The Loose Screw Page 15

  After this explanation it was time for the bit I had been dreading. We were split up into groups of three and told to report to the officers in charge of the spurs on association. As soon as we edged our way onto the spur we became surrounded by inmates who instantly recognized that we were 'fresh meat'. They couldn't resist the opportunity to make us even more uncomfortable with a barrage of questions such as, "How long have you been prison officers?" and "Could you sort this or that out for us?"

  We, in turn, made matters even worse for ourselves by nervously stuttering replies to the effect that we did not work on that house block and advised them to see the spur staff. The officers working on that spur offered us no support and remained seated at their desk laughing along with the inmates at our awkward attempts to answer the questions. I don't mind admitting I was terrified and felt a terrible feeling of vulnerability.

  As the hour or so we spent on the spur passed, I watched how the other officers walked in and around the large group of prisoners and seemed so relaxed and confident in doing so. I began to question whether I would ever have the ability to carry out my duties in this way. I thought I would spend my career as I did that hour -glued to the same spot, too nervous to move and greeting every prisoner that came within two feet of me with a stupid, nervous grin. Relief came when a message for the NEPOs to report back to the bubble came via the yellow telephone located on the gates at the front of the spur. This sense of relief was short-lived, as when we reported we were told to accompany an officer who would observe us whilst we did a couple of 'spins' (cell searches) on the bang-up spur. The officer was not there to assist us in any way, but rather to observe and report on our cell-searching skills. He picked the cell, which looked to be occupied by the largest pair of inmates in the prison, and after he had briskly opened the door and barked, "Cell search", he passed the pair over to Mickey Mc and me. We entered the cell and, much to the amusement of the prisoners and the observing officer, we began to carry out the task exactly by the book as taught at the college. We went through the whole list of correct questions, such as asking the inmates if they had ever had a cell search and if they knew what one was. The thing that the officer found the funniest was how we replaced everything we searched neatly back where we found it and searched absolutely everywhere including the toilet bowl, with the use of rubber gloves, of course.

  The whole cell search took us almost forty minutes to complete and later on in the debrief we were told that you rarely got forty minutes to do ten cells let alone one. To cut down this time in the future, the advice given to us was to get the prisoners out, make a good mess, and sit down for five minutes reading their dirty magazines or looking at the pictures of their wives or girlfriends on their picture board. I always found cell searching a task I did not enjoy, as it always caused an element of friction even though all the parties involved knew it was a necessary requirement.

  To that end, I did not take the advice offered in this first search and always left the cell as tidy as possible, even if I was under pressure from the other member of staff to wreck the place. As for the photos and magazines, I always imagined how I would feel and react if I caught someone staring at photos of my girlfriend and I always asked before looking at the magazines. In fact later, in an attempt to ease my discomfort of searching, I would open the door and declare that I was on a dirty magazine hunt. Most prisoners would tell you where their stash was just to prevent you tearing up the cell to look for it, as well as the fact that so long as we were reading the magazines we would not find anything they didn't want us to.

  Some staff would take any opportunity to place a prisoner on report after a cell search, such as for having two Bic razors in their possession or having a ripped sheet or pillowcase. I could never be bothered with all the paperwork involved for such petty offences. Still, if nothing else it helped boost our confidence a little in dealing with prisoners, and the inmates commented on how nice it was to be searched by two polite and tidy officers.

  During the week we visited all the other house blocks in the same way and found the routine in each to be very similar. One place where the routine was different was the high-security Category A unit, which we would visit later that same week. To enter the unit you had to undergo the same searching process as at the main prison gate -metal detector porthole, physical search and the X-ray machine. The unit was set over two floors with two spurs housing twelve prisoners on each floor. Staffing levels were incredibly high with no less than two officers on each spur and one in the individual spur offices required before you could unlock a cell. In addition to this, there had to be a minimum of four officers and one senior officer to run the visits complex and two senior officers in the main unit office. There was also a daily cleaning officer responsible for collecting the food and organizing the feeding, and finally an officer was permanently based by the unit's main entrance to search and book in anyone entering or leaving the place.

  On the day of our visit, one of the inmates from the unit made an escape attempt whilst on escort to Maidstone Crown Court. Tony Bolden had allegedly smuggled a can of CS gas and a home-made knife from the unit into the police cellular van. On his arrival at the court, he attacked the escorting staff with the gas and knife and tried to make good his escape. Unfortunately for him, his status as a Category A meant there was a large police presence at the court and he was quickly overpowered and recaptured, but not before injuring two of the escort staff.

  As we entered the unit, the stories of the injuries sustained were beginning to spread, with various levels being reported. The favourite was that he had sliced open one officer's face with the knife before breaking his arm, and sprayed the gas in a female officer's face. The broken arm report proved to be false, but I found the speed at which news travelled back to the inmates quite incredible. We had no sooner left the office after hearing the news ourselves than we passed an inmate grinning at us whilst making a gesture to us as if breaking his own arm.

