Gypsy Jane - I've Been Shot Four Times and Served Three Prison Terms?This is the Incredible Story of (8 page)

But a couple of days later I got a message saying Matt had been shot. I couldn’t believe it. I had a feeling he had gone after the geezers who grassed me up. At least he was only hit in the shoulder and he was OK. I didn’t get to see him for a while but he sent me the biggest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen and I knew he was OK.

After being in hospital for ten days I was told I could leave. I think they were relieved to get rid of me. I mean, this was a hospital and it looked like a prisoner-of-war camp with soldiers patrolling the place. I was taken to East Ham police station and they put me in a cell with no toilet paper and a blocked bog. I wasn’t amused. I mean, I’d just got out of hospital and had three bullets taken out of me and one of them was in the groin. This
place was unhygienic. But I was a soldier, I told myself, and crashed out on the bunk.

The next day they took me to be interviewed and believe me when I say I had two of their best interviewing me. I mean, these were the best of the best. They offered me a fag and asked me what I was doing waving a gun about and threatening people. So I said, ‘It was like this, officers. I went to test the guns I’d restored in the park. I know I shouldn’t have. But I was curious to see if they fired OK. Being close to bonfire night, I thought no one would take any notice and just think the sounds were fireworks.’

‘But you had an imitation gun as well. What was that for?’

I said, ‘Oh, that one’s for my boy for Christmas. I was going to have a little go with that as well.’

‘But where did you get the bullets from?’

‘I made them,’ I said. I told them I was a restorer of antique guns. I thought I was doing OK.

‘Why did you hold up a man at gunpoint and force a whole street on the ground in fear of their lives then?’

‘I never held a man up at gunpoint. I asked this man for directions to Gants Hill and he said, “Let me get in and I’ll show you the way.” I said, “No way, mate, you can’t get in,” and started to drive off when he went for his satchel and said, “I’ve got something to show you.” I thought he was going for a knife or gun so I picked up my gun and said, “I’ve got something to show you,” and he runs into a group of people and I think, Oh, no, he’s
a nutter and he’s going to hurt somebody. I tried to help them. I was shouting at them to be careful when I realised I’ve still got the gun in my hand and they are more scared of me than they are of him.’

Well, there was a bit of a silence. Then one of them took a deep breath. ‘Let me get this right,’ he said. ‘You not only saved yourself but you saved the whole street as well?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Well, we put it to you that you went to rob this man and you tried to involve two innocent people but they decided not go with you when they saw your weapons,’ he said. ‘They told you they don’t mind doing a burglary but that they think you’re mad and out of their league.’ Well, well, well, I thought. Now I knew I was definitely set up and grassed. I should have known when the two men said they weren’t coming with me but now I knew for sure. But I didn’t say a word of that to the cops.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘You’ve been listening to Jack, haven’t you?’

‘Jack who?’ the chatty one asked.

‘
Jackanory
,’ I said. I couldn’t believe what had happened. Professional villains, in my opinion, should have more self-respect than to behave in the way that those two had. It was obvious the police knew exactly what had gone off but they still had to prove it. They tried a different approach.

‘Our armed response team have told us you tried to kill two of them.’

This wasn’t funny anymore.

‘I can’t believe that one. Are yous being serious?’ I asked. ‘You shot me four times, remember? I didn’t shoot anyone.’

‘You were only shot because you tried to shoot two officers.’

‘Look. I never fired a shot. I know I rammed them but, believe me, they were in my blind spot behind the van and I didn’t see them there.’

They said the officer who shot me was standing in front of the van and I tried to run him and another officer down and that’s why he shot me.

‘What a load of crap. He was to the side of me and there was no second officer. I only wanted to get away from him, not kill him,’ I told them.

Their story was changing. At first, the officers had said I’d been shooting and that was why they shot me. Now they were saying I tried to run two officers down. I knew that, in time, forensics would prove I hadn’t fired a shot and I guessed they already knew that and that was why they were trying this new angle.

‘Well, we’ve got a vicar and his son who witnessed it and they swear on the bible that one officer was in front of you,’ the copper said. ‘And the vicar and his son said you were screaming with laughter and drove right at the officer and he had no other choice but to fire or he would be dead. These are men of God. They wouldn’t lie now, would they?’

