22
WITH the possibility of release looming, Laura asked me how I saw things panning out.
‘I want to row,’ I told her. ‘I’ve got a talent and need to use it.’
She nodded. ‘I was hoping you would say that.’
I was enjoying my time on the water, while also acknowledging a serious reality check. In a gym, on a rowing machine, no one could beat me. In a single scull on a river I was average club level, if that. I figured determination would see me through. If I wanted it enough, I could do it.
‘You’ve got incredible natural aptitude,’ Laura went on. ‘There are guys in the Olympics who put out similar numbers to you. You could go far, although you’ll need to learn quickly. Your only negative is a lack of height, but with your erg scores you can probably negate that. I think it might be useful for you to speak to Terry.’
Terry Williamson, Laura’s sports psychologist, ran his own company called In Search of Brilliance and I saw him in the gym sometimes. A short guy, with an earnest, open face, I approached him one day as he warmed up on an exercise bike.
‘Hi, I’m John,’ I said. ‘I was hoping to be able to speak to you.’
‘Hi John,’ he replied. ‘What do you do?’
‘I row and stuff.’
‘Oh, you’re the guy Laura mentioned?’
‘Yeah.’
I tried explaining everything that was going on, but he stopped me short.
‘Not like this,’ he said. ‘Let’s make a time to meet and do this properly.’
Those introductions resulted in quite a long, deep conversation the following day. I found Terry easy to talk to and opened up about my past, not something I readily did with people I just met. He had a way of asking questions which made me think about myself, my motives for doing things. There was no leading or telling me what to say, but he allowed me to express myself freely. All the while he reinforced my belief in my own abilities too. I found him fascinating and energising.
‘I tell you what,’ he said, before he left. ‘We can make this a weekly meeting if you like. You don’t need to pay me. I see something in you. You have the power to do a lot of good in the world and I’d like to help it develop.’
From that point on, Terry became my mentor, coach and later, friend. Over the months that followed I saw more and more of him, sometimes meeting him on Sunday afternoons after rowing at Burton. He would buy me lunch and talk me through what I was doing. I developed trust in his judgement and would ask for advice on virtually anything. Like Darren and Laura before, it was as if he had been supposed to come into my life, to assist on my path, towards my new destination, whatever it was.
I really felt with Terry that he had absolute confidence in me as an athlete and as a human being. It became cyclical. His confidence fed into my confidence.
‘You are going to succeed,’ he would say. ‘And you have got the possibility to help so many others with their lives.’
I got into the habit of speaking to him on the phone every day, even if only briefly. At the same time the date for my next parole hearing neared, at which there was a chance of release. Sudbury also began allowing me on home leaves to travel to London and visit Mum. Everything felt like it was coming together.
Laura fired off a message to a friend of hers who rowed at the famous London Rowing Club in Putney. LRC was known nationally as a high performance centre for lightweight men and often fed rowers into the GB squad. As a result, we swapped messages with the head coach, a no-nonsense Australian by the name of Phil Bourgignon. She did not mention my past or why I was based in the Midlands, simply saying I was a keen rower and would be interested in joining his club when I returned to London in the near future.
Bourgignon’s reply was a little cold, stating that he generally didn’t accept novices and enquiring after my erg scores for 2,000m and 5,000m. Laura sent them through, six minutes 20 seconds and 16 minutes 39 respectively, along with my weight of 72kg. The 2,000m cut-off point for the GB squad at that time was six minutes 33, meaning I was well inside it. Suitably impressed, Bourgignon suggested I come for a meeting when I was able. My path to a new life was clearing.
As all this was taking place, I received news that Johnny was getting married to his long-term girlfriend and wanted me to be best man. He had actually delayed the wedding until I was in an open prison so I would have a chance of attending. I was thrilled for him and applied to the governor for a weekend’s leave. My request was granted, but on the proviso that I didn’t drink alcohol.
I wanted to be there and looked forward to it. I knew it was important to Johnny, but at the same time, was a little tense. The wedding would provide the first major test of my new direction. There was no question that people from the game would be in attendance and it would constitute the first time since deciding to change the course of my life that I would mix with criminals. How would that be?
It was set for a big hotel in Oxfordshire and as I travelled down on the train, I had to admit I was nervous. I would need to handle myself very carefully. Under the wrong circumstances it could even be suggested that I had been associating with known criminals while on leave. In that eventuality, I would return to Sudbury and find a squad of prison officers waiting to handcuff me and send me back to a category B nick, which was the very last thing I wanted.
The hotel was already bustling and lively when I arrived. I found my room and put a nice, grey Paul Smith suit on, but as soon as I went downstairs I had to have a couple of drinks to take the edge off my nerves. It’s hard to explain how good beer tastes when you haven’t had one for eight years.
