Please, Daddy, No: A Boy Betrayed

by Stuart Howarth

  Years and years of pain and hurt bubbled to the surface and I wept uncontrollably. All the psychiatrists’ and doctors’ reports stated that I was truthful and that my stories could be substantiated by others. Even the police psychiatrist seemed to support my story, although he wrote it in a more critical style since he was part of the prosecution machine. The guards kept passing me tissues but I couldn’t stop crying. The room went silent at one point and I turned to see what was happening. The security guard who had been passing me the tissues was now crying as well. I felt so relieved that people were finally hearing the truth, and I felt sure that my ordeal would soon be over. Now they all knew what I had been through they would understand how it had unbalanced my mind and made me lash out with the hammer when I thought I was going to be attacked again. They would never be able to sentence me to more years in jail now they understood. I just had to live through this last ordeal, this last humiliation of having my past laid out for everyone to stare at, and then I would be able to go home to my family and to Tracey, who was my whole world.

  The newspapers were all sympathetic the next day, and Colm O’Gorman, from the child abuse charity, drummed up a lot more sympathy and support by speaking out for me.

  When he had heard the whole case the judge told us that it was one of the most graphic cases he had ever come across and that Dad was a sick and twisted man. He agreed that the suffering we had all been through had been enormous. But irrespective of the victim’s defects, his purpose as a judge was to serve justice and he still had to uphold the rule of law at all costs. He accepted that I was suffering from diminished responsibility and that I was not the master of my mind and could not be held responsible for my actions. He didn’t accept provocation because if my mind were diminished, how would I know if I was being provoked? It had also been too long since the last time that I had seen Dad. He dismissed the self-defence idea for similar reasons. How would I have known if it was a perceived danger or a real one? He didn’t know whether I took the hammer with me or not, but he didn’t think that mattered if I was suffering from diminished responsibility. He decided, having taken everything into account, that I should be sentenced to two years in prison.

  I couldn’t understand what had gone on. There were too many words to take in when my emotions were running too high and jumbling up the messages on the way to my brain. All I wanted was to be with my family, but I’d been told they wouldn’t be allowed to see me after sentencing. I was led away in a daze, trying to take it all in. One of the female security officers took pity on me and gave me a hug. Another guard asked if I wanted any crisps or a cup of tea. I didn’t know what I wanted. I was relieved that I hadn’t been found guilty of murder and sent down for life, but at the same time I could hardly bear to give up the hope I’d had that I would be walking free at the end of that day.

  ‘You sit down,’ the guard said. ‘It’s all right. You shouldn’t even be in prison. I thought you’d be off home today, lad.’

  I wished the staff at Strangeways could be as kind and understanding. I wished some of them could have been in court to hear my story and see the effect it had on people hearing it for the first time. I looked up as Padhee came in. He seemed to be moved as well and gave me a hug.

  ‘You’ve changed my life, you know, Stuart,’ he said. ‘You’ve affected it deeply. Everyone’s on your side and this decision today is the right decision. You’ve just got to go on and build your life now.’

  My barrister came to see me and shook my hand.

  ‘It was a good result,’ he said. ‘I think that judge was picked particularly for the job because of his background. There were political reasons because there has been so much paedophile activity in North Wales, with some high-profile cases in care homes. They were also worried that your stepfather had managed to get himself a job so easily and become friendly with the Mayor. I think there were some invisible hands at work behind the scenes on your behalf. I wish you the best of luck with your life.’

  I did feel pleased that I had been vindicated and that people were accepting that these things do happen in life, but I was still shocked and bewildered. I felt empty, sad, lonely and desperate.

  The door of the cell opened again and one of the guards was standing there. ‘We’re not really supposed to do this,’ he said, ‘but your friends and family from the court are here to see you.’

  I started to cry again, but I felt frightened at the thought of seeing them all, not sure if I would be able to hold myself together. They directed me to a room, which had glass down the middle with all these friendly faces standing on the other side. As well as Tracey and Mum and Christina, Seb was there, and other friends from home, and Colm O’Gorman and Geoff Hadfield, all the people who had come to see me in prison and worked so hard for me on my case. As I walked in they all cheered and my tears welled up again. I dropped my head. I wasn’t sure it was a day for cheering, even though I had been vindicated. It seemed a sad day. I had spent the day listening to my life being re-run, with all the pictures coming back into my mind, and I felt sorry that I had ended up taking another man’s life. I was sorry I had taken Clare and Alex’s dad and I wanted to apologize to them both face-to-face. I still haven’t been able to do that with Alex, but when I did sit Clare down to tell her how sorry I was she didn’t seem particularly interested in hearing it; she has other things on her mind, although none of us are able to know what they might be.

  Tracey came up to the window and pressed her hand against it. I placed my palm against hers with the cold glass between us. The others all made their excuses and left the room, leaving us alone. We were both crying.

  ‘It’s over now, love,’ I said. ‘I just want to get on with my life.’

  We talked for a while and then she said she had to go because they’d promised to talk to the television and radio people.

  ‘I love you, Tracey,’ I said.

  ‘I love you too, Stuart.’