Only God could know what the police told the vicar
I’d done but I would have sworn by the bible myself that I was telling the truth. I didn’t try to hurt anybody apart from the runner that didn’t play the way he was supposed to. It wasn’t looking good though. I’d got the vicar and his son against me, police officers, the runner, a street full of people and the witnesses who saw me driving like a maniac. But I told the two coppers what I thought. ‘God didn’t save me from four bullets so yous can fit me up and life me off,’ I said. ‘God’s on my side. I haven’t done nothing wrong. I know I shouldn’t have took my guns out to test but I’ve got four bullets in me for that. God won’t let yous stitch me up. He’s on my side.’

‘So where did you get the van?’ one of them asked.

‘I hired it.’ I told them it came from a mate but that I couldn’t really remember the exact details. I didn’t want to involve anyone else.

The senior one of the two said, ‘Oh, well, you may not remember them but the firm you hired the van from remembers you very well. In fact, let me read you this statement: “I remember the women very well. She was dressed head to toe in full combat gear. She was so eager to hire the van that I charged her twice the usual rate and, when I asked if she wanted me to show her how to drive the van, she said no and sped off like lightning.”’

I told the coppers I didn’t know what they were talking about. They charged me with possession of firearms and ammunition, attempted armed robbery, the attempted
murder of two police officers and dangerous driving. I was looking at life.

By now they were not being as nice as they were when I’d gone into the interview room. In fact, they were being nasty. They packed me off to my cell. Sitting on my own once more, I couldn’t believe how people could go so dodgy on me. One word from me and I could have had all those who had betrayed me and grassed me up behind bars, just like I was. But I was not scum like them. Whether I got out of this or not, I said to myself, I could hold my head high because I wasn’t a grass.

T
he papers were full of it.

C
OPS SHOOT GUN GIRL
, screamed the
Sun
. B
LONDE FIRED TWO GUNS AT US – SO WE SHOT HER DOWN
, said the
Daily Mirror
. Even
The Times
got in on the act: P
OLICE MARKSMAN SHOOTS ARMED WOMAN AFTER ROBBERY BID
. And the
News of the World
couldn't resist the story under the headline: C
OPS SHOOT GUN WOMAN AFTER CHASE
. The
People
did a huge double-page spread about the police armed response unit that captured me. N
O TIME TO RUN, NO PLACE TO HIDE, JACK DROPS HIS
MP5 T
O HIS HIP AND LETS RIP AT THE DRUG-MAD BLONDE TRYING TO MOW HIM DOWN
.

Blimey, I thought to myself. Some of the reporting was accurate but some of it wasn't. But, whichever way you
read it, I was Britain's most dangerous female criminal and the tabloids lapped it up. I was famous for all the wrong reasons but now I need to set the record straight on a couple of things the press had to say about me. The
People
described me as a ‘drug dealer with a dangerous addiction'. ‘She needed the money to finance her dealing,' it went on and said I was ‘high on drugs' when I went on the job. That piece, which came out a couple of years after the shooting, described me as a ‘drug-mad blonde'.

The article was publicising a book called
The Trojan Files
, which told the story of London's armed response units and the procedure under which I was arrested – Operation Trojan. It was written by Sergeant Roger Gray, who has since left Scotland Yard. They made me sound like a heroin and crack addict, the cheeky sods. I've never taken heroin or crack in my life. I hate that shit. The book showed a reconstruction of the police marksman capturing me and, although the write-up was blown well out of proportion, the reconstruction photo was brilliant. They had used a really pretty blonde girl who looked a lot like me and I was well chuffed with that. It was the text that was wrong. I didn't have a ‘deadly addiction'. I had done a little bit of Billy to keep me alert but no way was I high. I was too professional to go on a job in that state. And anyway, as I've said, my limit was a bit of puff to relax and I only really used speed when I was on the beer run to keep me going. But the reports did help me understand how much mayhem I caused that night.

The police units that came after me were from Operation Trojan's specialist armed response units and by the time the first armed unit got to Ilford I was already being followed by eight local patrol cars as well as the Trojan mob. When I was arrested, there were over 50 officers at the scene. It was the first time that any armed police response unit had been involved in shooting a woman.

The Times
quoted the 15-year-old schoolboy son of the vicar. This was the boy the cops had told me about. He said he saw an officer fire through my windscreen when it looked as if he might be mown down as I attempted to turn the van out of the cul-de-sac to get away. The boy said, ‘The van was revving up and the wheels were turning, then suddenly a police officer standing there just shot. I think he thought the van was going to run him over. I heard four shots in quick succession and I ran back in because I did not want to get caught in gunfire.' I didn't understand why that boy had said what he'd said because I never tried to run anyone over – rather, I only wanted to escape. He was later proved to be wrong by forensics and all I can say is thank God for forensics because my word wouldn't have counted for anything against those of a vicar's son and the police.

