From Prison Governor To Best Selling Author! With Vanessa Frake-Harris Ep.85

[00:00:08] This is a message for Billy. You can go fuck yourself, bro. Alright? Don't be a twat, Billy. Yeah, Billy, man. You're being a real asshole. Billy, you're a cunt. Right then, guys. Welcome back into The Spooky Shed, your go-to place for conversation around all things weird, scary, and of course spooky. And of course, on the odd occasion, we do our little true crime specials, which this one will fall under.

[00:00:33] And this will also be our first true crime guest episode, and we've gone big with it. You've heard the intro, Billy's not here, Billy's a dickhead, we all know that. But today with me, I have an amazing guest, really. So I've got Vanessa Frake-Harris with me. So, Vanessa, welcome to The Shed. Thank you, Liam. That's very kind of you to invite me. No problem. As everybody knows, we start these guest episodes now by asking our guests to leave something in The Shed with us.

[00:01:01] So what are you going to leave in The Shed with us, Vanessa? Well, it's not a butt plug. So I'll just start that one off there. I thought long and hard about this question. Obviously, you know, I don't mind admitting I had to ask you to explain it a little bit better. But I thought, well, I'm going to leave a life lesson. So my life lesson is it's OK to not be OK.

[00:01:27] And the reason for that is when I joined the prison service many years ago, 1986, you know, after every incident, after every self-harm, after every suicide, people sort of said to you, you're all right. And your immediate response was, yeah, I'm fine. No problem. And on you'd go with your next job.

[00:01:50] And it wasn't until I left the prison service in 2013 that a lot of the things that you compartmentalise in the back of your head. And when I wrote my book, quick plug there, when I wrote the book, a lot of things came out that I didn't sort of realise were still in my head. And, you know, I'm quite happy to sit here and say, you know, it did affect me, but much later on in life.

[00:02:17] And I was always under the impression that, you know, you didn't say, well, actually, no, I'm not OK. You just get on with it. And I learned that the hard way. I learned that it's OK to not be OK. So that's what I'm leaving in the shed tonight. No, that's good. That's good. That's probably, there's been a few bits of advice left, and I think that's my favourite because that is a saying that I like to think to myself on the odd occasion when you need to.

[00:02:46] Because, like I say, it is OK not to be OK sometimes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. OK. I've just realised there, obviously, you've just basically said what you do there, which I failed to mention. So, obviously, you were a prison governor for how many years? Well, I started as an officer in 1986, and I worked my way up to governor, and I left in 2013. So I was a governor probably about 11 years at Wormwood Scrubs.

[00:03:15] And before that, I worked at Holloway and a bit of Pentonville and a bit of Brixton, sort of doing the tour of London, really. But all in the prison service. So all in all, I did about 27, 28 years in the prison service. Bloody hell. It's longer than a life sentence. Yeah, true, true.

[00:03:39] Second little icebreaker I've got for you then, because this question came from, I thought of it when me and Billy were recording an episode, in our Paris Catacombs episode, when Billy basically said that Hitler was successful. So the question is, if you could ask one historical figure, one question, who would it be and what would the question be? And the reason that made me think of it is because it would be very easy to say, oh, like, you know, I'd ask Hitler, you know, what the fuck's all that about, mate?

[00:04:08] But you've got to remember, Hitler was a dickhead, so he's probably just going to turn around and say, because I felt like it. You're not going to get a good answer. So I think it's one, it's something, it's a question to think about. So what are we going with? Well, again, I've thought about this and, you know, I've always been really like into true crime.

[00:04:30] Before, actually, I joined the prison service, whilst I was in the prison service, and even now, if you look at, you know, my books, they're all true crime books. So I would like to nominate Lord Lucan. And for those people that don't know, Lord Lucan killed his children's nanny in 1974, 75.

[00:04:54] And everybody said that he mistook his children's nanny for his wife, or his ex-wife, who he'd just lost custody of his kids to. And this guy was the eighth peer, the eighth Earl of Lucan. And he disappeared, completely disappeared. And I would like to find him. He'd be 99 now, if he was still alive. And I'd like to ask him, how did he disappear?

[00:05:24] How did he evade capture for all of those years? Was it, as some people say, because he knew very influential people, he was a member of the Funny Handshake Club, that people helped him? Or, as it was it, as his wife suspected, that his abandoned car was found at New Haven, that he caught the ferry over to France and threw himself off towards the propellers.

[00:05:51] So his body was chopped up, and the fish never found him. So that's who I'd like to meet. Lord Lucan, I'd like to ask him why he killed his nanny. How did he mistake her for his wife? And how did he evade capture all these years? That's a good question. Good question.

[00:06:17] I've heard of the name before, and I knew vaguely about that. But if you were as old as me, Liam, you'd know it. I remember it clear as day. But if you were as old as me, you'd remember it. Fair enough. Right then, so let's dive into the main part of the episode then. So where does it all start with you then, with the prison work? Is that something you always wanted to do? No.

[00:06:46] Short answer, no. Well, when I left school, I wanted to join the Navy. I wanted to join the Wrens, actually. And I went for an interview on the 7th of 777 for the Wrens, passed that. And then I found out that women at that time weren't allowed on ships, and it was all shore-based, like office work and nursing and that sort of thing. It didn't interest me at all.

[00:07:15] So I kind of rethought things and thought, well, I'll go into agriculture because I like animals. I like being outside. I like working, like physical work. So that's what I did. I went to Cannington College of Agriculture and Horticulture, got an HND in agriculture. And then I left there and started working on farms in the southwest of England.

[00:07:41] And then, as we all know, you know, the European community, as was then, brought in milk quotas, and farmers were penalised for making too much milk. So the kind of the bottom dropped out of that. And I also thought, you know, I'm never going to make enough to make, you know, have my own farm or anything. So I was on a tube in London one weekend.

[00:08:07] I'd gone up to London, and I saw this poster, and it said, it was a bit like Lord Kitchener, you know, your prison service needs you, and you too could make a difference. And at that time, I was, what, 21, and a bit cocky, and I thought, well, I could do that job. And so I applied. But at the same time that I applied for that, I also applied for the Met Police. And whilst I was halfway through my training at the prison service college,

[00:08:38] I got a letter through from the Met Police saying, oh, you know, come and start a HND. And I thought, well, you know, we'll see where this goes. And I can always fall back on the police. And then, you know, 28 years later flashed by, and I retired. And that's how I joined the prison service. It wasn't something that I always wanted to do.

[00:09:01] But I later found out that my great-grandfather was a physical prison instructor at Wakefield Prison. All right. But that didn't really influence me in any way. You know, I was my kind of own person. I just wanted to do it. And I like talking to people. I like meeting people.

[00:09:24] And I thought, well, you know, if I can make a difference to one person, then, you know, maybe, maybe, you know, it would all be worthwhile. And that's kind of what I thought. And still think, really. A bit of a difference there, going from, hoping to go into the Navy, to then milking cows, to then police and prisons. Yeah. Yeah. When people say that to me.

[00:09:47] But I always think, you know, when people, when young people are sort of like, you know, doing their, well, GCSEs. For me, it was O-levels then. But, you know, they're expected to know what they want to do as a career. And I think that's really hard to say, yeah, I want to do that. And that's it. But, you know, so I thought, well, you know, I like to give things a go.

[00:10:14] And when I joined the prison service and I, you know, I loved the prison service. I met some amazing people, some amazing prisoners, some amazing staff. And, you know, I really enjoyed it. And to me, it was a career. It seems a bit sort of like here, there and everywhere. But I was only young, you know. Right. And I think it's very difficult at that age to know fully what you're going to do for the rest of your life.

