Happiness is Door Shaped

by Ray Deveroux

  I would like to help you with your investigation; however, I feel that I am unable to answer any of your questions at this time.

  That’s all they got from me.

  The Governor had another go, but with Geordie next to me he got nowhere. At the end of the investigation, the Governor called me in to give me his verdict.

  Officer Deveroux, I cannot find any evidence, save for the statement made by your accuser, he said.

  Confusion set in. What had happened? How could this be? What had been said? The Governor along with the police was dropping all the charges.

  Prompted by Geordie and still in a daze, I left the Governor’s office. We went back to Geordie’s office, where he made tea. He must have been getting soft in his old age.

  As we sat there, the young lad who was Thompson’s cellmate was brought in.

  Now all can be revealed, said Geordie.

  The young lad had indeed been brought to the Governor’s office as a witness. Thompson had threatened him with violence so that he would give evidence against me.

  What he had told the Governor was this:

  The Officer came into the cell to give Thompson a bollocking about his spitting all the time. Thompson, being his normal self, told the Officer to fuck off and spat on the floor between the Officer’s feet. The Officer turned round and told him he was being placed on report, and slammed the door shut.

  He went on: Thompson was mad about this and chucked his dinner at the wall and started to head butt it, causing the split lip and bruise on his face. Thompson told me he was going to “stitch the screw up”, and got on his bell to summon an Officer.

  Well, fuck me sideways.

  And why did you tell the Governor this, Geordie asked the lad.

  He replied: Because the arsehole was bullying me and stealing my tobacco. He also threatened to rape me and kill my whole family unless I did as I was told. When you clocked him, guv, it made my day. No way was you going down for that fucking piece of shit.

  Many years later, I came face to face with Thompson at HM Prison Hull, on the reception wing, I couldn’t believe what I saw; he had aged badly. He looked older than his forty-nine years, ravaged by drugs and alcohol. He was shriveled up and he had lost all his teeth and was bent double like an old man. Thompson was only serving nine months this time, for breaking and entering. He had two weeks to serve on this sentence, had nowhere to go, no family or friends. He was a broken man.

  I heard later through the grapevine that he had died, having taken an overdose of a cocktail of drugs. He was not missed by anyone, nor was there anyone at his funeral.

  I was not proud of myself, even though he did deserve a beating; I should not have stooped so low to his level and hit him.

  Back on the unit, my colleagues and friends – even some of the prisoners – were congratulating me. His peers didn’t like him either, apparently. It was back to normal, and things started to settle down again. For a short while, anyway.

  Tobias Stone

  Tobias Stone came to us from Brixton prison, yet another con on the merry-go-round. He had assaulted a member of staff at the jail and was transferred to us for the term of investigation.

  Stone was a huge black man and looked like Mike Tyson’s double. He was forever on his cell bell making demands. He was one of those guys who constantly sucked their teeth when talking to you and looked at you like you had been dragged out of a gutter. He was never in his cell on time for bang up and was always hanging around other prisoner’s cells demanding tobacco. Overall, he wasn’t our favourite prisoner, but he was on our unit, so we had to deal with him. He obviously enjoyed the notoriety that his status of a hard man afforded, and played on it heavily. Stone also had a long history of violence, inside and out of jail. He had been an enforcer for a gang of Jamaican drug dealers. He was also wanted back in Jamaica for shooting a policeman.

  Due to prison politics (we sent one of our notorious prisoners to Brixton, they in turn sent us Stone) we were to keep him after the investigation. He was quite pleased with this. He maintained that Brixton was a “racist” prison, whereas Highdown was “cool”. What he meant was, he was enjoying playing top dog on the wing.

  Stone had been through the courts in an effort to stop his deportation to Jamaica and was coming to the end of his sentence. A decision had yet to be made on his deportation and he was constantly requesting legal phone calls. He was getting worried.

  We, however, were hoping he would be deported. We had already had enough of his demands over the past four months.

