6
MY first ever case was due to be heard in courtroom number one at the Old Bailey. That’s a bit like being a tennis player and having your first professional match on Wimbledon’s Centre Court. They took me up there in handcuffs in the back of a van, surrounded by screws, as if I was some sort of serial killer. Once there I was placed in a maximum security cell in the basement, beneath the courtroom. None of it seemed real, as if I was acting in a costume drama. The building looked so distinguished, all oak panels and marble, while everyone exuded purpose and seriousness.
My accomplice Paul pleaded guilty to all offences and they asked him to turn Queen’s Evidence against me, meaning they made him an offer of a reduced sentence and a favourable location for his time, in return for ratting me out. Fortunately for me and for him, long term, he told them where to stick their offer.
We were surprised to discover that the police evidence was quite circumstantial and weak, centring around one of Paul’s fingerprints found on the rear-view mirror of a Range Rover that had been used for one of the jobs. There was a crash helmet found in Paul’s house too, that they said looked similar to a crash helmet used for one of the more extreme robberies. If the police had got their way and convinced Paul to implicate me in everything they wanted, I would likely have been convicted of all nine counts. It would have been the end of me for a very long time.
Milner was upbeat when he heard about the offer and Paul’s response.
‘It sounds rather like they’re desperate,’ he said. ‘Their case must be very poor to depend on that sort of manoeuvre.’
Before long news came back that they had offered a plea bargain. Milner met with the prosecution who accepted that without Paul’s testimony there was a 50/50 chance the whole case would crumble, meaning I would be free. At that point I had no previous convictions and although the police suspected my involvement in Billy’s alleged activities, they could not prove it.
As a way of salvaging something, they suggested I plead guilty to conspiracy to rob only for the day when they were watching me. If I did that, they would drop all other charges. The pendulum had swung back in my direction and I waited with a strange, steely calmness.
When the time came for the trial they opened my cell door, put a guard on each arm and walked me up. We ascended a very claustrophobic, narrow stairway and when we reached the top, one of the guards reached up and rapped on the door. As it was opened from the inside by the clerk I heard the chatter of the public gallery and squinted up into the lights. It was how I imagine it must be for an actor to wait in the wings then walk on stage.
‘Here we go,’ I thought. ‘Show time!’
As I climbed the last few steep steps, I emerged, head first, straight into the dock, to be confronted by all my scowling accusers and the po-faced judge and barristers in their robes and wigs. A sense of absurdity took hold and for a moment I felt like laughing, but a glance up at my mother and the anguish on her features changed my mood. I was 18 by then. I had my birthday at Woodhill and was caught up in a surreal theatre performance that could have seen me behind bars until middle age.
We had a female judge called Goddard, a petite, church-fete-looking lady with pearl earrings. She peered at us imperiously over her glasses. Paul entered his guilty plea and was given nine years.
The judge accepted news of my plea bargain with stoicism and gave me a total of nine years too, divided into two sentences. There was one of five and one of four, but due to run concurrently, which meant full-term was actually five. It’s one of those bits of legal nonsense that makes no sense to outsiders. It suited me though.
By that point I had already served a year and a half and as she spoke I worked things out in my head. On a five-year sentence the most I would do would be three, meaning I only had another 18 months, maybe a year if I was lucky, while the list of serious crimes I had been accused of was brushed under the carpet. It was a real result.
The police sat in a line beside the dock looking sheepish. Currie was there. There was no victory on his face then. I turned to face them all, grinning broadly, looking from one to the other.
‘It’s nothing boys,’ I said, enjoying my moment, ‘just a shit and a shave!’
Most of them looked away. Currie tried to stare me down. My prison officers escorted me back to the cells, crying with laughter.
‘I can’t believe you said that to them!’ one remarked. ‘Did you see their faces? That’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen!’
Buoyed by my coup de grace, the journey back to Woodhill was a happy one. I had survived my trip to the Old Bailey and come off better than my accomplice who had pleaded guilty. Better even than that, I had given the police almost nothing and still came out on top.
After about a month back on the wing, the governor came to see me again.
‘Bearing in mind the sentence you’ve been given we can’t justify keeping you category A anymore,’ he said.
‘Okay.’
‘You’re going to be downgraded and go to a regular young offenders’ institution for the rest of your time.’
I shrugged. In truth I wasn’t bothered. One cell is much the same as another.
‘Aylesbury,’ he said. ‘It’s a high security young offenders’ prison.’
And that was it, the next day I was gone, not realising what I headed towards. The journey was not long, only about 45 minutes in the back of the van as it sheeted with rain outside. We pulled up in a courtyard in front of an austere, red-brick building with a high, crimson, steel door, set in an archway more than two stories high. First impressions were that Aylesbury nick was an imposing place.