I could now cross to the main gate, which is set in the walls of the prison. The last time I was at Belmarsh to see Julian, it was raining hard. My umbrella wasn’t allowed beyond the visitors centre. I had the choice of getting drenched, or running like hell. Grandmothers have the same choice.
At the second desk, an official behind the wire, said, ‘What’s that?’
‘My watch,’ I replied guiltily.
‘Take it back,’ she said.
So I ran back through the rain, returning just in time to be biometrically tested again. This was followed by a full body scan and a full body search. Soles of feet; mouth open.
At each stop, our silent, obedient group shuffled into what is known as a sealed space, squeezed behind a yellow line. Pity the claustrophobic; one woman squeezed her eyes shut.
We were then ordered into another holding area, again with iron doors shutting loudly in front of us and behind us.
‘Stand behind the yellow line!’ said a disembodied voice.
Another electronic door slid partly open; we hesitated wisely. It shuddered and shut and opened again. Another holding area, another desk, another chorus of, ‘Show your finger!’
Then we were in a long room with squares on the floor where we were told to stand, one at a time. Two men with sniffer dogs arrived and worked us, front and back.
The dogs sniffed our arses and slobbered on my hand. Then more doors opened, with a new order to ‘hold out your wrist!’
A laser branding was our ticket into a large room, where the prisoners sat waiting in silence, opposite empty chairs. On the far side of the room was Julian, wearing a yellow arm band over his prison clothes.
As a remand prisoner he is entitled to wear his own clothes, but when the thugs dragged him out of the Ecuadorean embassy last April, they prevented him bringing a small bag of belongings. His clothes would follow, they said, but like his reading glasses, they were mysteriously lost.
For 22 hours a day, Julian is confined in ‘healthcare’. It’s not really a prison hospital, but a place where he can be isolated, medicated and spied on. They spy on him every 30 minutes: eyes through the door. They would call this ‘suicide watch’.
In the adjoining cells are convicted murderers, and further along is a mentally ill man who screams through the night. ‘This is my One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest,’ he said. ‘Therapy’ is an occasional game of Monopoly. His one assured social gathering is the weekly service in the chapel. The priest, a kind man, has become a friend. The other day, a prisoner was attacked in the chapel; a fist smashed his head from behind while hymns were being sung.
When we greet each other, I can feel his ribs. His arm has no muscle. He has lost perhaps 10 to 15 kilos since April. When I first saw him here in May, what was most shocking was how much older he looked.
‘I think I’m going out of my mind,’ he said then.
I said to him, ‘No you’re not. Look how you frighten them, how powerful you are.’ Julian’s intellect, resilience and wicked sense of humour – all unknown to the low life who defame him – are, I believe, protecting him. He is wounded badly, but he is not going out of his mind.
We chat with his hand over his mouth so as not to be overheard. There are cameras above us. In the Ecuadorean embassy, we used to chat by writing notes to each other and shielding them from the cameras above us. Wherever Big Brother is, he is clearly frightened.
On the walls are happy-clappy slogans exhorting the prisoners to ‘keep on keeping on’ and ‘be happy, be hopeful and laugh often’.
The only exercise he has is on a small bitumen patch, overlooked by high walls with more happy-clappy advice to enjoy ‘the blades of grass beneath your feet’. There is no grass.
He is still denied a laptop and software with which to prepare his case against extradition. He still cannot call his American lawyer, or his family in Australia.
The incessant pettiness of Belmarsh sticks to you like sweat. If you lean too close to the prisoner, a guard tells you to sit back. If you take the lid off your coffee cup, a guard orders you to replace it. You are allowed to bring in £10 to spend at a small café run by volunteers. ‘I’d like something healthy,’ said Julian, who devoured a sandwich.
Across the room, a prisoner and a woman visiting him were having a row: what might be called a ‘domestic’. A guard intervened and the prisoner told him to ‘fuck off’.
This was the signal for a posse of guards, mostly large, overweight men and women eager to pounce on him and hold him to the floor, then frog march him out. A sense of violent satisfaction hung in the stale air.
