Once Upon a Crime (11 page)

I said my goodbyes to Chrissie Davis. It was quite emotional as I had grown very close to him and we were almost like
brothers. But the die was cast and there was no going back. I had no regrets. Even if one or more of those fucking beasts had snuffed I couldn’t have given a fuck.

The following morning I spotted the heavy team coming for us from my cell window. They were over a dozen-handed and made up of the biggest screws in the jail. I called out to Bryn along the landing and he came to my cell. We had a few words and with one final hug we wished each other all the best. I had told Bryn that we would be split up and that my best guess was that I would be taken to Cardiff jail with Bryn heading eastwards, possibly Winchester or London. The heavy team came into the wing and were a little taken aback to see me and Bryn all packed and ready to go. One of them even remarked that this could be taken as an admission of guilt but I said, ‘Not at all. We were simply forewarned that we were to be “ghosted” out by one of your own who owed me a favour.’

It was with regret that I wasn’t able to say goodbye to a friend named John Dalliston, who I’d met only a few weeks earlier. He was another Londoner, from Hackney in the East End, 35 years old and serving 15 years for bank robbery. John had come to my attention when I spotted that he was ‘on the book’ – this meant any A category, high-risk prisoner who was escorted everywhere by two screws and whose every movement was noted in a book carried by one of the screws.

I knew that being on the book could make life very difficult so I went over to John and introduced myself and asked if there was anything he needed or wanted. There was a rapport between us right from the start. John had recently had a visit and had managed to smuggle in a tenner and asked if I would be able to get him tobacco. I had a screw in hand who would do the business for me and I was also able to get any messages
or ‘stiffs’ out for him. What John gave me in return was invaluable – the benefit of years of experience as a professional bank robber and inside knowledge on how to go about being successful in the art of robbery. I soaked up everything he told me and we became firm friends.

John was a fund of hilarious stories and such a smashing fella – a typical London villain, generous, warm-hearted and totally reliable. John confided in me that he was finding his sentence hard to deal with because he was missing his wife and daughters so much. But he always kept his chin up and his self-respect and dignity in place. He was a very impressive man and he taught me that it is how you conduct yourself during the hard times that defines who you are as a person.

While never denying he was a bank robber, John always claimed he had been fitted up for the 15 stretch he was serving. Along with a group called the Wembley mob, he had been grassed up by one of their own and the first supergrass, the infamous Bertie Smalls. The Wembley mob were generally acknowledged to have been the best and most proficient team of bank robbers Britain has ever seen and apart I was to get to know a few of them quite well.

There is one small curious incident worth recounting regarding John. He had been ghosted out of Long Lartin top security jail in Worcestershire after he had flattened an enormous black guy, a bully boy who had pushed his luck once too often. John had knocked the guy spark out with a right-hander, dragged him into his peter and waited for him to regain consciousness. He then told him that he would fucking cripple him if he had any more of his nonsense. The slag had gone straight to the screws with the result that John found himself shanghaied to Horfield. The curious thing is that a similar confrontation with the same huge, black guy
lay ahead for me in Long Lartin, but for now I didn’t know where I was going. I looked on all of this as a wee bit of an adventure and at the very least, it did break up the day.

B
ryn was the first to be shipped out after the beasts were damaged. I was sorry at being split up as I had grown very fond of him. He had certainly shown how staunch he was and he was a really smashing fella.

Then it was my turn to go and half a dozen screws supervised as I was cuffed and escorted to a prison van. There were no windows in the back of the ‘ghost train’ but I wasn’t sorry to be leaving as I had been there for more than 18 months and they say a change is as good as a rest. I had met some great guys and I had also managed to do a fair bit of studying and passed the examination for English literature. My love of reading had never left me and I had devoured books on the Roman and Greek civilisations as well as the ancient Egyptians. I has also developed an interest in archaeology and astronomy which continues to this day.

The journey came to an end much sooner than I had anticipated and the only prison that would be suitable to hold me nearby was Cardiff. Sure enough, as soon as we had
been checked through the gates of the prison I heard the Welsh accent that I had became so familiar with in talking to Bryn. I was told that I was to be kept in Cardiff for a six-week cooling-off period.

