The Loose Screw Page 11

  After the usual briefing to start the third day, we made our way to the gym for our first lesson. Over the previous couple of days we had heard all sorts of rumours about what to expect in the gym at the hands of the sadistic Mr Taylor. Everyone seemed to look to me to help them through it, being ex-army, but I was more worried than all of them, even 'fat' Alfie who was sweating buckets at the mention of the word fitness. My experience told me that I would be expected to perform one hundred per cent better than the rest of the group purely because of my background. The fact of the matter was that I had probably done less physical activity than any of them over the past year and was dreading the prospect too.

  We got changed and lined up inside the gym, each of us staring nervously at the circuit of weights and exercises already set up around the floor. Then we saw an even more daunting sight, which almost blocked out the light completely as he squeezed his huge torso through the gym office doorway. Mr Taylor had arrived and he looked even worse than the accounts we had heard about him previously. I noticed that Geoff had gone ashen white and seemed to be struggling to breathe regularly. I thought, I know this guy is big but there's no need to go over the top. Then I realized his eyes were focused beyond Mr Taylor and his terrified gaze was fixed on two inmates standing in the gym office making tea. He stuck his hand up and demanded to speak to Gary Taylor in private. This is a great start, I thought -if there's one thing I have learnt it is not to piss PTIs off before the gym lesson. Gary was not about to squeeze back into the office for anyone, so he told Geoff to say what he had to say in front of the group.

  Despite his pleas and the obvious desperation in his voice, Geoff had to admit what was wrong in front of us. It turned out that one of the gym orderlies, an inmate who was about sixty years old and four-foot tall, used to be Geoff's milkman and Geoff, the man who couldn't wait to steam in yesterday, now demanded an immediate interview with the Governor as he felt he had to resign. By the time Geoff had stuttered out his request the rest of us, Gary included, were all on the floor pissing ourselves. Seeing our response, Geoff ran out of the gym and spent the next half an hour sulking in the toilets.

  Obviously bumping into someone you have known on 'the out' can provide you with some problems when carrying out your official duties as a prison officer. The most obvious one, depending on the relationship you had with the prisoner before his incarceration and, of course, the way you choose to carry out your duty towards him and other inmates, is the possibility of blackmail or conditioning. By conditioning I mean that you could allow the inmate to use your old relationship or your good nature to force you into doing things for him. Such requests would usually start off small and apparently insignificant, but once you had committed yourself to carrying out their wishes you were then at risk of the threat to carry out tasks of increasing demand. If you did not draw the line and chose to carry out these tasks you could find yourself on a very slippery slope to the job centre or even a prison sentence of your own.

  Because I was raised in the south London area, it was inevitable that I would meet people I knew doing time during my career. It was always something I found difficult to deal with and I will describe one or two such occasions and how I dealt with them later. I will also mention at this point that at least ninety per cent of the inmates I have dealt with over the years made comments to me about how I was 'all right' and they would have no problem buying me a drink if they saw me outside. One or two already have, and one in particular was, and is, a man for whom I have the greatest respect and it was an honour for me to be in a position to have a drink and a chat with him. Again, I will cover that in more detail later.

  So, although Geoff's frantic pleas did amuse us greatly at the time, he did the right thing in raising his concerns. Only with experience would we learn to evaluate these sorts of risks ourselves and make the decision as to whether they were high enough to take further.

  The gym session was nothing like as bad as we had been told to expect, and Gary turned out to be a great guy. We did a fair amount of work in the gym at Wandsworth in preparation for the C&R (control and restraint) training we would do at the college. This included a couple of very gentle jogs around the common that were about two to three miles long. It was the first of these that convinced an already unsure Alfie that enough was enough and he threw in the towel, much to the disappointment of most of us, who had grown very fond of his humour.

  The remainder of our first week was spent observing the routines of the other normal residential wings. Each wing followed pretty much the same routine as the others, and all at that time ran on a twenty-three-hour bang-up. This meant that unless an inmate was employed in one of the prison work details he would only come out of the cell for one hour's exercise a day. There was no such thing as association in those days, and it would still be a few years until the staff would be forced to introduce it to many of the old London prisons.

  In our final briefing of the week we were told that we had improved significantly since our arrival, but that there was still great room for improvement and we should continue to maintain the standard we were setting for our second and final week. The second week would involve visiting the more 'specialist' areas such as the segregation unit, the hospital and G-, H-and K-Wings, as well as the nerve centres of the prison, the control room and the 'centre'.

  I felt relieved to leave the prison gates knowing that I had two full days before having to return. In a strange way I was beginning to enjoy learning about how the prison worked and observing the strange existence led by those inside. I had also begun to realize that the best way for me to deal with the job I was setting out to do was to be myself and use my own brand of sarcastic humour and experience of people and life. This, I concluded, would involve building up good relationships with the inmates I would be looking after wherever possible. Unfortunately, however effective this method would prove to be, I could already tell by the attitudes of some staff that it would be extremely difficult for me to build relationships with inmates without alienating myself from my colleagues. Even by the end of that first week I had noticed how some of our group had dramatically changed their outlook on the role of a prison officer in an attempt to become more accepted by the staff we were dealing with.