  He was on his bell again. This time it was Tinos turn to go. We knew what an arsehole he could be, so we never let an Officer go to his door on his own, so I went with Tino.

  At his door, Tino opened the observation flap.

  Got a letter guv, Stone shouted.

  And what’s that got to do with me? replied Tino.

  It’s from immigration. Can’t read, can you read it to me guv? said Stone.

  Oh for fucks sake, replied Tino as he opened the door. I was starting to relax a little bit. When he wanted something from us Stone was normally as nice as pie.

  As the door was unlocked, a big hand shot out and grabbed Tino by his upper arm. Stone was trying to pull Tino in.

  I was a few feet away. Just as Tino disappeared and Stone was shutting the door, I threw all my weight into it and forced the door back open, shouting, STAFF! as I went in.

  Stone was stark naked and had covered himself in coconut oil. He had Tino in a headlock, his back to me. I jumped on his bare back, shouting all the time. I could hear the sound of boots on the landing behind me.

  I tried to get him off balance by applying pressure to his thick neck and pulling backwards. It was like a tug of war between Tino and me. I slid around Stone, not being able to maintain a grip because of the oil and came face to face with him. He let go of Tino and bent forward, swinging me around the front, me hanging on like a monkey, feet around his legs, arm around his neck. Not the greatest positions to be in, in those circumstances.

  Big Taff came crashing through the door, followed by what seemed like the whole of the prison staff. Taff rugby tackled Stone to the floor. Geordie, I could see in the corner of my eye, was pulling Tino away, who was bleeding from his nose.

  It all seemed to happen in slow motion. As Taff’s weight brought Stone to the ground, I was still hanging on for dear life. I had moved my right arm to get a grip around Stone’s shoulder with a view to getting a wristlock on (nearly impossible given the amount of oil Stone had applied) when we all hit the ground with a crash.

  I was in absolute agony. My right arm had somehow twisted around my back, Stone’s arm had looped through and he had all his weight on top of me, including that of Taff and half the jail. My shoulder had popped out of its joint, the muscles around my upper arm were torn, and a big white ball in the shape of my empty socket was shining through. Stone was on top of me, face to face. He was grinning at me.

  We were all being pushed along the floor as the throng of bodies thrashed around. My head was starting to get trapped in the corner of the room. I was shouting at the top of my voice to get Stone off me and I was starting to lose consciousness. My head and neck were nearly at right angles to the wall. Stone, seeing this, started to thrash his body on top of me. He was trying to break my neck, plunging his hips into me like a mad rapist. I was fucked in more ways than one.

  All the while Stone was on me, he was grinding his head into my face, the coarse hair on his head making mincemeat of my eyebrows. Blood was trickling into my eyes. He was systematically pumping and head butting me.

  It seemed like hours, but it was only a matter of minutes before I saw a baton being passed over his mouth. It was, in fact, the knobby bits on the handle I noticed. I was thinking to myself, why the handle? Whoever was on the other end of this baton should be bashing Stone with it.

  It was Geordie. He knew what he was doing; the hand part of the baton went under Stones nose and with a quick pull Stone
was literally flying backwards off me. I could just make out Geordie, Big Taff, and the Governor wading into him before I lost consciousness.

  Stone had tried to take Tino hostage. His appeal had failed; he was going back to Jamaica.

  I was out of it for what seemed like an eternity but it was only minutes. An ambulance had been called. One of the prison doctors was giving me an injection of something; I began to feel light headed. I tried to sit up, but my right arm wouldn’t work, it was somewhere behind me, flopping around. Blood was streaked down my face. For some reason my uniform trousers were undone. Just as I went back into oblivion a thought went through my mind: a black man had just fucked me.

  I spent two nights and three days in hospital. My arm had been reconnected and was in a sling. I would suffer from a recurring frozen shoulder for the rest of my life. My face looked like I had head butted every tree in a wood and my neck felt as though it had a ten-ton weight on it.

