by James Bowen
Once or twice I’d spent it on my own, trying to forget the fact that my family was on the other side of the world. Well, most of it. On a couple of occasions, I’d spent the day with my father. After going missing for a year when I first ended up on the streets, I’d stayed in contact, calling him very occasionally and he’d invited me down to his house in south London. But it hadn’t been the greatest of experiences. He didn’t really think much of me. I couldn’t really blame him. I wasn’t exactly a son to be proud about.
I’d been grateful for a nice lunch and a few drinks and, most of all, a bit of company. But it hadn’t really been a great success and we hadn’t done it again.
This year was different though. I invited Belle round on Christmas Eve for a drink. Then for Christmas Day I splashed out on a ready-made turkey breast with all the trimmings. I wasn’t really into cooking and didn’t have the equipment even if I had been. I got Bob some really nice treats including his favourite chicken meal.
When Christmas Day arrived we got up reasonably early and went out for a short walk so that Bob could do his business. There were other families from the block heading off to see relatives and friends. We all exchanged ‘Happy Christmases’ and smiles. Even that was more than I’d experienced in a long while.
Back up at the flat, I gave Bob his stocking. He had spotted it days earlier and had obviously guessed it was meant for him. I emptied the contents one by one. There were treats, toys, balls, and little soft things containing catnip. He absolutely loved it and was soon playing with his new toys like an excitable child on Christmas morning. It was pretty adorable.
I cooked our lunch early in the afternoon, then put a hat on each of us, had a can of beer and watched television for the rest of the afternoon and evening. It was the best Christmas I’d had in years.
Chapter 11
Mistaken Identity
By the spring and summer of 2008, being a busker on the streets of London was becoming more and more difficult, almost impossible at times.
There were a couple of reasons. I know people assume the economy doesn’t affect people on the streets, but that’s not the case at all. The recession – which at that point was only just gearing up – had hit me and people in my position quite hard. The kind-hearted folk who used to think nothing of dropping me and Bob a pound or two, were now holding on to their money. One or two regulars even told me as much. They said they were worried about losing their jobs. I couldn’t really argue with them. So, as a result, I was having to work much longer hours often to make less money to feed me and Bob and keep us warm.
I could live with that, the bigger problem was the fact that the authorities had started coming down hard on street performers who didn’t work in the designated spots. I wasn’t sure why they’d decided to do this, especially now, but I did know that it had begun to make my life a real headache.
Most of the Covent Guardians had always been reasonable. I’d had trouble from the most aggressive of them, but in general they’d never been really heavy with me. But even they had started confiscating stuff if they felt you weren’t taking what they said seriously. I don’t think they had any new powers, they had just been told to get a bit more serious about what they were doing.
There were also a few, new faces among them. One of the more aggressive of the newcomers had threatened to take away my guitar a couple of times. I’d managed to dissuade him by promising to play in a designated area - or move out of the neighbourhood. I’d then sneaked around the corner for half an hour before returning to James Street.
It had become a constant game of hide and seek, but I was running out of places to hide. The new Guardians seemed to know where I was going to be. Most days now I’d be moved along or spoken to at some point. It was wearing me down. Deep down I knew that my time as a busker was drawing to an end. The straw that broke the camel’s back came one afternoon in May that year.
Another of the reasons busking had become particularly hard for me was the staff at Covent Garden tube station. The bad vibe I’d been getting from there had become more and more unpleasant. I don’t know why but they didn’t want me busking there. There were now a number of ticket inspectors who would regularly wander across the road from the entrance to the tube station and give me a real mouthful of abuse.
I could handle that. I was well used to it. But they’d definitely been talking about me together and had come up with some kind of plan to campaign against me. Every now and again they would call up the British Transport Police, who would turn up and give me hassle. As if I needed any more of that. I’d learned to deal with them in the same way as the other authorities: I’d slope off, promising never to darken their doorstep again, then slink back into position when the coast was clear. I saw no harm in what I was doing. No one was getting hurt were they?
All that changed one afternoon.
I’d headed into Covent Garden as usual with Bob. I had a friend staying with me at the time, a guy called Dylan, who I’d met way back when I was with the band. He’d been kicked out of his previous accommodation when he’d refused to pay an extortionate new rent by some unscrupulous landlord. He needed a floor to sleep on for a couple of weeks. I’d been there myself, so I couldn’t refuse him. He had begun sleeping on my sofa.
Bob hadn’t taken too kindly to Dylan’s arrival at first. I think he felt he was going to lose out in my affections. But as soon as he realised that Dylan was, in fact, another animal lover, and discovered that he was going to get more attention, then he was fine. Bob thrived on attention.
This particular afternoon Dylan decided he was going to come into London with us and hang around Covent Garden. It was a lovely, sunny day and he felt like enjoying it. He was playing with Bob as I set myself up on the corner of James Street. Looking back on it, I can’t believe how fortunate it was that he was there.
I’d barely put the guitar strap over my shoulder when a British Transport Police van arrived at speed and pulled up alongside the pavement. Three officers jumped out and immediately started walking towards me.
