The Big Breach

by Richard Tomlinson

  As for many of the other prisoners, visits to the prison gym were a highlight. On days when there were enough screws to escort A-cats off the spur, those of us who queued at Mr Richard's desk quickly enough at morning unlock to get on the list could go to the gym instead of the yard. In the well-equipped sports hall we could weight-train, play badminton, five-a-side soccer or soft-ball tennis. There was also a Concept-II rowing machine and I embarked on a manic fitness program, alternating 5,000m and 10,000m per session - and 20km on Sunday if we got double-gym. Whittling down my times was the best antidote to my otherwise futile and pointless existence in prison.

  We were allowed to buy a daily newspaper and a couple of magazines a week, using private money deposited with reception who ordered the papers in bulk from a nearby newsagent. Only pornography and gun magazines were banned. The eagerly awaited paper delivery arrived just after lunch and then there was an impromptu flea market in the dinner queue to trade them. These papers, together with the small radio permitted in my cell, enabled me to follow events outside prison. My arrest was extensively reported and there were smaller follow-up features about my bail refusal. The press had become much less critical once the hostility whipped up by I/OPS in the aftermath of my arrest had abated and truth about my minor offence had surfaced. The reports became more sympathetic every time bail was refused.

  `Hey Rich, I'm more famous than you now!' Onion-head, a cheerful Liverpudlian with a ruddy face and a Tin Tin quiff of blond hair waved a tabloid newspaper at me one morning. `They've even published me mug shot and number, just like Hugh Grant except better looking, eh!' he exclaimed, kissing his own image. It was considered prestigious to get into the papers and Onion-head proudly showed me an article about himself. He was one of a gang who had carried out a series of armed raids against the homes of wealthy home counties families, robbing them at gunpoint. They had just been sentenced the day before, after spending a year on remand. The Mirror published a full double-page spread, which was the source of Onion-head's pride.

  `What did you get then?' I asked.

  `Sixteen years,' he cheerfully replied, licking the edge of a roll-up. `Flippin' judge just used his lottery numbers, the bastard. Steve got 25, Neil got 19, Owen 22,' he added. `Still, looking on the bright side, keep me head down and me lighthouse nicely buffed-up, get parole and there'll only be 418 episodes of Top of the Pops before I'm a free man,' Onion-head laughed as he lit his roll-up. His flippant optimism cheered me up; my maximum sentence of two years seemed trivial in comparison.

  One morning in November, 8.30 a.m. came and went without the usual sound of clanking keys and opening doors. As the minutes ticked by the prisoners registered their rising impatience by banging their metal bins against cell doors. `What's up?' I shouted to Dobson through the hole by the pipe.

  `Dunno, I'll find out and let you know.' He called through to his neighbour and after a couple of minutes shouted back to me. `Some laddie on the other spur, Colligan, went and topped hissel' last night, daft cunt. Screws found him this morning.'

  `How did he manage that?' I asked. It wasn't easy to kill yourself in Belmarsh; there was nothing sharp to slash wrists, no unprotected balconies to jump off or ropes to hang from.

  `Apparently he ripped up a sheet, made a neck-tourniquet, then rolled over and over on his bed till he choked,' Dobson answered quietly. I only knew Colligan, a guy in his early twenties on remand for allegedly murdering the wife of a millionaire, by sight, but it was sad news. Apparently the evidence against him was strong and he expected a life sentence. `Lads like him, who want to be dead, should have the option of asking for a lethal injection,' Dobson added hoarsely. `It's not fair, putting somebody through living mental torture that they end up topping themsels' like that.'

  We were not unlocked until a doctor examined Colligan and issued a death certificate, photographs and forensic evidence of his body had been taken, and his body had been removed from his cell. The mood on the spur was subdued for the rest of the day.