I was placed in a small cubicle before being escorted onto A wing and was approached by the reception orderly, a guy of about 30 and quite a big lump. I had noticed him talking to the screws just before he made his entrance. I sensed trouble in the air and I wasn’t wrong. ‘So you are the hard man from Bristol, eh?’ he said. ‘You fucking jocks are all the same: no use.’

He had obviously been put up to this by the screws and I wasn’t about to disappoint them. I flew up from the chair and laid right into him. The speed, surprise and aggression caught him off guard and in a second he was lying flat on his back. I looked over at the screws who had been standing watching all this and I said to them with real contempt in my voice, ‘Show over. You need to get a new boy.’

All they could muster in reply was the usual ‘You are on report, Cryans.’

At slopping-out time later on I nipped along to the other cells and introduced myself. A couple of doors along from me was a guy doing 12 years who had been ghosted out of Long Lartin. Further along the landing was a really smashing fella doing 18 years for shooting two guys in a club in London. His real occupation was a bank robber and it turned out that we had many mutual friends. He wasn’t much older than me yet he had a maturity about him and I was full of admiration for the way he conducted himself.

Although I had some trouble over the fight I’d had at admission, I found that the governor was fairly straight in his dealings with me. He told me that after careful consideration he had decided to give me the opportunity to prove to him that
I could turn a corner in terms of my anti-authority attitude. I would be assigned to a place on the painters’ party. This was a really good work assignment as it entailed working alongside a screw who was a qualified painter and whose job was to go around the prison carrying out any jobs that were required. I would be his assistant. I knew that the governor was taking a bit of a chance with me but I thanked him and assured him he wouldn’t regret giving me this opportunity, and I meant it.

I was introduced to the screw I would be working with, who immediately set the tone by saying, ‘Hi, my name is Alan.’ This was a whole new experience for me, coming from a screw and I felt at ease straight away. I knew that we were going to hit it off. I was truly happy and was able to relax for the first time since I had started this sentence. We got on like the proverbial house on fire but if you had told me a few short weeks earlier that I would be having this type of relationship with a prison officer, I would have laughed and told you to fuck off.

One other thing happened that made a vast difference to my quality of life was when I went down to the gym and spoke to the instructor. As soon as I mentioned Bryn’s name he couldn’t do enough for me and it was arranged that I could come down to the gym as often as I liked. I had also told him that I was a keen footballer and he arranged for me to have a game with one of the teams in a forthcoming prison tournament. After that one game he put me straight into the prison team that played in a local league. I was made captain and I was very proud.

My life had been completely turned around from a few short weeks before when I had been regarded as a bit of a pariah and a hopeless case by those in authority. I got on really well with everyone and I got to know Welsh people other than the brilliant Bryn Jones. I was completely won over by them and
found them to be warm-hearted, generous and passionate about life in general and football and rugby in particular. And of course they do like a good sing-song. I loved them. I would have quite happily finished the rest of my sentence in Cardiff.

My ma made the long and difficult journey from Newbury one Saturday and we had a great visit. It was so good to see her again and I knew that she was relieved to see me looking so well and more importantly that I was doing so well and at last seemed to have settled down. I told her that I would probably be on the move again as the six-week cooling-off period was almost over. I had no idea where my next port of call would be but I assured her that I would let her know. It was always difficult saying goodbye to my wee ma. I owed her so much and God knows how I would have coped without the love and support she gave me.

One Friday afternoon my boss had me carrying a pair of 20ft ladders with him. I was still a long-term prisoner who was categorised as dangerous and high risk, so for me to be walking through the jail carrying a ladder was a wee bit surreal. Things got even stranger because as we approached the perimeter wall Alan then stopped and placing the ladder against the wall, told me that the top of the wall needed to be weeded! It was one of the few prison walls that was not topped with razor wire and there were no cameras. I was starting to get a wee bit paranoid thinking that this was a set-up and they were going to do me for attempted escape. Alan saw my discomfort and said, ‘It’s all right, Jimmy. I trust you, so just relax.’

