Forget You Had a Daughter - Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton (35 page)

I was wearing prison handcuffs and one of the guards asked me if I wanted to wear a chain instead. I did. I returned to the room wearing a cuff with a four-foot chain attached to a guard. It was awful. I had not seen Pa-Pa for almost
10
years.

The nurse woke him and he looked at me and, to my amaze- ment, went back to sleep. She woke him again and this time he cried.

‘Oh my God, Sandra, it’s you!’ he wheezed, ‘I thought it was your mother. I can’t believe you’re here.’

He looked at the cuffs, with a quizzical expression on his face.

He thought it was modern jewellery.

After half an hour my mum, dad and grandmother walked into the room.The whole place froze. No one had told them I would be there and it was the first time my family had been together for

almost a decade. It was awful and wonderful at the same time. I was terrified.There they were, all the people I loved most in the world, and I was in chains. Our body contact was minimal.

The doctor called us all out of the room, telling us there was nothing else they could do for Pa-Pa and he had very little time to live.We were devastated. I had only an hour and a half with him yet, by the end of our time together, he seemed to have picked up. The lines lifted from his forehead and he seemed to breath a little easier.

It was time to go.‘But I’ve just got here,’ I wanted to say. Rules are rules though, so I just kissed Pa-Pa on the forehead and, as I was being led away, I desperately wanted to throw a tantrum; I wanted someone to stop all this. I was out of prison.Why couldn’t they just leave me here? I wanted my dad to stop them taking me back.

But of course he couldn’t. I turned away, just walked off, chained to a guard. I was then placed in double cuffs. I looked at my father and, for the first time in my life, I saw an almost spiteful resentment towards authority bursting from within him.

‘How can you let the IRA out for Christmas,’ he spat at them, ‘and chain her up like an animal?’

I smiled to myself. He didn’t need to say anything, but he did. He put an arm round my shoulder with his words and all of a sudden the ground around me was more solid.

Before I left, a nurse came to me and said,‘You’ve just saved an old man’s life, Sandra.’

We celebrated Pa-Pa’s ninetieth birthday a few months ago, and the fire is still burning within him.

Although I was always expecting the worst in Durham, out of the blue – after endless hours of high-level discussions, being placed on suicide watch and sending hundreds of letters to all the official prison bodies – I was being transferred out. I could not believe it. I barely knew whether to laugh or cry. Someone, somewhere had

decided to drag me out of the dark and into somewhere with a little more light. I had spent
15
months on H-wing.

Now I was being transferred to Cookham Wood Prison in Rochester, Kent. It was October
1999
.All of a sudden, they could- n’t wait to get me out of Durham; something had happened to expedite my transfer although I never did manage to find found out exactly what it was.There was a slight hitch, I told them. I still had to take my end-of-course Open University exam and if I didn’t I would have wasted the whole year’s coursework. So I was allowed to complete it. My stuff was packed for me while I sat the three-hour exam and then I returned to my cell. It was the way I had found it over a year before: cold, bare and impersonal.What poor soul was going to take my bunk?

The following morning I queued for a small pot of milk before giving it to Sue. She was crying. I think I was too. It was difficult to leave her in that dire, disgusting place. Sue supported me when I couldn’t move with depression and I tried to support her when her own depression had rendered her almost rigid. Now I was leaving her, now I was leaving Durham. But she accepted my leaving with grace.

If ever a place was a working metaphor for some of the worst things in life then Durham was it. I said my goodbyes, and then my good riddance.

As I was taken from H-wing I dared not look back, fearful that one look might mean I would one day return. I was driven out of Durham in a Group Four security sweatbox. The big, blue gates swung open and I closed my eyes. ‘Don’t look back, Sandra,’ I whispered,‘don’t ever look back.’

fifteen

‘So Long, Farewell…’

Dear Mum and Dad

I seem to spend my life in a perpetual state of exhaustion. Please don’t order any papers for me, everything can wait until I know what’s what and if I am still here next year I will deal with these things then… this Pardon is certainly taking its time, I really don’t expect to get it now. It would be nice to know one way or another though, living like this is doing me in…

Sandra

Letter home,April
2000

A recommendation from the British government would be likely to improve her chances of a successful appeal. But the
Independent
has learnt that, after two and a half years of deliberation, Foreign Office officials have decided to abandon the former English teacher to her fate. In a letter to Gregory’s parents, the Foreign Office minister Baroness Scotland says the case lacks the ‘compassionate grounds’ to justify government interference.

Independent
,
20
December
1999

As in Durham, the shadow of Myra Hindley hung over Cookham Wood Prison in Kent. She had stayed here for several years before being transferred, but still I could feel her lurking around the place like an imperious fog. It was
600
miles and two days’ drive from my parents’ home in Aberdeenshire.

Yet no matter where they decided to send me, it was only the

walls that changed. Prison was simply a repeat of the previous day, over and over and over, as I struggled to find something approach- ing meaning or purpose through punishment. Wing life was always precarious and I rarely had any answers as it continued swallowing me up.

All my hopes lay with the Royal Pardon, but the chances of receiving one appeared to recede daily.After negotiating the intri- cacies of Thai bureaucracy, my application had been at the king’s office for around six months. My chances of an early release would undoubtedly have been enhanced greatly if the British govern- ment had given it support, but they had refused to do so on several occasions.

Christmas and New Year passed me by once more. I was near the end of the seventh year of my sentence and still I had little idea when my appeal would be considered. I was told it might have been before Christmas, and then I was told it might be in the New Year. Someone else told me it might be another six months.The uncertainty was incredibly frustrating. On Boxing Day, a friend who had served over six years took a huge overdose and I under- stood perfectly what had driven her to do it.