[00:10:44] Nowadays, people don't look at it as a career. They look at it as a stopgap, which is unfortunate, really, because, you know, the turnover of staff in the prison service these days is horrendous. You look at somewhere like Wandsworth, and I think three quarters of Wandsworth prison officers have done less than two years. And that's some of the trouble of our prison service today.

[00:11:09] Yeah, because, I mean, I suppose if people, if the turnover's that fast, like, people, there's not going to be any experience there. So they're not going to be able to deal with, you know, the really difficult situations, I'd say. No, but, I mean, you look at the prison service now, and you can apply to join the prison service when you're 17 and start on your 18th birthday. I mean, that's, to me, that's just madness.

[00:11:34] When you're getting young people who've had no life experience into vulnerable situations, looking after, you know, some of the most dangerous, violent people of our society. You know, I think that's a big ask.

[00:11:52] And I think that, you know, again, that's something that, you know, the Ministry of Justice in austerity and Blair, not Blair, Cameron and Osborne, you know, when they wanted more for less, and they just chopped and chopped and chopped budgets. They, they offered all the experienced staff, this sort of, it was almost like redundancy, but it was called VEDS.

[00:12:21] And it was basically, they, that they took early retirement, for want of a better word. And all the experienced staff, the ones who cost the most money because of their pensions and their wages and their conditions, left in droves. And so now you have a point where there are very little experienced staff nowadays.

[00:12:49] Yeah, it just seems crazy to me that, because like, you'd imagine that it's the kind of job where you'd want people with as much experience as possible. Like you say, for when, in those difficult situations. Well, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, the prison officers have always prided themselves on being able to talk to prisoners, to de-escalate situations. That's what we do.

[00:13:19] And, you know, when, when you, I mean, when I was at the training school, I think it was three months I did at the training school. Now it's five weeks, you know, and a lot of that training was interpersonal skills, you know, boundaries, how to talk to people, how to be professional with people, you know, all that sort of thing. Which seems to have gone by the by now. And now it's, it's all, you know, get them through the gate, get them on a landing. And, and that's your officer there and then. Yeah.

[00:13:49] You talk about training there. That's an interesting topic then. So what sort of training are you doing then as well as like, you know, as well as learning how to talk to people and stuff? Like, are you doing actual like physical training on how you might have to restrain people and stuff? Oh yeah, you do. It's called control and restraint. It's, it's, it's how to, you know, handle violent prisoners in the safest way, safest for the staff and safest for the prisoners.

[00:14:18] So it seems a bit mob handed, but actually it's, it's for the safety of the prisoners. So, you know, if you were going into a cell where there was a violent prisoner, you'd have a minimum of three staff, four if needed. So you'd have one on each arm, one on the head to protect the head and one on the legs. And you learn all that. But when I first joined, it was, it wasn't control and restraint then. Women weren't allowed to do anything. We had to just stand and watch the men.

[00:14:48] And the men did this thing called mufti, which was a little bit like grab what you can. Right. But the women weren't allowed to do that. So we just had to stand and watch. So I went to Holloway, which was a female prison. And, um, we looked up a lot of violent females and, um, you know, it was, it was literally, you know, a scrap. Every time you went into a cell with a violent prisoner, it was a scrap.

[00:15:17] There was no professionalism. There was no thought about safety of the prisoners, safety of the staff. And thankfully, you know, things moved on, um, and changed. So now all male females, they do control and restraint. I mean, I mean, it seems, it seems crazy to think back then that, like, you know, that there was them sort of rules in place that women weren't allowed to do certain things.

[00:15:43] It just seems bizarre to me because obviously I've grown up, not really, not really experienced anything like that. So it's just, it just seems crazy to me that. Going along with that, we weren't allowed to wear trousers either. We had to wear skirts. So you can imagine you're in the middle of a skirt, a scrap and your skirts up like, you know, around your head, you know, just madness.

[00:16:04] You know, we had to wear, um, well, when I first joined, it was, um, like an air force blue uniform and, um, America, it was called American tan tights, but they were flesh colored tights. And all the black officers, um, suddenly started wearing black tights and, uh, they were called up before the chief and the chief said, what are you lot doing? You know, wearing black tights, it's flesh colored tights. And they all went, well, it is our flesh color.

[00:16:35] It's like, what could the chief say? She couldn't say anything, but it was petty, petty like that sometimes. Yeah. That, that just seems bizarre as well. It's just like, like surely, surely, like you said, trousers would be better just all the way for every bloody body. That's just, that's just weird. Oh no. Yeah. That's just, that's just strange. I can assure you. That's just strange.

[00:17:04] Well, thankfully they're allowed because now there's cross-sex postings and thankfully now women are allowed to wear trousers because when you go on a landing and you go up the stairs, all the stairs are open. So, you know, you can imagine. Well, yeah, true. Yeah. Um, so where, where was the first prison you started? Where was that? Uh, Holloway was, uh, North London. Right. Fair enough. Um, 16 years at Holloway.

[00:17:32] That was the, that was the all female prison. Yeah. That's right. It was, um, it was quite a notorious prison. It was, um, they used to say, if you can work at Holloway, you can work anywhere. And I pretty much agree with that. Um, you know, it only locked up about, I think it was 502, but, um, many of the women had mental health issues. Many were sex workers. Many were drug mules.

[00:17:57] Um, many, many had like, you know, serious, um, abuse issues and, and things like that. So, that the old Holloway, the actual old Holloway that, that everybody sort of thinks of was a very old sort of Gothic Victorian building. And that was knocked down in, I think in about 1972. And the new Holloway was, was built in its place. Um, and that closed in 2016. And now it's going to be all flats. So, yeah.

[00:18:28] Fair enough. A bit of prime North London land. That's usually what most buildings turn into. Go, go, go back to your first day there then. So, like you said, you basically said like, that's almost like the worst of the worst in there. Like, how were you feeling on that first day then walking through there for the first time? That must have been an experience. Yeah, it was. I mean, to be honest, the prisoners were all right. It was mainly the staff who were miserable as sin. And, you know, what are you doing here?

[00:18:56] You know, I can remember walking up to the gate my first day and going up to the gate saying, hi, my name's Vanessa Frake. I've come to start at Holloway. Well, we ain't got you down. Go and sit over there and we'll think about it. And that was it. And it was like, you know, you were a very small fish in a big pond. And, you know, you weren't allowed in the office for two years. You couldn't stand in the office and have a cup of tea.

[00:19:26] And you made the tea. You didn't drink the tea. And, you know, anybody came in more senior to you, you'd stand up. And it was very draconian in some ways. There was quite a bit of bullying, I suppose. Looking back now, you know, I think you can say, yeah, there was quite a bit of bullying of new staff. But at the time, you just got on with it. Like, I mean, I can remember being sent to the laundry to pick up a load of duvets.

[00:19:54] And in the laundry, there was an officer who was in charge of uniform and laundry. And she was kind of like known as the dragon. And the wing had sent me down. I'd only been in a couple of days. And sent me down to the laundry. And I said, oh, I've come to pick up the duvets for D3. And this woman just ripped my head off and said, what do you think this is?

[00:20:23] Some sort of bloody hotel. This is a prison. They have sheets and a one blanket. And, you know, this whole sort of, like, ripped into me. There's no such thing as duvets. Where do you think you are? The bloody Ritz. You know, all this sort of thing. Yeah. And, you know, it made me feel about like that. But, you know, I suppose in some respects it was a learning curve. A sharp learning curve. You know, I was never.

[00:20:54] My first day I was apprehensive. Of course, who wouldn't be? But I was never scared or anything. I think if I'd have ever been scared in all my years, I think I would have just handed my keys in. You know. Yeah. True. True. It's funny, again, like you say, you're like. Thinking back, like, to then. To how it is now. Like, I mean, obviously I've never done any prison work or anything. But I think now, like.