  During my early days in Belmarsh, it concerned me what other prisoners would think of my offence. Former law enforcement personnel, especially police, are usually victimised and have to request segregation under prison regulation 43. Most `rule 43' prisoners are sex-offenders; the so-called `nonces' so despised by Craggs. But my fears that I might be considered a `grass' (slang for an informer) were unfounded. In the prison heirarchy - armed bank robbers at the top and those convicted of street crimes such as muggings at the bottom - most gave me `respect' for my offence. It was just as well, for one Friday night I saw the treatment dished out to `nonces' whose crimes were regarded as unacceptable. Top of the Pops was on and the spur were congregated in front of the television, cheering Mockalenny who was breakdancing incongruously to a Celine Dion single. A young black guy, fresh from `Beirut', was sitting quietly on his own, sipping a cup of cocoa. Unobserved in the general commotion, Craggs filled a plastic mug with boiling water from the urn, sidled up behind him and tipped the scalding water over his head. The guy fell to the floor clutching his scalp, screaming in agony. Craggs sprang back, arms aloft, vehemently protesting. `Sorry, mate, it was an accident, honest.' Other inmates rushed over as the livid victim got to his feet, clutching his head and lunging at his assaulter with blind anger. Somebody pressed the alarm before a fight could break out and we were invaded by the usual hordes and herded back into our cells. Craggs was still protesting his innocence as his door was slammed shut, not with convincing sincerity, but just to let everybody know that this should be the version of events given by witnesses to the screws.

  Lying face down on my bed, I asked Dobson through the gap what it was all about. `He was a fookin' nonce,' he whispered. `We just got word through from t'other houseblock. He raped some lassie. Should've known better than trying to mix it with us on this spur. I was goona do `im misself, but Craggsy beat me to it. We'll not see `im again.'

  Another new prisoner called Michaels came in for the Craggs Enhanced Negative Vetting interview a few days later, after he appeared at the back of the lunch queue in a new prison tracksuit, fidgeting with his Cartier watch. `What are you in for, mate?' Craggs asked with an undertone of belligerence.

  Michaels, an elderly and educated fellow, hesitated for a moment, unused to being addressed by a scar-faced skinhead. `A spot of fraud,' he nervously replied, adjusting his glasses.

  `Oh I say, just a spot of fraud,' Craggs mimicked an upper-class accent for his audience. `What did you get then?' he asked, still suspicious.

  `Eighteen months,' replied Michaels cautiously.

  `Only 18 months! That's a bleedin' touch that is, a shit and a shave,' Craggs jeered. `So how much did ya nick then?' he asked.

  `The judge said that it amounted to about œ600,000 in total, over about ten years or so,' Michaels nervously replied.

  Craggs frowned, as his brain made a quick calculation. `Wot, you swagged six hundred bleedin' grand, and you only got 18 month?' Michaels looked at the floor and fidgeted uncomfortably with his watch. `I only swagged five bleedin' grand and got 15 years!' exclaimed Craggs indignantly.

  `Aye, but you did shoot the bank manager while you were at it,' Onion-head butted in helpfully.

  But Craggs was unrepentant. `Six `undred bleedin' grand, and only 18 bleedin' month,' he repeated wistfully. `Fuck me, that's what I'm gettin' into when I'm out o' here. I'll go into fraud. That's gotta be the answer, heh,' he nudged Onion-head jubilantly in the ribs, pleased with his new idea. `Yeah, that's wot I'll do,' he repeated optimistically, pleased with his brainwave. But a frown slowly crumpled his scarred face, as a dark cloud loomed. `Fuck, if only I could read `n' fuckin' write.'

  Most of the other prisoners on my spur and the neighbouring spur with whom we shared our hour in the exercise yard knew me because of the media coverage and it was not unusual for a complete stranger to approach me to express his disgust that I was in prison for writing a book. They also sought my perceived expertise in case it might prove useful in the future, errone
ously assuming that I would be an expert on firearms, have an insider's knowledge of the workings of every obscure department of the police or customs service and a solid grounding in criminal law. My hour in the exercise yard, where it was possible to talk out of earshot of the screws, was dominated with questions like, `What's better, an Uzi or a Heckler & Koch?', `Can SMS messages between mobile phones be intercepted?' and `How do you spot police surveillance?' The questions broke the ice, enabling me to quiz my colleagues about their own crimes, and gradually the exercise hours evolved into informal symposia on criminal tradecraft. They taught me how to ring cars, where to buy false passports, how to slip out of the UK without documents and the best countries in which to evade recapture and extradition.

