The Loose Screw (17 page)

At that time all Category A inmates were housed in the purpose-built Category A unit, which was a small unit set within its own perimeter wall at the rear of the main prison. Within this unit at the time were what were considered to be some of the most dangerous prisoners in the system. Some years later this unit was to be refurbished at tremendous cost for the purpose of housing the extremely high-risk Category A prisoners. It was, however, never to assume this function as shortly before its completion the government announced the news that all Irish terrorists serving sentences in British prisons were to be transferred back to Irish prisons. When I returned to Belmarsh after my time at Wormwood Scrubs only two European prisoners were being held in the unit, which was designed to hold forty-eight in total.

For the duration of our induction programme we were to be based in a small classroom on the top floor of the main administration building, which was located inside the main prison walls but within the sterile area, which is the piece of land found between the main wall and the inner fence and that surrounded the prisoners' accommodation blocks.

Although we had passed the training college course, we were still unable to draw our own set of keys until we had completed our induction. This was to prove extremely annoying, as when we were moving about without a member of staff we would have to wait at every gate for someone to pass and let us through. Not only that, it could have been dangerous, as potentially we could have been trapped somewhere in the event of a fire or other serious incident. This lack of keys together with our brand new uniforms proved to be a dead giveaway to the prisoners that we were fresh out of training despite our best efforts to appear as hardened veterans. This was all too apparent during our first visit to one of the residential house blocks on that first afternoon.

At one thirty that afternoon we met PO Webster at the main gate of the prison to venture inside its walls for the first time. The gate lodge here was very different from that at Wandsworth. There were three sets of electronic doors to go through before you even got to the sterile area, and the main area of the gate lodge where the staff were situated was full of complicated-looking electronic control panels and CCTV screens.

It was no simple task to get through the gate into the main prison. First you had to pass through the double electronically operated doors. Then you had to pass through a metal detecting porthole before being searched both physically and with a hand-held metal detector. And finally you had to place any bags, coats, loose change, key chains and sometimes even your boots or shoes through an X-ray machine. Only when you had been through this procedure each and every time you entered the prison could you finally draw your keys at the key chute.

As we made our way across the courtyard towards house block one, I was able for the first time to appreciate the sheer size of the prison. To give you some idea of the size, the total distance around the main outer wall was reported to be almost two miles and, if my memory is correct, the prison could hold approximately one thousand six hundred prisoners.

The interior decor of the house block was less grim than the wings at Wandsworth. There was, however, still a distinct smell unique to prisons, although the addition of integral toilets in all the cells meant our nostrils were not assaulted by the choking smell of human waste rotting in slop buckets. One difference I noticed immediately was the familiar noise level being generated from all areas of the house block. It was not only keys and doors banging like the noises I remembered from Wandsworth, but also the air was filled with the din of hundreds of people shouting and running about everywhere.

The main difference here was that all the prisoners were wearing their own clothes and not the blue prison uniforms we were used to seeing. As we made our way into the control 'bubble' at the centre of the house block, the scene we could see through its windows was chaotic. The bubble was the modern equivalent of the 'Wendy house' we saw at Wandsworth, from where all the prisoners' movements on and off the house block were controlled.

There were staff and inmates all over the place coming and going through various gates or just hanging around on different landings talking, playing pool or watching television. The sheer number of inmates and the way the whole scene appeared totally disorganized made it even more intimidating than the worst wing at Wandsworth despite the altogether brighter decor.

We were given a confusing explanation of the bubble officer's job, which basically comprised overall responsibility for the whole house block's movements. As well as arranging all the work parties, visits, doctors' appointments. etc., which on its own appeared to be the most responsible job in the prison, they were also responsible for keeping a running total of the prisoner roll and controlling any incidents via phone and radio. This position seemed all too much like hard work to me and one I thought I would never be able to master. We also got a brief account of the house block's regime, which accounted for the chaotic scenes before us.

It appeared that Belmarsh was the first if not the only London prison at that time that offered its prisoners association periods on a regular basis. On each house block they broke down the day of each of the three separate spurs or wings into what was called up time and down time. Each morning between about nine thirty and twelve one or two of the wings would be on up time when they received association and/or exercise, during which they had unlimited access to the phones, television, pool table and showers. Usually it was during these periods that the inmates were also given controlled access to the canteen, which was located on each house block. The remaining spurs used this time to attend the workshops, educational facilities or gymnasium. At Belmarsh at that time it was compulsory for every inmate to attend some type of workshop or education class as soon as a space became available, unless he was excused for medical reasons. This process was repeated during the afternoon between two thirty and four, but this time the wing that had association in the morning attended work and vice versa.

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.