The Wicked Mr Hall (18 page)

S
pring 1992. I am prisoner E1489, Archibald Thompson Hall. My life is shit.

It is now thirteen years since the hunger strike. I have been moved to Full Sutton, a top-security prison twelve miles north of York. I arrived here near the end of March, after spending time in Hull, and a one-night stopover in the filthy shithole that is Leeds.

For the first few weeks, there was no work. Long boring days without stimulation. My only pleasure was to walk in the exercise yard and enjoy the intermittent sunshine. Eventually, one of my job applications was accepted and I went to work under a Mrs Valerie Foster in the Education Block. My duties were light – I ensured that the staff restroom was well supplied with light snacks and tea and coffee. Foster was nicknamed ‘The Witch’, because of her unusual dress and mannerisms. She was a chic woman
who smoked cigars, wore good perfumes, and wasn’t particuarly bound by society’s constraints.

For the most part the teachers were ‘do-gooding’ liberals whose political stance was left of centre. The more ‘right wing’ prison warders were not to their tastes, and this was displayed in non-aggressive but derisory ways, such as refusing to let uniformed staff eat from their catering supplies or drink from their cups. While in charge of the rest-room I put all my previous prison experience to good use. I hustled and persuaded and, within weeks, had acquired better crockery and a new coffee machine. Foster was pleased with my efforts. When she heard that I had a new job in the kitchens, she pleaded with me to reconsider. But the kitchen was better paid, and the chances for perks greater. I moved on.

As well as changing jobs, I was transferred from ‘B’ wing to ‘F’ wing. Within days, a young psychopath ran amok on the landing, stabbing a warder in the neck. Tension mounted on both sides. The warders were pissed off that one of their number had been attacked, and those cons wishing for a peaceful life wondered why a man who had already killed two prisoners was still roaming around free in an ordinary prison when he should have been in Broadmoor, or some other psychiatric unit. Because they were too lazy to do the paperwork, or someone’s budget couldn’t house one more man, there was a chance of a full-scale riot. The Mufti squad was on standby.

Sporadic fighting broke out between gangs of black and white cons. It was agreed that the lifers would not become involved and would let the hotheads get it out of their
system. It was obvious to anyone with an inkling of insight that some of the warders wanted a riot. It would give them licence to use their sticks and settle grievances, real or imaginary.

Thankfully, the full-scale riot never came to fruition. News came through that the new lifers’ wing, ‘C’, was ready to open. Eighty cons with life sentences were moved in – I was among them.

I settled into my new job, my new wing and my new cell. By way of celebration, I bought myself a cockatoo – Hooch. Soon this little bird became my most trusted and loved companion. That last sentence probably speaks volumes about the quality of my life.

For a few weeks all was well. The warders on ‘C’ wing were all volunteers. They chose to work with lifers because we are more cooperative. It gave them a chance to be constructive with their working days, to get good ideas, put them into action, and then see how all involved benefited. This is how a prison reform system should work. You can judge a society by its prison system, it is a measure of its progress along the path of civilisation.

For a few months all was well. Then, due to Government cutbacks and overcrowding, it was decided that anyone with a sentence of ten years or more would qualify for the wing. The junkies and hotheads piled in. Within weeks all the previous good work of cons and prison staff was wiped out. Items went missing from people’s cells, and fights ensued. The atmosphere changed as the wing swiftly went downhill.

It’s the same old story – try to save money, bung
everyone in together. One young warder with an aggressive attitude annoyed the younger prisoners so much that they set fire to the TV room, destroying it. Other social amenities were damaged. The money that the shortsighted accountants at the Home Office tried to save was spent twice over. You cannot cut corners when you are dealing with people’s lives. It is a false and stupid economic strategy.

Such is life in Full Sutton. Will I end my days here? I hope not.

17 July 1992. Today is my sixty-eighth birthday. This day, my birthday, will be like every other day.

My cell door is unlocked at 6.30am. The officer is also a man of moods. In an effort to make the most of my lot, I say pleasantly: ‘Nice summer morning, isn’t it?’ His replies are often less than courteous, the most common being: ‘If I want a fucking weather report, I’ll phone the BBC.’ Nice man.