By now prison – with all its ghosts, both the living and dead – was posing questions of such certain intensity that I was utterly exhausted by it; I was tired of the befuddling soap-opera sagas of everyday life and tired of living like a confused animal.

The British government maintained that it was not policy to support clemency appeals for British nationals under foreign jurisdictions, other than in exceptional cases. This usually meant cases involving the terminal illness of the prisoner or a next of kin. UK practice, however, seemed to differ a great deal from the prac- tice of other governments worldwide and did not even seem to be applied consistently by the UK government.

If I had been an Australian, I would have received automatic government support for my pardon. If I had been an American,

my sentence would have been reduced to take account of time spent in Lard Yao Prison. The American system automatically multiplies Thai prison years by six, which would have meant my four years spent in LardYao would have been regarded as
24
years in the American system. I would have been eligible for parole immediately upon my return home and would by now have been deemed to have served the entire sentence without remission.The Dutch government reviews the sentence of those who are trans- ferred from conviction under foreign jurisdiction back to Holland against the domestic equivalent sentence.

Patricia Hussain’s appeal was apparently supported by UK’s Customs and Excise. I could not understand how that was consis- tent with the government’s stated policy.The reason seemed to be that she gave evidence leading to the conviction of other drug dealers.While I would never grudge Patricia for one minute the reduction of her sentence, I didn’t feel that it was fair.When my parents asked the Foreign Office for an explanation, a spokes- woman of the consular division said, in a letter: ‘Consular confidentiality precludes my commenting on Patricia Hussain’s situation.’ I still wonder how the difference can be justified.

Throughout the previous year, my parents had sought and won support for my application for clemency from a wide cross- section of people. They received the backing of the Church of Scotland, the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland and the

Episcopal Church of Scotland. They had the support of
35

Anglican and Roman Catholic bishops, including one archbishop. There were
57
Members of Parliament from all parties, including former cabinet ministers, who signed a motion calling on the gov- ernment to support my appeal to the King of Thailand, and more than
30
Members of the Scottish Parliament backed a similar motion, while many others had given public or private support. All these people and organisations support the need for tough penalties, especially for drug-traffickers, but for them that has never meant that the normal rules of justice could be set aside.

My mother held a candle-lit vigil outside Downing Street on
5
February
2000
, to mark the beginning of my eighth year in prison. She stood in the cold for three hours with a group of sup- porters while I stayed locked in my cell, less than
40
miles away. My father, meanwhile, was rising at five in the morning to give radio and television interviews. Finally, I called them and asked them to stop.This whole clemency bid was a charade.

I always wondered how much the lack of British government support for my appeal to the King ofThailand continued to preju- dice my chances. Respectfully, all I wanted was the government to make it clear to the king that there was widespread support in the UK for my sentence to be reviewed and reduced.

I hoped the government would convey to the king that their lack of support was more an issue of general policy, and did not mean that they did not believe there might be a strong case for clemency. Rightly, I should be punished, but surely it was time for mitigating circumstances to be fully considered? The punishment, more than anything, seemed disproportionate. At the same time, Kosovo war criminals who had been convicted of systematic, cold-blooded mass murder were getting lighter sentences than mine. I was paying dearly for my crime, but I didn’t want to be made a scapegoat for those who were not.

After months of fighting my high-security status through all the available official channels, I gave up trying to convince them I was not a threat to national security. I no longer cared. One evening the governor walked past me on the landing.

‘Good evening,’ he said.

‘No, George, it is not a bloody good evening at all. I am sick of this shit and these fucking idiots who run the show.All these alle- gations against me came from one female, Officer fucking Bulldog, in Foston Hall, and I’m tired of it.’

The governor stopped me short.‘I know her.’That was all that he said.

I kept rambling. ‘Isn’t she the most disgusting excuse for a woman?’

He nodded. I had finally said something that hit a mark.

The following week I was working outside in the garden, the lowest-security job in the prison. It was wonderful. I could feel the wind on my face for the first time in ages. Part of me felt free. I think the governor understood.

Every day, every single hour of those days since my plea for clemency was presented to the Thai king, I had been praying for the pardon to come through. I would pray overtly, telling God that I would do anything that he wanted if he could see to it that I could be free to spend time with my family; I would pray secretly, avowing that I had changed my ways and that all my arrogance and cockiness had gone and in its place was some kind of decency; I would pray by night and by day for intercession, for a sign, at least, that things were changing.

‘Maybe this will be the day I’ll hear something,’ I repeated, every morning. Every time I saw a prison guard staggering towards me carrying a piece of paper, my heart missed a beat, thinking, this is it. I turned the radio on every morning, hoping to hear something, anything. I read my stars every week, scoured the headlines in newspapers, and scrutinised the body language of the guards.

Then there were days when I just wanted them to say,‘Gregory, your pardon has been rejected.’ My life was on hold constantly and that was hugely problematic because I knew the rest of the prison- ers and many of the guards thought, ‘Who is this stupid cow, waiting for a pardon from the King of Thailand?’

If my pardon were rejected, I would still have to wait years before applying for an open prison. Should I concentrate on the next three and a half years until my parole date? Or should I plan for release? Or maybe I would get a reduction in sentence? I even stopped buying prison socks in case I was going to be set free. Nothing ever seemed to add up.

Working in the gardens, I saw the gate every day and I remem- ber seeing one prisoner being released. She was taken to the gate and allowed to walk through it, just the same way I had imagined it would be for me one day too. She carried a black bin-liner full of clothes and held a bus pass in her trouser pocket.The guards just opened the gate and out she went. It was beautiful. She strolled, as if leaving prison was the most natural thing in the world, as if all the wasted muscle memory in her legs had clicked back to life and was saying to her,‘Relax, take it easy, just stroll. Don’t let them see you rushing this.
Savour
it.’And she did. She simply strolled out of the prison into the real world. It was such a moving experience.