What they didn’t realise at the same time one of the RBS subsidiaries called Global Restructuring Group (GRG) was being investigated as several complaints had been received alleging malpractice. GRG was responsible for overseeing the small business clients that had got into trouble, but critics alleged it was deliberately putting businesses under, so it could take control of them on the cheap and sell on for a profit. The bank denied the very serious charge that it sought to profit from deliberately putting companies out of business but Buzzfeed’s investigation (a global team of investigative journalists) and exposer on the BBC Newsnight programme had forced the bank to acknowledge for the first time ever, that something went wrong in its treatment of Britain’s small businesses. The RBS denied any wrongdoing. More than 16,000 companies’ worth £65bn ended up on GRG’s list of assets and in 2011, GRG netted £1.2bn of profits.
After listening to Jacob’s story, I fully understand why he hated banks so much. He had lost the goose that would lay the golden egg and net him and his company millions of pounds for years to come. I asked him what had caused him to be serving at Her Majesty’s Pleasure and sat back to listen to his story. Apparently, after the company was lost, he started drinking which eventually led him to losing his job at Christ’s College, Cambridge. He continued to drink, and he lost his lovely house in Grantchester and his wife and children who had moved in with his wife’s parents. One night he was sat in his bedsit in Cambridge drinking and on the screen, he saw a news report about the RBS titled “Bankers from another planet”. The program question why a bank (of which was 80% is owned by the British taxpayer) with losses of £5 billion could justify obscene bonuses of up to double its bankers' annual salary. It made him mad and as he was out of whisky he just got in his car and drove to a 24 hours supermarket to buy more.
On his way back he travelled along Trinity Street in Cambridge and spotted the RBS branch and just saw red. He aimed his car at the large window and drove straight at them, not caring about the consequences. He wasn’t injured badly but the banks front was demolished. He was charged with criminal damage, drink driving but the killer blow was being charged with dangerous driving and hitting a tourist that he hadn’t seen who ended up losing a leg. As you know I got 5 years which could mean that I would be out after serving 33 months if I behave myself. It was clear to me that Jacob was probably the cleverest inmate I had ever met but apart from trying to sober him up there wasn’t any course I could put him on as he didn’t want to learn a new manual trade.
Instead he did agree to teach other prisoners’ mathematics which would be challenging. Having agreed it with the governor he allowed him to teach basic maths to fellow inmates and he was good at what he did. I suggested a teaching career, but he said apart from his two-lovely girl’s, kids scared the hell out of him. I did sit in on one of his sessions and it was clear to me that he had a gift, but he also understood those that were useless at maths. He said that one of the easiest ways to teach was to start at the beginning as once a student had mastered the basics then the rest would follow. Jacob was also helpful with another major problem every prison in the world was facing and that was to do with mobile phones. After drugs, one of the “must have” items in prison was a mobile phone. These were smuggled in the same way as drugs were. Female visitors would shove them in places we couldn’t check with a brush down and once pass security would retrieve and sold on. Some prison guards were as bent as the inmates and could obtain anything an inmate wanted.
Suppliers were also a problem and phones had come in with vegetable and meat supplies and found their way to the prisoner. Hiding things inside a baby’s nappy was also a common trick used. Whilst teaching at Christ’s College, Cambridge, Jacob has come up with the same problem. It wasn’t the supply of mobile phones but the use of them especially when sitting an exam. Jacob had suggested that the college use phone jammers to cover the building used for exam sessions. However, he had hit a big brick wall with Ofcom as they didn’t allow the use of phone jammers for any reason, as it may block 999 and other urgent calls.
Cell phones have been used by inmates to arrange the murder of witnesses and public safety officers, traffic in drugs, and manage criminal enterprises. A way around Ofcom’s ruling is to investigate the use of Call Capture. Because such systems are based on well-proven cellular base station technology, inmate call capture has little potential for causing interference to public safety radio communications. Inmate call capture technologies also offer investigative tools for correction officials to pursue other enforcement action when properly authorized. Inmate cell capture systems can be operated remotely, and the controlling base station and antenna can be mounted on towers, mobile platforms, or other locations outside of the prison confines that are not accessible to inmates or prison staff.
Another way maybe to deploy so-called “IMSI catchers” to prevent, detect or investigate the use of mobile phones in prisons. There was a government department called the Investigatory Powers Commissioner which could step in and regulate the use of IMSI catchers instead of Ofcom, this has not happened. The installation of IMSI catchers would need a change in the Law and this was supposed to happen with the introduction of the Prisons and Courts Bill but this was dropped by the conservative government in April 2017 due to the PM calling an early election. It would appear that stopping the use of mobile phones by criminals (including IS terrorist prisoners) isn’t important enough, so until someone pulls their finger out the convict keeps on winning.