  I did not have a lot of time to think about the past week over the weekend break, as most of my time was taken up arranging the forthcoming purchase of my new house. As a result, it seemed as if I had not been away from the place when at seven thirty on Monday morning I found myself sat in front of the cheerful face of Senior Officer Nutt once again to begin our second and final week at Wandsworth.

  Although still nervous and apprehensive about what to expect, I felt much more relaxed than I had a week ago. The first area we visited that day, however, would soon herald a return to the tension and boil up a hatred the like of which I had never experienced elsewhere in all my travels. We were due to observe the routines on G-, H-and K-Wings, which housed some of the lowest creatures known to man in my eyes.

  As soon as we entered the gate into the building that housed G, H and K, I noticed a very different atmosphere to that found on the normal residential wings. There was nothing like the volume of noise for a start, and the staff and inmates all shuffled about with shifty looks on their faces and the place smelt more like a hospital than a prison wing. There were a large number of hospital officers flying around with trolleys full of strange-looking liquid drugs and pills, and more than half the inmate population seemed to be inching along with the use of crutches or wheelchairs. Most of these had pathetic, sad-looking expressions on their faces as if trying to gain pity or use their disabilities as some sort of sick excuse for the disgusting crimes for which most of them had been convicted.

  When we arrived, an officer offered to get us a cup of tea, but when I saw the state of the tea boy that would be making it I declined. To be truthful, I didn't trust the dirty bastard to make tea without spitting in it or worse.
I hated the atmosphere that hung over this place and made my decision then that I would go to any lengths to avoid working with these people during my career. Luckily I did manage to avoid it because, for some reason that I could never work out, there were always plenty of staff who volunteered to work in these places. The only explanation I could think of for this was that looking after 'nonces' (prison slang for sex offenders) was generally thought of as easier than looking after normal prisoners. The thought of having to sit in on mandatory 'group therapy sessions' and listen to these creatures describe in great detail their crimes and blame their actions on their parents or upbringing made me feel sick in the pit of my stomach.

  Some of you reading this may question my professionalism on making these comments. All I would say to you is try to imagine the worse case you have heard in the news on child pornography or rape. Then imagine having to give that person your undivided attention all day and listen to how much they enjoyed it or thought it normal, and tell me that you wouldn't feel for the victims, especially if you have children, young relatives or wives and girlfriends of your own.

  After the tea break that I didn't partake in, we ventured onto the landings to watch the remainder of the wing get fed. The officer on the ground floor informed us that after every mealtime a count was carried out to ensure that all inmates were locked away. He assigned each of us a cell door and told us to go and look through the 'Judas' hole (a small flap for observation in the door) and count the inmates inside.

  You may not believe me when I tell you what I saw through the flap in the cell door I had been allocated, but I swear to you that it is the truth. Inside there were three beds, and one inmate was lying quite peacefully on the top bunk bed smoking a roll-up. The bottom bunk bed was empty, but there was another inmate sitting on the single bed with his feet on the floor. I saw a third inmate kneeling in between his legs with his head bobbing up and down. It took a while for the shock to wear off and for me to realize just what I was witnessing. I am sure you have realized by now that here, as bold as brass, was an inmate giving one of his cellmates a blow job. He must have sensed my staring in disbelief because he turned to look straight at me and just grinned before returning to carry on 'doing' his cellmate. I slammed the flap shut and cursed the fact that I had no keys to get in and slap the dirty fucker. I felt physically sick and could not believe what I had just seen. To make matters worse, I thought, the third inmate was just lying there as if nothing unusual was happening. I rushed back to the officer, who had been joined by two of his colleagues, and reported what I had seen. They just laughed and told me that those two were always up to it that is why they were banged up together. I could not believe the reaction I got from these officers. The Prison Service has for years fought against various campaigns for conjugal visits between heterosexual adults, but here was clear evidence that homosexual relationships were not only going on but were also being encouraged by staff to ensure the smooth running of the wing.

  I am not discriminating against homosexuals -each to their own as far as I am concerned -but how can the Prison Service deny heterosexuals some form of relationship and allow homosexuals to practise theirs so blatantly?

  Our time on G, H and K could not end quickly enough for me and I valued greatly the short walk in the open between there and the main prison, as it gave me a chance to breathe in some fresh air in order to flush out the stench of the place that was suffocating me. We did not have far to go to our next port of call, just through the side gate into the main prison, which led to the prison's centre. I wandered in aimlessly with the rest of my group, still numb from what I had just witnessed, and all I remember next was hearing a voice bellow from nowhere, "Get out of my fucking centre you insignificant little bastards". I assumed someone was shouting at a group of inmates until I spotted a huge principal officer with a face as red as a beetroot charging towards us. He was still screaming obscenities at us when he reached where we were standing and eventually we realized that he was upset because we had just walked straight across the ornate brass star shape that made up the floor of the centre.