I report to the kitchen for work. For a man of my age, the hours are long and I will not finish until 5.30pm. Tiring though it might be, eleven hours working is better than eleven hours sitting in a cell.

My tasks are menial. I wash up, clean working surfaces, peel vegetables. I don’t mind doing these simple chores. In action, I can cultivate a mental detachment. If I’m scrubbing a pan, I’m not thinking of the past or the future, for those moments there is only the pan. The killing of time is an art form. It is something I have developed. This simple philosophy was taught me years ago by an old con.
He told me that if I could discipline my mind in this way, there was a good chance of leaving prison with my sanity intact. Although I will never leave, I am grateful to that man. It is now habit. I get through the day by applying this ‘no mindedness’ to all that I do.

From 6.00–8.00pm we can, if we choose, watch TV, have a game of snooker, play table tennis, or just socialise. If the weather is nice, I walk in the yard, if inclement I will chat with friends or listen to BBC Radio Four. We have access to a kitchen. It is my chance to eat. The diarrhoea that the authorities dish up is incapable of keeping you healthy. Also, it tastes like shit. Most evenings I will cook a chicken, or a couple of nice chops. We take the food to our cells. Together with a couple of friends I will sit down to a nice meal and a few glasses of hooch – homemade wine. This is the nearest we are allowed to get to civilised behaviour. Just because I have killed does not mean that I am a mindless monster. I am capable of intelligent discussion. Although I don’t like to voice it, I am also capable of remorse. That I will save for the afterlife. For now, I need to survive. It is not good to show weakness in a place like this.

The TV room is nicknamed the ‘Beggar’s Arms’, and is always full of drunken young idiots. I rarely watch TV. I want to go to the Lifers’ Unit at Kingston, outside Portsmouth. I am a ‘natural lifer’, one of only two in the prison. If I was free I’d be on a State pension, so why should I have to serve my time with fools who are only doing ten years? They have a release date, they get drunk, shove that filthy white powder up their noses and behave
like animals. Men who will never be free have a different attitude. For us a peaceful, hassle-free, existence is the best that we can hope for. You have to make the most out of what you’ve got. A nice meal with a couple of friends, some glasses of hooch, that is what gives my life some quality. Nowadays, I think about almost everything. I have little else to do. I try to make some sense of my life.

Years ago in prison, cons would do all they could to make their life a little more bearable. This was in the days when the regimes were brutal, and drugs unheard of. Today’s cons don’t seem to exercise any sense of discretion. Instead of drinking homemade booze quietly in their cells, they wander out drunk on to the landings. This, in turn, instigates more cell searches. Those of us who have carefully hidden hooch have it poured away, and are put on charges. Why make life harder than it need be? These young idiots have no common sense or consideration. Fights and knifings are commonplace.

8.00pm is ‘lockdown’. I am grateful for the fatigue that I feel. My weary body will now accept sleep easily and in sleep there is escape. The dream state is not subject to material laws, in my dreams I am always free.

July 1994. After months of pestering and filling in forms, the Governor of the Lifers’ Unit at HMP Kingston has granted me a month’s probationary stay. This will be a quieter prison, a more relaxed regime. It has been built especially for people like me, for those getting on in years, for those whose fate it is to die within the prison system. If it is possible to get excited about moving to a
place of incarceration, then I am. I will not write again until my return.

August 1994. I returned to Full Sutton yesterday morning. To say that it filled me with a sense of dread and despair would be an understatement. I have been sitting and thinking for hours. Radios have been blaring all night. Sleep was impossible. Young cons have been arguing, the screams of their abusive threats reaching everyone’s ears. I have friends on the outside petitioning for my move and Lord Mackintosh has promised to speak up on my behalf. He is a true gentleman. There has been a change in my thought patterns – instead of blotting out the present by thinking of the days when I was a free man, I now dream of the Lifers’ Unit at Kingston. It is amazing how a human being’s expectations of what constitutes happiness can change. As a young man, happiness was the adrenalin surge of a theft and the high life that immediately followed. Now it is to watch TV in the privacy of my own prison cell, and to be free from the air of violence. If I had felt this way years ago, if I hadn’t been so consumed by greed, the tragic killings that ruined so many lives, including my own, would never have happened. Perhaps I have learned. Perhaps I have changed.