Update:
On the 20th of December 2019, the Daily Mail reported that “A report out yesterday from inspectors at the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) said that some 'blue sky thinking' was needed to stop the trade in 'contraband' mobile phones smuggled into the UK's jails. Each year around 20,000 phones and SIM cards are found by prison staff, with phones selling for up to £1,000. Mini phones, called Zanco Fly phones - the world's smallest mobile phone at just two-inches long - trade hands for anything up to £500”. The use of mobile phones in UK prisons continues to be a problem and It’s about time that the Government goy off its backside and done something to stop this misuse.
I was sorry to see Jacob leave and so were many of the fellow prisoners he had helped understand maths. When I checked on Jacob a few months after he had left prison I was pleased to hear that he had kept away from the booze but sad to hear that his wife was getting a divorce and he was only allowed to see his daughters once a fortnight.
As he was struggling, I asked him if he wanted to join the heist in Bedford and he jumped at the idea. Jacob Henningsson will be my team leader for Team E.
Chapter 38. Could not care once you are 18
Rees Jones aged 22 from Corby in Northamptonshire, England through no fault of his own had been pushed from foster home to foster home since he was 8 as both his parents were sent to prison for drug dealing. Rees ended up in a residential care home in Northampton after being arrested for drug offences at the young age of 13. He ran away more times than he can remember and always ended in the area of the town known as Sammy’s End. Drugs were always available and if he couldn’t steel to get money, he would sell his body to the never-ending number of males cruising the run-down streets. He could always guarantee being picked up as he was young looking very slim child that was always a benefit.
I asked Rees what went wrong when he left his residential care home in Northampton at the age of 18. He said that there should have been some support, such as a personal adviser but it all went wrong and due to councils not having enough money to employ care staff he was lost amongst the ever growing numbers of kids leaving the care system due to them reaching 18. He had been found a flat, but it was on the Bellinge Estate in eastern Northampton. Bellinge and its neighbouring Ecton Brook estate was built in the 1970s and 80s as new towns to house the overspill of London and other areas which are now council estates. Bellinge had suffered from serious problems in the 1990s and became one of the most crime ridden estates in England.
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bsp; The Bellinge estate had cleaned up its act since then but it was still not a nice place to live. Rees went on to say that he felt that the support system for young people who've been in foster care or residential care but there is something terribly wrong with the system as a third of young people are ending up on the streets within their first year of becoming an adult. I pushed him to try and understand what had gone wrong as I could see that he was provided with a flat, yet he still ended up in prison. He said that when he left residential care and was given a home, he had no idea of how to budget his benefit and he soon got behind with his electricity bill and rates. He had his power cut off due to non-payment and the council were going to take him to court for the rates.
He went on to say that he was never shown how to make and stick to a budget either at school or before he left care. This was probably down to the fact that the benefits he would receive simply weren’t enough to cover the bills, so they couldn’t show a way how to budget without showing in black and white that the benefits he would get simply were not ever going to be enough. If he were able to find a job it would be a low paid job and even if he worked 60+ hours a week he still wouldn’t bring in enough to break even.
I asked Rees why he hadn’t contacted one of the organisations such as the Roots Foundation who were there to help young people like him. He said he didn’t know about such organisations, but he should have been told that they existed. He had a friend that was in a foster home since he was 9 and under the government’s Staying Put legislation, which came into force in 2014, he can now remain until he is 21. Being in a residential care home didn’t give him the same option. He did say that he had done some research in the library and after this system was introduced some 75% of young adults decided to leave their foster home once they became 18. It looked as though many of the 75% had only been in a foster home since their early teens and hadn’t had the same time to bond with their foster parents as a child say of 7 did.
Money (or the lack of it) plays an important part as when his friend was in foster care his foster parents would get paid £429, consisting of a £214 fostering fee and £215 maintenance. However, when the same child became 18 the money dropped to £120.00 a week. Every year around 10,000 16 to 18-year-olds leave foster or residential care in England. With a third of these teenagers ending up sleeping on the streets that’s over 3,000 more youngsters heading for a drug and/or alcohol dependent life which will result in the government spending a fortune just to keep them alive. Something needs to be done soon or many more will end up in prison costing the British taxpayer £43,000 every year. I placed Rees on a drug rehabilitation programme but as soon as he leaves, I’m sure he will be back to the streets carrying on as before and again will be sitting in front of me. I had a job locating Rees as he had moved out of the apartment he had been given when he left but I just had to ask around the rough sleepers in Northampton to find him.
He accepted the offer to join the heist in Bedford. Rees Jones is my second guest in Team E.
Chapter 39. How we do not deal with the mentally ill
Lenny Adams reminded me of John 'Goldfinger' Palmer the infamous 1983 Brinks-MAT bullion robber although he was found not guilty by a jury in 1987. Like John Palmer, Lenny was also from Solihull, Warwickshire and had the same “smart” look about him but his eyes gave him away as they always read ‘DANGER’ to me. Lenny had always suffered from mental health problems and had had a miserable childhood as his mental condition was never diagnosed until he was 34. He had been abused by older men and when he reported it to the school, he was told not to be silly and act as a man.