[00:21:24] I say, how. What's the word I'm looking for? Like I say, almost like bullying in a way. In the workplace. Like, it doesn't tend to be a thing anymore. Because I think a lot of younger people now. Like, I'm 32 and I work with people who are, like, teenagers and stuff. And to be fair, they're all mouthy little fuckers. Like, I think if you tried any of that now, you'd just, you'd get, you would literally get laughed at.

[00:21:53] The only way you could get the point across to them now would be with actual physical violence. I think. I understand. I understand your train of thought. But, you know, I think also, like, you know, people like to ban the word bully about quite a lot. Particularly if you're a strong woman, you know. And I think, you know, whereas a man will be robust, a woman would be a bully.

[00:22:21] And I think, you know, the higher up you go in any sort of organization, whether it's the prison service, the police, the NHS. You know, as a woman, you're fighting against more than just being a woman. And I found that when I became a governor grade. You know, that, you know, people can't accept a robust woman. Because, you know, we, as a society, we like to see women as meek and mild.

[00:22:48] And that's half the reason why, you know, when women go up before the courts, the courts will often, I think it's twice as likely to jail a woman for a first time nonviolent offense than a man. Because it's what the judge has a perception of, you know, his daughter, his wife. And what's this before him? Let's teach her a lesson.

[00:23:12] And unfortunately, I think, you know, society has gone a bit backwards on that sort of thing at the moment. It's funny you say that. I was literally thinking to myself there because I don't know if you've heard of a program called Blue Bloods. It's about the police in New York. Yeah. Well, me and my partner, we watched that. And literally watching an episode an hour ago. And there was a woman on it who becomes a captain and everything.

[00:23:41] And she's very full on, you know, it's my way or the highway sort of thing. And I'm sat there like, she's a dick. But now you've just said that. Like, no, she's not actually. She's just, you know. She's a, you know, a strong woman. Yeah, exactly. And I'll try and think a bit differently from now on. Okay. But in all honesty, you know, I mean, I worked in female jails. I worked in male jails. I 100% always preferred male jails.

[00:24:10] I always found it much, much easier to talk and to banter with men than I do females. Probably for a number of reasons. Probably, you know, I think women in a male jail. Yeah, I get all the, you know, the horrendous things that we've seen over the past couple of years, you know.

[00:24:34] And those women who allow themselves to be coerced or bullied or whatever into those situations by inappropriate relations with prisoners, I'm talking about. All they do is make it very difficult for the thousands of women that do an amazing job in male jails.

[00:25:00] And I think, you know, a lot of the time people forget that. They forget that, you know, those sorts of things have far outreaching consequences, not just about her and whatever prisoner it is. Yeah, yeah, it's a very good point. Very good point. I'm surmising when you say there about inappropriate relationships with prisoners. Are we referencing that video that went viral? Yeah, yeah, that's the one I was referencing.

[00:25:28] Although every time I seem to open a paper, there's another one in there, whether it be a governor grade or whatever. You know, prisoners are masters of manipulation. That's what they do. You know, they have time on their hands. They can spot vulnerable people. They can, you know, and some people, you know, are flattered by flattery, if you like, and allow themselves to be coerced into such things.

[00:25:57] But I can tell you now, and I can tell any one of your listeners listening, that a prisoner will instigate that relationship for his own gain. Nothing else. There'll be no true love. There'll be no marriage and everlasting relationship. He does that because he wants something out of it, whether that be sex, whether that be contraband being brought in or whatever.

[00:26:23] You know, and, you know, I used to, I used to, like, talk to staff about coerciveness and manipulation. And I've seen all grades from the bottom right the way up to the top. You know, nobody is exempt from being manipulated like that. Yeah. So it's a, it's a, it's a interesting one. And like I said, I mean, I remember that when that video went round and it was just like, what the hell is happening here? Yeah.

[00:26:53] Well, you know. It's a very strange one. But to me, that woman should never have been got in the prison service. Well, yeah. All you had to do, you know, if vetting her was Google her name and see the type of show that she'd been on on Channel 4. To me, that would have been a big X, no, we don't want her in our jails. Yeah.

[00:27:15] And that goes, you know, that's another thing is, is the lack of vetting, the poor vetting quality that, that the prison service has now. You know, it used to be, you know, face-to-face interviews. Now it's all done online. Well, I'm sorry, but you can't judge somebody's character by just talking to them for 20 minutes online. No, no.

[00:27:39] And I think, I think the, the, the Ministry of Justice seriously needs to look at the vetting procedures. Hmm. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, again, it's a very, it's a very good point because like you say, I mean, you can't tell how someone's going to be really over something like this, for example. I mean, you could probably find out a lot of things more, more nowadays.

[00:28:01] There's put the, I mean, annoyingly, it probably should be better nowadays because like, because of the likes of, you know, Googling things and stuff. But you're not telling me that anybody Googled her name and saw that she'd been on some sex show on, on channel four. And she was on some social media about, um, I can't remember what it's called. It's something about swapping partners or whatever.

[00:28:27] You can't tell me that somebody Googled her and didn't pick that up. I don't know. Exactly. No, no, completely agree with you there. Um, so, so you were at Holloway for what was it? 16 years or 11 years? 16 years. Yeah. And then I moved to, um, Wormwood Scrubs, which is in West London. Now I've heard of that place. Next to Hammersmith Hospital. Um, yeah.

[00:28:53] Um, went there as a senior officer, um, and, uh, walked in Scrubs, um, wasn't really sure what to expect. Although I knew Scrubs was like a proper prison, whereas Holloway was built, uh, the new Holloway was built like, um, well, it was based on a mental institution actually, because women were perceived as mad and not bad.

[00:29:19] So it was more like a hospital really with long corridors, blind corners. It was a nightmare really to manage in that respect. So when I went to Wormwood Scrubs and, you know, anybody who's seen, um, anything of, you know, Google Wormwood Scrubs and you'll see the two turrets either side, um, that are, I think they're grade two star or grade one star listed buildings. I think they're, you know, they're synonymous of, of Wormwood Scrubs.

[00:29:48] And we, you know, we were all always getting, um, you know, inquiries from, from films and, and TV about wanting to film these iconic twin towers of Scrubs. Isn't it at the beginning of the Italian job? Yeah. And Michael Caine walked, walked out of Scrubs. He comes through the gate. Yes. Yeah. Um, but we had, uh, we had question time there.

[00:30:17] Um, I organized question time, David Dimbleby and some MPs, uh, members of the public and prisoners to do the first ever question time in, in, uh, in a prison. We had the first serving prime minister there. We had, um, uh, first home secretary, David Blunkett, who went into a jail, was, came in.

[00:30:41] Uh, we had various radio shows and, um, people all the time, somebody wanted to come into Wormwood Scrubs because it was iconic. And, um, you know, by, by the time I'd worked my way up to governor and I was head of operations and security. So all of that sort of publicity came, came through me, you know, I can remember, um, David

[00:31:09] Cameron, um, wanted to come into Wormwood Scrubs to launch some new initiative. Ho, ho, ho. That'd probably been launched five years ago. It was crap then, and it's still crap now. Um, but anyways, he came into, with TV cameras and, um, I, I organized the, him coming in with his, um, bodyguards and, um, his bodyguards and me sort of had a bit of a face off because they wanted to bring their, their guns in.