Kingston was all that I thought it would be. There was a sense of peace there that isn’t prevalent in short-term prisons. There is cooperation and even a sense of camaraderie between prisoners and warders. It is the penal system’s equivalent to a hospice. The thing that struck me most was the absence of violence and drugs. There you are
allowed, at your own expense, to have a TV in your cell. You can walk peacefully in the grounds. I pray and hope that my transfer will be granted.

The warning that they gave me on my arrival – any trouble and I would be straight back to Full Sutton – was not necessary. This is all that I want.

A
nother birthday – 17 July, 1995. Another long year has passed. I work in the kitchen, wander around aimlessly, have a meal, then 8.00pm lockdown. On this oh-so-special day, I have some birthday drinks with Gary Griffin and Rab Harper. Happy birthday!

18 July, 1995. I wake up feeling a bit pissed off. The cell seems small. I feel a rage coming. Ever since the day that I murdered Wright, I know when anger stirs inside me. I hope I’m left alone.

Tinny radios have been blaring out music for half the night. The walls hem me in more than the constant noise around me. I am a prisoner of my own sounds, my own sweat. How much sitting in a cell can a man fucking take!

There is a bad feeling in the kitchen. A Rasta, doing eight years, has an argument with a friend of mine.

19 July, 1995. The atmosphere in the kitchen is tense. I will do my job and mind my own business. Prison politics is something I have learned to avoid. During the 6.00–8.00pm social period, the bad feeling of earlier finally moves from words to action. My friend is beaten up by the Rasta. Let’s hope that’s an end to the whole affair. All the workers in the kitchen have been affected by this. We all knew how it would probably end. At 71 I want no part.

20 July, 1995. I am stopped on the landing by an old friend of mine. He is acting as mediator. He wants to know whether I am thinking of taking any revenge over the beating of my friend. I tell him I am here for the rest of my life, all I want is peace and quiet. I have no wish to become involved.

21 July, 1995. The stupid bastard Rasta wants to stab me! Why? I said I didn’t want any trouble! I have heard whispers in the kitchen. He is telling people he’s going to ‘stick’ me anyway. He’s paranoid. The threats make me angry, doesn’t the stupid young bastard realise that I have nothing to lose? I’d slit his throat just as soon as look at him. It makes no odds to me.

The whispers continue. I hear he has a blade. I take a knife from the kitchen, the biggest one there. If he fucks with me, it will be to his lasting, possibly dying, regret.

That evening I see him in the social room. As soon as he walks through the door our eyes lock. My knife is hidden in a folded newspaper. For the moment I don’t show it. He stands there watching me, his hands in his
pockets. I am the first to speak, I motion towards his pockets with my eyes: ‘Have you got something in there for me?’ The confrontation has started. Now I am ready. This young black guy, a man forty years my junior, the one insistent on causing trouble, doesn’t answer. I have been in and out of prison for fifty years. I know that if you are shown to be weak you are finished. I slide the knife out from under the newspaper. Standing up, I walk over to him. I lift up my T-shirt and show him my fat seventy-one-year-old belly: ‘Go on, stick whatever you’ve got into that. Go on!’

I show him my knife: ‘But be sure of one thing, you won’t leave this room alive.’ I look him straight in the eyes and smile. The smile is a death smile, colder than ice.

His hands come out of his pockets without a knife. ‘No. No trouble, man. I just wanna keep me head down and do me time.’ I thought he was going to apologise for breathing. The old, like the young, can be vulnerable in prisons. Now that I have the upper hand, I give my coup de grâce. With my left hand I unzip my fly and pull out my cock. The fool who had started all the trouble looked at it for a second, then, unsure of what to do, stared at the wall opposite. I flop my flaccid penis around in my hand, my eyes still boring into him: ‘Is this what you want? Do you want to suck my cock?’

With his head bowed he walked away. My tactics had been severe, some would say over the top. But neither this man nor any man watching would give me trouble without good cause. The old one survives.

August, 1995. I am told that my services in the kitchen are no longer required. My job is being given to a younger man. They have retired me.

