Daniel Holmes: A Memoir From Malta's Prison: From a cage, on a rock, in a puddle...

by Daniel Holmes

  Paper

  The inner part of the stem is used to make pulp for the production of hemp paper.

  The oldest recorded paper made from cannabis dates back to the Chinese empire of 4000 BC. In Europe, the use of hemp paper began in the eighth century, and it was used by monks to copy out the Holy Scriptures. It is widely believed that the first Bible, printed by Guttenberg in 1455, was printed on hemp paper. The production of paper made from hemp is highly sustainable as the plant is very quick to grow, unlike trees.

  Rope

  The outer part of the plant stem is separated and worked to produce hemp fibre and rope. In human history, millions of miles of rope have been produced. Before 1850, all of the ships which navigated the globe were only able to do so because of cannabis.

  Cloth

  A stronger fibre than cotton, hemp can be used to make any quality of fabric, from that used for rough industrial uses to finest linens that are comparable to silk. It is the most durable of all the natural fibres and unlike cotton, its production is virtually pollution-free, as it does not require the use of any of the harmful herbicides and pesticides which are necessary for cotton production.

  Oil

  Oil can be produced from the seeds which can then be used for illumination and heating. As a biodiesel, hemp oil burns with much lower harmful emissions than petroleum-based oils. It can also be made into fuel for cars, in the form of ethanol, and tests have shown that it is much cleaner for the engine and for the environment.

  Food

  Again, using the seeds, flours or pastes can be produced, which contain high levels of protein, carbohydrate, Omega-3, Omega-6 and Omega-9. Like the soya bean, it has a complete balance of amino acids, but it is unique in having a high concentration of Omega-3 unsaturated fatty acid.

  Medicinal uses

  The history of medical cannabis probably goes back to ancient China, as noted in 2700 BC by Shen Nung, one of the fathers of Chinese medicine. It was used as an anaesthetic, to reduce blood clots, to combat tapeworm, as a painkiller, and many other uses. Cannabis is said to be the most medicinally useful plant known to man, containing over 421 chemical compounds which can be used for illnesses such as rheumatism, arthritis, malaria, asthma, hair loss, epilepsy, gastritis, anorexia, bronchitis, leprosy, diabetes, tetanus, typhus – to name but a few. Recently much research has been done on cannabis as a treatment for cancer. More and more people are taking it seriously as a medicine. This is discouraged, of course, by huge pharmaceutical companies, but slowly they are seeing the profit and products are quite widely available.

  Cannabis as a recreational drug

  There has been a misinformation campaign surrounding cannabis for over a hundred years, which still continues in an attempt to prolong our dependency on the artificial chemicals produced by pharmaceutical companies.

  But studies have not shown it to be the devastating and dangerous drug described in propaganda. More and more people now believe that long-term use of cannabis, in moderate doses, has no adverse side-effects in the normal user.

  It has not been found to alter the basic aspects of personality. It does not cause aggressive or antisocial behaviour. It does not even cause addiction, in the medical sense. Nor does it cause psychotic problems in people who have shown no previous psychotic tendencies.

  If the banning of cannabis is over concerns for our health, we really should question why alcohol and tobacco have not also been banned. These products kill tens of thousands of people each year.

  Surely, as we are seeing around the world, the legality is all based around money and profit. For years it was profitable to lock up users and keep it illegal. Now with prisons full of users, it is becoming profitable to make it legal.

  The switching laws of the countries that govern us, are only made by the profit and loss of their accountants’ books.

  When will enough be enough?

  Violence

  I only had one fight in my whole time at the CCF. That is not to say it wasn’t a violent place, but just that I am not a violent person.

  It was March 1, 2008. Day 88. St David’s Day. A big day for any Welsh man. Division XII. There were only around 30 inmates housed in this Division at that time, and we all got along pretty well. As in prison and outside, moods shift when thinking of work, money or family and friends.

  That particular day I was at the windows in the day room joining Divisions XI and XII, trying to receive the numbers for a phone card. The person in Division XI had to scratch off the card and then shout the numbers to me over the hundred yards or so of space. This area between Divisions is full of rubbish that is thrown out of windows and is rarely cleaned. Cardboard food boxes, full and empty, milk cartons, soiled clothing and anything that the prisoner is too lazy to take to the bin. This festering mess sits there normally waiting for an officer to be in a bad mood, then for some prisoners to do some minor infraction, and the officer would take it out on his patsies.

  I’ve seen 20-30 black bags of rubbish taken from these small spaces. Indeed, I have been the one collecting them on a few occasions.

  So, I was at this window, waiting for my less than competent ally. He’d already given me two wrong sets of ten-digit numbers, and I was beginning to think that the money I had paid was lost. I find it funny the lengths that us humans will go to, to try and get a good deal and save money; taking more time, more effort and more stress than just paying the full price at first.

