Visiting Time

I had the pleasure of a visit from my ever supportive siblings Paul and Helen this week. After they finally made it through security, wasting half an hour of the given time being sniffed by the prison mutt, we caught up on latest progressions, if you can call them that.

It was however nice to hear about the family and the things you don’t always put down on paper. I was grateful to hear that my brother Alec is photocopying the Criminal case justice review board’s refusal to send to the Leeds university student's.

The piest de resistance came in the form of a mint cornetto that Paul treated me to.

I still don’t have a definite date for my parole hearing, I am led to believe it may be April but am not counting on it. Instead I am planning the weekend.

Saturday I will be doing the crossword from The Mail (it makes a change from The Telegraph I read during the week). Sunday I will be tuning into Radio 2 for Elaine Paige’s show, takes me back to the sixties and happier times. Not forgetting keeping up to date with the cricket.

Catch 22

Let me enlighten you with some of the instances I have encountered which highlight the “catch 22” scenario’s that the prison service have presented me with, and rely upon to excuse the inadequate management of administration.

As a trained advisor, over the past 6 years, I have helped many offenders with information, advice and guidance to progress them through their sentence plans.

I have witnessed thugs, bullies, drug addicts and serial offenders advance through the system by “ticking the boxes” that parole boards and probation have set them. In prison it’s referred to as “jumping through the hoops”.

Unfortunately a high percentage of those who have “ticked the right boxes” will re-offend and have no intention of changing their lifestyles, but they do get released.

Now with my circumstances (maintaining my innocence) I am the square peg in the round hole.

As the prison service is bound by the home office to treat me as guilty, any thoughts about this lands the justice system as being wrong, this is not considered, which leaves me in a structure designed purely for guilty persons.

It appears to me that any innocent person in prison is an embarrassment to that system and by design has created a “black hole”.

Unless you have a large bank account or a person in the public limelight you are doomed.

You must capitulate by owning up to a crime you didn’t commit, there by giving you access to the “hoops” they want you to jump through. The only other option is to stagnate in this blindfolded system, until someone of authority uses common sense, god forbid, and realises that this high and mighty judicial system can sometimes make mistakes.

I see no evidence to show me that this is going to happen any time soon, as I said “catch 22”.

Brief Report

I am no further forward with my parole review. Dizziness has set in, largely due to the amount of circles I have run around in trying to get the Lazy Ox aka the prison service off their backsides and doing the job they are paid for.

Fortunately I was sparked back from my disheartened state whilst reading an article in one of the prison papers (converse). The article was from a group of 3rd year law students working from the University of Leeds. The group are run by (UcLIP ) and were asking for cases of injustice, they did a similar project some 3 years ago, which was aired on the BBC.

I decided immediately to put my case to them, just the bare bones. My 'brief report' came to a mere 28 pages. Now I can only await a response.

I did send my M.P. the same sort of outline but that was nearly 2 months ago and have received no reply to date. Maybe he is still reading it!

The waiting game

I have been kept busy completing my final two reports - thankfully. After waiting five months for the powers-that-be m to get round to finishing off the reports, it took all of 15 minutes.

On the plus side they are both recommending 'D' cat. If the review goes past November without any progress, the probation reports will be out of date and the whole process will have to be started again.

I hope that no news is good news because there's not a dicky bird regarding my retinal scan. I continue to wait for my eyes to be tested to discover if I need new glasses.

A smile at last

Not much to laugh at in here, but this turned up the corners this week, a little joke doing the rounds of the cells.

A plane was about to crash and there were only three parachutes between the four passengers.

The first man said, 'I'm Kobe Bryant, America's most important basketballer. I MUST survive.' He grabbed a parachute and jumped from the plane.

The second man said, 'I'm Tony Blair, Britain's most intelligent ever former Prime Minister. I too MUST survive.' He grabbed a pack and jumped.

The third man told the fourth passenger, a ten-year-old lad, 'I am the Pope but I am old and my time is nearly up. You have more to offer the world so I'll give you the third parachute.'

'Thank you for your offer, sir, but there's still two parachutes left. The second man took my school backpack.'

You are very welcome to see my story on www.call-this-justice.com

- Roger Gordon

A win and loss

A win - yes, a win for your wretch - and grim news that challenges optimism. Well, it changes all aspects of hope.

But first, the good news. Into the dungeon came a surprise note that said I had won third prize for my book marker design. Third prize!

On my next message secreted out through the high security walls in the dead of night I'll let you know how the design looks and what inspired it.

