We grabbed a couple more officers – he was on an unlock – and KK went in.
‘What have you been doing, Mark? Why didn’t you mention this to us? Why have you waited until Tuesday morning? Let’s have a look at what you’ve done.’
So he rolled up his sleeve and showed her these pathetic superficial scratches. The sort you might get on a twig while gardening, only not as deep.
KK, being very astute, turned to me, ‘Don’t say a word, Mr Samworth.’
She asked him why he’d done it. ‘Oh, I’ve been feeling down all weekend.’
I wanted to strangle the fucking prick. That’s how he was, pathetic to the core.
One lad, Billy Thorpe, had AIDS and the reason I’m telling you that is because he told everyone himself. He was getting on a bit, poor at coping, and I felt sorry for him. He came in to us a few times, largely due to talking about having AIDS on K Wing or wherever. You can imagine how that must have gone down. He didn’t need to be on healthcare, could have been handled perfectly well elsewhere, but his openness made him vulnerable.
Billy was an easy-going bloke who’d chat with anyone, including Mark Bridger, despite getting a bit frail and suffering the onset of Alzheimer’s. This particular day he was crying.
‘What’s up, Billy?’
‘I don’t know what to do . . . I can’t speak . . . I don’t . . .’ sobbing away.
‘What’s up?’
‘Can we go in the office?’
So I took him in the office and enlisted the services of KK. I can do tears, but she did them better. ‘What’s wrong, Billy? Has something upset you?’
‘Mark Bridger killed a child. It’s been on telly.’
‘Has it? And what did you think he’d done?’
‘He told me he were in for armed robbery.’
That was Bridger through and through. He spun lies to everyone.
Bridger was taken off unlock for a while but then, as his trial approached, I put him back on one. By then, everyone in healthcare knew what he’d done and it was for his own protection. If your cell was on X landing, an outside wall, your window faced K Wing, whose prisoners, overlooking, could see in. Until we moved him to Y landing, within the unit, all sorts was shouted across – ‘You’re dead, Bridger!’ and worse. It was continuous.
On healthcare we had some real hard cases in, as always – heavy-duty murderers and all sorts. So why nobody there had a go at damaging him, I can’t tell you. Perhaps they liked the wing and didn’t want moving off, or were won over by his greasy charm, I don’t know.
Bridger wasn’t stupid. He knew I were no muppet and wasn’t for wearing his shite. I made him wary. I wouldn’t sit and talk to him about anything. Normally I was quite sociable. I’d sit in association and talk to James Whitehead for two and a half hours. This dick? No. But every day I’d see him, creepy as fuck with the nurses.
‘Samikins,’ said KK one morning, ‘could you have a word with Mark Bridger?’ Pouting face on, not happy. She held out her hand to reveal a ball of tissue. I unwrapped it and inside was a razor with no blade. A prisoner having a shave would be locked behind their door, and we’d put a little sign on saying a razor was in there. We’d then take that razor back, in case they removed the blade to harm themselves. ‘This is how he gave me it,’ she said, riled that this dickhead thought she wouldn’t check before throwing it in the bin.
I got up, instantly in Jonathan Vass mode. Bridger was disrespecting this unit. The politicians and governor wouldn’t be happy with what I was about to do, but I didn’t give a fuck. He was a prisoner like any other, in fact far worse than many, and needed putting in his place.
He was in the cell on the end of the landing, left-hand side, Y11. I shot the bolt and sat on his bed. ‘Now listen, you prick,’ I said, keeping my voice low for added menace. ‘If you ever try to take any of us for clowns again, hide razors, look at someone funny, whatever, I will make your life hell.’
I’ve got quite a physical presence, and when I’m in that mood few are going to argue, even a bloke with such a violent past. In 2004, he’d been convicted of threatening a police officer with a machete and, three years later, received a suspended sentence for punching someone in an argument over a boiler. Well, he was nearly crying by the time I finished laying down the law. I got the blade back, slammed the door and stomped away down to the office. When KK walked in I was doing my ACCT forms.
