The Loose Screw (29 page)

Apart from the training side of the regime, Mr Outram had also set in motion other activities for Charlie. He had managed to secure Charlie access to art materials so he could carry on with his drawing and writing. He even managed to get him a mock computer keyboard on which Charlie soon taught himself to type. I had also conferred with John and Mick and we had decided to make Charlie the number one cleaner in the seg. We did this completely off our own bats, knowing full well that we would not get clearance through the correct channels, but we had the utmost faith that Charlie would not let us down in any way. He never did and, in fact, was the best cleaner we had ever had. No one threw rubbish out of their windows and everyone's plates were always washed immaculately by the time we took Charlie round to collect them after mealtimes. This job suited Charlie as it kept him active, which he loved, and he also got first refusal on any food that was left over to satisfy his huge appetite.

It did not take long, however, for the news of Charlie's new position to reach the security principal officer, who in turn phoned us up with the order that we were to sack Charlie immediately. Our response was that if he wanted to sack Charlie he would have to grow the balls to come down and do it himself. Obviously he did not want to do that, but he made a real fuss by reporting the matter to the governor and head office, who in turn all became involved. In the end, good old Mr Outram came to the rescue and said he stood by our decision to employ Charlie and would personally take responsibility from then on.

The only thing Charlie said he would not do as a cleaner was clean the office or make tea for the staff, which was fair enough as this was not part of the cleaner's regular duties anyway. He did, however, make one exception -one day when we were alone in the unit he offered to make me a cup of tea. To this day, I think I can lay claim to the fact that I am the only screw that has had a cup of tea made for him by Charlie Bronson.

The only occasion I felt a little nervous when working with Charlie was when he asked me to cut his hair one day. I managed to find a set of clippers in the store and sat Charlie on a chair in the middle of the landing to begin shaving his head. The clippers coughed into life and I ran them straight down the middle of his head from front to back. Then, to my horror, the clippers died on me, leaving Charlie with a bald stripe right down the middle of his head. I almost fainted as I frantically tried to get them working again, but to no avail, and Charlie kept asking, "How's it looking, Jim? Go on, son, take it all off."

Fortunately there were no mirrors visible and, as luck would have it, at that moment I heard the audible tone on the office radio, which signalled an alarm bell somewhere in the prison. As quick as a flash I told John to wait there and informed Charlie that I would have to respond to the bell but would finish his hair when I got back. Off I ran with the clippers in my hand, but in the opposite direction to where the alarm bell was ringing. I went round all the house blocks, the Category A unit, the stores, and even the dog section looking for a serviceable set of clippers, but with no luck. I was on my way back to the seg, contemplating how to break the news to Charlie before he broke my neck, and I took a short cut through the hospital wing. As I entered the main entrance, I heard a distant whirring sound of hair clippers in action and followed the noise. I ended up on the top floor and found one of the cleaners halfway through cutting a patient's hair with a gleaming pair of clippers. I could do nothing but commandeer the clippers and leave the cleaner and patient to slag me off for nicking them before they were finished while I ran back to the seg -well, I was a desperate man!

Luckily, on my return, Charlie was still sitting in the chair talking to John. With the new clippers I was able to finish the job with no further problems and Charlie was over the moon with the end result. Until he reads this, I can only assume that Charlie will still recall that day when I tackled an alarm bell with a set of clippers in my hand. I certainly never told him the real truth of how he nearly had to spend a couple of days with an extra-large centre parting -that would not have done his image, or my health, any good at all.

Our work with Charlie continued and he responded so well that Mr Outram was able to secure his move to house block four once it was operational. We were all a bit sorry to see him go as it meant we would have to return to a normal routine, but we knew Charlie had earned the right to move forward and we were pleased for him. Charlie had achieved a great deal and had provided me with some of the best days I had seen in the Prison Service, not to mention the fact that he had managed to smash his world record of medicine ball sit-ups. We wished him well and I promised to visit him on the house block whenever I got the chance.