[00:31:39] And I said, nah. So they kind of threatened, well, if we can't bring our guns in, then we're not coming in. I was like, well, fair enough. You know, don't, don't worry about me. I'm not buffered whether you come in or not. Saves me a job. Um, and, um, eventually they saw my way of thinking. You never have a gun in a jail. Never, ever. Uh, even though we locked up the whole jail, you know, if somebody had got hold of those

[00:32:03] guns or a member of staff was shot or a prisoner was shot, you know, ad infinitum, it just, it just isn't, um, a viable proposal in any shape or form. But I won that one. So they, they came in without their guns. They gave their guns in at the gate. Fair enough. Fair enough. I've never even thought about like prime ministers, bodyguards having guns and stuff, but I suppose it kind of makes sense. Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:32:30] And, um, when they came in, actually, we, we kind of made up by then and, uh, we were all friendly and I, I took him into my office and give him a cup of tea while he was waltzing around the jail pontificating. And, um, they said to me, oh, do you want to sit in the prime, prime minister's jag? And I was like, oh yeah. And it looks like this great, big, very comfy jag, doesn't it? Well, it's all bulletproofed, isn't it?

[00:32:56] And you literally sat in like a formula one car just scrunched in and you've got like this much room because it's literally all bulletproofed all the way around. Well, that'd be no good in there then. No, listen, I struggled, but you know, and all the dashboard is like, you know, the Starship Enterprise with buttons for this and buttons for that and God knows what, but yeah, it was quite, it's quite exciting to say that I've sat in the back of that jag. Yeah. Again, again, it's another experience.

[00:33:25] One, one to add to my many. Exactly. Exactly. So, so how long were you there for then? Um, I did, uh, let me think just, just over 11 years at Scrubs. So I retired in 2013. I got an MBE in 2012, um, from the Queen. From, uh, from the Queen at Buckingham Palace. Um, because as part of my job, I also did a lot of work with other London jails around security.

[00:33:55] Right. And, um, that was recognized with, with the MBE in 2012. And, um, and then they started to, to sort of cut the budgets and, you know, I could kind of see, I don't know. I wanted to finish at the top of my game. I wanted to leave Wyrmwood Scrubs in the best position that it could possibly be in.

[00:34:19] And I didn't want to see it go down the pan and all the hard work that not just me, but my team and other people had put in. Um, I want, I, I couldn't have heard that because I had a real affinity with Wyrmwood Scrubs. Wyrmwood Scrubs, anybody you talk to who's worked in Wyrmwood Scrubs will tell you there is something about that place. You know, I can't explain it. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a Wyrmwood Scrubism.

[00:34:49] That's all I can say really. It's just, if you've worked there, then, you know, it's, it's the place to work for me. And, um, so I wanted to leave and I took early retirement. We've got a daughter, my wife and I, and, um, you know, she was always first in the breakfast club and last out at the tea time club. And, um, so I wanted to spend time with her. And, um, so I took early retirement.

[00:35:16] My wife works, um, still does. Um, and, um, you know, I looked after my daughter, brought my daughter up and, um, I really enjoyed that. It was, it was a shock. Don't get me wrong, you know, suddenly going from, you know, up here at Wyrmwood Scrubs to nothing. Um, took a while to, I'd say it took a good 18 months, two years to get my head round it. And, um, and then I had the opportunity to, to write the book.

[00:35:46] So I was very lucky. And now I do things like this. So I'm even luckier. Well, I mean, if you, if you said being here with me is lucky, then I'll take that. Oh yeah. I think I'm lucky. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that, that must be a very strange feeling, like you say, especially like, you know, again, first day, so like the first day after you retire, that must be a strange feeling waking up that day after, after doing that for so long. Yeah.

[00:36:13] I mean, it wasn't so much the first day because it was more like, you know, you were having a week's leave or something, but by coming by the sort of third week, you were now kind of thinking, well, now what do I do? My daughter's in school. Um, I'm sort of sat here twiddling my thumbs. Where is my place in society? And I'm sure everybody who retires feels that, you know, suddenly you've gone from up here to down here, um, literally overnight.

[00:36:40] And it does take quite a bit of adjustment, um, to get your head round it and to, to work out what you're going to do next. I didn't want to just sit and, you know, watch TV all day. You know, I wanted to do something. Um, so, um, I started baking, started cooking. Um, and, um, then I got a job in a cafe, um, when we moved to Saffron Walden. Um, and that was really fun. I loved that.

[00:37:07] So I used to bake all day, you know, cakes, cakes, buns, scones, you name it, I baked it. Um, so I retired, uh, kind of lost my way a bit. Um, and then I started baking. We moved to Saffron Walden. I got myself a little job in, um, in a cafe. Nice.

[00:37:32] And, um, little sort of artisan cafe was, um, and baked all day. Um, loved it. Um, absolutely loved it. But, you know, you name it, I baked it. Um, my record was... What's your specialty then, when it comes to baking? Um, well, I do, I do, um, I've got so many. Um, but I do very nice scones or scones, depending on where you come from. If it's a scone. It's a scone. It would be, wouldn't it?

[00:38:00] Uh, I do scones. I do, um, uh, muffins. I do, um, I do a very nice lemon gluten-free cake for anybody who's, um, gluten-free. I've done them all. Um, I loved it. Really loved it. Um, and then, um, and then COVID hit, obviously. Great times. Yeah. Um, so that shut the cafe, shut, shut me down.

[00:38:28] But I had, um, at that time, I was just starting to, um, well, I'll tell you a story quickly. But, um, so I, uh, I've got a friend who's a doctor. She was a prison doctor. And, uh, she was writing her book. And, uh, she emailed me out of the blue. And she said, would I help you, would I help her with some of the, um, factual things about prisons? I said, yeah, absolutely. So I said, come up to Zaffron Walden. We'll have a coffee.

[00:38:58] We'll chat over anything that you want help with. So she rocked up and she came with her ghostwriter, um, a woman called Ruth Kelly. Um, and, um, Ruth was amazing. Like we sat there for like, I think four hours talking about prisons. And, um, at the end of it, Ruth said to me, I'd love to write your story. And I said, oh yeah, right. Okay. No, thanks.

[00:39:27] Um, but anyway, she kept on. And about six months later, I kind of said, oh, well, okay then. But she lived in Amsterdam. So a lot of it was done on Zoom. A lot of it was, um, well, I went over there. She came over here. Um, and we just like talked and talked and talked. And then she'd sort of write something, send it to me. I'd kind of say, no, that's wrong. That's wrong. Uh, that's okay. You know, um, cause I wanted like total autonomy over it.

[00:39:55] I wanted when I eventually decided to, to do it was I wanted to show people what, what prison was really like, not, you know, bad girls or, you know, what you see on the news, the bad things, but also the good things. Also the funny things, also the dark side of prison, cause there is a dark side of prison. Um, and, um, that's what I wanted it. And it, you know, I wanted total autonomy over it and I wanted it to be truthful.

[00:40:25] And, um, the governor is, is that. And, um, you know, I thought I might sell a few copies or whatever. Um, but when it was released, it was Sunday times top five seller. So I can't ask for more than that. Can I? Um, and you know, still going strong today, thankfully. So, um, so that was good. Um, but like I said, you know, COVID hit the cafe closed, then the book was published right

[00:40:55] in the middle of it. So it wasn't sort of a big fanfare. Everything was done on zoom. Um, but that didn't really bother me actually. Um, and then, you know, I never, I did a couple of promos on it and things like that. And, um, and then all this work started coming in and I thought, fuck, I thought I'd retired. You know what I mean?

[00:41:19] Like, you know, radio stations ringing me up, TV stations, you know, uh, woodcut media wanted to do a TV show with me and Donal McIntyre, which I did. Loved it. Um, I've even done a game show for Channel 4 that's due out in a couple of weeks. Um, and, um. I'll give an eye out for that then. No, it's crap. I hated every single minute.

[00:41:46] There were all these young people about a third of my age who I had no idea who they were. Um, and me, um, you know, but yeah, I mean, um, yeah, it was, it was interesting to say the least, but, you know, this whole kind of media world opened up to me that, you know, I never thought would, you know, would happen.