‘Thanks for that, Mr Samworth,’ she said, a resigned look on her face.
Mark Bridger realized very early on that coming straight into Manchester healthcare meant he was in deep shit – the rest of prison must be out to get him. So he dreamed up a new line of defence. He started acting strange, embarrassing, playing the mental health card. Bradders knew what he was up to, but played along.
‘What’s up, Mark? Can we help?’
‘It’s April,’ he said, ‘she’s visiting me every night.’
He was at it about a month. The police called a specialist doctor out. If he went to court and was judged mentally unwell it would damage the case. At the very worst he’d get a life sentence with diminished responsibility.
One dinnertime I was on the servery with two orderlies. Sandy would normally have been there, but she was in a cell with one of the nursing assistants. I noticed that something was missing from the hot plate. Spaghetti hoops, I was told.
Had we run out? Had they found a way to smoke or inject them?
‘They’re under the servery, Mr S.,’ said the orderly. Sandy had told him to put them there or our infamous resident wouldn’t come out. ‘Bridger says it was April’s favourite meal.’
I wasn’t having him taking the piss to I went to his cell and tore into him again. ‘Get your dinner!’ As he neared the hot plate, he stopped and turned away, as if in fright. So I took him back to his cell and slammed him back behind his door. Sandy and me had a ding-dong about that but it was soon over.
We had an orderly, let’s call him ‘J’. He was on an IPP sentence – inside probation as opposed to outside probation – and I was his personal officer. I saw him through a good couple of years and actually spoke at a couple of parole board meetings, which I hadn’t done before. He was a Londoner, been up to no good, armed robberies, but polite as you like, especially with female staff, which was very welcome on healthcare. Model prisoner.
One day I was stood talking to Bridger, a rare event, and he was having a bit of a whinge when J walked up. Now, I thought Mark Bridger was Welsh; probably people still think he is. But J overheard and said to him, ‘What part of London are you from?’
I thought J had gone mad, but Bridger comes out with the name of an estate that our orderly immediately recognized. ‘Fucking hell, do you know so-and-so . . .’ J said, and named one of his cousins.
‘Yeah,’ said Bridger. ‘My sister’s married to his brother,’ or similar. Anyhow, they’d got some sort of shared relationship and Bridger, Jack the Lad, deceitful, then thinks they’ve got a bond.
Not long after this, J came to me. ‘Mr S., can I have a word?’
‘What’s up?’ I said. He looked perturbed.
‘I’ve just had a chat with Mark Bridger.’
‘Go on.’
‘He told me what he’s done to that girl.’
I went, ‘Right?’
‘Yeah. I’ve got to tell someone.’ So he told me something that, other than writing it on a report to security, I’ve never repeated. It was very disturbing indeed, so I asked J if he needed some counselling; if so we’d sort him out.
Almost immediately the police wanted J moving, at least off the wing. He was like a one-man cleaning army, him, so I was pissed off about that, but the police believed that what Bridger told J was the closest description of what actually happened as had so far come to light. If the trial wasn’t going well, they may well call upon him as a witness, so they had to be separated.
The day Bridger left, within an hour I had J back on healthcare as an orderly. Given the amount of bodily
fluids we had to deal with, the nurses needed him.
I could deal with prisoners getting angry or in my face. When a fight looked likely, I could handle it. I had boundaries, knew what I was dealing with. But when someone’s just mooching along, trying it on, slimy as a slug that needs salt, I found that so much harder to deal with. I did a lot of overtime, so could be around him six or seven days a week, twelve hours a day. ‘Oh, Mr Samworth, can I have a shower? Oh, Mr Samworth, can I do this or that?’ All that airy-fairy politeness was nauseating. I wanted to smash him in his face. He drove me absolutely bonkers.
Healthcare staff were offered the chance to attend his trial, to help deal with any demons I suppose. I turned down the opportunity. I didn’t want to spend another moment in that monster’s company, and certainly didn’t want to hear any of his lying and wheedling while giving evidence. To him, people were just pieces in a sick game, waiting to be played.