They took me from East Ham police station to court and I was remanded in custody and carted off under armed guard to London's Holloway prison for women. I was designated a category-A prisoner, meaning I was
one of the most dangerous inmates in the land and likely to attempt escape. Cat A meant I was bang in trouble from the start. I was segregated and had no communication with any other prisoners but, as I hadn't ever been in prison before, I thought this was what everyone got. I didn't know that I was the only Cat A prisoner in Holloway when I arrived. I still thought of myself primarily as a mum trying to do her best for her boy but, the way I was treated when I arrived, you would think I was more dangerous than Bonnie and Clyde put together. I still had about 350 stitches in me and, generally, I looked like I'd just got back from a war with the amount of holes and wounds I'd got.

Just 12 days after I was shot I was in Holloway on C1 wing. This was the nutters' wing where all the Broadmoor cases were but I didn't know that at the time. To me, they were just ordinary prisoners. The officers took me to my cell and I didn't see one prisoner on the way because the prison was on lockdown. I didn't even know that this was because of me. I didn't know what Cat A meant at that precise moment. I just thought this was all normal as it was my first time inside. I was accompanied by 20 red-and-black screws. The heavy mob – specialist officers whose role was to act as security over and above ordinary screws. They got their name from the red badges they wear on black uniforms and they were only called in when there was trouble, such as a riot or a fight. Ordinary screws, hundreds of them, lined the corridors as the heavy mob
walked me to my cell. I'd been strip searched on entering the prison and the cell we reached at the end of it all looked fucking grim.

It had a lump of concrete, like a long shelf or slab, built out from the wall, with a pillow and grey blankets that looked like they had come from World War II. That was my bed. There was a cardboard table and chair and a bible. Next to the ‘bed' was a toilet and sink with a towel in the corner. This cell was eight feet long by six feet wide. There wasn't enough room to swing a cat. Once I was in I was strip searched again. They took all my bandages off and I complained straight away. ‘You aren't allowed to do that,' I said. ‘The hospital have been checking my wounds several times a day because I've had plastic surgery and have been warned about getting it infected.' I'd had skin grafted onto my hand from the top of my legs.

‘You're not in hospital now,' one of the screws said. ‘You are not going to try to strangle any of us with your bandages,' and, sure enough, off they came. The screws left me there like that, with just my thoughts for company.

My wounds looked bad so I wrapped my arm in the rough old prison towel. Then in came the doctor with some pills but, before he was allowed in my cell, I had to be strip searched again. Then he was let in under full guard. I was on about eight different tablets from the hospital but he said I was not allowed some because they weren't in prison regulations. So he gave me some
medicine of his own that was an orange colour and a tub of white cream for my skin. He said I had to take the medication in front of him, which I did, and then he left and I was strip searched again. I swear to God that there were about ten or fifteen of the heavy mob that had not left my side. Now I was finding out what Cat A meant and, because I was Cat A, the Governor had to come to check on me every day. I realised I was a top-security prisoner when the Governor didn't even enter my cell but only opened the hatch from the outside. I had to stand up and walk over to the door. The first time he came, he asked if I had any problems.

‘No, I feel good,' I said. Well, he just shut the hatch and walked off and I giggled to myself. This became one of my stock answers every time any officers or the Governor came to my cell. I would always make out I was fine. Sometimes I would start dancing in my cell and singing, ‘I feel good, I knew that I would.' They used to say I was nutty. I did this because I'd never let them know I was down. It was my way of staying strong.

But I was missing my boy like you wouldn't imagine. John had turned 12 now. All his life he'd had me there and now he was alone in that big dangerous world. He was with my mum and dad but they didn't really know him. Not to put too fine a point on it, when I'd lived with them when I was 12, things hadn't been too clever. But I had to block that thought out of my mind and I prayed to God, ‘Please let John get through this, God. Please. You can do anything to me. I'll take it on the
chin. I won't be offended with whatever you decide to let happen to me. I know I deserve it but please watch over my son.'

My dad and my sister Shell would be looking after John. Shell lived opposite my parents with her husband and three boys. Kevin, Shell's middle son, and John were only six weeks apart in age and were more like brothers than cousins. John would survive, I told myself. Yet it was going to be hard because I knew Matt had been shot so he couldn't be around for my boy.