[00:42:09] But, you know, like now, now, you know, anything that happens, God almighty, there is a lot that is happening with our prisons. You know, I get phone call after phone call after phone call. Can you comment on this? What do you think about this? And, you know, I'm, I'm quite scathing of the, the ministry of justice, um, and the prison service at the moment, you know, and I don't mind saying it, you know, I towed the line for 28 years. I never said a thing. And now I think, well, fuck it.

[00:42:39] I'm not going to sit back and say how marvelous they are when, you know, you're running our prisons into the ground. You're, you're actually embarrassing, you know, as a country that we have a prison system that we can't, we're so full, we can't lock up prisoners, you know, and, um, and the way that we keep, keep prisoners, you know, it's, it's, it's not, it's not conducive to, to reducing re-offending.

[00:43:04] And, um, so I am quite scathing of, of how staff are treated and how they are trained and how they are vetted and, you know, the whole shebang, how, how prisons have been ignored by successive governments for years. Excuse me. Excuse me. But the thing is with prisons, they're not a vote winner. Yeah.

[00:43:30] What is a vote winner is, you know, being the party of law and order and being tough on crime. And that's what a vote winner is. Um, and, um, you know, we, you look at society and I could split society 50, 50 and half would think prisons are too soft and half would think prisons are too tough.

[00:43:49] And I think as a society, we've got to kind of come together and find those gray areas where we can meet in the middle so that we can, at the moment we lock up the most prisoners in Western Europe, we have the worst re-offending rates in Western Europe. Well, that's not good for you. It's not good for me. It's not good for our taxes at 57,000 pound per prisoner place per year now, I think.

[00:44:12] So, you know, I think I would much rather that we help people who've turned their, who want to turn their lives around, turn them around, send them out the gate, that they can come back, not come back, I should say, you know, and they can become useful members of society. That's what I would much rather. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's the idea of behind every prison really, isn't it? It's like. Supposedly. Yes.

[00:44:41] Well, yeah, supposedly. Like you said, that, that, that, that's the idea is, but I mean, do you have any ideas of why we have the worst for re-offending or? Well, it's a, there's a lot of, there's, you know, there's, there's no one thing as to, as to why we have the worst re-offending rates. There are several things, you know, we put money into locking prisoners up.

[00:45:07] But MPs on a whim decide, you know, for knife crime, we're going to give prisoners 10 years. But they don't think of the effects of that. It's like if you go and build a new housing estate and you don't put any infrastructure in. You don't put any more chemists or doctors or schools or whatever. Well, it's like the same with a prison. If you're going to say, right, okay, 10 years for knife crime, then you've got to make more prison places. But nobody bothered to think of that.

[00:45:34] You know, and I think that when prisons get overcrowded, regimes go. So regimes are curtailed. So therefore, all that reducing re-offending programs that go on are curtailed. You've got shortages of staff. You've got inexperienced staff. You've got, really, all we're doing with prisoners is warehousing them. We're not actually, you know, helping them to address their offending behavior.

[00:46:02] If you put a drug addict in prison, you know, because he's nicked something from wherever to fund his drug habit, you know, that's not going to help him. He's just going to come out a better drug addict and a better criminal. You know, what we need is more hardened-based community sentences for non-violent. I'm talking non-violent. You know, prison has a place.

[00:46:26] It's absolutely it does in society to protect the public from those that are going to do his harm. There are a lot of people in prison who would be much better served serving their sentences outside prison. And I think until we can, as a society, can get our heads around that. You know, I think David Gork is doing a sentencing review. And I think that's due to be published probably next month.

[00:46:54] And I expect that he will have some real head-turner ideas on our sentencing strategy and doing away with shorter sentences. Because shorter sentences just don't work, without a doubt. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. So, to go back to your actual work in the prisons then.

[00:47:19] So, do you have any stories you can share that are like, you know, I don't know, like someone trying to escape anything that's, I don't know, any prison riots, any sort of, you know, the juicy stuff, if you know what I'm saying. The juicy stuff. Yeah. When somebody had once asked me what was my biggest regret, my biggest regret was an armed escape that we had.

[00:47:44] And that was, we had a prisoner at Wormwood Scrubs who was feigning illness. Right. And everybody knew he was feigning. We knew he was feigning. The staff on the wing knew he was feigning. But the doctor refused to say that he was feigning illness and wanted to send him out to hospital. We had intelligence to say that he was an escape risk at the hospital. Should he go out?

[00:48:14] We phoned the local police asking for their help. They were too busy. And we phoned the hospital security asking if they could put a presence down in the A&E department. Bearing in mind, Hammersmith Hospital is literally 500 yards away from Wormwood Scrubs. It's literally next door to it.

[00:48:36] And in those sorts of situations, unfortunately, or fortunately, whatever, life has to come before security. So the doctor was insistent that this prisoner goes out. And the ambulance people came. Even they thought he was feigning it. But still, the doctor insisted that he went to the hospital.

[00:48:58] And as the ambulance drew up to the hospital, the ambulance back doors were rammed with a car. The ambulance woman opened the door to be greeted by three hooded men with guns. Shit. And the three staff that were in the back of the ambulance with this prisoner were ordered to uncuff him because he was cuffed.

[00:49:26] Which obviously they did. Well, you would, wouldn't you, if you had a gun on your face. And they made off. And he was recaptured, I think, about six weeks later. But the three guys who were involved in breaking him free were never caught.

[00:49:48] But, you know, the impact on those staff, literally, like I got a phone call five minutes later, ran next door to Hammersmith Hospital. And found that the ambulance woman collapsed on the ground. The ambulance driver just shaking like a leaf. My three staff really were completely zoned out of it. One of them never worked again.

[00:50:17] Yeah. One of them regraded from an officer to an admin role. And one of them left the job and committed suicide. And that's the kind of effect on it, you know. That's the serious shit side of prison. But, I mean, you know, it's not all doom and gloom. There are other stories that I can tell you. We're a bit more lighthearted.

[00:50:45] But that is my biggest regret that that guy ever went out. But, you know, we tried to do all we could to stop him going out. But we were overruled. And like I say, life takes precedence over security. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, juicy stories.

[00:51:11] We had, when I was in charge of security, I set up a new intelligence office. And I had an intelligence manager and a couple of officers working as analysts. And we had some intelligence that there was a bogus solicitor coming in to Wormwood Scrubs to visit a prisoner to bring in contraband. Right. And we checked it out.

[00:51:40] We'd spoken to our police liaison officer. Every prison has a police liaison officer that works closely with that jail. And we decided to do an operation one evening when she was due to come in. And myself, my intelligence officer and a couple of other staff and two police officers were waiting for her when she came in.

[00:52:07] We put her past the drug dog and the drug dog sat down on her straight away. And the police officer, one was female and one was male. And she said to me, oh, I need a female member. Would you come and search this woman with me? And I went, I've got an officer that can do that. I went, Donna, off you go. She went with the police officer to search this woman.

[00:52:36] And anyways, when she came out, she looked white and she had plastic gloves on and she was holding up a carrier bag like this. And I said, what's in there? And she went, boss, honestly, you'll never believe this. Well, I think there was something like four mobile phones, a nine bar of cannabis about like this, several packets of heroin like this, half a dozen.

[00:53:01] A couple of phone chargers and a couple of SIM cards. Take it as you will as to where she put those. That officer never forgave me. That officer never forgave me for sending her in with that copper.

[00:53:22] Anyways, turns out this bogus solicitor had been round Belmarsh, Strangeways and another London jail. And nobody had picked up that she was a bogus solicitor except Wyrmwood Scruggles. That's how good we were. I'm still shocked by that. I mean, like I say, I'm surprising, like I say, there's only two places where she could have been hiding all of that, if not both.