  The staff from the unit came to see me, along with the Governor, whose hand was in bandages. He had broken two fingers trying to prize Stone off of me.

  Meanwhile, in true form, Vanessa, Scanjet and big Taff brought me some red roses, badly made out of bread, still in a bread bag. We all laughed like mad. The nurses and other patients couldn’t see the funny side of it.

  During one of his home visits, Geordie told me that Stone had been taken to the segregation unit and a police investigation was under way with a view to charging Stone with attempted hostage taking and a serious assault on an Officer. Stone, however, did not face justice for what he had done to Tino and me on that day. Immigration had insisted, along with a local judge, that he was to be deported immediately at the end of his sentence. He was, the judge said, banned from ever coming back into this country. If he did he would face the charges brought against him for the hostage and assaults committed while in custody. Two of our biggest lads from the segregation had the enviable task of escorting Stone all the way in cuffs to Jamaica along with an immigration official.

  Geordie went on to say that Stone had struggled when he was put in the van, and tried to plead with the immigration official before going onto the flight, but all to no avail. When they arrived at the airport at Jamaica, they had to wait until everyone else had got off. They were right at the back taking up a whole row, and passengers were not permitted to use the rear toilets. When the plane was clear, a car drew up with four Jamaican police Officers carrying guns. They beckoned to the flight attendants to allow the prison and the immigration Officers to bring Stone to them.

  Our people got to the bottom of the stairs provided at the back of the aircraft where the handover would take place, the immigration official holding out the paperwork for a signature. The police weren’t really interested in the staff or the paperwork; they had their eyes on Stone, who was by now shivering despite the heat.

  They put Stone in the back of the car and drove away, the staff remaining at the bottom of the steps a bit longer to enjoy the sunshine.

  The car had stopped over by one of the hangers. Stone was being dragged out and was marched behind the building. The staff thought that he was being transferred to a prison van. Then they heard three loud bangs, three bullets being fired.

  The police were then seen getting back in the car, the leader, his head out of the window, saying something to another man, who went round the back of the building.

  The staff stood in shock for a while, not believing what had happened. The ground staff from the airport were getting impatient. With what looked like spliffs in their mouths, they ushered the staff to the terminal building.

  Nothing more was seen or heard of Tobias Stone.

  I guess he won’t be facing justice in the UK anytime soon.

  Back To Work

  I still had injuries. Although I was fit to travel and drive my car, I was deemed to be not fully fit to go back on the landings, so after seeing the occupational health advisor, I was put on light duties. I was put on sentence planning.

  Joy of joys!

  Senior Officer Gerald Lander, “Gerry” was very pleased to see me. Told you, you would end up working with me didn’t I? Oh yes mate, I lied, living the dream, couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.

  What do you reckon of the new suicide document, he asked. This was the new ACCT document he’d been telling me about some months earlier when he first tried to “head hunt me”.

  It’s good, I said, is there an instruction manual to go with it?

  Funny you should say that, said Gerry, there is a course that the gaffer wants you to attend while you are on light duties.

  Great stuff – loosely translated from prison talk as: oh bollocks!

  I was to attend a course on how to deliver the new ACCT document in our outside training room. Tutors had come down from Newbold Revel, the Prison Service training headquarters, to deliver this to their willing students. I was one of about ten Officers on the course, along with Gerry.

  It ran for a week. In the end I quite enjoyed it and was interested in finding out more.

  Back at the jail, Gerry was pleased to see that I had taken the course seriously and was, along with my new best pal Gerry, going through the jail imparting my worldly knowledge on the ACCT document. I got so involved in the ACCT process that I went on to write new policies and training material. I stuck with the ACCT document and taught it for over twenty years in the Prison Service, alongside the Listener Programme, a course that enabled prisoners to be taught by local Samaritans to listen to prisoners in distress.