What I did enjoy about Mark Bridger was his sentencing. He was given a whole of life term, and rightly so. While at Strangeways he’d lived in relative comfort, knew the staff and was high profile, people sniffing around him all the time. Now he was sent to Wakefield prison – Monster Mansion. When the Wakefield staff came to pick him up from our Cat A reception, I smiled to see him shaking, white with dread.
In July 2013, when driving into work, I heard on the radio he’d been slashed. A violent rapist got hold of him and that’s prisoner retribution for you. He’d cut Bridger’s throat and scarred him for life.
I’ve thought about capital punishment a lot; prison officers do talk about it. When you move among murderers and the very lowest forms of human life it would be odd if you didn’t. There are some very unpleasant people inside that civilized folk would be better off without.
I’ve come to the view, though, that it’s not so simple. Prison can be a far worse punishment. Every time Mark Bridger looks in a mirror he’ll see that scar and fear for his life, won’t he? Maybe it’s better that him, Dale Cregan and others like them live a hundred years, every single day of it in suffering and fear, the drawn-out death they deserve.
On the other hand, for the families of victims, execution would at least ensure those killers are no longer a threat, physically or emotionally. Their photos won’t be in the media constantly, as Ian Brady and Myra Hindley’s were, churning up terrible memories.
When push comes to shove, I’d go with the wishes of the people affected.
18. Damaged Goods
The worst prisoners in Strangeways were put in the challenging behaviour programme, housed in a special intervention unit with four or five cells, like the SIU above seg’ in E Wing. Stricter security, less association, a far tougher regime. It’s intended to address their behaviour or even rehabilitate them. Counselling is available, and psychiatric help, with a view to getting them back into the prison population at large. It’s a worthy idea, but it doesn’t always work.
Some religious extremists are dealt with under that scheme and, let me tell you, having met many of them, they are not going to change. They might be under tighter security restrictions, but at some point when people’s guards are down and they are back on normal location, years in the future perhaps, they will take someone out, a prison officer perhaps.
We had one guy on healthcare who had ill health; in his fifties most likely but he looked about sixty-five or seventy. Eventually he went to Belmarsh as a Cat A prisoner. He was a hate preacher, essentially, like Abu Hamza, the guy with the hook. Yet with us he just acted like an old man. Because of his unpredictability and influence, though, we had him on an unlock. You don’t have to let these people mingle with other inmates. Some of the female staff said they found him creepy, but he never professed his religious views to us.
Harry Mack was a muppet, a repeat offender who was not violent, only stupid. You could never educate him. At Forest Bank, he would often end up on the VP wing – not a sex offender or rapist, just vulnerable in such a tough environment. He’d offend people he shouldn’t and was weak and easily influenced. Around 2012, he came on healthcare with a bum-fluff beard. I hadn’t seen him for yonks.
‘Changed your religion, kid?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I have.’
That wasn’t so unusual. The con who lives 100 metres from me, Manny, one day decided he was Mormon. When you come in, on reception, one of the questions you are asked is, ‘What is your religion?’ But you can change your initial answer as many times as you want. Manny did that, not through any sense of born-again divinity, but because he could then get six ounces of drinking chocolate every Sunday from the kitchen. Mormons aren’t allowed caffeine, you see, so get given that instead.
Anyway, Harry Mack. ‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘You’re a Muslim.’ Then he started preaching. ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’ I said. But on he went telling me about the glory of Allah and all of that. Someone had obviously radicalized him. He came to us as a self-harmer, the type who’d get cutting or produce a noose if someone threatened him, a one to three on the Samworth scale.
His claim to fame, though, had been on A Wing where, one day, he pressed his cell bell. ‘I need a nurse,’ he told the officer who responded, though wouldn’t say what was up at first. ‘If I show you, you’ll laugh,’ he said. The screw just shrugged, so he let the blanket around him fall. There on his dick was a shampoo bottle with his bellend inside, the size of a boiled egg, and the situation was very dangerous because he was still semi-erect.
