36

A couple of days later, I climbed the stairs to our cell and was knackered. And why shouldn’t I be? I had worked hard with my group of ne’er-do-wells and they were doing just great. The difference in such a short time from their disinterest, was amazing; interest was something they hadn’t previously dared to show through the distrust; I had been a policeman so distrust of me was natural – what convicted criminal would like a policeman, even one who’s in prison? Some clung to their old tried and tested views, but some shifted their views as they noticed the dissimilarity with other approaches and they discerned that they were actually learning. Then they discovered that I was actually human in their terms. Now they gave me great difficulties. They were demanding of me to help them and I was struggling. Yes, I could read and write, but how to help them? I had developed an approach and a plan but I lacked teaching experience. They knew that and some were actually making allowances, but it was hard, very hard, as I hadn’t studied English since I was at school and while I knew what to do, almost as an instinct, explaining the English language was difficult. So, back to my cell to plough on through The English Way, a book I had found in the prison library first published in 1925, but I had the 1958 edition. Mind you, I did have Strictly English by Simon Heffer, which I had selected because in the preliminary notes it had a heading that said ‘A word about sex’. In my ignorance, I jumped to the conclusion that this would interest my sex-starved students only to discover that it was all about gender in the English language. Still, I found it a great book and I found The Penguin Guide to Punctuation a godsend, not for my students but for me. I had never really thought about punctuation until I was faced with the problem of whether to use a comma or a semicolon and how to explain it. I know that probably sounds daft but until you have to explain something you just do it, often without knowing why.

When I got to our cell Harry was sitting on his bunk and we had a visitor who was introduced to me as Mo. I had seen him around but never actually spoken to him, but I knew his name. Mo (I assumed his name was actually Mohammed as he looked to be of Pakistani decent; well, more likely than Indian, given the assumption about his name) was a lawyer; well, he had been. Apparently he’d been offered the teaching job I had inherited but the Caucasian and Afro-Caribbean prisoners had rejected him so that was that then. I understood his problem, as I was also an untouchable as an ex-policeman.

Mo was tall, dark, bald and skinny. He wore large glasses perched on his nose through which his black eyes peered under thick eyebrows and over his long hooked nose.

Harry explained the situation. Mo wanted advice. He was in Peasmarsh as a Cat B prisoner. He claimed he was innocent, set up by some CID detectives because he’d been the solicitor for a series of groups of Pakistanis accused of a range of crimes, including drug offences and sex offences, as well as the procurement of young girls, and they’d been defended successfully so the CID had him on conspiracy. He’d been a pain to the CID and as the accused had different barristers it had to be him putting in some form of fix, so they fixed him. Seemed unlikely to me, as I had only ever been a military policeman, but I had been involved with the Jason Phillips case and that was in my view a grave miscarriage of justice. Well, the second case was, and the first one would have been if I hadn’t been around as the investigating officer and acting for the defence. I could have been in serious trouble if Corporal Mike Munro hadn’t pleaded guilty at the second trial and as part of the deal got me exonerated even though I’d done nothing wrong. However, from the evidence I had, neither had Mike.

‘Mo, you’re a lawyer and I was a policeman; I can’t imagine how I can help you.’

‘Perhaps not, Jake, but I want you to listen to me so that I can get my head around the problem.’

‘Why me?’

‘Oh, simple: you kill people. It’s obviously you, yet the police can’t nail you. The guys in your class say you listen to them and I need that. I’ve tried talking to other people in here, to my solicitor and to my barrister, and they aren’t helpful to my thinking. I just want to think clearly but my thinking is muddled and one of your guys says you can do tricks with the mind and it helps thinking.’

I really wasn’t sure about that but Harry was nodding.

‘Mo, you can’t believe all you hear. I’ll listen but I won’t even pretend I can find solutions to whatever problem you have.’

‘I understand that.’

‘Okay, fire away.’