But there was a bombshell this week. The landlords have still to do of the two most important reports to accompany my dossier that goes towards the possibility of parole.

I have been chasing the uniforms to get the reports finshed. Well, chasing is too strong a word for this world. I've been nagging them and I nag them every day. And after all the assurances I received, it seemed that they were done.

However, the fellow in the role of what they call the lifer panel clerk said the reports have not been done. He issued a warning this week. 'Due to national backlogs, Gordon,' he said, 'your parole hearing will now be about eight weeks late ... if not more.

'This,' he declared, 'means no parole hearing until December. 'But listen, Gordon. If those reports are not completed and handed in, there will be no parole hearing.'

I told the good man,'It's a real kick in the guts after all the work that I have done on my representation.'

'You have done good work, Gordon. Seventy-two pages long, if I remember correctly.'

'You do, gov.'

'Well, Gordon, I pray that it's not delayed further. Because if it's delayed further, then you know what will happen.'

'Tell me what will happen, gov'.'

'Then, Gordon, all the reports will be considered out of date. Including the 72 pages.'

'You mean I'd have to start the whole process all over again?'

'Frankly, Gordon, what I'm getting at is that you would have to start the whole process all over again. I hope that's not too great a shock for you.'

'I think it is too great a shock, gov.'

'Pull yourself together, man. You're safely in prison. Good job, accommodation assured, good food, your mates all around, excellent officers. There's the many out there in the financially-disastered world would like to be in your shoes, Gordon, just mark my words.'

That left me looking for blessings to count. One that surfaced is that there's three years of tariff to run. So even if I have to begin all over again - God forbid - at least I'll have a roof over my head for three years to do it. I thought of the roof and all that lies under it and I admit I had trouble imagining the horde that might wish they were here instead of me.
- Roger Gordon

A Move South

I have been kept occupied this week by another move. The new wing consists of two units, the West and my new home, the 'enhanced' South.

The atmosphere is pleasingly different over here, quieter than my previous abode and thankfully even the youngsters treat everybody with respect.

Being encamped with a new set of faces, my reputation as a good advisor has travelled with me and I have three new clients already.

My shift to the South hasn't been insufferable now that I have my parole review representation in its final stages.

I try to avert my mind from the lack of willing solicitors and instead to the fact that my representation is good.

The big hurdle is still the fact that maintaining my innocence renders me unsuitable for 3 of the courses that were recognised on my risk factors, but that will never change.

So with my 30 page portfolio of references, achievements and positive reports I can only hope the board will look on it with a modicum of common sense.

Whispers from Hell

I've been holding my breath over the vital report by the Probation Service about whether I will be allowed to be a semi-human again by going to a D Category prison where one can go out to work and mingle with the population.

Like just about everything else, you have to wait an enormous time for anything to happen. Even saints don't possess the patience necessary for this life. ('Life' did I say?)

The probation officer from outside what's called the prison service arrived, and asked questions and spent time with me, and came to the conclusion that Yours Truly is perfectly safe to be allowed the slightly more relaxed life of D Category, open prison, status. She was very positive about recommending 'D' cat this time.

I had been worried that the inability of the prison to experiment with me on a 'town visit' might be another excuse to bar me from Category D. But she said it's not a prerequisite for the improved category. What a relief that piece of news was - probably as good for me as it would for the Prime Minister to hear that his parliamentary colleagues love him after all, and were just kidding before.

The officer's comments were really cheering, and one of the best bits of encouragement that's come my way since the life of Hell that has followed the jury's decision to throw me into prison and allow the fellow who murdered my wife to continue as if nothing happened.

Then came the probation person under the influence of the prison service - the 'inside probation officer.'

This one wasn't sure at all that Category D would do me. After all, she said, I should stay at a Category C prison before that step.

Naturally, I pointed out that I wasn't in a Category C prison only because my dear prison landlords built a C Category wing to save the trouble of sending people away to an actual C Category nick. As I have to keep saying - about everything to do with this nightmare - 'Not my fault.'

She'd have to confer with her manager, she said. Tut tut, really. Oh, dear. Frowns. She didn't know at all.

So Roger isn't the happy bunny he might be. You'd think that the prison would have made sure that a C-Category wing would be an acceptable alternative to going to a C Category prison. And if they did get that okay, which presumably they did, you might think they would pass the word onto Probation.

Before the lady left the cell, she asked about my health. 'My blood sugar levels are erratic, they range from 13.7 to 2.0.'

'You must follow your health plan,' she said. 'And it's important to avoid stress.'