Cardiff jail sits almost in the centre of the town and I had a perfect view of everything. Just a few feet below me people were walking about and doing the everyday normal things that I had taken for granted when I was a free man. It was a beautiful sunny September day and I can still feel the wonder
and excitement I experienced as I sat astride that prison wall all those years ago. Alan walked away to do another job and left me totally alone.

I have to admit that the thought of dropping over the wall did cross my mind but only for a second. For one thing, I wasn’t prepared and for another I was not going to betray the trust that Alan had placed in me. Now, that may sound strange. I mean, I was a prisoner and I am talking about betraying a prison officer, but he had treated me with respect and had always talked to me as an equal and he was a decent man.

I remained in Cardiff largely because I was an integral part of both the prison football team and because Alan had said that he could totally rely on me. This really was a first for me. In every other prison they could not get rid of me quick enough and here I was in Cardiff with two prison officers fighting my corner so I would not be shipped out. The governor of Cardiff has to take a lot of the credit for this turnaround in my behaviour because, without a doubt, it was his treatment of me that proved to be the catalyst. It really wasn’t rocket science – he just used some common sense and he obviously had excellent man-management skills. Crucially he treated me as a person and not just a number. Now, here I was, just a few short weeks after arriving in Cardiff under a very dark cloud, being looked upon as a valued member of two separate groups, the works painters and the prison football team. It was nice to feel wanted and for the first time not by the old bill.

But in the first week of November I was told I was to be moved back over the border into England and up the M6 to Birmingham, where I would be lodged in one of Britain’s oldest, dirtiest and most overcrowded prisons: the insalubrious Winson Green.

I arrived on a cold, wet and miserable Wednesday afternoon
and the difference between the Green, as it was known, and Cardiff jail was like night and day. It was a complete and utter shithole and I knew right from the off that I was back among the old routine and that I would have to revert to the old me to keep ahead of the game in this toilet.

I was led over onto B wing and shown into a cell which was occupied by two large Rastafarian West Indians. The cell was without any doubt the dirtiest fucking khazi I had ever seen. I said, ‘Now look, guys, no disrespect to the pair of you but I have no intention of staying in this fucking toilet so I am going to have to perform. And before you say anything, it has got fuck all to do with you being black. I am getting on the bell, and when the screw comes I am going to tell him that if I am not moved then I will start stabbing people.’

This was one of those occasions when the Glasgow reputation can be very useful, as most of the English thought we always carried blades and were forever stabbing and slashing people. The screw did not open the door but instead looked through the Judas hole and growled, ‘What is it?’

I roared back, ‘Fucking move me out of this shithole or I will fucking stab the first one of you I see when this door is unlocked. Now fuck off, ya arsehole.’

After about 15 minutes a prison officer turned up with half a dozen screws in tow. ‘Right, Cryans, what is all this nonsense about stabbing my officers?’

I looked him straight in the eye and said, ‘You can put me down the block, I really don’t give a fuck, but if you do not move me out of this fucking tip now, then I will fucking do one of you.’

He shut the door in my face but I could hear that they did not move away and there was obviously some kind of discussion going on. What I had just done was not to be
taken lightly – and I mean by me – because at this time Winson Green had a reputation of treating prisoners in a brutal fashion. The papers had been full of the treatment meted out to the so-called Birmingham pub bombers during the past couple of years.

The cell door was once again unlocked and opened and the prison officer said, ‘Right, Cryans, get your kit. You are going down the block and if you start any of your nonsense then my officers will deal with it and they have plenty of experience dealing with your type.’

‘Aye,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard all about how you deal with guys in this pitch – team-handed. So fucking what? Just get me down the block then you can all have a nice cup of tea.’ I was escorted down to the solitary cells where I was more than happy to go. Spartan they may have been but they suited me just fine.

Two days later the governor personally ensured I was shipped out to Long Lartin. As jails go, this was one of the better ones as the cons were pretty much left alone. It was home to some of Britain’s most notorious and dangerous prisoners and I had quite a few friends who were already there. No matter what awaited me I knew that it would be an improvement on my present conditions, so let the games begin.