‘I was charged and found guilty of conspiracy. The conspiracy I was accused of was to, with others, produce false evidence in court so my clients would be found not guilty. Also, to conspire with others to intimidate witnesses for the prosecution and in one case suborn a juror and another was the kidnap of a child. I didn’t do these things.’

‘It would be easy to have you charged with those things, but did they happen in practice even though you’d nothing to do with them?’

‘Probably.’

‘You don’t know they did, you just suspect they did?’

‘I suspect they did but I think that in one case the police were the ones who arranged the perjury and then accused me of conspiring and then stating that the person’s child had been kidnaped and got the person off.’

‘Remind me of what conspiracy is.’

‘Under section one of the Criminal Law Act 1977, it’s an offence if a person agrees with any other person or persons that a course of conduct shall be pursued which, if the agreement is carried out in accordance with their intentions, results in the commission of an offence.’

Okay, he wasn’t a rubbish lawyer; he knew his stuff.

‘So the offence in this case is perjury.’

‘No, well yes, but it goes further. The conspiracy I was accused of included the suborning of witnesses.’

‘Am I right in saying that is to persuade someone to tell lies in a court of law or to do something else that’s illegal, especially for money?’

‘Yes, I was accused of bribery, and witnesses for the prosecution claimed I had done that and the police claimed I had agreed to do that in conjunction with my clients who were on remand, and that’s conspiracy, but real evidence isn’t required for conspiracy. I didn’t do these things. Lies were told against me. You don’t have to be seen talking to a co-conspirator or taking part in any action as is normal in a criminal case; it relies on common sense deductions that the jury can accept. I was lied about.’

I was confused. I wasn’t sure whether it was because I didn’t fully understand or it was the way Mo was telling me things. Let’s have another go. ‘So, some witnesses claimed you tried to bribe them or did bribe them. This would have occurred at some regular meeting such as your conversations with your clients or defence witnesses, so nothing odd would appear such as meeting in a pub, for example. One of the instances was the kidnap of a child.’

He nodded.

‘How were you stuck with that one?’

‘Well, a child was supposedly kidnapped. I was accused of telling the child’s mother that unless her brother changed his evidence the child would be killed.’

‘Was the child kidnapped?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did the uncle change his evidence?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know why he changed his evidence?’

‘No.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think there were two options. Either there was a kidnap and the guy was got at and changed his evidence and the police got him to say that I told him what to say in the first place or it was some scam to get me by the police and there was no kidnap.’

‘What about co-conspirators?’

‘They were my clients according to the police.’

‘So they were charged with conspiracy?’

‘Yes.’

‘Convicted?’

‘Yes.’

‘All of them?’

‘No. One of them got off.’

‘Why?’

‘He gave evidence against me and the police claimed he worked with them. He was found guilty but got a suspended sentence.’

‘Sources of evidence?’

‘There were three; all had convictions and all were said to have talked to the people I was acting for and had been given information by the accused.’

‘There must have been an enquiry into this when you used it as your defence.’

‘Oh, there was and the police came out whiter than white.’

‘Why do you think that was the case?’

‘I was a pain and I had been eliminated; if anything had been found against the police officers they would be in here and I would still be a pain out there.’

I believed him. On a number of occasions I had rock solid evidence and then one of the prosecution witnesses became flaky and the case started to slip away and some of the solicitors and occasionally barristers were kind of dodgy, but you’d never be able to prove it.

‘Were there any other things you were accused of?’

‘Yes, they said I had hacked into a computer and stole information.’

‘Do you have those skills?’

He looked at the floor.

‘Problem?’

‘Yes, I’ve those skills, but I said I didn’t and the police witness showed in court that I did.’

‘So, you didn’t tell the truth under oath?’

‘Yes, I didn’t tell the truth.’

‘I can understand why, but you must have known that to be found out would guarantee your conviction.’

‘Yes, I was stupid.’

‘Let me now see if I can help.’

‘Thank you, Jake.’ He looked so pleased I thought he was going to cry.

‘Tell me what you see as the problem.’

‘Well, I can’t get anyone to believe me.’

‘So you believe you’re not believable?’