I smiled, but not necessarily from her apparent concern. Avoid stress here? It'd be easier to avoid fire in Hell. The real Hell, I mean, rather than this overdone, over-realistic mock-up.
My sweet niece Collette had a birthday the other day. I was glad I could get her a nice card. All the world seems against you in here, all except family. Thank God they are there and in constant contact.
- Roger Gordon

Friends or foe?

I'm off the cholesterol tablets and that feels good. My cholesterol level is down to 3.4 and they say that's good. They say - when you're in this shadowy hidden away, locked away world, you can only go on what they say - they say that because I had diabetes, the treatment is to go onto the tablets right away.

(Course, it's a joke, really. They diagnosed me with diabetes three years ago and only passed on the news this year. So I should have been on the treatment back then. Well, I suppose three years late is better than never.)

Now they say I can come off the pills because the level is right. I hope it's the right decision. Happily, I feel it is. Half the time it feels as if they wouldn't care whether we live and whether we live feeling healthy or not. Course when you are trapped in this weird unjust system, you have to accept that those in authority - medical and uniformed - mean well.

And then I say to myself, 'Come on, Roge. If they meant well, why would they keep you locked away when they must know that you are no murderer?'

I had a really pleasant visit today from three wonderful friends, Lyn, and Ann, and James, a great brother. I don't mean to be unkind to my fellow wretches, bless em', but it is so good to talk to and share the company and gaze upon the faces of other humans. The lovely Lynn, by the by, is partner to James.

For one trapped in this hell, it is wonderful to be visited by those fortunate enough not to have to bear this particular cruelty of the whips and scorn of time, as Hamlet puts it.

If truth be sold, as I now know at enormous cost to my life as a man, we are all vulnerable because of the immense flaws in the adversarial system of Britain's so-called justice.

Link:
James's speaks out against Roger's trial
Call-This-Justice.com

- Roger Gordon

I'll tell you who is destroying our justice system

When you meet so many people inside who obviously are wrongly convicted, when like me you are serving a life sentence for killing your wife - a murder that some free person out there committed - it is encouraging to hear that Sean Hodgson has been freed by the appeal court.

But in another way it is most disturbing. What about the multitude in here who shouldn't be here?

I like the way that Helen, my wonderful sister, put it in a recent letter. 'It's a very interesting and a very sad case. It was sad to read that people are not generally given parole unless they admit guilt and say sorry,' Helen wrote.

'That scares me. So you would have to lie so you could be freed? You're being punished for being honest.

'Every time a miscarriage of justice is proved it must make people think, which can only help you and others. At least I hope it will.

'It is a rotten system.'

Thanks, Helen. It is.

And note that not one voice has been raised about that fellow's prosecutors. When a huge question mark hangs over cases, wouldn't it be interesting if prosecutors had to explain why they push so hard for convictions.

How could the prosecution have worked on the jury so tenaciously when they knew that they had the wrong man?

When my conviction is shown to be completely wrong, I am going to ask publically for the prosecution to explain themselves.

It's that attitude, that unconscionable twisting of the minds of the jury, that helps to keep the system rotten. I smile when I hear people going on about banker's fees. It's about time they started looking at prosecutors' rewards for utter deception.

Every time they cause a jury to convict an innocent person, they are destroying the system. And what do they get for these 'successful' prosecutions? Praise, and a fortune. If they were genuine humans, they would never be able to sleep.
- Roger Gordon

Links
Sean Hodgson
Roger Gordon's story

Doctor knows best

You may recall that your Blogger has been trying to see the prison doctor. Three years ago they discovered I had diabetes, but they only got around to telling me the other day. Well, they are very busy and one has to remember one's humble station (thanks to a deliberately misled jury).

So at last Prisoner Gordon has been invited to meet the good man. There he was seated at his smart table, a mountain of files at his right hand, glasses on nose, and occasionally quizzing me at the level of the well-bred bridge. Me, like a private before the commander, standing loosely in front of the desk.

'Ah, yes,' he says. 'Gordon, I presume. Look, Gordon, you're new to prison...'

'Not exactly, doctor.'

'Ah, been in before?'

'Never been in trouble before,' I say. 'But the jury was mistaken, not exactly accidentally. '

'When did you come in then?'

'October 2003. Almost six years ago.'

After a little silence, our man says, 'Why have you asked to see me?'

I mention the diabetes. Discovered three years ago. Told about it last month.

'You should have been put on cholesterol control pills,' he said. 'Not because your cholesterol is high...'

