Free Heaven: A Prison Diary by Jeffrey Archer Page A

three months. I began my prison
life at Belmarsh on a spur with twenty-three murderers. Lifers range from
cold-blooded killers like Denis Nielsen, who pleaded guilty to murdering
thirteen victims, down to Chris, who killed his wife in a fit of rage after
finding her in bed with another man; he’s already spent fourteen years
regretting his loss of temper. Nielsen began his sentence, and will end it, in
the highest security A-category facility. He is currently locked up in a SSU (a
special security unit), a sort of prison within a prison. When he moves
anywhere within the prison, he is always accompanied by at least two officers
and a dog, and he is searched every time he leaves his cell or returns to it.
At night, he places all his clothes outside the cell door, and an officer hands
them back to him the following morning.
    Nielsen told PO
New on several occasions that it would have been better for everyone if they’d
hanged him.
    Now that the
IRA terrorists are no longer locked up on the mainland, of the 1,800 murderers
in custody, there are currently only seven SSU inmates.
    Now Chris, who
killed his wife, is at the other end of the scale. He’s reached D-cat status
after eleven years, and works in the kitchens. He therefore has access to
several instruments with which he could kill or maim. Only yesterday, I watched
him chopping up some meat – rather efficiently. He hopes that the parole board
will agree to release him in eighteen months’ time. During the past eleven
years, he has moved from A ... cat to D-cat via
seventeen jails, three of them in one weekend when he was driven to Preston,
Swalesdale and Whitemoor, only to find each time that they didn’t have a cell
for him.
    All nine lifers
at NSC will be interviewed today, so further reports can be sent to the Home
Office to help decide if they are ready to return to the outside world. The
Home Office will make the final decision; they are traditionally rather
conservative and accept about 60 per cent of the board’s recommendations. The
board convenes at 9 am when Linda, the lifers’ probation officer, is joined by
the deputy governor, Mr Berlyn, a psychiatrist called Christine and the lifers’
prison officer.
    The first
prisoner in front of the board is Peter, who set fire to a police station. He’s
so far served thirty-one years, and frankly is now a great helpless hunk of a
man who has become so institutionalized that the parole board will probably
have to transfer him straight to an old-peoples’ home. Peter told me he has to
serve at least another eighteen months before the board would be willing to
consider his case. I don’t think he’ll ever be released, other than in a
coffin.
    The next to
come in front of the board is Leon.
    The biggest
problem lifers face is their prison records. For the
first ten years of their sentences, they can see no light at the end of the
tunnel, so the threat of another twentyeight days added to their sentence is
hardly a deterrent. After ten years, Linda says there is often a sea change in
a lifer’s attitude that coincides with their move to a B-cat and then again
when they reach a C-cat. This is even more pronounced when they finally arrive
at a D-cat and can suddenly believe release is possible.
    By the way,
it’s almost unknown for a lifer to abscond. Not only would they be returned to
an A-cat closed prison, but its possible they never
would be considered for parole again.
    However, most
of the lifers being interviewed today have led a farily blameless existence for
the past five years, although there are often scars, missing teeth and broken
bones to remind them of their first ten years in an A-cat.
    During the day,
each of them goes meekly in to face the board. No swagger, no swearing, no
attitude; that alone could set them back another year.
    Leon is
followed by Michael, then Chris, Roger, Bob, John, John and John (a coincidence
not acceptable in a novel). At the end of the day, Linda comes out exhausted.
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