He was sent out to hospital where the doctors tried everything, with no luck. They had a ring-cutter on it, used to remove jewellery when someone crushes their hand or fingers, but this bottle wouldn’t shift. The kid was in agony. He went on a drip, was given some drug and, over the course of about an hour, his mammoth erection subsided and they managed to pull the thing off.
I only heard about that, thank goodness, but another time I was called to a restraint on E Wing where one of our C&R instructors was involved. They’d got a lad who’d been creating all night, keeping everyone awake, they said, and wanted him removed. It would be a Tornado job and, as the biggest there, I got the shield. Finally, some action! I’ll give the instructor his due – he did a belting job of getting us wound up. Adrenaline was pumping. We were going to monster this cock, rag him off the wing and make him scream as a lesson to the others. A bit over the top perhaps and not to be taken literally but, as we’ve seen, you need to be ready for anything. When we got there, I opened the flap, slammed the shield against the door and shouted a warning: ‘Back of the cell!’
It was dark inside, so I couldn’t see anyone. Whoever was in there could be hiding, ready to use a weapon. It couldn’t be helped: we steamed in to find Harry Mack sat there, blubbing on his cot.
I stopped. The other lads stopped. He had his head in his hands, wracked with sobs. Behind us the instructor was shouting, ‘Fucking smash him!’ He wasn’t happy, but we asked the kid what was up and took him calmly off to seg’. They didn’t want him though, he was mithersome, so away he came to healthcare, where the first thing I did on removing my helmet, so to speak, was confiscate his shampoos and shower gels.
‘What you doing that for?’ he said.
‘You’ve got form,’ I replied.
He had all these religious ideas though, and wasn’t shy in sharing them. Most of the patients on there told him to fuck off.
‘Can you tell this muppet,’ said one rapist and murderer, ‘I don’t want him talking to me on association about Islam. I’ll fill him in if he keeps going on.’
I had a word and the preaching stopped.
In many ways, though, Mack was the tip of the iceberg. He had the fervour of a convert and was annoying but radicalization was causing worse problems under the surface, as a couple of other stories should illustrate.
One relates to Adz, an Asian lad I’d shared friends and associates with in Sheffield. We weren’t pals but our paths had crossed. In fact he’d been part of a crew who turned up with shooters at a nightclub wh
en I was on the door – the second time I had a gun stuck in my face. I ran into him again while doing overtime on B Wing, where he’d been blamed for sending a message threatening to behead someone and was sent to the seg’ as punishment. By now, we were ‘friendly, not friends’, as they say in the service. I used to enjoy chatting with Adz; it gave you a different perspective. It was far more interesting than listening to some old bore witter on in the office, that’s for sure. A good Muslim, he swore innocence over the threat, especially as he was coming towards the end of his sentence.
‘I’ve a beautiful wife and kids, and parents who say that if I commit another crime they will disown me . . .’ he told me. So what, I asked, had gone on?
‘It’s just bad blood,’ he said. ‘I know who was behind it’ – and he confirmed there was an Islamic fundamentalist gang culture building in the high-security estate and long-term prisons. Lads who came in were encouraged to join; say no and that pressure would increase until you got hurt. It was a growing problem nationally, he insisted. Adz told me about two guys who had been covered in hot cooking oil at Whitemoor, a high-security prison in Cambridgeshire, where around a third of the prisoners were Muslim and exerted an iron grip. That’s a horrendous assault however you look at it, yet it hadn’t made the headlines. Checking that online, though, I did read a related report in the Daily Telegraph in 2012, which reported prison officers from Whitemoor admitting that they had a policy of ‘appeasement’ towards the ‘powerful and growing population’. They had communal kitchens there, where curries and such could be prepared but in which no one dared cook pork or bacon. It sounded worrying and intimidating.
Another, white, lad I knew from Salford, real hard bastard, landed on K Wing on accumulated visits from another high-security prison. I was on the K Wing servery, doing overtime from healthcare, and noticed that as he came past he took the halal option. Later I checked his religion on the computer and, sure enough, there it was.
‘What’s with the Muslim thing?’ I asked.
Strangeways Page 20