Gypsy Jane - I've Been Shot Four Times and Served Three Prison Terms?This is the Incredible Story of (12 page)

On Sunday I packed all my prison stuff for court. I made sure everything was safe at home and that John understood the situation. That was the hardest part for me. But he was acting like a man by then and that helped a lot. I still hadn’t told my family what was going on. I just didn’t have the heart. I’d been so busy making sure everything was sorted for John. At last I went over to Shell’s and asked her to come out with me and back at my place I broke the news that I was due in court the next day.

‘I’m going down, Shell. I’ve been lucky so far but this time I can sense my luck has run out.’ I told her all the
details and she said I wouldn’t go down but I knew the suspended sentence was not going away. ‘I hope you’re right, Shell,’ I said, smiling, but I knew she was wrong.

The next morning I was all packed and ready to go. I had plugged a bar of puff up my crutch. That may not sound nice but it would make life a lot mellower inside. If I was going down, I was going down in style and I drove to Snaresbrook crown court in the Porsche with Shell and Tracey. When we got there, my barrister said I was looking at a community-service sentence, getting my hopes up a little bit. But that was the end of the good news. As soon as we were in the court room, the police handed the judge a note. While he was reading it, he didn’t look too impressed. He kept glancing from the sheet of paper in his hand to me. My barrister started to talk but the judge just told him to be quiet. He turned to me and said he knew my barrister was going to try to convince him not to give me a custodial sentence but that it was not going to work. I glanced up at Shell and Tracey in the public gallery and winked at them. I knew I was going down and needed to be strong.

The judge continued. He said I was a very dangerous woman. He then said he was sentencing me to six months for driving on a ban and three months for possession of a Class B drug – that was the puff. Then he threw the book at me – I had one month left to go of that suspended sentence but he could invoke the whole two years. And he did. In all, I would serve two years and nine months, all to run consecutively. I was banned from
driving for another three years and would have to retake my test. He had given me the maximum punishment he could. I looked at my sister again, waved her and Tracey goodbye and then I was led to the cells under the court to await the van to take me back to Holloway to start my sentence.

I must be honest, I was shocked – not that I let it show. But two years and nine months. I thought I’d get about a year. It was April 2000 and I’d had a year and 11 months of freedom. But now I had got a longer stretch than I had received when I was first sentenced.

W
hen I got to Holloway, I knew nearly everyone. I'd got the nine-ounce bar of puff, which was to come in very handy. I had hidden it in the only place where the screws couldn't or wouldn't search. I must say, it was a lot easier knowing that I was going down, as I'd sorted everything out first. This time it didn't feel like I'd been dragged off the street and landed in prison unprepared.

I had to laugh because all I'd talked about in prison was when I was going to get out and what I was going to do. Prisoners all talked about how they were going to get a man and what they were going to do to him. And me being me, I was telling the girls before I left
Holloway last time that I was going to have non-stop sex. As it turned out, I had been out for nearly two years and didn't even kiss a man. Matt and I weren't together like that and I didn't want to be with anyone else. Not that my prison mates knew that and the first thing they wanted to know was all about my sex life. I lied. I told them that I hadn't stopped having sex since the last time I saw them. ‘Oh, yes,' I said. ‘We couldn't get enough of each other – morning, noon and night. We were doing it in the kitchen, the bedroom, the bathroom.' After all, it was what they wanted to hear and I think it cheered them all up.

The day after my arrival I was moved to East Sutton Park prison near Maidstone in Kent. By now Shell had told Dad what had happened and, when I phoned him, he was gutted. ‘Why didn't you tell me, Jane?' he said. ‘I could have stood up and spoke to the judge for you.'

‘Dad,' I said, ‘the judge wouldn't even let my barrister talk for me. The police gave him a letter and nothing could have saved me because of my suspended sentence. I'm sorry, Dad. I know you've been through enough with Mum dying and that's why I didn't want to worry you any more. You've been through enough with me too.'

John was staying at home this time, rather than with Dad. He had got plenty of money from me and he had his mates there for him. I knew it wasn't good but there was nothing else I could do. He was so grown up then. He had to grow up fast, just like I did. Anyway, my
family was a phone call away if he needed anything and Shell and Matt were looking out for him.

It wasn't all bad. I couldn't believe my luck landing in East Sutton Park. This was an open prison and what a touch it was. It was like a big mansion house and it didn't even look like a prison. My best mate Den from Holloway had turned up as well, finishing off her five stretch. She had one month left. Her boy and mine were good mates and I was over the moon to see her. I even had the bed next to hers in the dorm and I soon settled in.