Most people get off on other people's misery and, when things in your life are looking a bit bleak, they thrive on it. But I wasn't going to give anybody the pleasure or the opportunity to thrive off me and mine. And if they thought four bullets and what looked like a life sentence were going to wipe the smile off my face, well, they didn't know me. I didn't think so, somehow. Would you think so? So while anybody was near, I didn't show a flicker of emotion. It wasn't going to happen. When I was lying in bed alone, that was the time to grieve. But to the outside world, I was always happy and nothing they could do would change that.

I was only allowed a bible in my cell on C wing and I tried to read it. But I couldn't concentrate because the girl in the cell next to me was shouting all the time. ‘Gi's a fag, gi's a fag.' All day long. When the heavy mob checked on me, I asked them to give her a fag.

‘It's hard enough being locked up in a cell 24/7, let alone without a fag,' I said. They explained that she kept
burning herself. But she wouldn't stop screaming, ‘Gi's a fag! Gi's a fag!'

So I shouted that I'd tried to get her a fag but the screws wouldn't allow it. ‘I don't fucking want a fag off you anyway,' she called.

‘You fucking ungrateful cow.'

‘I'll do you if I get the chance.'

But when, at last, we got to talking properly, I found I liked her. There was a glass slit in the door, which was about an inch wide and six inches long, and through it I could see the girl. She was in the cell opposite mine and I swear to God she looked as normal as anybody else. We talked all the time until one day I could hear a noise coming from her cell and I looked over to see that she was covered in blood from head to toe. She had broken her phone card in half and was slicing herself to pieces with it. There was blood everywhere.

‘No!' I screamed. ‘Stop!'

I felt for this woman. She had lost her kids through coming to prison and she wasn't handling it too well. Who could blame her? Anyway, the screws and heavy mob burst into her cell, all in riot gear with helmets and shields as big as they were. They put her in a straitjacket and took everything out of her cell and threw her back in it with just the straitjacket on until the doctor arrived. He took the jacket off, cleaned up her wounds and then the screws put her back in the jacket. My heart went out to her. She was crying for help and needed to be in hospital, not a stinking cell.

As for me, I had been inside a week and still hadn't even been allowed a bath or a visit. I really was beginning to understand what being Cat A meant. It was the attempted-murder charge that had done it. Believe me, trying to kill a copper is the worst crime to be accused of in Britain – even actually killing one is not that much worse. On paper, it looked like I had wanted to do it but not succeeded. In their eyes, there was little difference. I mean, the police who were there should have known it was a load of old rubbish. I was doing wrong and I was up to villainy, yes, but I did not have murder on my mind and I did not try to do murders. I did not pull the trigger. I knew I was in trouble because, if I was found not guilty, the police would have lost their justification for shooting at me.

In the meantime, in the eyes of the law, I was the most dangerous woman in Britain, which meant visitors had to be vetted at the nearest police station before they were allowed anywhere near me in prison. My dad, John and my mum all came to see me as the weeks went by. My dad was my first visitor. He wanted to come sooner than a week but they wouldn't let him. When he came, they put the prison on lockdown and I was strip searched yet again before being taken to the visitor's wing by the heavy mob. Throughout the visit they stood there, two of them on either side of him and two on either side of me. Watching and listening to every private word. There was also a glass screen between me and Dad.

‘You all right, my girl?' were my dad's first words, concern written all over his face.

‘I'm having the time of my life in here, Dad,' I told him, pressing against the glass where his hand was, more worried for him than I was for myself. ‘There is a swimming pool, disco every night and it's just pure fun. It's a holiday camp, Dad.'

A big smile covered his face, the colour came back into cheeks and I could see a weight lifted from his shoulders. He was always going to worry about me but at least he knew now I was mentally strong. Of course, I didn't tell him what it was really like but Dad knew that already from his own years behind bars. I was coping. That was all he needed to know and that was what I told him. And it was true. I reminded him of his own words to me as a kid. ‘Remember what you told me as a little girl, Dad?' I asked. ‘Tough times don't last but tough people do.' When he left, he had the twinkle back in his eyes and the smile back on his face, even though I swear there was a little tear in his eye, which he tried to hide from me.

His final words were, ‘I'm proud of you, Jane, how you're handling it. We are all here for you, girl.'

I was putting Dad through hell but he put his own feelings aside and was only thinking of me and how he could help. There were tears in my eyes too that day. I was proud of him. He was the quiet but silent type and, when I needed him, he was there. ‘I love you so much, Dad,' I said as he got up to go. I wanted to
hug him so much but there was no way through that glass screen.