‘What’s all this about?’ Dylan said.
‘Don’t know. More of the usual stuff,’ I said, fully expecting to have to go through the usual tap dance of promising to move away.
I was wrong.
‘Right you, you’re coming with us,’ one of the officers said, pointing at me.
‘What for?’ I said.
‘We’re arresting you on suspicion of using threatening behaviour.’
‘What? Threatening who? I don’t know what the hell—’
Before I could finish my sentence they had grabbed me. While one of them read me my rights, another one stuck me in handcuffs.
‘We’ll explain at the station. Let’s get your shit together and get in the van before we make things even worse for you,’ he said.
‘What about my cat?’ I said gesturing at Bob.
‘We’ve got some dog kennels at the station, we’ll stick him in there,’ another of the officers said. ‘Unless you’ve got someone to take him.’
My head was spinning. I had no idea what was happening. But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dylan. He was looking sheepish and didn’t want to get involved.
‘Dylan, will you look after Bob?’ I said. ‘Take him back to the flat. The keys are in my rucksack.’
He nodded and started moving towards Bob. I watched him scoop him up and reassure him. I could see the look on Bob’s face; he was terrified by what was happening to me. Through the mesh windows at the back of the van, I watched as the figures of Dylan and Bob standing on the pavement disappeared from view.
We drove to the British Transport Police station. I still had no idea what was going on.
Within a few minutes I was standing in front of a desk clerk being asked to empty all my pockets and to answer all sorts of questions. I was then led into a cell where I was told to wait until I was seen by an officer. As I sat there in the barren cell, the walls gouged with graffiti and the floors smellin
g of stale urine, it brought awful memories flooding back.
I’d had run-ins with the police before, mostly for petty theft.
When you are homeless or have a drug habit you try to find easy options to make money. And, to be honest, few things are easier than shoplifting. My main thing was stealing meat. I’d lift legs of lamb and expensive steaks. Jamie Oliver steaks. Lamb shanks. Gammon joints. Never chicken, chicken is too low value. What I stole was the stuff with the highest price value. What you get is half the price on the label. If you go to a pub and sell the stuff that’s what you could expect to get. Pubs are very solid ground for selling stolen goods. Everybody knows that.
The first time I did it to pay for my habit was in 2001 or 2002, something like that. Before that I’d been begging to feed my habit. Before that I’d been on a methadone course. I’d got clean but then I’d started using again because things were bad. I’d been moved into some dodgy accommodation where everyone was using and had spiralled back into bad habits.
I can still remember the first time I got busted. It was at the Marks and Spencer’s at the Angel, Islington. I used to dress up smartly and tie my hair back, dress like a postman at the end of his daily rounds popping in for a snack or a pint of milk on the way home. It was all about appearance. You had to be clever about it. If I’d walked in with a rucksack or a shopping bag I’d never have stood a chance. I carried a postman’s Royal Mail bag around with me. It’s different today but back then nobody looked twice at you if you had one of those bags slung over your shoulders.
Anyhow, I got stopped one day. I had about one hundred and twenty pounds’ worth of meat on me.
I was taken into police custody. At that time they gave me an on-the-spot fine of eight pounds for theft. I was lucky to get that because it was my first time.
Of course, it didn’t stop me. I had a habit. I had to do what I had to do. I was on heroin and an occasional bit of crack. You take the risk. You have to.
When you get nicked it sucks. But you have got to bite the bullet. Obviously, you sit there feeling sorry for yourself, but you aren’t going to fight the powers that be.
You try to get out of it, you make up lies but they don’t believe you. They never really do. It’s a vicious circle when you are down.
That was why busking had been so good for me. It was legal. It kept me straight. But now here I was back in the nick. It felt like a real kick in the stomach.
I’d been in the cell for about half an hour when the door opened suddenly and a white-shirted officer ushered me out.
‘Come on,’ he said.
‘Where are you taking me now?’ I asked.
‘You’ll see,’ he said.
I was taken into a bare room with a few plastic chairs and a single table.
There were a couple of officers sitting opposite me. They looked disinterested, to be honest. But then one of them started questioning me.
‘Where were you yesterday evening at around 6.30p.m.?’ one of them asked.
‘Um, I was busking in Covent Garden,’ I said.
‘Where?’
‘On the corner of James Street, opposite the entrance to the tube,’ I said, which was true.
‘Did you go into the tube station at any time that evening?’ the copper asked.
‘No, I never go in there,’ I said. ‘I travel by bus.’
‘Well, how come we’ve got at least two witnesses saying that you were in the station and that you verbally abused and spat at a female ticket attendant?’
‘I’ve got absolutely no idea,’ I said, bemused.
‘They saw you come up the escalator from the tube and try to go through the automatic barrier without a ticket.’
‘Well, as I say, that can’t have been me,’ I said.
‘When you were challenged you verbally abused a female member of staff.’
I just sat there shaking my head. This was surreal.