It was lovely to see some of the faces there, especially Johnny and his wife, but I couldn’t help but feel estranged. That whole environment felt so alien. At one point a girl tried to kiss me and I pulled back, sticking my arm out to shake her hand.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
I didn’t respond, but it seemed prison had subconsciously changed my response to physical and emotional contact. Maintaining a clear zone of personal space was important on the inside and I was unused to it being invaded. As I mingled during the course of the day, people kept trying to give me money. I turned it down.
‘Come on John,’ they would say. ‘I’m sure you could use it. Get yourself back on your feet.’
Afternoon stretched into evening and more alcohol was consumed. We had a lovely meal and afterwards I found myself chatting to an old face called Gary at the bar. He was not anyone I had worked with before although we had many common associates.
‘So what are you going to do when you’re back on road?’ he asked. ‘Any plans?’
‘I’m done mate.’
He paused.
‘No, but really. What are you going to do?’
‘I’m done.’
‘Okay, but you’ll need to earn a living, won’t you? I’ll help you out, put a few things your way. I’ve got lots of little bits and pieces going.’
‘No, mate. You’re not listening. I’ll sort something out, it’ll be fine.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Just give it a couple of months and we’ll see what happens. The offer will still be there.’
Not long after I returned to Sudbury, Gary was arrested, eventually going down for 23 years. It was further evidence, not that any was needed, that I had made the right decision. If I had listened to him that night and got involved it could have been the end of me forever.
Back in prison, Bourgignon’s invitation made me increasingly anxious. I just wanted to get out and move on with my life but the bureaucracy of parole remained slow and indications were hard to come by. Once again I was slated to attend a series of sessions with a psychologist.
He wanted to talk about my views on society, how I saw other human beings, what my emotional responses to certain situations would be.
‘Have you ever made fun of someone to hurt their feelings?’
‘Have you ever touched someone’s genitals without their agreement?’
‘Have you ever thrown an object at someone and laughed?’
For three days I answered his questions as well as I could and he wrote his reports.
With that out of the way the internal probation officer checked through my file. My job at Fitness First had yielded positive reports. Jess had written a glowing reference. All my home leaves and the special arrangement for Johnny’s wedding had been conducted without problems. Laura had written a lovely section for me, saying how inspirational she found me, how committed I had been to rowing and how I could only explore the sport fully should I be released. Terry had done the same. Never once, in my entire time at Sudbury, had I broken curfew.
My case was close to perfect, considering the initial severity of my offending. Keeping me in for another year could serve no logical purpose. Yet we were just days away when the administrative mix-up that had caused the delay at Lowdham Grange occurred again.
‘We didn’t realise you were on a discretionary life sentence,’ an officer said. ‘Sorry, but that changes everything.’ It was difficult not to feel personally aggrieved. I was desperate to get out, there was so much I wanted to do, but again my parole meeting was delayed for four months while they arranged for a crown court judge to chair.
With sport operating as my new internal balance, I accepted the repeated situation as philosophically as I could. What else could I do? To pass the time I hit on another idea after reading a newspaper article. The London to Brighton ultra-marathon was something only the very fittest people could attempt, 67 miles, most of which was cross-country. I had been for a few jogs, doing laps of the prison perimeter, but running had not formed a huge part of my activities. Even Mark was shocked.
‘Do you realise what this is? It’s basically two and a half marathons back-to-back. You need specific training for that.’
Terry was the only one who believed I could do it, but undeterred, I applied for another weekend release and was granted. Despite my lack of running experience, the challenge appealed to my need to prove myself. It would mean being on my feet for 14 to 15 hours and using every bit of my physical capacity.
It proved to be one of the best decisions I ever made and a truly mind-expanding experience, the next best thing to freedom. Being out all day among nature, meeting and running alongside the athlete who won the women’s race, just speaking to someone competing at that level as an equal – I felt honoured. My body seized up horribly afterwards, like an engine starved of oil, but spiritually I felt amazing.
I arrived back at Sudbury happier than I had felt for a long time, but barely able to move. My quadriceps had lost all strength and feeling and my back was knotted. The next day when I saw Mark at the gym, he was blown away, shaking his head in disbelief.
‘I can’t believe you did it,’ he said. ‘You’d never run more than 10km before and now you’ve run 110. It’s literally unbelievable.’
Recuperating fully from the ultra-run took a couple of weeks, during which I refocused on my rowing, doing gentle sessions to loosen up. At last, my parole meeting was convened on a Thursday afternoon in the prison boardroom, attended by the criminal psychologist, a home office psychologist, two probation officers, my solicitor and a middle-aged, hawk-faced female lay-person.
Sitting before them I felt vulnerable and exposed. Again, it made me reflect. These were people I would not have looked at twice in my previous life. They would have been a complete irrelevance, but now they had absolute power over me. Whether or not I could be freed was in their hands. They all took their turns asking questions before the judge assumed control.
‘What are you going to do if we release you?’ he asked.
‘I’m going to get involved in sport. I’m hoping to turn pro.’