Perhaps their plan is to bore me to death. Without a job, I am left only with my memories, my cockatoo, and my friends.

My sexual needs are not as prodigious as they once were, but occasionally opportunities arise. Due to my experience and open-mindedness, I am viewed differently from the run-of-the-mill rabble. Young men, when they have been locked away for a long time sometimes seek a father figure, a human being, without the crass macho façade portrayed by so many in here. Sexuality is a fragile thing. Many people harbour fantasies they are frightened to voice. If they awarded Olympic medals for sexual repression, the British would win gold.

A short while ago I noticed a young man in his mid-thirties. We were both having visits, me from an old friend, him from his wife and children. When it was time for visitors to leave, I watched this young con kiss his gorgeous model-like wife passionately. He hugged and kissed his two young daughters. To all intents and purposes this was a heterosexual family man doing time.

A short while later this same man knocked on my cell door and asked whether he could have a word with me. I felt the conversation was slightly false, as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t summon up the courage. Eventually the small talk finished and he asked me whether there was anything he could do for me for £5. Now, I knew that he knew of my ambiguous sexual
orientation. They all did. I said to him: ‘What do you mean anything?’ He looked into my eyes and repeated: ‘Anything!’ Now, we both knew what we were discussing. This young man was finally coming to terms with the fact that, under certain circumstances, he was willing to have gay sex. He wanted to.

I told him that if he wanted to do it, he should do it. But not for £5, why prostitute himself? It turned out that the money was just an excuse, an acceptable way of saying something that his conscious mind had difficulty accepting. His real fear was that the other cons would get to hear of it. I assured him that I was the soul of discretion. He nodded, a nod of compliance. I keep a wooden wedge in my cell for reasons of privacy during the hours that the doors are unlocked. I told him to put the wedge in the door. An hour after this family man had kissed his wife goodbye, he was having sex with me. I say again, sexuality is a fragile thing, shaped by we know not what. It is wrong for any of us to judge consenting adults. Under slightly different circumstances it could be us.

When I walk out of a visiting-room I never look back. In my mind, I compartmentalise my contact with the outside world. My visitors, my friends out there, have no way of understanding my life in here. I enjoy their company, I like to hear how things have changed, it’s like hearing second-hand about heaven.

Full Sutton has its fair share of ‘faces’, people of known repute. Ronnie O’Sullivan Senior, father of the famous snooker player, is on the wing. He’s a London villain of some stature. Porn, robbery, murder, he was, as they say, ‘at
it’ in quite a significant way. He is a pleasant man with no interest in prison politics. I like him.

Jeremy Bamber arrived from Long Lartin. This is a man who is a problem for the authorities. He was found guilty of murdering his parents, his sister and her two children in order to inherit half a million pounds. He is notorious, hated by most cons. He has been subjected to various attacks and beatings. In order to survive he has got himself super fit and, in a one-on-one situation, he is a dangerous man. He claims he is innocent. That is not unusual, many do. Personally I keep an open mind, I have seen many men win appeals. When asked about him, I state my opinion – leave him be. Which one of us can be certain of knowing the truth?

Three of my closest friends here are Hugh Docherty, Eddie Butler and Joe O’Connell, all members of the Provisional IRA. In 1975, while on the run from the police, they entered a flat in the Marylebone area of central London, and took hostage the two occupants. It became known as the Balcombe Street Siege. They were each sentenced to thirty years. These men are not really criminal types – when they were active in the IRA they were young men filled with the fire of political activism.

Britain imposed its will on Ireland and the Irish. They put Protestants in a Catholic country and annexed it. What do they expect? With any country it would be a stupid thing to do, but, knowing the Irish temperament, the Gaelic fire, it was a stupendously idiotic thing to do. As long as the British are in Ireland the Troubles will continue. The sentences they dish out to the young Irishmen who take up
arms against them are ridiculously harsh. They say that for offences committed on the mainland they must be imprisoned on the mainland. But, if as Westminster claims, part of Ireland is British soil, then why not at least let them serve their sentences back in Ireland, where it would be easier for their families to visit them? Thirty years! Thirty years is an incredibly long time. A just legal system should be a compassionate legal system. Young hotheads turn into mellow middle-aged men. They have been behind bars for twenty years, it is time for mercy. Time for clemency. Let the sons of Ireland return home. They have paid the price for their indiscretions. Lack of mercy just fuels hate in those to whom hate comes easily. By its very actions the British Government ensures that the Troubles will continue.