  This inmate was a man called John McFadden, a small but incredibly powerful man who enjoyed nothing better than a good row with a couple of screws. In fact it was this very inmate who, later that morning, was to pick me as the target for his threatening abuse over the fact that he did not get his milk for his cornflakes. He did not listen to my stammering pleas of ignorance on the matter; in fact he seemed rather pleased that he had chosen me to confront, as he had a more chance of persuading a new boy to run and get his milk. And, in my inexperienced state, I would have done so had I known where to find the milk he claimed was missing. Once again, I was offered no support by the three regular officers that were on duty, despite the fact that at one point I came extremely close to living out my days with a pool cue sticking out of my head. It was this sort of 'look out for number one' attitude, which I encountered among many staff, that I despised and it made me always more than willing to offer support and help to the new staff I encountered in later years.

  The remainder of our induction took us to all the other house blocks, the hospital, which housed some real nutters as well as the genuinely sick but sane inmates, and the workshops. One area that differed greatly from the one we saw at Wandsworth was the control room. Auxiliaries staffed the control room at Belmarsh. These people were not trained to deal directly with inmates as is a fully trained prison officer, but they did have a senior officer in overall charge. It looked like the shop window of Dixons, as the whole of the claustrophobic room was a mass of television screens and videos. It was very dimly lit and, as well as monitoring every camera in the prison and controlling all the electronic gates, a member of staff was also on permanent radio duty communicating to every officer that had a radio.

  It was from this room that radio and camera would closely monitor every incident. In short, it was the nerve centre of the prison. It was rather like the bridge of a ship, although looking around at some of the characters that were working there it looked more like the bridge of the Starship En
terprise. It was also from this room that the two electronic doors that led from the main Category A unit to its exercise yard, segregation unit and visits hall were controlled.

  Later I was to encounter many times the frustration of waiting by these doors whilst the auxiliary on the controls refused to override the system and open the two doors together. This procedure was meant to be applied in the event of an incident in order to allow the staff to respond as quickly as possible and not get delayed for valuable seconds waiting for one door to close before the other opened. I remember on one occasion standing on the wrong side of the inner door screaming at the control room through the intercom to open the doors whilst watching in horror as the officer that was bringing in the exercise party was being seriously assaulted on the other side of the door. The excuse was that because he had already opened the outer door and was in the corridor, but had not been able to close the outer door before being assaulted, the auxiliary could not get authorization to override the system. It only took about three or four minutes for the doors to finally be opened, but that was long enough for the officer to sustain serious injuries, which put him off work for months and left him mentally scarred forever.

  On our final two days, we were required to take tests on basic security including which key opened which door, first aid in the workplace and also a food-handling hygiene course in case we became cleaning officers in the future. It was also the time we would learn of our new places of work for the next couple of years. Although we could give our preferences as to where we would like to begin our career, the ultimate decision was left to manpower services, who placed us where the staffing levels were at their lowest.

  9

  CATEGORY A UNIT

  I and the other lads from my course all asked to be put in the Category A unit, a request that baffled most of the staff we told. The reason for this request was because we all agreed that, although the unit held the highest category and some of the most dangerous prisoners in the system, it was a lot smaller and seemed less daunting than the chaotic scenes we saw on the main house blocks. It was true to say that, although the unit had fewer daily incidents than the house blocks, when it did kick off you could expect it to be on a much larger scale. This was due to the type of prisoner held within its walls. There was a large Irish contingency convicted of various terrorist attacks carried out on mainland Britain, and the very nature of their training within their organizations meant they all stuck together during any acts of disruption. Most of the other prisoners at that time were what I would class as the 'old school' or 'gentlemen villains', who rarely complained so long as they got what they were entitled to and no one gave them any unnecessary grief.

  I held a great deal of respect for many of the men in this category and like to think that I earned some of their respect in return for treating them with decency. In addition to these two groups, there was also a small group of nutters and one or two what just hated screws for different and possibly very valid reasons. This minority took every opportunity to join in any of the other inmates' attempts to disrupt the regime when they felt they had cause to do so.

  One such incident was to greet me on my very first day as a fully trained officer on the unit and kicked off not even one hour into my shift. We had unlocked spur one on the ground floor for breakfast and one of the inmates who was due to appear in court that morning approached us and declared that he was not going. He was informed that we could not make the decision to honour his request and he would have to go to court and take it up with his solicitor once there. He stated quite clearly that the escort staff would have to drag him onto the van by force if he did not get to see his solicitor before he went. I nervously told him that his solicitor would not make it as he was probably already on his way to the court. I then made a big decision, bearing in mind it was my first day, and told him I would try to arrange a brief phone call to his solicitor before he left.