  I watched as she left the room and then the guards came to take me back to the cell, reminding me that it wasn’t quite over yet. There was a terrible pain deep in my chest, which made me cry. I still longed for the father I’d never had. I kept asking myself the same questions. How did I get here, and how could it have all come to this?

  I sat there for several hours before the prison officers came down in their car from Strangeways to fetch me. It was a surprisingly quiet ride back. By the time we reached Strangeways the results of the case had already been on the news.

  ‘So, you’re going home, are yer?’ the officer at reception sneered. ‘Not going yet though, are yer? You’ll be back. Now get yer clothes off.’

  After the strip-search I was put back into the sweat room for a few hours until there was someone free to take me back to the wing. It didn’t matter what I said or did, they would never change their attitudes towards me. ‘Whatever, Howarth,’ they would say with a world-weary knowingness in their cruel voices. ‘We’ve heard it all before.’

  As I walked on to E Wing I was aware that everyone was looking at me. I could imagine what they were thinking. I was no longer one of them. They were all in for years and I would be out within six months with remission and the time I had already served.

  ‘Well done, Howie,’ one of them said.

  ‘Yeah. Well done, mate,’ said another.

  Even though they all came up to shake my hand and tell me that I shouldn’t be there, I could sense hostility in the air. I guess they were pleased for me, but many of them still had their trials to get through, and they knew they were unlikely to get off as lightly as me. A lot of them bombarded me with questions about what had happened in the courtroom, obviously trying to formulate a picture of what it was going to feel like when their own trial dates finally arrived. By about eight thirty I was back in the cell and the doors were being banged and locked all round the wing.

  ‘Howie, you’re on the telly!’ a voice shouted.

  I turned on the set and there was a picture of me as a boy on a
slide. The voiceover was talking about how ‘this sweet-natured little boy’ was driven to kill his stepfather. Christina and Tracey came on, looking very nervous. The interviewer was making the point that men and boys are never listened to when it comes to things like rape and abuse, whereas women and girls now get fair hearings most of the time. They talked about how many men there must be out in the world who have been severely traumatized from things that have happened to them when they were young. Maybe, if someone had asked me if Dad had ever done things to me at the time he was arrested for interfering with the girls, I could have been given some counselling then that would have helped me to grow up and mature in the normal way, and would have saved Dad’s life in the long run, but it just never occurred to anyone to ask. They even talked about the poor treatment I was receiving in Strangeways. Hearing my own story told as I lay in my cell made me cry all over again. I suddenly felt very low, wishing everything had been different in my life and I hadn’t had to go through any of it. I felt embarrassed to think that everyone else on the wing was watching and listening to my life being talked about.

  It felt as if I had only just managed to get off to sleep when it was morning again and the guards came round banging on the doors to wake us up. I was told to report to the office.

  ‘Right, Howarth. Pack your bags. You’re moving.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re moving to another wing. This isn’t the right one for you; you’re not a lifer, despite whatever we think. Go upstairs and pack your kit.’

  Although I was relieved to be getting off that wing, it’s still scary whenever you move cells because it means taking a leap into the unknown, meeting new people and getting to know new rules, finding out who can be trusted and who can’t. As I sat waiting in my cell the other lads came by to shake my hand and wish me luck. I gave away a few things I’d accrued, like a crucifix and a poem.

  I was escorted across to D Wing.

  ‘You’re Howarth, are yer?’ the security officer greeted me.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘We’re gonna have a bit of peace and quiet in here, are we?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You like making complaints, don’t you?’

  ‘No. I try to treat people with respect and dignity and I’d like a little bit back.’

  ‘Yeah, well you’re an inmate.’

  He pointed out where my cell was. As I packed up my kit and was about to set off to it I passed another lad. ‘You’ve got a good cell, haven’t you?’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s all the nonces there to keep you company.’

  I suddenly realized where it was, right opposite A Wing, which housed all the sex offenders. I was only about thirty feet away from them. It felt like I was being punished again. They had selected me to go there in order to rub my nose in it. It might have been an accident, but after everything that had been said and done to me since arriving in Strangeways, it seemed a bit of a coincidence. When I got to the cell I realized I was sharing with another lad, who asked if I had any heroin the moment I walked in. People kept coming in and out of the cell and I was aware they were smoking heroin and other stuff.

  I went back down to the office.

  ‘Do I have to share a cell, boss?’

  ‘We tell you what to do in here, Howarth.’

  ‘I’m just frightened and I’ve got a lot of things going on in my mind ...’

  They wouldn’t listen. The next morning they didn’t take me to get my anti-depressants, which worried me because the doctors always stressed that I shouldn’t come off them suddenly in case it affected the balance of my mind, but they did eventually escort me over for a session with Neil.

  ‘You’re a bit late,’ he said.

  ‘They wouldn’t bring me any earlier.’

  He went outside and I could hear a bit of an argument going on. He came back in with a cup of coffee in a china cup, as he often did, and a guard asked to have a word.

  ‘Inmates aren’t allowed drinks in china mugs; they’re for staff only. Don’t you know inmates carry diseases?’ When we were finally able to sit and talk he told me he’d written a letter to the prison governor about the way they had been treating me.