  Such was my involvement, I received a Butler Trust Award and in the Queens Diamond Jubilee Year, I was awarded the British Empire Medal (BEM) by the Queen for services to vulnerable prisoners.

  I had finished light duties and was looking back to returning to my wing. There had been a few changes with staff; Big Taff had left his wife and shacked up with Vanessa. They made an ideal couple – both big and loud. Taff was telling me that he had left the Army after twenty-two years and wanted to get back into uniform. Civilian life wasn’t suiting him.

  He had got married after a tour in Northern Ireland, in the mid-seventies, early eighties. Life in Ireland was not pleasant for everyone; especially young women that wanted to get away from the troubles. Young soldiers were easy targets; a few too many beers down their necks and a roll in the sack meant, for some of them, an easy way out. I don’t say that all the women were the same. However, I have met more than a few squaddies who have met their wives this way.

  Taff had got his girlfriend pregnant. She went to the Commanding Officer with her mother, who told him how her poor daughter had been taken advantage of. The C.O. would call up soldier and, in the interest of good relations between Ireland and Great Britain, would see that she was treated right, i.e., married and carted off to a cosy little furnished house, far away from the Troubles.

  Anyway, with the kids grown up and the Troubles in Ireland consigned to the distant past, his wife wanted to return home to Ireland. He did not.

  So she went and he stayed, moved in with Vanessa. Who was, by the way, the daughter of a wealthy hotel owner with her own house and a top of the range sports car. End of story, good luck to them both. I hope they are still together today. They were a perfect match.

  Sanjit, had moved on after successfully taking his Senior Officers exam to pastures new. Tino was now working in the courts as a dock Officer.

  And that was where I ended up next.

  The Courts

  Working in Croydon Crown Courts as a dock Officer had its benefits – cooked breakfast every morning, a walk around the town on a lunch if it was nice, and a chance to meet some interesting characters.

  I was working at the reception desk in the cell area one morning when a very odd young man came in. He had been dumped on me by the escorting Officers who didn’t want to hang around, fearful they would miss out on the breakfast.

  The poor lad was shaking with fear. I couldn’t see his face; he was bent forward as though he
was in pain.

  You alright mate? I asked.

  Yeshsir, came the reply.

  Sorry mate can’t understand you, I went on. I need to know you’re name prison number and date of birth.

  What came out of his mouth was gobbledygook.

  Look mate, can you stand up straight and give me your name, Prison number and date of birth. I said, louder, losing my patience.

  The man tried his best to stand up, but he was deformed. He had a hair lip and was dyslexic. Now, you shouldn’t laugh at other people’s misfortunes, but Prison Officers are cruel bastards, with a wicked sense of humour.

  Ok, we will take it slowly, I said. I had all his detail already, but it was my job to formally identify him.

  Name?

  Daavshdson.

  That’s Davidson?” I replied.

  Yeshsir, came his answer.

  And your prison number is … I read out his prison number, not wanting to prolong his agony, but I was starting to laugh, drawing the attention of some of my colleagues who had come over to see what was taking so long.

  Yeshsir, he repeated.

  I read out his date of birth. He replied in the usual manner.

  I’m dyslexic you know, he said, oh right, I replied, how do you spell that?

  I donsh, nucking koo, he said between spits.

  Well, we all started to laugh and fired more questions at him; it went on until we were all bent double laughing. Like I said, Prison Officers were cruel bastards. You really had to be there to appreciate the humour. Just try talking with one finger in your mouth; pulling your cheek sideways, you will get the picture. You can stop doing it now, take your finger out of your mouth and stop dribbling.

  We decided not to put him in the cells with the others. Breakfasts were finished. All the staff had a full English at court, as well as a few solicitors, barristers and one of the judges. There was a bit left over, so I gave him a plateful and sat him down in our rest room. We might be cruel buggers, but we knew that putting him in the cells with the others would be a wrong move and cause him more problems; after all, he was a shoplifter, not an armed robber.