‘You were then led to the ticket booth and asked to buy a ticket,’ he went on. ‘When you did so, against your will, you then spat at the window of the ticket booth.’
That was it; I lost my cool.
‘Look, this is bullshit,’ I said. ‘I told you I wasn’t in the tube station last night. I’m never in there. And I never travel by tube. Me and my cat travel everywhere by bus.’
They just looked at me as if I was telling the biggest lies in the world.
They asked me if I wanted to make a statement, so I did, explaining that I’d been busking all night. I knew the CCTV footage would back this up. But at the back of my mind I was having all sorts of paranoid thoughts.
What if this was all a fit up? What if they had doctored the CCTV footage in the tube station? What if it went to court and it was my word against three or four London Underground officers?
Worst of all, I found myself anxiously wondering what would happen to Bob. Who would look after him? Would he stay with them or head back on to the street? And what would happen to him there? Thinking about it did my head in.
They kept me in for about another two or three hours. After a while I lost all track of time. There was no natural light in the room so I had no idea whether it was day or night outside. At one point a lady police officer came in, with a surly-looking male officer behind her.
‘I need to do a DNA test,’ she said as he took a position in the corner where he stood with his arms folded, glaring at me.
‘OK,’ I said, ignoring him. I figured I had nothing to lose. ‘What do I have to do?’ I asked the female officer.
‘Just sit there and I’ll take a swab of saliva from your mouth,’ she said.
She produced a little kit, with loads of swabs and test tubes.
Suddenly I felt like I was at the dentist.
‘Open wide,’ she said.
She then stuck a long, cotton bud into my mouth, gave it a bit of a scrape around the inside of my cheek and that was that.
‘All done,’ she said, putting the bud in a test tube and packing her stuff away.
Eventually, I was let out of the cell and taken back to the desk at the front of the station where I signed for my stuff. I had to sign a form saying that I was released on bail and told that I had to return a couple of days later.
‘When will I know if I am being formally charged?’ I asked the duty officer, suspecting that he couldn’t really tell me that. To my surprise he said that I’d probably know when I came back in a couple of days’ time.
‘Really?’ I said.
‘More than likely,’ he said.
That was good and bad, I decided immediately. Good in the sense that I’d not have to wait months to find out if I was going to be charged, bad in the sense that if they were going to charge me I could find myself spending time inside very soon.
I really didn’t relish that prospect.
After finally being let free, I emerged into the streets behind Warren Street in pitch darkness. There were already little groups of homeless people hunkering down for the night, hiding themselves away in alleyways.
It was approaching eleven o’clock. By the time I got back to Seven Sisters tube station it was close to midnight and the streets were full of drunks and people being turfed out of the pubs.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I got inside the flat.
Dylan was watching television with Bob curled up in his usual spot under the radiator. The minute I walked through the door, he jumped up and padded over to me, tilting his head to one side and looking up at me.
‘Hello, mate, you all right?’ I said, dropping to my knees and stroking him.
He immediately clambered up on to my knee and started rubbing against my face.
Dylan had headed off into the kitchen but soon reappeared with a cold tin of lager from the fridge.
‘That’s a life saver, thanks,’ I said, ripping the ring off the tin and taking a slug of cold beer.
I sat up for a couple of hours with Dylan, trying to make sense of what had happened to me. I knew the ticket collec
tors at Covent Garden tube didn’t like me - but I didn’t think they’d go so far as to try and frame me for a crime I didn’t commit.
‘There’s no way they can fix the DNA to match yours, mate,’ Dylan reassured me.
I wish I could have been so certain.
I slept fitfully that night. I’d been really shaken by the experience. No matter how much I tried to tell myself it would work out fine, I couldn’t erase the thought that my life could be about to take a terrible turn. I felt powerless, angry - and really scared.
I decided to give Covent Garden a wide berth the following day. Bob and I played around Neal Street and one or two other places towards Tottenham Court Road. But my heart wasn’t in it. I was too worried about what was going to happen when I turned up at the police station the following day. Again that night I struggled to get much sleep.
I was due to report at the Transport Police station at midday but set off early to make sure I was on time. I didn’t want to give them any excuses. I left Bob back at home - just in case I was going to be kept there for hours again. He had picked up on my anxiety as I’d paced around the flat eating my toast at breakfast.
‘Don’t worry, mate, I’ll be back before you know it,’ I reassured him as I left. If only I’d been as confident of that as I sounded.
It took me a while to find the station, which was hidden away on a backstreet off Tottenham Court Road. I’d arrived there in the back of a van and left after dark, so it wasn’t surprising that I had trouble finding it.
When I did locate it, I had to sit and hang around for twenty minutes, during which time I found it hard to concentrate on anything. I was eventually called into a room where a couple of officers were waiting for me, one man and a younger woman.
They had files in front of them, which looked ominous. I wondered what they’d dug up about my past. God only knows what skeletons were hiding in that particular cupboard.
The male officer was the first to speak. He told me that I wasn’t going to be charged with the offence of using threatening behaviour. I guessed why that was.