my neighbours’ sister in law that worked for the council. They were in it together and I just lost it and threw a punch at the officer and I was arrested for GBH. The court listened to my story but found me guilty and as it was an officer for the council, I had assaulted. The judge said that he could only offer me a custodial sentence. As this was my second time in court, I got 36 months.
Tony went on to add that he was worried about getting a job once he was released as he had been in prison twice. I said that I would do what I could but only after he had completed an in-house anger management course. Tony finished the course but there wasn’t enough time to complete another course and was to be released in 2020. Just before leaving he came to his last appointment with me and he smiled when he told me that his wife had said in her last letter that the problem had stopped but only because the teenagers had moved away and she believed that the older boy had been sent to prison after being found guilty of supplying class A drugs so that he made enough money to feed his habit. The other son had been given an Anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) and had since moved away. Tony said that it was obvious to most people that the teenagers just ran wild and if the boy’s parents had laid down the law (when it was obvious that there was a problem) the boys lives could have had a better outcome.
I caught up with him and as he hadn’t found any work, he accepted the invite to join us in Bedford. Tony Weston will be my second guest in Team F.
Chapter 42. When a bottle is your best friend
John Tredwood was a 39-year-old alcoholic who had hit rock bottom several times and ended up in prison twice during the past six years. John was born in Nottingham and spent most of his young life growing up in the St. Anne’s area of the City. Nottingham is like any large city in the UK and depending which area you are born in; you can be disadvantaged from birth. John who looks like the infamous Curtis 'Cocky' Warren who has the dubious honour of having been listed on two high-profile lists: The Sunday's Times' Rich List, and Interpol's Most Wanted. The notorious drugs trafficker earned his nickname due to this brazen criminal activity, which included a £31 million cannabis smuggling operation on the island of Jersey only a month after being released from a Dutch prison.
John goes on to tell me his life’s history and it made me sad to hear what he was born into. He said that when he was thirteen, friends would make fun of him if I didn’t have a drink. I just gave in because it was easier to join the crowd. I was unhappy and just drank to escape my miserable life. I went out less and less, so started losing friends. The lonelier I got, the more I drank. I was violent and out of control. I never knew what I was doing. I was ripping my family apart. Eventually I was kicked out of the family home at age seventeen, I was homeless and started begging for money to buy booze.
After years of abuse, doctors told me there was irreparable harm to my health. A lot of my first concerns were about drinking, and everything else came second. I started to realize that when I did not have a drink, I had a sense of panic and I would start shaking. I couldn’t go for more than a few hours without a drink. When I was 26, I got arrested for being violent after another down and out tried to steel my bottle of cider. I apparently did him a lot of harm, yet I can’t remember anything about it as I was drunk. I was charged with GBH and sent to prison for 30 months and hopefully I would get some counselling once inside to help put me back on the right track. I served my time and when I got out, I was found a place to live and a job. But after just two days I was back on the booze.
During the next few months, I had gone to work drunk, blacked out in clubs and bars and can’t remember getting home. Ashamedly I slept with someone and could not even remember the person coming home with me until we bumped into each other the next day. I have destroyed two relationships because I hurt them so much through my drinking, but I put drinking first. I spent the next eight years in and out of detox and hospitals, trying to figure out what the hell happened to me, how was it possible I couldn’t quit. It was the worst and longest nightmare. My addiction built steadily and, before I realized it, I had become a morning as well as an afternoon drinker. I carried on stealing to feed my habit and in the end, I got caught and this time I was sentenced to 5 years.
Anyway, you know that and more about me than I can remember myself. I asked Jo
hn if he really wanted to stop drinking and he said that he had little choice whilst inside as most jails are mainly dry. In some open prisons the rules are relaxed and, in a few cases, prisoners carry on the practice of brewing hooch with varying degrees of success and a high capture rate by prison staff – the smell of the fermenting brew usually gives the game away. John did do unexpectedly well on the long detox program and left prison free of his nightmare.
On checking on him after a few weeks I found that he was still free of his addiction but was finding it difficult to get a job so I have sent an invitation to John to join me on the heist in Bedford and I’m glad that he has agreed to come along.
Chapter 43. Why I am going to get my revenge in Bedford
I hope after reading how these men went wrong and how little we as a caring society do to help mend these broken human beings, you'll start to understand why I have come to the decision to try and open the eyes of those we elect to serve us. During my years working in Her Majesty's Prison service I have gotten to see what is so wrong with our society today. I get angry knowing that if our leaders even tried just a little to fight all addictions then the rewards to all of us would be so great. It sickens me to read that the government spent over £108 million pounds of our money on attempts to stop sick and disabled people getting the benefits they were entitled to. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) spent our money appealing against disability benefits over a two-year period.