East Sutton Park was a lot more comfortable than Holloway but, if you did anything wrong, you could be sure the other inmates would grass you to the screws. Den told me the score. She warned me to keep myself to myself and not to trust anyone if I wanted to stay out of trouble and keep my place in the open prison. I didn't like those rules and yet I tried to keep them. But it didn't take long before I started getting the hump with the other inmates. ‘Stool pigeons,' I called them. I swear to God, if you did something wrong, there wouldn't just be one but a queue of inmates at the office grassing you up. I couldn't handle it. I told Den I was going to explode.

‘Please don't, Jane,' pleaded Den. ‘I've only got three weeks left. Just keep your head down and keep yourself to yourself and you'll be OK. Please try and stay here until I go home.' I said I would do my best because I loved Den. She was on my level and it was good having
her with me. I told her that, if anybody fucked with me, I'd do them after she left.

I got a job in the prison gardens trimming hedges. I was the strimmer girl and it was good. I could go anywhere in the grounds on my own with my strimmer. I could even go outside the prison and cut the hedges. What a difference it was to Holloway and a world away from Cat A. The only letdown was the other prisoners. Most of them seemed to think they were officers without keys. They weren't the hardened villains you got in Holloway and they would do anything to please the screws. And that was where we were different. When I went into the mansion house with my work boots on, another inmate once told me to take them off.

‘You're not allowed to wear your work boots in the house,' she shouted and she was with a screw at the time.

I couldn't believe it and just lost it. ‘Shut your fucking mouth. If you want my boots off that badly, you'll be taking 'em off with your fucking teeth.'

She was scared stiff and ran off and I got pulled into the office. I got a warning for that and a telling-off. Well, I could handle the officers pulling me up but not the inmates. No way. I told Den that I didn't think I'd last another three weeks. I had the bar of puff on me and I couldn't even have a joint with anyone in case they grassed me up. I'd go on the hill inside the grounds, outside the main building, and make myself a
small joint, hoping no one would see me or report me to the officers.

When Den at last left, I was so happy for her, yet so sad that my friend had gone. I was sure I wasn't going to find any other friends like her. Then I met Sharon, a gypsy girl like me, and we were immediately friends. Sharon was inside for GBH on another bird but she was pukka and we got on like a house on fire. But, sadly for me, she was shipped straight out to another prison when her mum was caught chucking bottles of vodka over the fence to her. When I say caught, I mean another inmate grassed on her. But Sharon and I were kindred spirits and our paths would cross again.

Three days after Den left, a new shipment of prisoners arrived, including a French bird. She asked me what I was in for and how long I'd got. I told her I'd got two years and nine months for driving on a ban and having a bit of puff and she just laughed. I asked her what she was in for and she said she'd had a right touch. ‘I'm in for importing a kilo of crack cocaine and a kilo of heroin and I only got eighteen months in an open prison.' Well, I lost it. She was laughing at me but I didn't find it funny. She was bringing heroin and crack into our country to kill our kids and only got 18 fucking months. I battered her. The screws came in force and dragged me off her, and that was the end of my time in East Sutton Park. I had told Den I'd only last three weeks after she went but I didn't last three days. But by that point I was past caring.

The next day I was moved out to Cookham Wood prison, near Rochester in Kent. There were loads of people I knew at Cookham Wood. I was well happy, daft as that sounds, because it was more like Holloway and not full of grasses. I phoned home and let Dad and John know I'd been moved but that everything was OK. Dad told me he was visiting John regularly, as he was the priority now, and that my boy was keeping my house spotless. I was really proud of him. Matt was looking out for John as well. In fact, everyone was but from a distance. He was 15 and was running our home like a proper man. With the money I'd left he was paying the rent to the council, as well as the bills, and Matt was going over every week to help out. The dogs were both fine and John was happy. I phoned him every day and he made me the proudest mum in this world. That boy deserved a knighthood the way behaved while I was away. He was on his own, with no brothers or sisters, and he was living in Essex and my family was in the East End. Matt was Kent, yet John was surviving in this mad world and doing it as best he could.

At Cookham Wood I told my mates I'd got a bar of puff when I was put on a wing with them. I was in a cell with one other inmate in what was called a two-up. But another mate assured me that the bird was safe so I was happy to go in with her. On the first night I asked the bird if she fancied a bit of puff.

‘What? Drugs?' she replied. ‘Oh no, I'll have none of that.'

So that night I laid on the top bunk and after lights out I rolled myself a big joint and got stoned. I was so stoned I couldn't keep my eyes open. The room was just one big bubble of smoke and I was smiling from ear to ear when I heard the bird ask, ‘Is that puff I can smell?'

‘No,' I told her.

