Killers Behind Bars. Kate Kray
happens is that he or she is put on report. The forms are handed to the governor and the prisoner will have to report to him. If he is found guilty of the offence, then the governor can hand out a variety of punishments:
a) a caution;
b) loss of privileges for up to 28 days (14 for prisoners under 21);
c) stoppage of up to 28 days’ earnings (14 for prisoners under 21);
d) confinement for up to three days;
e) up to an additional 28 days in custody;
f) exclusion from work for up to 14 days;
If these punishments are not considered to have worked, there are other control measures, like confiscation of property and Rule 43.
Rule 43 means that you are kept in solitary confinement, separated from the main wing of the prison, and have a different regime from other prisoners. There are two types of Rule 43 prisoners. The system is sometimes used to give a violent man a ‘cooling off’ period, generally known as GOAD (good order and discipline), or is sometimes used for a prisoner who could be a target for physical attacks, such as a child killer.
Alternatively, a prisoner could be transferred to another prison under the order of GOAD. Once all of these measures have been tried and have failed, and if the prisoner is violent, the governor can order that he is:
a) temporarily confined in a special, unfurnished cell called ‘special accommodation’;
b) placed in a mechanical restraint, i.e.:
– a body belt (with iron cuffs for male prisoners and leather cuffs for female prisoners);
– handcuffs (male prisoners);
– leather wrist straps (female prisoners).
These tough measures are only used if the governor feels they are necessary to prevent the prisoner from injuring himself or others. If a prisoner being moved from one part of the prison to another kicks out, ankle straps can also be used to restrain him.
If the medical officer thinks the prisoner poses a danger to himself or to staff, he can order him to be held in a protective cell or placed in a loose, canvas restraint jacket (straight jacket).
Prisoners quickly become versed in all these rules and punishments and few behave so badly that they have to be used. Lifers, especially, learn to ‘play the system’, as they call it. Many I met were involved in disputes with the prison authorities over what they see as their rights. In fact, I think some prisoners probably know more about the law and prison rules than the Home Secretary does! I’m sure, too, that fighting the system is one of the things that keep many prisoners going. Few are better at playing the system than Jim Dowsett who tells his story in this book.
Jim is forever fighting for his rights. When I met him he was busy suing a prison officer after a row and also writing to the Crown Prosecution Service to order the Suffolk police to return all the paperwork they took from his office after his arrest. Jim was serving his sentence in Whitmoor High Security Prison in March, Cambridgeshire. I met him through a friend, Joey Pyle, who was serving time in the same prison. Joey gets on well with Jim because they’re both businessmen, so I suppose they speak the same language.
Jim duly rang me and I promised to visit. I asked him if there was anything he’d like me to bring up for him and he said, ‘Saucepans’. Apparently the prison was allowing Joey and Jim to cook some of their own meals. So I popped into Woolworth’s on the way and bought three non-stick pans.
As prisons go, Whitmoor is better than most because it’s modern. Security is very tight. You are thoroughly searched as you go in, checked with metal detectors and there are plenty of security cameras around. However, the visiting hall is carpeted and, instead of the usual school chairs and Formica-topped tables, there are low easy chairs and coffee tables. There is even a play area in the corner so that the prisoners can get to see their children.
The hall is vast, like a big aeroplane hanger. Mainstream prisoners sit on one side and the ‘nonces and ponces’ (rapists and child molesters) on the other, separated by a gangway and prison officers. This is the only time that the two groups of criminals get close to each other.
At the back of the hall, separated by a wall, are the Cat. A high-risk prisoners.
I’d seen photos of Jim in newspaper cuttings but when I met him, he looked much older than his 48 years. That’s what prison does to some people – it ages them inside and out.
Avril Gregory was 20 years old when I first visited her. She is beautiful, just like a china doll. She looks naive and sort of lost. When she talks, there’s none of the usual enthusiasm of youth. She speaks dully. I met Avril through Linda Calvey in the H Wing at Durham Prison. I asked her if she wanted to be a chapter in my book and she said she would have to ask her mum. A few days later a letter arrived saying her mum said it was all right. Unlike a lot of prisoners, Avril was glad to tell me her story and was completely honest. She never once tried to evade any questions nor to bend the truth. She told me exactly how it was. While I was writing her story, I felt sad that such a young girl could end up serving life. Parts of her story made me cry. But when she told me that she went looking for the boy who was killed with two knives, a pickaxe handle and a cosh, I couldn’t believe my ears.
Avril told me:
I know what happened was terrible and I know I had to go to prison. I expected to be punished. But I didn’t kill Scott Beaumont. I was just there at the time it happened.
When we all went out on that Friday night, never for one moment did we ever intend for anyone to be killed. We were just kids and when you’re young you’re just stupid. You just don’t think of the consequences of what you’re doing. That’s why I wanted to tell my story – so if there is a young tearaway reading this, they might stop and think before they do anything stupid. Before it’s too late. It’s too late for me – I’ve ruined my life. I know I will always be known as a murderer and a lifer…
A new scheme has been set up to help constantly reoffending youngsters in Nottingham, some as young as 15. The court sends them in groups into Nottingham Prison. There, lifers such as Harry Roberts take them on a tour around the prison and show them what prison is really like. The youngsters are handcuffed and locked in a cell. Then lifers talk to the kids at street level, telling them that it’s not ‘big’ to be in prison, that it doesn’t matter what anyone tells them – it’s shit being inside.
Recently, I went to visit Harry Roberts in Nottingham Prison. He told me that the day before he had been showing a group of youngsters around. He said:
We were walking across the exercise yard, chatting to the kids, showing them around. One of them had just expressed his greatest fear of prison, asking if it was true that boys are raped in jail. Just at that moment a big black man called out:
‘’Ere, Harry, save one of those for me!’
The big fella was only larking about but it scared the boys half to death – they couldn’t have been any older than 15. When they left the prison, one of the boys came up to me and said that he is never going to get in trouble again, because he never wants to go to prison.
The longest-serving prisoner in Britain is the triple child-killer John Straffen. It was in 1951 that the name Straffen first caused nationwide revulsion. He was sent to Broadmoor for strangling six-year-old Brenda Goddard and her friend Cicely Batstone, aged nine, near Bath.
Seven months later he escaped from Broadmoor. After just four hours of freedom, he strangled his third victim, five-year-old Linda Bowyer. This time he was sentenced to death but reprieved from the gallows just five days before his execution date. The sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Doctors declared that he had a mental age of nine. At his trial the judge said: ‘You might just as well try a babe in arms.’
He’s been in prison ever since and is currently in Long Lartin Prison in Evesham, Worcestershire. Over 43 years of incarceration have done nothing to rid John Straffen