  ‘The governor called me before your trial and asked about these complaints you’re making. “What’s the problem with Howarth? Does he think he runs the jail?” I supported you on a few things, but she just said, “Howarth’s a killer and he’s charged with murder.” I pointed out that that was for the court to decide, but she was worried that because yqu had got a single cell you would think you had won. She wanted to know why I had backed your request for one, so I explained how I believed it affected your condition. I said I was worried about your safety and your cellmate’s if there was any perceived danger to you. Now they’ve all pretty much blackballed me, they won’t talk to me, although I can see they’re all talking about me behind my back. I’m beginning to feel a bit threatened myself and I think I may leave once you’re out.’

  He was horrified to hear I was back to sharing a cell and that I had been put so close to the sex offenders’ wing and promised to have a word, although I knew that would not happen overnight.

  I stayed in my cell for the next week or so, too frightened to go anywhere, constantly nervous of my cellmate and his friends but not having any alternative. It was another big wing of about two hundred prisoners and there was always an air of frantic activity, which I found it hard to adjust to after the relative quiet of the maximum-security wing. I felt constantly traumatized.

  There was an established system whereby people who wanted to buy drugs had to get a member of their family to send money to a given address outside the prison. Once the money had arrived, the drugs would be passed over. It was all incredibly organized. It was also possible to get credit, but if you didn’t pay up on time you would be beaten up. Sometimes suppliers would provide drugs on the promise that they would be repaid after the next visiting day.

  You always knew when a consignment of drugs came in on a visit, transferred in a kiss with a loved one and swallowed or inserted rectally, because several men would descend on a cell simultaneously to collect. Sometimes, if someone were trying to buy time they would claim they’d swallowed the drugs and the people they owed them to would have to wait for them to come through. The creditors would be round that man’s cell every day enquiring if the drugs had come through their bowels yet, and you would be able to sense their levels of frustration building as they became increasingly suspicious that they were being fed a line. Sometimes someone who was supposed to be bringing in drugs to a visit would fail to show up, leaving the inmate ‘ghosted’.

  There was one lad who confessed to me that he had been ghosted, although he didn’t dare tell the people he owed the drugs to. I heard the shouting in his cell getting louder every day that he didn’t produce the promised gear, and sometimes I would hear the sound of punches landing. On the third day one of his visitors came and asked me if I had a shampoo bottle so he could have a shower, which I didn’t. I later discovered that five of them were actually using one to give the lad an enema to speed up the delivery of the drugs that he had told them were still in his bowels. The next day he was so badly beaten up he had to be taken to the hospital wing. There was a lot of blood in his cell.

  So many kids came into prison clean and went out on drugs. Some would be strong enough to fight their fears and stand up for themselves; others would need drugs to help numb them.

  The moment a newcomer arrived the vultures would try to take whatever he had. They would take his trainers, his jeans, whatever they could get off him, and they would try to get him on drugs, because drugs are currency.

  There was one lad who came in for assault. I could see how frightened he was and I advised him that if he kept himself to himself everything would be OK. The following day I was leaning on the balcony looking down and I saw two drug dealers going into his cell. The next time I saw
him, a few days later, his eyes were glazed.

  I only had to endure the shared cell for a couple of days before they moved me back to E Wing, to the side that wasn’t maximum security, but was still for lifers. At least this time I knew a few of the others and felt slightly more comfortable as people greeted me like an old friend. They put me in a relatively large and relatively clean cell, on my own. I suddenly felt able to breathe again. They asked if I would like to work on the servery. They’d been having some trouble at meal times and wanted someone big around who might calm things down. I knew they were using me, but I didn’t care if it was making my daily life more bearable.

  Because I wasn’t having any luck with the complaints and was still getting all the snide comments from screws like Smith and the guy singing ‘Bob the Builder’, I’d gone to a firm of solicitors in London with Colm O’Gorman’s help. A lawyer came to see me and I gave him copies I’d made of every complaint form and all the other details. His firm were specialists in dealing with child abuse cases and he told me that the prison authorities would have to respond to my complaints within a certain time limit. The authorities now knew that I was serious about pursuing my rights, which may have made them slightly more cautious of me, but it certainly didn’t help my popularity.

  Since I didn’t think my reputation with the authorities could sink any lower, I also put together a petition complaining about the conditions on the wings, like filthy bed sheets and towels that had to be used for washing ourselves and the lack of plastic feeding bowls. I complained about how some of us were being locked up all day with no exercise, how some of the sinks had no taps or no plugs. How we would eat in our cells but there was no means of disposing of left-over food at weekends, so it would stay rotting in the cells for days. If you put it down the toilet it would block it, so most lads threw it out the window for the ever-growing number of rats in the courtyard below. The rats mainly came out at night, like a rippling tide sweeping through all the detritus and rubbish. There didn’t seem to be any proper hygiene policies, as there had been at Forest Bank and Altcourse, where litter was always being collected up in black plastic bags. I took the petition round and got about eighty people to sign it.