[00:53:50] But it was in the carrier bag. The carrier bag was... In a weird way, it's quite impressive. Yeah. I referred to it as a clown's pocket. Well, yeah. I mean, she probably whistled whenever she walked up the stairs, like, well, fucking hell. Jesus. Like, the fact that there's phones and stuff, that's ridiculous. Yeah. I've got no... There's no answer to that.

[00:54:19] I can't really say anything else. That is... Yeah, no. Like I say, I can't say anything else for that. Jesus Christ. I mean... Speechless, isn't it? Yeah, I mean... She's got seven years. Christ. Like, you hear stories like that, and you... Like, there's part of your thing's like, no, can't be. There's no way you can do that. But, well, clearly you can. Yeah. You can, apparently. Bloody hell.

[00:54:50] Where do we go from there? Well, without sort of trying to glorify or glamorize anything or anyone, during your time then, were you ever... What's the word you do? Was in charge of any of, like, you know, the more well-known prisoners that we've had in... Well, yeah, I mean, you know, people...

[00:55:19] Notorious prisoners are only notorious because the press makes them so. That's the word I'm not going to call. Yeah. I think, you know, that's important to remember because they're nothing special. No, no, no. Most of them are psychopaths. Most of them are narcissists. And that's why they're serial killers. But I did look after Rose West for about three months.

[00:55:46] She was at Holloway for three months before her trial at Winchester. Yeah. And when Fred West committed suicide, I, along with the duty governor, because she was on the segregation unit, obviously she wasn't in the general population of the prison, not only for her safety but everybody else's safety. Right. So she was segregated.

[00:56:16] And I, along with the duty governor, that New Year's Day, around about six o'clock, told her that Fred had died. There wasn't an ounce of emotion. People ask me, you know, like, well, what was she like? Well, you know, if you told her to do something, she did it. If you said, how are you, Rose? She'd go, oh, I'm fine, thank you. You know, so there was nothing, nothing like, you know,

[00:56:46] she had stamped on her forehead serial killer, you know. But she was very much like a psychopath, very much no emotion, very much like, you know, a thinker. You could see, you know, the cogs ticking, but she kept it all in. You know, when we told her that Fred had died, you know, one of the things I always thought was

[00:57:13] there was almost like a glimmer in her eye. Like, she looked like, well, if he's died, they'll pin it all on him and I'll be walking. And of course, you know, she was wrong. She got a whole life sentence. But, you know, I firmly believe that she thought that. And I think her legal team thought that as well. They'd pin it all on Fred and she'd be walking free. But, you know, when she was up at Durham,

[00:57:42] she had a little liaison apparently with Myra Hindley. Now that's an interesting dynamic, isn't it? Yeah, I've heard about that. That's a weird one as well. Yeah, very interesting dynamic. But I don't think it lasted long. I wonder if anything's going to call them. Yeah. I mean, you come across people, but, you know, at the end of the day, to me, you know, they were always just a prisoner. It wasn't, it wasn't.

[00:58:12] Yeah, yeah. They were never anybody special to me. My job was to keep them safe and make sure nothing happened to them so that, you know, they could be judged in court. That was my job. And once they were judged, that was that done. You know, I don't, people say, oh, how can you work with those sorts of people? But, you know, if you thought about every single person,

[00:58:41] you'd drive yourself mad. And you couldn't do your job. You know, when I first went to, when with Scrubs, I worked on the lifer wing. Now we had sex offenders, rapists, murderers, children, killers, you know, you name it, we had it. And every six months, you had to write a report on them. And part of that writing the report was reading all the court papers. Right.

[00:59:07] And, you know, it's very difficult to not be affected by that. But, you know, and I think probably I learned that afterwards when I was writing the book and like all these kind of things were coming out. But at the time, I just stuck them to the back of my mind and didn't, tried not to think of them. Because you're not given any training about that.

[00:59:34] You're not given any sort of help or to see a psychologist or to talk things through or nothing like that. I suppose it's obviously a very hard thing to try and train someone to deal with them sort of things as well at the same time. But I'm thinking there, because I obviously mentioned Myra Hindley as well, and I'm thinking, you know, they were so notorious, as we'll say.

[01:00:01] I think one of the things that always intrigued me with them two, I'll say intrigued rather than interests, is because, like you said, they were part of like a duo, which always intrigues me because I always think it's really bizarre. Like, I can never get my head around how that happens. Yeah, I think it's just a meeting of minds, isn't it? I mean, I don't believe either with Fred West and Rose West

[01:00:29] or Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, I don't believe that, you know, either one was coerced into it. I think it was a meeting of minds and they were both equally culpable. I think, you know, I think, you know, I mean, everybody has the ability to be nasty. It's whether you choose to do so or not. And, you know, if you've got a like-minded person

[01:00:57] who's into the same sort of stuff that you are, you know, I think that's where it kind of comes together. Thankfully, it doesn't come together much. You know, they are the exception rather than the rule, aren't they? Yeah. I think what I mean there, though, is I think where the intrigue is for me is like, you know, how do they find that out? Like, to be sort of like in jest with it,

[01:01:25] is it literally a case of they sat on a sofa one night and one of them turns to the other ones and said, should we start killing people? What do you reckon? You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, who knows? I don't know. I think that's where the intrigue is. I've never been in that position. If somebody said that to me, I'd be out the door pretty bloody quick, I can assure you. Yeah. But I think that's where the intrigue is for a lot of people, like you say, myself included, is like, you know,

[01:01:52] how does it all start? I think that's the, like you said, when there's like a group. Well, yeah. You say, like child offenders and stuff as well, when you get groups of them and it's just like, how can, like, surely I would imagine, like in my head, if I was killing people, I'd be wanting to keep it as hush as possible. Yeah. But some people are different though. You know, they have no,

[01:02:21] they have no sort of emotion that, that would do that. That's because you, you have emotion, you have, you know, you have a thought process and I don't think that they do, you know, it's all about them. That's why they're, you know, so psychopathic. They have no, you know, emotional intelligence. They have no desire to,

[01:02:51] they're quite happy for people to know about it. You know, even, even, you know, Fred West was quite, quite open about what he did. And how Rose, you know, took equal part in it. You know, she killed her own stepdaughter when he was in jail. That was proven, you know? And I think that, I think it's,

[01:03:12] it's very easy to blame one or the other rather than look at them as, as a one. And I think that the more that they did it, the more together they became because they had this, this real sort of evil that sort of evolved together. Not, not just, you know, it might've started out as, you know,

[01:03:41] something, you know, I don't know, but it, it evolved. Yeah. And when it evolves, what you've done isn't enough. So you've got to go further and further and further. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, it's just bizarre. It's just really, really, really bizarre for me. Obviously you hear about like, you know, prison riots and stuff all the time. Like, you know, people getting attacked and stuff in prisons.

[01:04:11] Is there anything you can tell us along those sort of lines? Like, because you've said there's some sort of, there is some funnier side of things. Is there anything, I don't know, like is anyone, oh, I don't even know what to think. Like, I don't know, just, well, there's an example. Like on the green mile, when he chews up that cake and then he spits it in his face. Has anything like that ever happened in your time? I've not had anybody walk the green mile, that's for sure. But no, I mean, there's all,

[01:04:41] there's all sorts of, of things that, that happen and, and you know, it's, it's, you know, I can, I can, I can relay stories of the guy who came to me in a complete breakdown because he'd, he'd sent the wrong letter to his, to his girlfriend instead of his wife. He'd got his letters mixed up, you know, and he was beside himself.