'No, it isn't.'

'... but because it is routine when diagnosed with diabetes.'

'So I should have been on the medication for the past three years?'

A prisoner mustn't complain. The poor old taxpayer is picking up all our bills - and presumably the undertaker's when this mob gets things wrong. Someone said it costs 50,000 a year for every prisoner. Makes us feel like bankers.

And thank you, Taxpayer, for another bonus. I now have a machine to monitor my blood sugar levels. I'm very grateful. I am grateful that it is for something I am actually suffering from.

The other day I was called to Healthcare and given new medication. This seemed an extra bonus and a surprise. But when I looked closely at the label, there was someone else's name, in bold 14 point Arial. Tyrone Gordon of this parish. The ingredients looked interesting. Anyway, despite the years in this crime college, I remain basically honest and let the chance to sell the medication pass me by.

'Not me, Guv',' I say in the lingo and hand it back. For a moment, it looks as if I might be put on a charge for insolence. Then, after a few days, I am summoned back for the self-same medication.

'Yours!' the geeza says or commands, and offers it with a defiant look that says hand this back and you're dead.

'Thanks, Guv',' I say again. 'But this is for one Tyrone Gordon. I'm Roger Gordon.'

He's not amused. 'Look, it's for Gordon. There, in black and white. Aren't you Mister Gordon?'

'I'm Roger. This is forTyrone. ' I say and stand back a bit when he looks almost outraged that this mysterious other Gordon and I have first names.

'Well, how do you spell it?'

I tried to think of a variant of 'Gordon.' But I couldn't.

The population of a city behind bars

Doctors know best, of course. I am a mere number among the numbers cramming full the dungeons of England and Wales. (We used to be a nation of shopkeepers. How interesting that we seem to have become a nation of 'criminals'?)

There's me and 82,486 others. The population of a city. Considering that diabetes is a serious condition, it'd be interesting if 82,487 of us suddenly died because of the, well, rather lacking medical organisation.

It just might become a bigger political issue than bankers' bonuses, the economic crisis, the developing situation in Afghanistan, those poor wretches trying to survive in the Iraq we destroyed, and even than the burgeoning new marijuana factories of England.

Roger Gordon
call-this-justice.com

Not depression exactly

I wouldn't call it depression, not really, because I know through Anita's depressive states how it manifests itself. No, it isn't depression, I don't think so, but I haven't been able to get myself motivated.

Perhaps the death of Dave English is playing on my subconscious. Even with my experience of counselling I didn't notice the exterior signs of problems that would drive him to suicide.

I try to remind myself of the support that I do have and how it has helped me to stay strong. I am amid one of the inevitable black moods that I face every week.

Whatever it is I'm experiencing, I wouldn't call it depression. I fully believe that when I can return to work in the library my usual hopefulness will bounce back.
- Roger Gordon

Walls within walls

I put in a request to see the doctor this week and as I am now back at work too, I hope to be back up to my usual optimistic self. I also requested an audience with my 'personal officer', the officer assigned to know me better.

I hope to get some confirmation on the status of this new wing, my new home. Will it be C Category, as the establishment hopes? It's important for my record that I am seen to be perfectly safe in a C Category place.

Of course, wouldn't you know, the officer is on sick leave. Seems to be no end of brick walls.

I was thinking this morning of Dave English, the fellow who hanged himself the other day. Strange, can't say why it is, but I think of him as Mr English. Maybe it is the way he treated people. Always the gentlemen, even to those who would find it difficult to understand words like please and thank you.

Dave was a strange mixture. Physically, well, to be kind, he looked a real skinhead yob. But talk to him, and he was polite and sociable, and there was nothing to suggest that he was about to do himself in.

Poor old Dave, poor old Mr English. I don't feel that his death has troubled me – in these dungeons we seem to live constantly with death (or something you couldn't call life), but who knows what the subconscious suffers.
- Roger Gordon

Dave had enough and hanged himself

We were all surprised to hear that Dave English had done himself in. He was a young fellow and good proof of the old story that you can't judge a book by its cover. He was no handsome face and tattoos everywhere didn't help. But we always exchanged a few words when we passed on the stairs. He seemed, well, quite likeable.

You can usually tell when a fellow's had enough and is likely to do himself in. Dave may not have looked the best example of God's handiwork - ears for sailing downwind, a sort of all-over nose, a flaring sort of complexion - but he didn't look like someone who was troubled by God's lack of attention. He seemed to know what's inside, in the heart, is what matters.