But she jumped out of bed and I thought she was going for the buzzer to call the screws. Even though I was out of it and could hardly move, I was thinking I was going to have to do her. So I looked at her through the cloud of puff smoke and said, ‘Listen, love, you can't smell anything, do you fucking understand me?'

She was looking at me and she realised that, if she touched that buzzer, she was in big trouble so she just said, ‘OK. It's my mistake,' and got back into bed, much to my relief, as I didn't want to hurt this woman.

In the morning my mates were hysterical with laughter when I told them about it. They said they knew she didn't like puff but, as it was the only cell available in their wing, they told me she was safe. ‘We knew you would sort her out anyway,' one of them said.

I wasn't amused. ‘If I'd had to do her, I would have done you as well for putting me in that position.' We all burst into laughter.

I needed a single cell but you had to have ‘enhanced' status to qualify and that meant you needed to be a goody two-shoes. Well, I am no goody and I can tell you now I was never in enhanced in the year I served in Cookham Wood. But I did need a single so I could puff
in peace. I was selling some of my puff too but my roommate wasn't in on it and she didn't like the smoke after lights out so it was a problem. But then I was called to the office along with my mates. I was thinking I was in trouble when I was called in but my mates were told to wait outside. There was a screw who had noticed I'd been having all my gym clothes sent in by the Peacock Gym in the East End. She asked me how I knew the Peacock. I told her the owners were lifelong friends of mine. It turned out that she also knew the Peacock. In fact, he was another lifelong friend. What a touch. I thought I was going to be in trouble and this was the best result ever.

I opened the office door, called in my mates and told them that I knew the screw's family on the outside and that she was one of us. And she did become a loyal and good friend to me and my mates. She got us out of all sorts of trouble and told us which screws were safe. We had it good, thanks to her. I asked her if she could get me a single cell and she told me to go and see the doctor as he was the only one who could swing it. She said, ‘You've only been in a couple of weeks and you've got to be in here at least six months to get enhanced status. If you get enhanced so soon, it's going to look dodgy.' Each of my mates who had been there over six months all got enhanced that week and our wing became the bollocks

I went to see the doctor about getting a single. I told him they had put me in a double with another inmate
and it wasn't fair on her because I had nightmares. I told him I would jump around the room because I had bad dreams about being shot and at night I would think she was the policeman who shot me. I said, ‘I really like her, doc, but she's terrified of me.' I was moved to a single cell that day for the other girl's safety. Another inmate who had been properly enhanced was moved back into a double because of me and that didn't go down too well with her. I told her you can be just a bit too good sometimes and laughed.

So I had the bar of puff, a room of my own and I was in business. I was giving it to my mates to sell and we were shovelling in the profits. Puff was worth more than gold in prison. But I got them to charge the same price as you would pay on the outside – £10 for an eighth of an ounce. I was trading it for phone cards, tobacco, clothes and jewellery. I soon had a drawer full of goods, a Chanel suit (handy for court appearances) and the latest trainers too. The inmates I traded the puff with would pay by getting their relatives to send me gear through the post. It was a nice little arrangement. All because of the big lump of puff I got inside by thinking ahead before I walked into court that day.

Well, I was doing pukka. When the doors were opened each day, my cell was packed with inmates and I wasn't even the one who was selling it. My mates were. There was a group of us hanging around together by now. They even included Sharon – my gypsy pal from East Sutton Park, who had turned up at Cookham
Wood – and we all had a right laugh. The whole wing was happy. Puff didn't hurt you and, believe me, everybody's world in prison looked a bit dark. Who could blame us for turning the lights up?

The authorities allocated me a job in what we called the sweat house. You had to machine-stitch 150 pairs of prison jogging bottoms a day for £7 a week and, for every 10 pairs you completed above that, you earned an extra penny. Well, I told my mates that the prison wasn't getting one pair of from me and I just broke the machine when nobody was looking, by breaking the
sewing-machine
needle. They moved me to another machine and I broke that as well. At last, the woman who was running the shop – a civilian – told me I wasn't very good at machining and put me on a third machine.

‘This is my baby,' she said, stroking the machine.

‘I won't be able to work it,' I said but she insisted and put me on it. You know what? I broke that one too. I swear, I thought she was going to cry but I had warned her. I told myself I was a prisoner and not a slave and I didn't feel too bad about it. I swore they wouldn't get one pair of jogging bottoms out of me and they didn't. She wouldn't have me back in the sweat shop after that, thank God, so my mates got me a job with them earning £10 a week working for the prison electrician. We sat in a hut all day listening to music, reading the papers, drinking tea and coffee and all we had to do was change the odd light bulb. In prison, it wasn't what you knew, it was who you knew – believe me. But it was all too
good to be true and eventually me and my mates were called to the office one day and the senior officer said he knew what we were up to.