[01:05:07] He had a girlfriend and he had his wife and his wife turned up at the gate, waiting for the girlfriend to rock up. And then they started scrapping outside the prison gate. You know, he was a dumb wit. I'll tell you, he really was a thick shit. In the thickest of shit, he was it. Honestly, bless him. But, you know, he came to me because I was a female officer and I would know what to do. Right. Because he fucked up.

[01:05:37] I didn't. And I said, well, listen, I think the best thing you can do is hold your hands up and decide which one you want. But, um, I mean, that's the thing with, with a prison officer. You're not just, you know, a turnkey. You don't just lock people up and unlock them. You know, you, you're a counselor, you're a, an advisor, you're a, you know, a translator when they can't read what somebody's written to them, you know, all sorts of things. Um, and,

[01:06:06] and that's what makes the job what it is, you know? Hmm. That's, that is just pure stupid. It is all that. I like that. That's funny. Yeah. So you've mentioned a couple of times that obviously about, uh, you are quite scathing of obviously the justice system in this country at the minute. And I've got down here, so just, just before we planned this,

[01:06:32] or one of the guys who was involved in the Manchester arena bombings, attacked free prison off, free prison officers. And then there was a guy on the news, BBC news. I not remember his name, unfortunately. He claimed, he claimed that obviously our country has the worst training for prison officers. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. Look, how can you be a prison officer in five weeks? You know,

[01:07:01] you go to any country around Europe, around America, you know, it's two or three months, but they've, most of it's done online. Most of it is, um, on the job training. And when you say on the job training, you've got to remember that these people walk on barely knowing anything right into the middle of the melee. And if you're, um, an officer who, who is trained and you're running up and down, talking to prisoners,

[01:07:30] sorting things out, you haven't got time to train Joey next to you. You know, and I think, I think a lot of emphasis is put on, um, you know, how, how, um, that prison officers are, are, but, but you can't, you can't take away the basics and expect a prison to function. You know, you can't strip it of every,

[01:08:00] every last penny and expect it to function as we would want, you know, to protect the public and to, um, rehabilitate those that, that are able to be rehabilitated. You know, you can't, you just can't do it. And, you know, I think, yes, absolutely. Five weeks training is absolutely rubbish. What can you learn in that? Absolutely nothing. And we're putting young people, um, impressionable,

[01:08:28] vulnerable young people with no life experience through a five week, mainly online, um, training thing and expect them to do a good job. Well, that's just not going to happen. Is it, you know? And, um, you know, the, the, the guy that attacked the three staff in, in Franklin, you know, what on earth was, was he being given, um, facilities to cook for? Why should he? He's serving 55 years.

[01:08:57] He murdered children, women, mothers, sons, daughters, whatever, you know, blew them all to pieces with bolts in the bomb so that they could do the maximum damage. And we're saying, we're going to separate you because we don't want you to talk to other prisoners because of your ideology of hate, because that's what it is. Um, but we're going to put you on a little unit, um, where you can make, make your own dinners, cook for yourself.

[01:09:24] There's cat sea prisoners who haven't committed any murders or violent offenses stuck in the cat B estate because there's no beds for them in the cat sea estate who would love the opportunity to cook their own meals. But that, to me, that's appeasement. And, and I, I just think it's absolutely ridiculous. And whoever, I mean, that was a policy. So whoever wrote that policy and agreed that policy and signed that policy should hold their head in shame,

[01:09:54] in my opinion. No, I completely agree with you on that. I mean, I didn't realize that. I mean, I assumed that like the training for it would have been a lot longer than like you say, if the bloody five weeks, that does seem crazy. yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, also like you said there with like, what, why should he have facilities where he can make his own food and stuff again, completely agree, agree on that. That was the first thing I said when I seen it on the news. I was like, well,

[01:10:23] why the hell has he even got access to like cooking oil and stuff? It just seems like people ask me that. And I was like, I'm as baffled as you, you know, why? But this is, you know, this is, this is how, how the prison services come where, you know, we're, we're, we're just appeasing serious, violent, evil people, you know, and, and I am all for, you know,

[01:10:51] something like the super max of the States where they don't come out. Unless they're handcuffed. Um, they have one hour's exercise in a little yard, singularly. Um, and that's it because these people, they're never going to change. They don't interact with staff. They don't want to, um, deal with any of, um, their offending behavior. They've, they've got their, their ideology and that's what they want to stick to.

[01:11:20] And you're never going to change that. And all you're doing is, you know, why wasn't there a patrol dog on that landing? You know, those staff had batons. They had parva spray. They didn't even have time to draw them. You know, it's just, it's just crazy. How, how would you change it then? Like just more training? I think, I think you've got to go back to basics, Liam. I think, I think you need to, it's,

[01:11:49] it's got to the place where no one thing is going to fix it. You know, you can build all the prisons you like, but you're going to staff them with, with inexperienced, poorly trained, poorly vetted staff, you know? So, so, you know, I think the first thing is, is the, the backlog in the courts that needs to be sorted. Cause that's jamming up prisons. Foreign national prisoners is jamming up prisons.

[01:12:17] Prisoners with mental health who shouldn't be in prison. Um, that is quite a significant number. Um, I think with regards to staffing, you need to look at vetting. You need to look at training. You need to look at ongoing training. You know, I used to make sure that everybody did security awareness and, um, um, coercive training every year, every 12 months.

[01:12:46] It was like you had to do your health and safety. And I used to stand there and talk to the staff about it. You know? Um, I think you need to look at hiring the, the age, I think 18 to start in the prison services too young, but they'll say they won't get enough people. Well, that kind of says it all really, doesn't it? Um, I think, um, I think we need to look at the infrastructure of our old prisons. You know, I think like the,

[01:13:16] the need investment, you know, Wandsworth's got raw sewage running down the landings. I saw, um, a TV, um, report, BBC on, um, uh, Pentonville and a prisoner said to her, Oh miss, come and look at this. And he literally lifted his toilet up and there's a hole there. Well, I'm sorry, but if you're trying to rehabilitate people, keeping them like animals is not going to help.

[01:13:44] I'm not saying give him cooking facilities. This guy was doing, I think two years or something. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Keeping, keeping people like that is not going to help with their rehabilitation. Um, and I think of course we need to look at the sentencing. And I think, you know, Norway used to have a real problem. The same as we did was prisons were full. Um, and they concentrated on reducing reoffending rather than sentencing. And they've had really fantastic results.

[01:14:14] And they've had like, um, you know, where a prisoner will, um, work Monday to Friday, be tagged, but work from home Monday to Friday, not work from home, but live at home Monday to Friday, come into prison Saturday and Sunday. And so this sentence and things like that, I think we're really going to have to mix it up. I think there'll be a lot of raised eyebrows. And I think, you know, I'm, I'm not sure this government or any government, quite frankly,

[01:14:43] is brave enough to, to do, to take that on, to take that note on. But I think, you know, unless we don't, we're going to go for this crisis year on year. You know, they're talking about 20, um, next year, 2026, you know, we'll be full again. I reckon it'll be before that. So, you know, we are where we are, but I can sit here pontificating. I'm out of it. You know, it's the, it's the thousands of, of,

[01:15:14] of fantastic men and women who work in it, who are keeping it going when it's on its knees. Yeah. And as far as well, like, I mean, it's probably harder for you to look at it thinking, I say, how, how bad it's gone in the time you've been away from it. Like it must, it must be frustrating. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm very sad about it. Very sad. Every time I see something like those three stuff, you know,

[01:15:45] almost murdered. Certainly I would doubt whether they'll ever work again in the prison service. Um, you know, it, it, it makes me angry, but it makes me incredibly sad that our prison service, which was once a great prison service has been allowed to be depleted into, into what it's become some dilapidated half, half, half, half-arsed prison service, really. Hmm.