  For those of you who have not had the pleasure of visiting Wandsworth in any capacity, it is strictly taboo to step on any part of the brass grill. Everyone who walks through the centre must walk around it and only in a clockwise direction. A member of staff who doesn't comply with this could expect to be severely reprimanded and get extra duties, and any prisoner who committed this most terrible crime could expect to get the 'treatment' followed by a few days down 'the block'.

  It was this red-faced, potential heart attack victim's job to monitor all movement through the centre as well as dictate the order in which the wings were to be fed and ring the huge brass bell and direct the staff in case of an alarm bell on any one of the wings. It was to the centre that staff would report at the beginning of every shift during the days of central detailing, when you were not allocated a permanent place of work but were sent daily to wherever you were most needed. It was here also that the senior officer would report his wing lock-up roll and not until the centre PO was happy would he give the order for the staff to break off.

  Because of this power alone, this man thought he was some kind of God and wasted no time getting us into his office where he proceeded to tell us a number of stories about himself. Just as I was about to fall asleep he even brought his stave (truncheon) crashing down on his table as he told us that he had single-handedly quelled the Wormwood Scrubs riots of 1976 with the use of his little bit of wood. Strangely enough, I was to meet about three or four people over the years that claimed to have done exactly the same thing. I was glad to hear a whistle blast during his egotistical speech, which sent him charging out of his office. Luckily it was only a false alarm, but it enabled us to escape to the safe haven of Nathan's tearoom on C-Wing in the commotion for a welcomed cup of tea and the chance to get more of his help to fill in our notebooks.

  Over the next couple of days we had brief tours of the hospital wing, the workshops, the cookhouse, the control room and even the administration building. All were quite boring and uneventful, so I have no interesting memories of any of them. Equally as mind-bending was the tour of the main gate where our friendly gate officer explained his highly technical role of throwing keys to officers down a little chute when they turned up for duty.

  It was on the second to last day when we got to visit the darkest hole of the prison -the notorious segregation unit, or 'the block' as it is known in prison. Wandsworth's block, as I mentioned previously, was located on E-Wing; in fact it was actually situated underneath E-Wing. The entrance was via a set of some twelve stairs, which had at the bottom a pair of blacked-out doors in front of the double metal gates. It was claimed that every inmate that was taken to the block got physically thrown down these stairs into the arms of the 'block screws', who usually 'forgot' to open the metal gates until the inmate was in a crumpled heap at the bottom.

  All the officers in the block at that time were at least six-foot tall, apart from one known as 'Pitbull'. He stood at about five-foot six, but had been allowed to work there despite not reaching the usual height criterion due to his fearsome reputation as a scrapper. Granted he looked as though he could handle himself with his busted nose, shaved head and large, ugly scar down the left-hand side of his face. But then, with fifteen or so colleagues always at hand and never having to face odds of less three officers to one inmate, he should have been able to handle himself. It was Pitbull that was given the task of showing us round the block, which as usual began in the tearoom.

  Pitbull was a lot quieter than most of the other staff we had come across, but he soon filled us in on the grim details of how the block worked. We were told that the real justice was dished out to prisoners that did not conform to the prison rules here in the dim depths of the jail. The block, he explained, was untouched by the prying eyes of visiting officials or clergy unless plenty of warning had been given to allow them time to
avoid being caught 'educating' an inmate to the Wandsworth way. He made it clear by this that most of the inmates that were resident here received a daily dose of the treatment at the hands of the staff, and I don't mean medical treatment, although that may have been necessary afterwards. The staff here seemed convinced that this was the only way to deal with difficult prisoners, and not only appeared to have a free hand to carry out this extreme form of discipline but also seemed to have the support of the senior management.

  In fact it is a practice that has been going on in almost every prison in the country and has only recently come to light after prisoners at Wormwood Scrubs made several allegations of serious assaults by staff in the segregation unit. Whilst I cannot argue with the fact that prisons need segregation units to ensure the remainder of the prison runs smoothly, I totally disagree with the actions of extreme violence, and in some cases physical and mental torture, that have been carried out on inmates in these places.

  It was here that I was first to hear of Charles Bronson, the most notorious prisoner in the system according to the 'brains' behind the Prison Service. We were shown one of the two 'strong boxes', which were cells with tiny, sealed windows and concrete beds and stools. Entry to these cells was via two sets of doors, an outer set of steel double doors and an inner steel cell door. It was in one of these 'boxes' that Charlie had managed to rip the concrete stool out of the ground and use it to batter his way through the first door and almost through the second door before being overpowered by riot teams due to total exhaustion. He had been restrained in a 'body belt' at the time, which is a steel-lined, heavy leather belt with two handcuffs on each side to hold the arms tightly down by the waist, and had succeeded in freeing himself from this Victorian device before tackling the stool and doors.