  Another popular topic of conversation was the relative merits of one prison over another. By universal consensus, Belmarsh was the worst prison anyone had experienced; the lack of freedom and association irksome even to the career criminals. The acknowledged jail connoisseur was Ronnie, a cockney who had been in so many foreign jails that he spoke fluent rhyming slang in several languages. His last stretch had been in a Monaco jail. One afternoon, queuing for dinner with Dobson and Onion-head, he told us how he ended up there. He had just come by some money by virtue of a `little venture' and decided to treat his mother to a weekend in Monte Carlo. `I came out of the bleedin' Casino Royale,' he continued, `all spruced up in me dinner jacket, and there was a bright yellow Lamborghini Diabolo parked outside. I thought to missel', ``I'll have that'', so I went up to the gar‡on and told him to get the keys to me macinino pronto. The little con went and fetched the Lambo' from where it was parked and handed it over! I was with me Mam and she was saying, `No Ronnie, don't do it, don't do it', but I shoved her in the front and told her to shut up. We were halfway to the Costa Brava before the flics nicked us.' Jail in Monaco was, according to Ronnie, a `piece of pissoir.' Dutch jails too were a breeze. `They kept payin' me to go on drug-rehab courses, but I was so stoned I kept `avin to start again.' Swiss jails were `like bleedin' Hiltons' and Spanish, French and German jails were all `a touch' compared to British prisons.

  Even the experienced Dobson and Craggs were in awe of Ronnie's prison knowledge. `Which country would you say has the best jails then?' asked Dobson, who was considering a career move abroad if he were acquitted from his current offence.

  Ronnie furrowed his brow for a second. `Ah, there's no fuckin' contest. You wanna get yoursel' in a fackin' Icelandic jail. They're a bleedin' swan. I was getting paid œ100 per week to sweep the yard, only I didn't `ave to do it if it were covered in snow, which was all fackin' year. I came out rich like a bleedin' rag'ead.'

  One bitterly cold afternoon I was pacing the exercise yard furiously, trying to keep warm against a biting wind and cursing to myself about the circumstances that had lead to my imprisonment. Other prisoners were huddled in the corners of the yard sheltering from the wind, except Mockalenny who had stripped to the waist and was energetically dancing in a puddle in the middle of singing the Lord's prayer with his arms raised to the sky. Suddenly, a meaty hand clasped my shoulder from behind. I spun round, brushing the assailant's hand away and bracing myself for trouble. It was a relief to see a grin on the gnarled but friendly face of an elderly prisoner from spur two. `You're that spy fella, aren't you?' he asked. Before I could reply, he introduced himself. `The name's Henderson, Pat Henderson . . .' (a grin crumpling at the familiar joke). `I wanted a word with you,' he continued. `Do you know a bloke called George Blake?'

  `I've heard of him,' I replied, `if we're talking about the same George Blake.' George Blake was the last MI6 officer to go to prison for a breach of the OSA in 1950. After spending six years in prison he escaped and fled to Moscow. `Yeah, that's the one,' Henderson laughed. `I was in Wormwood Scrubs with him, years back. A cracking fellow. He went over the wall one night.'

  I laughed at the irony of ending up in jail with somebody who knew Blake.

  `What's he up to now?' Henderson asked.

  `I think he's living in Moscow these days,' I replied.

  `Well if ever you get to meet him, make sure you give him my regards,' Henderson beamed.