[01:16:16] Yeah. It's just a shame, but it's, it's funny you mentioned there about, about like facilities and like say, but a person literally having like a hole for a toilet because you, you often see it on like social media. They'll have like images from other countries of prison cells and stuff. And people will comment on it and say, no, it looks like a bloody student halls. It's far too nice for prisoners and stuff. And it's like, yeah, I don't think people think that, like you said,

[01:16:41] just sticking them in a concrete block with a door in a slab of concrete with a pillow on it. That ain't going to, that isn't going to help anybody. Cause I mean, like, I mean, I mean, that'll fuck you up mentally enough anyway. I think, you know, prisoners have got to, you've got to have the carrot and the stick. You've got to have something that prisoners can work towards. You've got to have a reward system because otherwise what's the point,

[01:17:11] you know, you know, their reward is, is going out, having a home. We know that homelessness leads to crime. We know that not having a job leads to crime. You know, these are all really important things to turn people's life around to say nothing of getting off drink or drugs or, or whatever, you know, these are all really important things that we've got to deal with. And I think that too often, you know, people see prisoners having a PlayStation. Well,

[01:17:40] they're in the hands prisoners. They've worked for that. You know, they, they've done their offending behaviors. They've, they've, you know, really been good in prison. They've, you know, addressed their offending behavior. They've addressed, um, you know, how they, how they act in prison, you know, and I think you've got to, you've got to say, well, okay, you know, you're a inverted commas, trusted prisoner. You can have a, you can have a PlayStation,

[01:18:11] but if you fuck up, we'll take it away. Yeah. And that, you know, this whole cooking thing, you know, that should be a privilege, not a right. Yeah. I have absolutely no idea. I can't stress that, you know, who thought that that was an acceptable idea for somebody serving 55 years for blowing children to smithereens? Yeah. I have no words. I couldn't get my head around you at all. No, I have no words, Liam. Yeah.

[01:18:41] It's crazy. It is crazy. One, one thing that I've, I wanted to, I wanted to ask before, just be, just before we wrap things up, because it's something that's always interesting me because I know someone that it's happened to. So obviously you've got your, your serial killers, your murderers and stuff, but then there is other occasions where someone can kill a person and it not be like, you know, murder, serial killers and stuff. Like a one punch. Yes, exactly. How, how,

[01:19:10] how does that work then? So obviously I'm murderers and serial killers. They'll be in like, you know, the worst and the worst, but then obviously someone who does that, like you say, a one punch bang around, the person dies. Yes, they have, they've still killed somebody. So would they go in with them or is it, is, is it different for everybody? Well, it's, each, each, each person is, is, is sort of like risk assessed on, on, on an individual basis. It's all, it would depend,

[01:19:39] you know, if, if he, we had a guy, um, on, um, on the lifer wing who got involved in a fight at the pub on a Friday night, punched a guy. The guy fell backwards, hit his head. Um, and he got, um, manslaughter. Um, and he was doing, I think nine years or something like that, but that's quite a long sentence. Um, in a, in a, in a prison, if you see what I mean,

[01:20:09] most of short sentences, but he was on the lifers wing because some of the lifers, although they had a life sentence, had nine year tariffs. So, you know, he, it was like a long term, um, wing really rather than a lifers wing, although the majority were in fact lifers. Um, but, um, so he was on that wing, but I mean, he was, he was fine. You know, he, um, he was the one who used to give me his budgie to,

[01:20:37] to look after when he went off on his visit. He used to come into my office and I'd be like, are you off on your visit now? And he was like, yes, gov, will you look after her? And I, yeah. And he'd stick it on my shoulder and it just sit there until he came back from his visit. Well, he had a pet budgie in prison. Yeah. Life has used to be allowed, um, budgies. They're not anymore. It was in, um, in about 2007. But, but again, it was a privilege. It was something to work towards. It was, it was to teach them,

[01:21:07] you know, to have respect and to look after something, you know, they had to pay for it. They had to, if it needed vets or food or whatever, they paid for it all. Yeah. Um, and some of them used to make, um, this is the thing that always used to get me, you know, there are so many clever prisoners, you know, I've seen them make like little wheelbarrows out of matchsticks that actually turn around that the budgie would pull, you know, so intricate, so delicate. Um,

[01:21:37] and, and they used to make like jewelry boxes with, with like secret drawers to give their children for Christmas and things like that. Yeah. Really, really clever stuff. Mm-hmm.

[01:22:07] So that then if I got put in with a bunch of serial killers, I'd be buggered. That was why I asked that question. Have you been waiting to say that all night? Yeah. That's a good one. Um, listen, I'm sure you could handle yourself. Well, that'll be, well, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe.

[01:22:37] So just, just, just before we finish off, I've seen obviously on your Instagram page that you are at CrimeCon this year. Um, I, so I've looked, I've looked into that briefly. Can you tell us a bit about that? Where it is? What it is? Yeah. Um, CrimeCon is for, well, it's really for true crime, um, fans who, who love the whole true crime gender. But I will say it is not to glorify true crime.

[01:23:07] A lot of the work that goes on is about victims of crime. Um, and it is, um, the likes of me, I'm, I'm lucky I've been invited back again. Um, God knows why, but, um, and it's, it's, it's, people like me, um, Colin Sutton, Jackie Moulton, police, prison, uh, forensics, everything, podcasters like yourself, everything you can think of to,

[01:23:37] to do about true crime is there. Um, like, and some fantastic speakers, um, some psychologists there, Kerry Danes is usually there, um, um, on a, on a, on a, I can't remember her surname. I think it's black or something like that. Um, she's, she's another psychologist. She usually goes, but it's, it's, it's, a two day kind of convention, I suppose, really on crime, on true crime.

[01:24:06] And we have, um, they have like speakers on, um, domestic violence. They have, um, victims of crime. They also have ex-prisoners talking about their crime and how they got into crime. Um, and, and it's very balanced. It's not at all glorifying crime. Um, and it's, it's, it's primarily, um, about victims of crime because although I've worked in the,

[01:24:36] in the prison service and looked after criminals for 28 years, never once have I forgotten about the victims of crime. And I think that's important. Yeah, definitely. Definitely agree with that one. Where, where, where, where is it at? Or is it, it's in London. It's in London. Uh, there's crime con London. And then I think in September there's crime con, um, Manchester. I'm not going to the Manchester one. Well, I don't think I am, but I might be.

[01:25:06] Um, who knows? You never know with this job. Um, but this one's in London. Uh, there's one in September in Manchester. Okay. Details are, you can find it. If you look on my Instagram, you'll see it. Hmm. Cool. Cool. Cool. Uh, right. Just before we finish off then, do you want to let our listeners know where they can find you, find your book or anything else? Okay. Well, if you want to get in touch, uh, my Insta is VFH 12. Um,

[01:25:36] give me a message and, um, I'll always answer you back. Uh, my book is, um, available on Amazon in audio, which I did the recording for or, uh, Kindle or paperback. Um, and, um, yeah, it's on Amazon. I think it's on, um, I think it's at waterstones and all good bookshops. There you go. Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh, right then. Well, I've really enjoyed that Vanessa.

[01:26:05] So thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure. That's pleasure. Thank you for having me, Liam. No problem. We've had a few technical difficulty. Can't even speak. A few technical problems. Uh, but yeah, I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed it. I've not been able to get my words out at times, but yeah, right then guys. So we shall leave it there. So as always go and follow our Instagram page at the spooky shed podcast. Links in the bio there for all our other social media pages that we still don't use. Uh,

[01:26:34] merch stars there, Patreon page, YouTube channels, all that. And we shall speak to you next time. Billy probably won't be here because Billy's a dick. This podcast is part of Podomity, the UK's podcast comedy network. Why not laugh at what else we've got?

[01:27:03] Visit podomity.com. Thank you.