Now the guards shouted at the rest of us that it was time to go. With the women and children and grandmothers, I began the long journey through the maze of sealed areas and yellow lines and biometric stops to the main gate. As I left the visitors’ room, I looked back, as I always do. Julian sat alone, his fist clenched and held high. John Pilger, website article 5 December 2019, ‘Visiting Britain’s Political Prisoner’
It started with a disturbance in the prison chapel this morning. Within minutes a full-scale riot had begun. Strangeways Riot: 25 Days of Mayhem, news, Channel 5 2022
This is the story of Britain’s most brutal prison riot. Told by those who lived through it. ibid.
Britain in 1990 was a nation in turmoil. Margaret Thatcher’s government was in decline. Violent scenes rocked London as the Poll Tax riots erupted. And the criminal justice system was at breaking point. Despite a hard line from Westminster. Reported crime had almost doubled in a decade. And many of the country’s ageing prisons were full beyond capacity. ibid.
As the prison staff retreated, they left over 1,600 prisoners to fend for themselves. And many of them feared for their lives. ibid.
But whilst their parties on the roof, the evening news was reporting a darker picture of what might be happening inside the prison. ibid.
On the roof the riot had now turned into a celebration. ibid.
A wave of violence was about to break out across the whole prison system. ibid.
At Strangeways, what had begun as a riot was now a siege. ibid.
147 prison staff and 47 inmates were injured during the riot. One prisoner and one prison officer later died in hospital. Alan Lord served an additional 10 years in prison for his role in the riot. John Murray served an additional 4 years. Published in the wake of the riots, the Woolf Report led to major improvements across the prison system. Including an end to slopping out. In the time since the riot, the prison population in England and Wales has risen by 74%. ibid. captions
If you’re ever sentenced to life imprisonment the chances are you’ll be locked up here: HMP Wakefield. Here, you’ll join the worst prisoners in British criminal history. You’ll be in a cell next to the prison system’s most violent inmates. Or in solitary with a full-time murderer … Welcome to the place they call Monster Mansion. HMP Wakefield: Evil Behind Bars, Channel 5 2022
The biggest maximum security prison in the whole of western Europe. ibid. ex-screw
N.O.N.C.E = Not on Normal Courtyard Exercise. ibid. Noel Razor Smith, ex-inmate
There are miscarriages of justice in jail, seriously there are, but Jeremy Bamber is not one of them. ibid.
It’s been called Britain’s Guantanamo Bay. This concrete fortress in South-East London is Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh, built to keep Britain’s most dangerous criminals behind bars. Belmarsh prides itself on being able to handle any prisoner. HMP Belmarsh: Maximum Security, Channel 5 2022
Gangs in Belmarsh Causing A Rise In Violence. ibid. newspaper headline
A metal tray – slice your bloody head off. ibid. ex-con
Belmarsh is a scary place even for the hardest men. ibid.
Whether it’s ever safe to release a Cat A prisoner. ibid.
The only business bigger than phones is drugs. ibid.
If you’re ever sentenced to life in prison you could be sent to one of the most feared places you’ve never heard of: HMP Full Sutton. You won’t know where you’re going but you’ll join some of the worst inmates in British criminal history. HMP Full Sutton: Evil Behind Bars, Channel 5 2022
Home to nearly 600 convicted criminals, this is HMP Full Sutton. ibid.
Losing control would make prison officers’ jobs at Full Sutton even more challenging. ibid.
Tucked away in the countryside near the posh suburbs of Manchester is one of Britain’s most notorious places: HMP Styal. A prison which may look like a village but it’s far from it. Here, you’ll join the worst women in Britain, the real bad girls. You’ll be living alongside women who kill their own children. You’ll be in a wing full of drug dealers and drug addicts. HMP Styal: Women Behind Bars, Channel 5 2022
Home to around 400 female convicted criminals, this is HMP Styal … A prison like no other … ‘The most challenging place that I have ever worked, in terms of the complexity, the instances of violence, self-harm, the emotional distress …’ ibid. ex-Screw
Drugs are in high demand and they’re valuable so there will always be the potential for violence. ibid.
HMP Styal has become known for its unprecedented number of deaths behind its bars. ibid.I could now cross to the main gate, which is set in the walls of the prison. The last time I was at Belmarsh to see Julian, it was raining hard. My umbrella wasn’t allowed beyond the visitors centre. I had the choice of getting drenched, or running like hell. Grandmothers have the same choice.