At this time I had been living in Uxbridge for some months with my old army mate, Harry, and the travelling through London was beginning to take its toll, both financially and with my timekeeping. Consequently, I had applied for a transfer to Wormwood Scrubs, which was the nearest jail to where I was living. This decision was taken purely for practical reasons. I could not afford the travelling costs as well as paying maintenance for Lauren, and I have always tried to put my kids first before anything else. I knew that if I moved to the Scrubs I would save a great deal of money and would also be able to have Lauren at weekends, which I was unable to do at the prison flats in Brockley.

However, I was not looking forward to working there, as I had heard some real horror stories about the prison and some of its staff, not least from Charlie. He commented on how sorry he was to hear I was going to "that piss-hole" when I told him of my transfer. He did, however, fully understand my reasons, as he knew how much I loved Lauren and wanted to see more of her, so he wished me all the best and just advised me to watch my back and keep my head down. With those words in my head, I left Belmarsh on 15 August 1996 to take up my new position at the Scrubs on Monday 18 August.

15

WORMWOOD SCRUBS

I arrived at the infamous twin-towered main gate of Wormwood Scrubs at eight o'clock on Monday 18 August 1996 only to be told that no one had been made aware of my arrival. I was directed to the training room only to find that the training officer, Senior Officer Denman, also had no knowledge of my transfer, even though it had apparently been arranged for two months. Denman made some calls to various staff in the personnel department, all of whom denied any knowledge of my transfer. It appeared that Governor Jackson, whose name was on the transfer confirmation I had received, had retired without telling anyone about my arrival.

I was told that all I could do was go home and ring the prison the following day to see if anything had been sorted out. Although I was not too disappointed that my first trip inside this grim-looking jail had been delayed, I was extremely worried by the fact that no one knew I existed. The answer I got when I phoned the following morning pissed me of even more. I was told by a lady in personnel that my transfer had never been agreed and the Scrubs was not taking on any more staff as they were undergoing an audit on staffing levels. I was advised that I would just have to go back to Belmarsh and reapply the following year.

Not being happy with this answer, I decided that I would not take the lady's advice and would take the matter up with higher authorities myself. I returned home and immediately began the first of hundreds of phone calls, which would continue over the next two months, to head office. Basically, my case was passed from one area manager's office to the other, each denying responsibility, while for two months I stood my ground and refused to go back to work until I had an answer.

Eventually, as a last-bid attempt, I contacted staff care and welfare and a lovely lady called Angela sorted the problem out within days and contacted me with a start date at the Scrubs. I have no idea who she spoke to, but I was amazed at the speed with which she managed to get a response considering that for two months I did not exist as far as head office was concerned. It just goes to show how well the Service cared for its employees under the new Investors in People scheme that had recently been introduced!

On 14 October 1996 I once again approached the imposing twin-towered gates of the Scrubs to begin my induction week. The first thing I had to contend with was the arrogant attitude of the gate staff. As I was a strange face and the gate staff considered themselves 'old sweats', they wasted no time in talking to me as though I was a three-year-old. I was saved further humiliation by the arrival of the training Senior Officer, Mr Denman, who turned out to be a fair man.

I spent the following week under the supervision of Mr Denman, although he appreciated my experience and basically gave me free rein to wander round the prison and visit the different departments. The main thing I noticed about the Scrubs, which was uniformed in every department, was a distinct 'them and us' divide between the inmates and most of the staff. I appreciate that this is necessary in such controlled environments, but many of the staff seemed to have a real hatred for anyone wearing the blue striped shirts, blue jeans and grey sweatshirts issued to all convicted prisoners at the jail.