  He seemed happy with this compromise, but it was short-lived as my request was disapproved by the unit senior officer who favoured the alternative of dragging him onto the van. No sooner had I delivered the news to him than he and the rest of the inmates began to smash up the spur with some ferocity. The drill at the time for such an event was to evacuate the spur and lock the inmates inside it and, considering there were only two of us on there at the time, it seemed like the sensible thing to do. However, as soon as we did this the inmates obviously gained complete control of the spur and began erecting a barricade across the main door whilst continuing to destroy the furniture. By the time the duty governor had arrived to assess the situation the spur was almost demolished and the inmates had well and truly formed very good defensive positions from where they could fight off any attempt to regain the spur.

  After an hour of talks had failed to bring a peaceful end to the dispute, the riot squads were sent in and eventually regained order. It had not been an easy task and about four or five officers and inmates had sustained injuries. The damage was estimated at about two thousand pounds and all the inmates on the spur were charged with a number of offences against prison rules. I could not help thinking how it could all have been avoided if I had been allowed to let the inmate make his telephone call. As it was, the inmate in question did make his court appearance and was dragged kicking and screaming onto the van.

  Most of the incidents in prison are caused in a similar way, by staff refusing to bend the rules slightly even if it means it could avert a serious problem. This method of handling incidents was very common at Belmarsh and indeed throughout the prison system. It is, I agree, difficult always to find a peaceful solution to all disagreements between staff and inmates in prison, as often the rules laid down by the Home Office do not allow for the types of compromises that would satisfy the prisoners' requests. I always believed, however, that when you were the man on the front line, facing possible injury both to yourself and others, you should have the strength of character and the authority to make a decision based on your first-hand evaluation of the circumstances. Most prison staff, especially the senior grades, that I came across during my career were incapable of making a command decision other than the one ordered at the time by a higher authority, or the one written into the contingency plans as the textbook way to deal with a particular incident.

  As far as I am concerned, each and every incident you come across in prison, as indeed outside, is unique and as such you may only use the rule books as a very loose guide on how to deal with them. I would go so far as to state that ninety-nine per cent of the incidents I have been involved in that turned nasty were as a result of the staff handling them in the wrong way. The majority of inmates, especially the majority of those on the Category A unit during my time, never asked for anything unreasonable or anything that we could not have delivered without breaching security or that they were not entitled to as part of their basic rights.

  It became very apparent to me, even at that early stage in my career, that many staff perceived their jobs as one big game. This element I am referring to went out of their way to incite trouble in order to gain the status of being worshipped by those with similar mentalities as good, hard screws that gave the cons fuck all and didn't take any shit. In reality, they are cowards who would run a mile if the shit really hit the fan and who made the job of the rest of us half-decent officers more difficult than did the most disruptive prisoner in the system.

  It was not long before I was to come across two young officers who had exactly the attitude I have just described and who both worked on the unit when I arrived. Both were two young Yorkshire men whom I shall call Steve and John. I am not in the game of grassing people up, but they and the prisoners and staff who have come across them will know exactly who they are.

  These two boys were in my opinion a right pair of pratts who led each other to believe they were the hardest things that walked the earth. Many other members of staff idolized them for the way they treated every inmate and
member of staff that seemed too friendly with the prisoners as though they were the scum of the earth. I never actually saw these two hard men in a row, but they were involved in instigating almost every incident that occurred when they were on duty, before retreating to the safety of the tearoom to write up their reports while leaving other staff to sort out the tear up that usually followed.

  I soon discovered to my horror that they had a bet going between them to see who could secure the most guilty verdicts on prisoners in adjudication for a substantial amount of money payable at the end of their tour in the unit. This bet was no secret among the staff or prisoners and one governor in particular, who regularly held the adjudication hearings, would enquire as to whom was winning before hearing the case, and I am sure he would pass judgment in a way that kept the score as close as possible.

  During my career I hated placing prisoners on report because the whole process was time consuming and I preferred to deal with it my way and prevent the inmate's record being blotted by some petty offence. Obviously I came across some real arseholes who deserved to be nicked or left me with no alternative, as they would not let me help them avoid it. There were also times when we were ordered by senior members of staff to nick prisoners, despite the rule book stating that the decision to take such action is entirely up to the officer in question.

  I remember one such occasion when the Irish contingent on spur three decided to refuse to be locked up at five o'clock one evening in protest at one of their visitors not being allowed to give him a kiss and a hug on a visit. Yet another incident was sparked off by a simple non-threatening request being refused. All the inmates on the spur, even the English ones, had to stick together and respect the others' wishes to stage this process. The spokesman for the Irish stated that they would not cause any problems but would not return to their cells until they had talked to the duty governor about the reason the request had been denied. At this time I had been working on spur three for about six months and had begun to get on well with all the inmates on there. In particular, I had a good relationship with a man called Ronnie Johnson, a big old fellow from Bermondsey. The order came back that we were to go into the spur and verbally give the inmates a direct order to return to their cells. When I returned to the spur, Ronnie, who had a heart condition, was in his cell complaining of chest pains, so this being the priority I called for the medical team who promptly arrived at the scene. They took Ronnie to his cell and laid him on his bed in order to examine him and I carried on with my previous task.