If friends are important on the outside, they are even more important on the inside. In Gary Griffin and Tony Murray I have two of the best the world could offer. Gary is a young man serving a life sentence for murder. The judge gave a recommendation of fifteen years. That would have been a fair sentence if he had actually murdered anyone, but he didn’t. His crime, and I use the term in its loosest possible sense, was one of misguided loyalty. Gary’s employer was a jealous man whose wife had taken up with an Arab. One evening his boss, with Gary in tow, went to visit his estranged wife. Unbeknown to Griffin, his boss was carrying a knife and had murderous intent. The wife was stabbed to death. Gary’s mistake was that, once the deed was done, he failed to phone the police and distance himself from the crime. Along with his employer he was found guilty and given life. In prison Griffin uses his time constructively. He is
studying for an Open University degree and keeps clear of drugs and trouble. He is principled and moral. The police and the court’s assumption that he is a murderer is just that – an assumption. And it is a mistaken one.

Tony Murray is a completely different kettle of fish. A self-made millionaire from Liverpool, Tony owns pubs and nightclubs. His twelve-year sentence is at the moment under appeal, so I won’t say too much about it. Suffice to say, he is accused of being a drugs baron. Tony is a kind man. He is a working-class kid from the inner city who ended up as a neighbour of Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson in the leafy suburbs of Cheshire. If Tony Murray is guilty of the charges levelled against him, one thing is certain, he would never condone drugs being sold to children. He would never encourage people to take drugs for the first time.

Drugs are now part of the fabric of modern society – where there is a demand, a supply will sooner or later show itself. For a man who is basically just an entrepreneur to be given a longer sentence than many rapists and paedophiles is disgusting.

January, 1996. Age is a terrible thing, everything starts to go south and everything starts to fail. Now, it is my eyes. After seeing the prison doctor on a number of occasions an appointment is made for me to go to York Infirmary and have a preliminary examination. They tell me I have a cataract in my right eye. A date for the operation is set. I am pleased something is to be done, as blindness frightens me. To be blind at any time is bad enough, but to be without
sight in a place like this would be hell. Half of my vision is very blurred.

The morning of the operation has eventually arrived. The warders who are to act as my escort come to my cell. I am given a light-blue cotton suit to wear. The material is no thicker than that of summer pyjamas. I am taken out of the prison under heavy escort. They must think a 72-year-old half-blind man could overpower them and outrun them. The situation is made even more ludicrous and more humiliating by the fact that the trousers they have given me are so ill-fitting that they keep slipping down. With my hands handcuffed and connected by a chain to a warder in front of me, I cannot even pull them up myself. Every few feet, one of the warders behind me has to pull them up. The half dozen young men who surround me are all wrapped up well against the bitter weather. The wind cuts right through my thin cotton suit and I shiver uncontrollably.

This is the first time I have been outside a prison in years. I am a pensioner in poor health who will never be freed. The chances are I will never see the outside world again. But would they allow me the dignity of wearing clothes that fitted me, or take the chains off? No. I walked into the hospital with my trousers falling down every few paces, handcuffs on show, and chained to a guard. I was like a sideshow freak, attracting stares from all I passed. I don’t ask for sympathy, I don’t ask to be released, just for a little kindness, just to be let to walk down a hospital corridor without being treated like a wild animal. I’m surprised they didn’t put a face mask on me like Hannibal Lecter. Even on the operating table, the chains stayed on.

If the prison authorities shamed themselves by their behaviour, the civilian doctors and nurses didn’t. Doctor Jacobs and his staff were most courteous and kind.

Back at the prison I go straight to my bed. Friends call on me to see that I’m alright. The prison doctor never came near me. As my eye heals, it weeps continuously. I can’t even get any cotton wool with which to dab it. In the end, an old-time warder kindly brings me some from his own home. I am very thankful for this small act of kindness. The years of incarceration have instilled in me a humility that I never had as a young man. I am aware of the change.