  So, there I was, wasting my time. Suddenly, a Bulgarian prisoner – a huge lump of a guy, well over 6 feet who tended to speak in grunts and was a little slow-witted and a little bit down on luck, as prisoners tend to be – came between me and the window. He completely blocked my sight. I was already frustrated enough that my accomplice across the window was not getting the numbers right, and now the Bulgarian. I tried explaining that he had to move. The Bulgarian either did not understand or did not care, and instead wedged himself in and started grunting to my number guy. I walked away, pissed off, swearing under my breath. I walked around to the telephones, just in front of the guard room. I tend to shy from all confrontations, even the positive kind.

  The Bulgarian followed me. When I got there and turned, I could see his massive bullhead flying towards me. With no time to react, I caught his forehead right in my jaw, knocking me backwards and cracking my two front teeth. Instantly my mouth filled with blood and bits of teeth. Automatically, I spat my mouthful at him, while pulling my right arm back to hook him. My fist never made contact.

  The officers who had been watching all along, and whom maybe liked the Bulgarian less than me, flew into action. They came out of nowhere, grabbed him and took out their boredom on him, then swiftly whisked him away through the side doors, only accessible to the officers for times like this.

  My fist found only air. That was my one and only fight at the CCF.

  The Bulgarian was moved to punishment, Division XIII, and I forgot all about him. That is, until I was remanded to the CCF again on November 21, 2011, when I came out of my cell, after just being handed down my lengthy sentence, being separated from my wife and daughter and my thoughts were in a very dark place.

  I stood outside my cell waiting for fall-in, my tongue finding the cracks in my teeth from that altercation years ago. I looked to my left and there was the Bulgarian, where he had been sent since that day in 2008.

  He recognised me and grunted, I recognised him and grunted.

  Barry’s crazy day

  DAY 294. September 21, 2008.

  Sundays are normally quiet and relaxing days inside walls. They are usually visit days, and with those come the food allowances from outside, and with those comes the two-way traffic of things going in and out of prison illegally.

  That Sunday started out like any normal Sunday, until it flared up.

  I knew something was amiss when I heard Barry causing a commotion from the top level of the Division. Barry was giving a letter to an inmate who had relatives visiting him. The inmate’s rela
tives would then post it outside. This was common practice in prison because it was the only way your writing was not scrutinised by the guards. I myself used this system for thousands of pages of writing.

  However, I later found out that Barry’s letter had been addressed to Scotland Yard and it contained the name and whereabouts of a lad, Mark, a fellow inmate, who apparently was wanted by the British authorities for crimes he had committed. Barry had overheard Mark bragging of past crimes and this was the gist of his letter. It was an insane decision; it was the beginning of Barry’s madness.

  I knew Mark, and we had become close friends in prison. Barry didn’t like that. I don’t know why, but he disliked Mark and in turn Mark disliked him. I was stuck in the middle.

  Barry never found any peace in prison and alienated himself from all other inmates. It was heart-wrenching to watch him literally deteriorate. Due to mental health problems, family problems and the cocktail of pharmaceuticals the prison psychiatrist prescribed him, his gradual downfall was something that I had witnessed helplessly.

  That Sunday was the last time, out of court, I would see him alive.

  The letter never made it outside, and instead found itself into the hands of Mark himself who was, obviously, not pleased.

  As soon as cell doors shut for lockdown, between noon and 2 p.m., the noise started. The shouting was raucous, many different voices had joined in, yelling through windows, aligning themselves against Barry for being a grass. Old wrongs were being brought up. New ones invented. Some inmates were jeering just for kicks. Most of the loudest voices were those of grasses themselves. Sides were being drawn. And it was Barry against a posse.

  Windows become telephones in prison. They open into a walled area that reverberates sound like a speaker. If you bang on the metal surround with something hard, or shout through the window, then everyone else in their cells, even with their windows closed can hear what you want to say. That day we all heard everything. Barry wouldn’t stay quiet and spent most of the two hours in lockdown winding up the Division with loud, annoying, farmyard noises. I tried to plead with him, shouting back from my window, but I quickly gave up any hope of him seeing sense. In hindsight, that was the beginning of the end for him and still it haunts me to this day that I could do nothing to help.

  As soon as the door opened at 2 p.m. and the fall-in was over, Barry ran up the metal stairs to the top floor, looking for the guy who had promised him to pass on the letter to be posted outside. The whole Division was fired up.

  At that point, I’d gone to stand beside Mark. I could see what Barry was doing: stamping his feet on the metal stairs, shouting insanely, instigating his own crazy behaviour. It was as if he saw no other way out. Meanwhile, Mark beside me was seething – and all I could do was try to calm him down. More banging by Barry. The commotion of the Division inmates was by now like a theatre audience at the end of a performance, but instead of collective applause, there was palpable herd frustration.

  Barry was first punched by idiots who had nothing to do with the situation; bullies wanting to vent. He dashed down to the third level running from the boys on top chasing him but found another bored and stupid idiot wanting to get involved. He side-swiped Barry across the face with a metal food dish (back then food was served in metal trays).

  At that point more boys joined the fray and it seemed that the whole Division was fighting Barry. Well, I say fighting – although there were several punches and kicks, no blood was drawn. I won’t say they fought like girls because in Wales, a woman will knock a man clean out with one punch.