Lenny had been in prison far too many times and he was in the wrong place as prison staff are not trained on how to deal with mental health problems. During my twenty plus years as a prison counsellor I have seen the number of prisoners who were suffering from mental health problems rise tenfold. We used to joke about it with young officers stating that Maggie Thatcher had closed all the mental institutions as she didn’t want to end up in one. As the years passed by prison was the only option open to the courts as they had a duty to protect the public. People like Lenny should be treated and cared for in a hospital close to where they have family and friends but during the past decade more and more mental health patients in England were sent for “out-of-area” treatment.
This in many cases made their condition worse but due to funding cuts and a desperate shortage of beds it meant doctors are often left with little choice but to call hospitals around the country in a bid to secure a bed and suitable treatment for patients suffering from severe mental health conditions, including schizophrenia, psychosis and anorexia. Attacks on prison officers has risen over the past decade and this overload of prisoners with mental health has done little to end the rising number of prison officers suffering from stress and anxiety attacks themselves. Mental health problems and depression will affect over 25% of people sometime during their lives and if treatment isn’t provided quickly then the problem gets worse. Mental health has always suffered badly when hospitals and health trust try to balance their budget. The biggest problem is that the people who make the laws know sod all about the everyday problems facing their constituents.
If I ruled the world I would make it compulsory that every MP had to spend a Friday and Saturday night at their main A & E department, so that they can see first-hand what damage cut backs are causing ordinary people on a daily basis. They would also see the problems cause by drugs and drink, and I would guarantee that after a few nights at the sharp end they would have a different view on the NHS, drugs, binge drinking and a host of other problems. It would also do society well if they also spent a shift or two with their local police force. They would then see the problems facing police forces in every part of Britain along with the time the police force spends trying to sort out domestic abuse, homelessness, people with mental health problems, drugs and alcohol abuse and that’s before they even try to catch criminals.
The government’s gestapo division (known as the DWP) keeps getting matters to do with mental health totally wrong. The current well publicised Personal Independence Payment (PIP) problems continue to discriminate against people with mental health problems In December 2017, the High Court ruling declared that this policy had been "blatantly discriminatory" against people with mental health conditions and was unlawful because there had not been any consultation on the issue. Paul Farmer, chief executive of mental health charity Mind, said in the Daily Mirror “This ruling is a significant victory for people with mental health problems. “If the ruling is allowed to stand then more than 160,000 people with mental health problems will be able to access the support, they should have been entitled to all along."
In the end we see all the country’s problems ending up at our prison gates and it is only getting worse. The prison service is at breaking point and the number of prison officers per inmate is getting to crisis level. Something needs to be changed or more and more officers will leave the service and the dream that Tony Blair had about “any system of justice should not just be to punish and deter, but also to rehabilitate, for the good of society as well as the criminal” will be lost forever.
Lenny accepted my invite as he said he needed the money but I didn’t ask him what for. Lenny Adams will be my third guest in Team E.
Chapter 40. Another of our professional prisoners
Mike Hood who was 47 years of age – but looked a lot older and was a professional prisoner. I named Mike and other inmates like him “professional prisoners” as they have made it their life’s work to be in prison. They know they will get housed, clothed and fed and their addiction treated, so why struggle as a ‘free’ man where they will struggle to find a job and to live off the minimum benefit money provided. Over the years I have witnessed the steady rise in the numbers with some of the regular reoffenders asking the judge if they could be placed in a certain prison and also have the cheek to request a particular cell or wing they would like to be housed when they arr
ive at the prison.
This culture needs correcting and a new training system set up to ensure that every inmate leaves prison with a new trade. There is a national shortage of qualified staff in the construction industry which needs more electrician mates, plumbers, bricklayers, plasterers, chippy’s and a host of other trades. Farming is another sector that is crying out for horticulturist and a wide range of farming skills such as Agricultural Engineers, Poultry / Broiler management skills, Herdsman, etc.
There are different types of prisons in the UK and a good example of an open prison would be the HMP North Sea Camp which is a category D prison in Lincolnshire. I had met the governor, Graham Batchford, who like me began his career as a prison officer and over 26 years worked his way through the Prison Service ranks. He is candid about his objectives and priorities. "The best use of an open prison is what we are trying to do here which is to significantly increase our indeterminate population, life sentence prisoners and IPPs [Indeterminate sentences for the Protection of the Public]. We have about 130 indeterminate sentenced prisoners here at present. Graham said that in his opinion an open prison is better for long-term prisoners to be released from open rather than closed prisons? "I think it is better so long as the community understands what it is we are trying to do. You must have an open and honest approach with the local community. We have about 70 prisoners going out every day on voluntary work placements. This is about preparing people properly.
The Bedford Heist Page 18