When we heard of the details of his case - alleged to have fired some shots at the cozzers when he was stopped on a stolen motorbike - you're left wondering if the Right hasn't offered a bit of Old Testament thinking.

But we heard, too, that he had been digging away for some time at the ceiling around the light fitting, to give himself something to swing on. There's an inquiry being conducted by the Independent Monitoring Board. We won't expect much of an outcome from that.

Poor old Dave. I won't say he'll actually be sadly missed. He was a lifer with hardly more than a prison future to look forward to. But it is sad when a fellow human leaves, especially in such an agonising way. It can't be fun to hang yourself. You kick away the stool and the rope starts crushing. You might think, too late, it was a mistake. Let's hope he wasn't tortured for ages, that the end wasn't slow in coming.
- Roger Gordon

Links:
About David's death
Dave's conviction

Yours Truly gets a new pad

Strange the way things happen. Here's your correspondent with desperation to move to another prison at the top of his To Do list. Well, disregard for a moment the fact that I shouldn't be here. (The jury was misled and here I am.)

I'm trying to cope with the system as best I can. And because of good behaviour and doing the right courses, I am now recategorised as a C category candidate. That means I am entitled to go to a C Category prison. And moving into better accommodation is what I have been trying to do, as you'll know from my blogs.

It must count as almost a miracle, but I am writing to you suddenly from C Category quarters. And I'm writing with one arm longer than the other to prove the move.

What happened is that this very busy nick built a brand new wing and called it C Category and invited Yours Truly to lodge in a 'room' there. Hence the long arm as I staggered out of the block and along corridors and into the new building, G Wing, lugging five huge packages of all I own in the world.

I wonder how an estate agent would market my new home? I am lucky enough to have the luxury of a toilet moulded into the wall, removing the need for a lid, which of course is hardly a necessity for a man who cannot leave the room.

The same modern thinking no doubt brought the decision to do away with a cupboard door. Perhaps the thought is that it will encourage trust. Perhaps they believe that in a thieves kitchen everything is safe. I'm afraid I have news for them. If you - or they - see me with my arms spread wide blocking access to the cupboard, please don't be surprised.

Despite that stretched arm, I did feel pretty good when I had moved in lock and stock, if not barrel. I got everything - everything! - stowed away in about 35 seconds flat and sat down, adjusted the radio aerial for its new place in the dwelling, all ready for a relaxed cuppa. I went to pour a cup that cheers and somehow knocked over my brand new flask.

It exploded, shattering the innards into a zillion shards. The first broken vacuum in G wing, and even before I had the chance to display it in the doorless cupboard.

I can't claim for it the honour of being the first smashed flask of the only part of this busy, historic prison to be C Category because it's really only a pretend C-Cat. It needs the government to make a decree, and once they have us banged up, prisoners are not high on the politicians' priority list.
- Roger Gordon

Trying hard not to think of your Christmas and New Year

Christmas and New Year and outside you remember the festivities, the kids singing carols and the decorations, and I think of the time we went off to the ballet - an old married couple, I thought, as we sat there holding hands and remembering not to clap till everyone else does. And friends round for meals and happy get-togethers of the family. Me as Santa with cotton wool stuck over the top of my beard.

I loved all that and I miss it terribly and I don't let myself think of it.

What I am thinking of is getting a move to a different nick. I've been here so long and I have a new gentler category and I should be in a place where there aren't new people arriving and making everything, well, unbearable.

I don't want to sound like an old grouch - I'm not really one - but when you get new people around whining about how bad they've had it, and they'd not even had a year of it, let alone been unjustly convicted.

So I keep waiting for replies from Shepton Mallet and Newcastle. I had my heart set on Maidstone. Sounds strange, doesn't it, to think a geeza could have his heart set on a prison.

But Maidstone would've been handy for everyone and people say it's got a positive attitude there. I was getting such good noises from that particular one that it seemed certain they would take me.

But wasn't it Tchaikovsky - whose music we enjoyed at the ballet, me and Anita that time - who said that Fate keeps getting in the way of what we want. And Maidstone turned out like that. After expressing an interest, after encouraging me, they suddenly declared, 'Oh, but we don't take lifers.'

I wanted to reply, 'But what about innocent, unjustly convicted lifers who are cast into prison while my wife's killer is out there enjoying everything I am denied?'

Then I tell myself off for the negative thinking. Got to be brave, Self. Got to make the most of our time in the world, Me, even if we are in prison.
- Roger Gordon

Links:
Tchaikovsky
Shepton Mallet
Newcastle