  In came the screws. Four officers burst into the Division causing more confusion to the fracas. They started firing. Small handheld things that shot out projectiles and on impact released a haze of powder, burnt the eyes, throat and nose and stained everything a shade of mustard. These things were fired rapidly with little or no aim or accuracy in the space of a few minutes. I saw the officer in front of us fire one into the back of another officer in front of him, his white shirt instantly turning into that mustard colour.

  The whole Division quickly filled up with this noxious substance and soon all officers and cons were reeling from the pain. Some wiped their eyes in towels but they were merely smearing them dirty yellow and it did nothing to abate the burning. There was confusion upon confusion. More officers came running in and then even the Special Response Team, all unsure of what or who was the problem. It would have been comical if not for the burning in my eyes and lungs. And the fate of someone’s life.

  Through my bleary eyes, I saw Barry snarling like a trapped cat, rubbing what he thought was blood from his nose all over his face. In truth it was the mustard powder and his face was stained yellow, streaked with tears and wild with madness. The next time I saw Barry was in court. And that was the last time.

  He was pulled and pushed like a dead animal, through the side doors into Division XIII, then they completely locked off our Division XII.

  I’ve heard this incident told and retold through my time in prison – even from the people who punched Barry – in their attempt to justify themselves to me.

  I found it maddening over the years in the CCF that most fights between inmates were snitch on snitch. Grasses accusing others of grassing, when as far as I could tell most of the local prisoners were snitches. They were proud to have signed the so-called Section 29 Deal (a deal offered by the police during questioning, which guarantees the signatory a one-third reduction in their own sentence if they give up information on the crimes of others). I have known many fools in my life but few who would grass and then sign their name on paper saying they have grassed. That is quite unbelievable.

  But it means that at the CCF paedophiles and snitches are protected. Crimes that in other prisons would have violent repercussions.

  Even many foreigners fell into this way of thinking eventually. There was a running joke, that they must teach grassing in Maltese schools as almost everyone seemed to learn it in the end. It was hard to find an inmate who wasn’t a grass.

  At the CCF, fathers grassed on sons, mothers on daughters, husbands on wives, brothers on brothers. And yes, on this occasion, a British lad had been the one grassing.

  That being said, there were some real good lads in there, boys who knew that grasses and grassing were a no-no. And I guess if someone reading this takes offence, well you know which side you fall on.

  Barry is now dead. Mark is now dead. The inmate who was supposed to pass on the letter to be posted is now dead. And most of the ones who threw punches are still inmates in the CCF. This painful memory is unremarkable, except in its sorrow. In the end, most of us are the masters of our own downfall.

  Cell fires, razor blades and batteries

  When someone wants attention, they will obviously shout as loud as they can to be heard. In prison, voices are seldom heard and actions become the only way to get attention. There are peaceful protests and other forms of action, such as refusing food, refusing fall-in and even refusing to speak. Then there are more volatile choices: cell fires, swallowing razor blades, swallowing batteries or other forms of self-harm.

  The attempted hangings and suicides, which were too numerous to list, were but a cry for help in times of need, and they were barely heard. In the CCF even those peaceful protests instilled anger in the guards and resulted in inmates suffering backlash – primarily they’d be cut off from the Playmobil job list. Prisoners in fact often refused to join protests for that reason. “Oh, I can’t get involved – I’d lose my dolls and my money,” they’d say. Money has become something that mankind hungers more for than food or human rights. Indeed, some people in poverty will dream of material things or glory, before a cooked meal.

  Many times, over my years in incarceration I joined the collective hunger strikes that would start with the whole Division protesting over living conditions, working conditions, food or water. On a few of these occasions we even made it into the local news and papers. But invariably these protests failed ve
ry quickly. The authorities would just approach a few inmates with a reputation of being rats, and they would offer them some personal gain, perhaps in the form of extra visits or a reduction or remission. These would be inmates with countless black strikes against their names – in short, inmates who can easily be bought.

  It happened every time. These few inmates would be given carte blanche in the prison and in return they’d quell turbulence. There’d be whispered promises of amnesties and political help if the prisoners were quiet, and waited out their time as blind, deaf and dumb. If synthetic and other drugs are readily available, then they will always split the herd further. It’s all about dividing, not unifying, the inmates.

  In the end, guards would come and threaten all the remaining inmates with time in, solitary confinement or the punishment Division, or extra time for aggression, and then just a few would remain. These would be moved, the problems forgotten and the noise muffled for a while. There is no unity in the CCF. There is no us and them.

  The prison authorities keep the cards close to their chest in another, clever manner: the non-classification of prisoners. Classification – which at the CCF is non-existent, although the European Union laws state that this must be so – means that people in custody still awaiting trial and not yet found guilty must not be locked up with people serving life sentences (and life in Malta means LIFE), with paedophiles and drug addicts. It also allows for people with HIV to have special sections – which is not the case at the CCF.

  This means that a man who has two months to serve, will hardly ever stand beside a lifer to protest against poor conditions. Or someone who only has a few months to finish his sentence, would not protest alongside an inmate in the cell next door who has just started serving a years-long sentence.