  The screws escorted me back up to Bow Street Magistrate's court on Monday, 17 November for my third and final chance to get bail. They subjected me to the usual Full Monty's, but this time there was no police escort. The authorities presumably realised they didn't have a dangerous prisoner on their hands, despite MI6's claims. By then it mattered little to me whether or not bail was granted as I was resigned to spending more time in jail. My only chance of release lay in the slim possibility that the Attorney General, John Morris, might drop the charges. Breaches of the OSA are not automatically prosecuted: specific authorisation, known as a `fiat', must be issued by the Attorney General. Ostensibly, it is his decision alone, but in reality the intelligence services decide. They are always the first government agencies to discover breaches of the OSA, so if they do not want a prosecution, as in the case of Melissa Norwood, they keep quiet. But if they want a person prosecuted, as was clear in my case, they swing every axe they can find in Whitehall to ensure that it is carried out with an iron fist. MI6 would lobby Morris hard. But he had not immediately conceded, suggesting that he might at least have some doubts. Like Prime Minister Tony Blair and the rest of the Labour cabinet, Morris had voted against the OSA in 1989. But Owen came to the door-hatch to bring the news. `Morris has just faxed through the fiat. I am afraid there's no way out now.' It was a blow, but I had taken care not to let my hopes of release get too high. There was now little point in contesting bail. With a fiat issued only a few minutes before the hearing, only a brave magistrate would grant it. Anyway, there were advantages to staying in prison, as time spent on remand would count towards my final sentence.

  Three days later, on the BBC radio I heard news that highlighted the political nature of OSA prosecutions. Chris Patten, a former Tory minister and political heavyweight who had lost his seat in the last general election, had been appointed Governor of Hong Kong to oversee the years leading up to the 1999 handover of power to China. As Governor, he signed the OSA and regularly received CX reports. He also authorised the journalist Jonathan Dimbleby to write an official biography glorifying his governorship, entitled The Last Days. In order to substantiate aspects of the book, and no doubt also to pump up sales, Patten gave Dimbleby direct copies of many CX reports. This brazen breach of the OSA was more serious than that posed by giving Martyn a heavily disguised synopsis that was never published. The police and the CPS wanted to prosecute but Morris refused to issue the fiat, arguing that there was `no useful purpose' in prosecuting Patten.

  If breaches of secrecy laws are not applied consistently to all offenders, whatever their status, then they are political offences. I wrote to Morris from my prison cell asking him to explain this inconsistency and asked what `useful purpose' he saw in prosecuting me. He never replied.

  One of the many restrictions imposed on A-cat prisoners is close control over visits. We were only permitted visits from immediate family, and then only after they had been approved by the police and prison service. On my first day in Belmarsh, using a special application form, I nominated my mother as my first visitor. This was sent to Cumbria SB and two PCs interviewed her at home. It wasn't until Friday, 21 November, three weeks after my arrest, that she was cleared to make the seven-hour trip to south-east London for a 40-minute visit. There was a thick sheet of perspex between us to prevent any physical contact and we spoke through a recorded intercom. My mother found the visit traumatic and, though she tried to put on a brave face, I could tell that she was close to tears.

  A-cat prisoners were allowed to receive up to four letters a day which were censored by the staff and, in my case, copied to MI6. Most of my mail came from family and friends and I could recognise who a letter was from by the handwriting and postmark. One day a letter came bearing unfamiliar handwriting. Even after reading it, it took me several minutes to realise that it was fro
m a former member of staff. She wrote that in a few years time my offence would be regarded as purely political, a morale-boosting fillip from somebody ostensibly from the other side. Shortly after her letter, a second piece of surprise mail arrived, the envelope bearing handwriting that, by the forward slope and cut-down letter `y's, was that of a native Russian speaker. More mysteriously, it was from prisoner XM2920 in Wormwood Scrubs. It took several scans of the letter to make a mental connection with the name at the bottom. `Nueman' was the MI6 resettlement name for NORTHSTAR. My last news of him was that he was about to start an MBA and he explained in his letter what had happened next. After finishing the degree, he set up a business organising conferences on western commercial practices for Russian and Ukranian businessmen. Unfortunately, having accepted their substantial up-front registration fees, he forgot to do the rest. When some of the delegates demanded the return of their fees, he fled to Geneva. After a lengthy legal battle, he was extradited back to the UK and received 36 months for fraud. We exchanged a few letters and started a game of correspondence chess which he was soon winning handsomely.

  In early December Mr Richards collared me as I was going through the metal detector to the exercise yard. `Tomlinson, get back here.' he bellowed cheerfully. `No exercise for you today, you've got a police visit.' My spirits fell. Police normally visited prisoners only to press more charges.