‘Well, yes, I suppose that’s the basis really.’

‘Why aren’t you believed?’

‘Well, because I was found guilty.’

‘And?’

‘And I lied under oath.’

I had met this so often: people who don’t tell the truth because they think it will go against them, so they lie and then it definitely does go against them.

‘You can’t change that.’

‘No, but that’s what I want to change.’

So, Mo was caught in an emotional bind and he thought it was about him as a person. Let’s make things concrete.

‘So, what is it you want to achieve?’

‘To be believed.’

‘To achieve what?’

‘Get released?’

‘So, your goal is to get released, and what will you need to achieve that?’

‘Be believed.’

‘And what rock solid thing will mean that people will believe you?’

‘Get evidence, I suppose.’

Great, he got there.

‘And what have you done so far to do that?’

‘Nothing really.’

‘Tell me about “nothing really”.’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you know the names of the people who gave evidence against you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What else?’

‘I know the evidence they gave.’

‘What else do you know?’

‘I know the names of the police involved.’

‘So, I’m hearing you’ve a load of information that we’ve just scratched the surface of. We know that’s part of an evidence chain and that you’ve much more information towards your goal of being released. I’ll give you one simple piece of advice at this stage; stick to that goal. Don’t go for any revenge goals such as having police charged or other stuff. Stay clean and focussed. And forget about trying to be believed; belief is an emotional thing, facts that can be verified and chains of evidence are the only way out of your problem.’

He nodded; he understood. I saw a spark of clarity that revenge would just get in the way of his goal.

‘So, what else have you done so far towards your goal?’

‘Nothing really.’

‘Nothing really?’

‘Well, I’ve talked to some people.’

‘For what purpose?’

He sat and looked at me. He was thinking; he shook his head. He’d understood something. ‘I wanted them to believe me.’ He stopped and thought about what he had said. ‘I need a plan, don’t I?’

‘Yes. You need a plan to take you to your goal. A plan that uses the resources you have. And what are the resources you have?’

‘I’ve information but I need more and I’ve people who will help me.’

‘Who?’

‘My family, friends, some colleagues.’

‘What else?’

Again, he just looked at me. He shook his head.

‘What about you?’

‘Me?’ He thought for a moment. ‘I’m a lawyer, I know the law, so I know what information I need and I know who can get some of that, and…’ Again he just sat and looked at me.

‘And?’ I queried.

‘I need a plan.’ He was nodding. ‘I have a clear goal so I need a plan to get there.’

Good, he knew what he wanted to achieve and he knew he needed a plan to achieve it and he knew he’d the resources available to him and I hoped he realised that his negative emotions had been getting in the way of achieving that.

‘And the outcome of the plan will be what?’

‘Getting out of here.’

‘Tell me about a plan.’

‘Well, I need a goal and I’ve got that. I need to specify what I have to do by when.’

‘You doing that?’

‘Ah, yes, and I need other people to do things, so I have to find those people and what they have to do by when.’

‘So what is the main thing you are doing at this stage?’

‘I suppose it is gathering information.’

‘What information?’

‘Who was doing what by when? So that tells me I have to have researchers and, yes, like detectives. What the results of that are? Structure it and that will tell me the action points. And the order of those action points and who will do them.’

‘As soon as you move into action what will happen?’

‘They will know and they will counter attack.’

‘Who are they?’

‘The police and the people who support them.’

‘So what will you need?’

‘A better attacking force.’

‘Who will your force attack?’

‘Ah, yes. I need to identify my enemies.’

‘And I need a cup of tea.’

‘Thank you, Jake.’ He laughed. ‘Your guys were right; you do have a clear way of looking at things. I’ll get released and I’ll repay you for this half hour. I’m sure you’ve saved my life. Thank you.’

I thought that was a bit over the top but there you go.

He got up and shook my hand then headed out the door with his head high and his shoulders square; he knew he had something to do and he had a massive amount of drive to do it. Harry was looking at me.

‘Well?’ I asked.

‘You’re just something else, Captain. I’ll put the kettle on.’