He smirked. ‘In all my years of involvement in these meetings, you are the first prisoner to say he intends to become a professional sportsman. We do note that in your last parole meeting, at Lowdham Grange, it was stated that your future plans were neither well developed, nor rooted in reality. Which sport interests you the most?’
‘Rowing.’
‘I see,’ he nodded sagely.
As luck would have it, the judge had been a keen rower himself and had attended the same university as four-time Olympic gold medallist Matthew Pinsent. We had quite an in-depth exchange of views, talking about rowing on the Thames, different sorts of boats and equipment. He seemed impressed by my knowledge and I felt sure it had gone well.
‘Thank you Mr McAvoy,’ he said, before pausing. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’
He shuffled a few papers around and pursed his lips, then looked up at my solicitor.
‘He,’ he said finally, jabbing his finger at me, ‘is like the people I’ve dealt with for the last 20 years in Manchester Crown Court. These organised criminals are all the same.’
My heart sank.
‘He has all the characteristics. The way he’s come in today, the way he presents himself, the way he talks, I’ve seen it all before. I’m not stupid. He has probably been thinking about this moment for the last eight years, planning what he would say and how he would appear. He knows exactly what we want to hear and that’s what he’s telling us.’
He turned back to me.
‘You’re a very calm and cool character, aren’t you John? You’re very confident?’
I nodded.
‘Exactly how you would be if you were sitting in a car with a gun in your lap, waiting for a cash-in-transit van. It might interest you to know that previously I have presided over a case involving Kevin Barnes. He’s a good friend of yours, isn’t he?’
‘Well…yeah.’
‘And we all know who your uncle is. You’ve been raised into this way of life haven’t you? It’s been bred into you. You don’t know any different, do you?’
I shrugged, unsure whether he wanted me to respond.
‘And do you know what really concerns me in your file? In your entire time in the prison system you have only had one charge, for a sit-out protest at Full Sutton in which you participated.’
Again I was nonplussed, thinking that was a good thing. I had behaved well during my time inside, surely a positive?
‘Do you realise that this is exactly what we would expect to see from high-status criminals? Men like you are puppet-masters. You get others to do your dirty work for you, don’t you? For the first four years of this sentence you were in two of the highest security prisons in the country, surrounded by extremely violent men and you mean to say that you never had to defend yourself once?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That tells me that you must wield considerable influence.’
When he finished speaking, he looked across at the psychologist.
‘I would like to ask you a question,’ he said. ‘Do you think what we’re seeing in this room today is all smoke and mirrors?’
‘I can see what you’re trying to say,’ the psychologist replied. ‘But if Mr McAvoy is pulling the wool over our eyes, he has taken it to the nth degree. We have to acknowledge that he has gone well beyond the minimum. We are not just talking about a few gym courses here. The man holds three world records and six British records and has a reference from a national level rower. He has just run a race from London to Brighton. These are not the sort of things that happen unless you are fully committed.’
The judge nodded.
‘In my opinion,’ the psychologist went on, ‘this man is genuine. When he says he has effected a change in his life, he means it.’
‘I did think that,’ the judge said. ‘But I have to explore all possibilities.’ He turned back to me. ‘Can you leave the room please, John?’
I plodded out. The wait outside was interminable. My solicitor tried to appease me.
‘He was just testing you,’ she said. ‘He wanted to see if you would get angry.’ But I remained convinced the judge had it in for me. They called me back in ten minutes later.
‘We’ve finished with our questions,’ he said. ‘Have you got anything to say?’
I took a deep breath.
‘All I can tell you is that everything I’ve said today was 100 per cent genuine. I want something different with my life. I’m sick to death. I’ve been around men who’ve spent decades in category A conditions. I’ve seen what it does to them. I’ve already wasted so many years in prison and I want to do something positive with myself. I’ve got a talent that I can use. I’m only asking for a chance.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Hearing closed.’
I went back to my billet, on tenterhooks for a whole month, until one Wednesday morning the tannoy blared into life as I ate breakfast.
‘John McAvoy to the main office please.’
Heart pounding, I walked to the office, collected my letter and stood on the corridor outside. Almost afraid to open it, I held the envelope in my hand for a while, staring at my typewritten name. I have no idea why, but I looked up and spoke to Aaron. In my mind I pictured the two of us back in Spain, in a different world, a different life.
‘Please mate,’ I said, out loud. ‘Please say I’m out.’
Hands unsteady, I peeled open the envelope and began reading. ‘The overriding factor is risk to the public,’ read the first sentence. ‘Every case must be considered on its merits.’
It seemed the panel had been concerned by what they described as my ‘over-confidence’ as well as my family background. Although they thought I was unlikely to re-offend, if I did, they suspected it would be at a very high level.
‘The panel directs that you be released on life licence with the conditions laid out in this letter,’ it concluded.
The feeling of relief was unimaginable, like coming up on pure MDMA. My fists clenched in celebration.
‘Yes!’ I shouted, as energy coursed through me. I felt like I could jump mountains.
‘I’m always there if you need me,’ said Aaron, from nowhere.