I've never run a guest blog before - but with the election fast approaching, this prison story involving an individual now closely involved with the Ministry of Justice is too significant to omit from my site...
Wings Clipped
Fundamentally, having made a cataclysmic mistake – and being
(deservedly) jailed for it, prison was a life-changing experience. The disgrace
within me still aches to this day. They could have sent me home on the first
night – I got it as I was walked trembling
onto a prison wing as a customer – back on that evening of July 25th,
2011.
Perhaps it might be an idea to show more people around
prisons – young people – to maybe deter possible future errors of judgement.
Just an idea.
And there lies the rub. Our prison system is so lacking in
off the wall ideas within the walls. Worse – viewed from the inside, there
seemed to be very little cooperation between the countless agencies working
within the desultory system. “This is my bat and ball – and you’re not playing
with it,” appeared to be the ethos of the day.
When the nightmare ended, the book that had kept me going –
both sanity wise – and as something constructive to occupy my time – in the
trade it’s called purposeful activity – I had to create my own – did, thank
god, get released to the big wide world.
It’s now paying the rent, putting food on the table and
clothing me.
Other than that, I don’t have a job. Haven’t had one since I
got out. More of that – and why – later.
As I write this, I can feel a resident of Hexham getting
twitchy.
Becoming an author made me feel like an imposter. Writing
this as someone who works within the CJS makes me even more the great pretender
– as I don’t. I just bang the drum a lot on the telly and the wireless about
what I saw not going on – and what I believe we could be doing… Through being a
non-stop pest, I have tried to up the profile on good practice in clink by
visiting some prisons with the like of Russell Brand, Frances Crook, The Guardian’s Eric Allison, Derek Martin,
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Sir Lenny Henry, and both Sadiq Khan and Lord
Falconer when both had Shadow Justice Minister titles.
When IN IT came
out, a new Justice Minister came in. He was called Chris Grayling. He’s now
something to do with the railways. For an individual not keen on the
combination of books and prisoners, his staff were surprisingly interested in
what I’d written from the sharp end as their house-guest and met with me. They
grilled me with questions like “why doesn’t prison work?”
Michael Howard wasn’t there. He’d be cross.
Mr Grayling’s team were frightened of something called the Daily Mail. They went a funny colour
when I talked to them of the pornographic channels being available on E wing at
HMP Bedford.
There’s a whoppingly huge percentage of adult prisoners who
are completely illiterate. When I asked Mr Grayling’s team what they were going
to do about their prison education provider, a company called A4e, banning the
prison approved literacy scheme – then called Toe by Toe, now called Turning
Pages – in an open resettlement (?) prison they said they “couldn’t comment on
a specific incident.”
Having been ordered by then Head of Education at HMP Maplins
– sorry – Hollesley Bay, (tennis court and sea views) to “scrub Toe by Toe” and
“there will be no Toe by Toe in this prison” I spent five minutes a day
emptying a waste-paper basket – the rest of the time sunbathing. It’s something
called purposeful activity.
During the last election campaign – yes, the last one, not
this one – I regularly Tweeted a quote from a man called David Cameron. His
sensible words were “in prison, people cannot read. They need help. It’s common
sense.” My electronic social media bombardment aimed at the diversity between
political HMP rhetoric and actual events in prison caused someone in Number Ten
to make a phone call.
It’s called being on the back foot.
Politicians are unfailingly an odd lot. Another one got in
touch. The MP for the constituency of Hexham. He was called Guy Opperman. He
used to have something to do with horses. He had interest in prisons and was
writing a book. The switch from nags to lags induced him to ask for my help. He
was always very quick on the draw at calling me when he needed something. He
came out with some belters. Referrals to “obstructive and disinterested prison
officers” in an email to me made me think I was dealing with a straightforward
gentleman. Someone with some integrity.
When Mr Opperman’s book came out, I arranged for Jonathan
Aitken to attend the launch. Yours truly was the other ex-prisoner at the
event. If you were an ex-con, you could only be there if you were called
Jonathan.
It’s a small world. At said event was the head honcho of the
education provider who had banned Toe by Toe at Hollesley Bay. She later sent
me emails saying it wasn’t them who’d done it – but “HMPS staff, or Learn
Direct staff.” When I emailed her back naming the individual who had ordered
the cessation of the proven-to-reduce-reoffending-reading scheme, together with
a link to the gentleman’s name from their company website, she never responded.
My amazement at the lack of holding one’s hands-up to
cock-ups by people at the helm of our prison system galvanised me into a campaign
of revealing the truth. A relentless slog within the media. I got there in the
end when Michael Spurr, CEO of something then called NOMS, now called something
else – and probably something else again when – inevitably – Mrs May’s dust has settled after
June 8, publicly declared at a Prisoners Education Trust event that “the prison
education provider made a huge mistake banning Toe by Toe in an open
resettlement prison.”
I still savour that moment.
One of the major aids to stopping ex-prisoners reoffending
is employment. The only letters next to my name before being imprisoned were
QHI – which in English means I was a qualified helicopter instructor. Friends
of mine still talking to me almost man-handled me down to Gatwick Airport where
those in charge of matters aviation – the CAA – reside, to explore the notion
of returning to my trade. The CAA interviewed me and decreed that if people
were willing to give me a positive reference – I could indeed go back to work.
They asked for a list of ten people (“no ex-cons though”) who would be willing
to vouch for me.
I contacted ten people. All of them said yes – they’d be
happy to give me a reference. The CAA selected two individuals from the list,
my MP and Guy Opperman MP.
My MP sent a reference by return of post. Mr Opperman went abruptly
quiet. The CAA chased him. I chased him. Stories of “being very busy” but
“quite happy to give a reference” were emailed from Mr Opperman’s office to me and copied into the CAA.
Then the bombshell dropped. Mr Opperman’s office told me “he
had been told by the Chairman of the Tory party not to give me a reference.”
The CAA emailed me saying because of this – it meant something sinister and up-in-smoke my
return to aviation – and employment went.
When the Justice Select Committee invited Mr Opperman to
give his version of events he did indeed acknowledge that I had asked him for a
reference – but he “had said no”. He
failed to admit that he had said yes – both orally to me – and in writing
to me and the CAA – before changing
his mind.
This rather got up my nose. Some Tweets were fired off
Hexham way. Mr Opperman followed me on Twitter. Then blocked me. Then he had
his girlfriend ring my PR people asking me to delete the tweets “as it’s
hurting Guy.”
I said no.
Mr Opperman is (currently) chief whip for the (current)
Secretary of State Elizabeth Truss (the lover of cheese) at something called
the Ministry of Justice.
During my very short tenure at the tiller of campaigning for
prison reform – independently – we’ve seen Messrs Grayling and Gove – who spoke a lot of sense – Dr Who Regenerated into Miss Truss, who,
I met in a London prison (we were both guests). On introduction, her assistant
piped up “I’ve just read IN IT”.
She’ll go far.
We toured the Bad Boys
Bakery. Enthusiastic inmates plied the Justice Minister with cakes. I made
sure they didn’t contain the wrong type of cheese.
Miss Truss quizzed me as to who I was. I piped up that I’m
the fella who has made a bit of a stink about Toe by Toe being banned in an
open resettlement prison.
Her reply?
“What’s Toe by Toe?”
What happens after June 8? That’s the quandary…
Jonathan
Robinson.
Robinson
is a former prisoner and alleged author. He served 17 in weeks in prison from a
15 month sentence for theft. He advocates for prison time to be purposeful
time. www.JonathanRobinson.org