This is not to say that prisoners on remand, who could wear their own clothing, were spared this 'them and us' treatment. Some of the worst allegations of assaults by officers on inmates came from remand prisoners serving on C-Wing, although I did not personally witness any as I rarely went onto that wing. At the time of writing this, there is still an ongoing investigation into such allegations at the Scrubs and criminal charges have been brought against some of the officers concerned. I only hope they do not meet any of the inmates they are accused of assaulting if they get a custodial sentence, as I am sure the alleged victims will not hesitate to dole out their revenge whilst the officers have no uniform to hide behind.

As I explored the different areas of this vast Victorian prison, I received the same hostile greeting from staff in every department -with the exception of C-Wing, which was still very much as it was when the prison first opened its imposing gates and conjured up the typical image you would expect from an old London 'gaol'. The rest of the prison had undergone a half-hearted makeover. The addition of integral toilets and a lick of green and magnolia paint on the walls may have been easier on both the nose and the eye, but it did nothing to mask the hostility of most of the staff that worked there. It really was a different world once you entered the belly of this imposing structure, and the sheer arrogance and aggressive, obnoxious attitude of the staff I met left me feeling nervous and intimidated. After all, I was supposed to be on their side, so you can imagine how the prisoners must have felt.

This, of course, was very much the image the Scrubs wanted its staff to portray, and they took great pride in the fact that they were resisting any outside pressure to move towards a more modern regime, as had already been adopted in most other prisons. For example, they were still refusing to offer inmates any periods of association or access to showering facilities more than once a week.

Unlike Belmarsh, the majority of staff here were older and longer in service, a fact I had hoped would have meant a more relaxed and professional working environment. Unfortunately I could not have been more wrong. The vast majority of staff I came across were lazy and arrogant and had this inbred hatred of all prisoners. Consequently, they would take advantage of any opportunity they had to show this contempt, through either mental or physical abuse.

Any new members of staff, as I was, were treated with total distrust and disdain until such time as they proved themselves to be loyal enough to be welcomed into the inner sanctum of these cliquey bully squads, which roamed the landings at will. The only way to prove this in their eyes was to be involved in one of the daily 'takeouts' of a prisoner, usually arranged after a lunchtime session in the officers' bar. Here the alcohol would fuel the contempt eating away at these officers and they would return to the wings thirsty for some ego-boosting action.

The vast majority of these takeouts were unnecessary and totally random, with officers often picking victims from the landing roll board in a twisted version of 'pin the tail on the donkey'. Alternatively, they would act on 'intelligence' passed on by another member of staff who had taken a dislike to a particular inmate. This would be reason enough to set up a takeout on an unsuspecting inmate.

These incidents were all orchestrated to relieve boredom, to boost egos, or much of the time to initiate new members of staff into the 'way we do things at the Scrubs' and test their loyalty. If you didn't participate you became an outcast, and if you attempted to report their behaviour to a higher level you were told not to be silly and to think very carefully about your career before making such allegations about senior officers. Usually four or five officers would go to the allocated cell and begin an aggressive cell search. Of course the rest of the inmates on the wing were on twentythree-hour bang-up, so although they might hear a commotion there would be no eye witnesses to back up any complaint the inmate might submit later.

Most of the inmates targeted in this way were recent arrivals to the Scrubs and so at some stage during the search they would more often than not question the officers about their over-the-top methods. This was the trigger they needed to 'wrap up' the inmate and, after a violent removal to the segregation unit, he would always be placed on report for assaulting an officer. This was considered as educating the inmate in the way we ran things at the Scrubs, and I can tell you that very few prisoners escaped this unofficial and hostile induction.

The worst part was that the senior management on the wings were not only aware that this practice was going on, but also they seemed to encourage it. They even had their own early-warning system in place to prevent any outsiders, i.e. members of the board of visitors or visiting teachers or clergy, walking in whilst these takeouts were being executed. If such outsiders arrived at the prison, the gate staff would ring the wing or department they were destined for to forewarn the staff of their imminent arrival. Then all their subsequent movements within the prison would be monitored and pre-reported in the same way.