Chris Atkins - A Bit of a Stretch: The Secret Diaries of a Prisoner

Honest and authentic. Atkins perfectly captures the madness, hope and despair of prison. Please read this.

Professor David Wilson founding Director of the Centre for Applied Criminology at Birmingham City University and former prison governor An important, urgent and entertaining memoir. It made me laugh, cry my eyes out and think hard, not only about forgiveness, but about love and life in general. An essential read.

Sathnam Sanghera author of The Boy with the Topknot

Chris Atkins is a BAFTA-nominated filmmaker. His documentaries Taking Liberties and Starsuckers were critically acclaimed and made front-page news. He has also worked extensively with Dispatches for Channel 4 and BBC Panorama. Following his release from prison, he is now back in North London, filming documentaries and writing.

The Diaries of a Prisoner

Chris Atkins

Published in hardback and trade paperback in Great Britain in 2020 by Atlantic Books, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

Copyright Chris Atkins, 2020

The moral right of Chris Atkins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Every effort has been made to trace or contact all copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good any omissions or rectify any mistakes brought to their attention at the earliest opportunity.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Hardback ISBN: 978 1 83895 015 6

Trade paperback ISBN: 978 1 83895 103 0

E-book ISBN: 978 1 83895 016 3

Printed in Great Britain Atlantic Books

An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd Ormond House

2627 Boswell Street London

WC1N 3JZ

www.atlantic-books.co.uk

To Nazia, the best friend anyone could ever have.
And for Kit, obviously.

Its about 10 p.m. Im locked in my cell, H2-09, with my padmate, Gary, a likeable young Scouser whos nearing the end of his sentence for smuggling cannabis. Were watching a film set in an American prison. Not for the first time, I reflect on how popular culture gives an oddly false impression of life inside. The on-screen criminals are ripped, tanned and seemingly possess all their faculties. Its a far cry from the emaciated, spice-addicted souls who surround me in Wandsworth, many of whom are mentally ill.

Theres a jangling of keys outside, and our cell door is unlocked. Standing in the doorway is Mr Hussain, a young screw I get on reasonably well with.

Evening, Chris, he calls to me. Ive just dropped Rob off next door. Hes having a right mental.

Its not my shift.

The officer shrugs. None of the other Listeners will talk to him.

My curiosity is piqued. Give me a minute.

I put on some flip-flops and head out the door. I currently live at the more salubrious end of H Wing, which is an enormous Victorian prison block. The ground floor is dark and deserted, except for a couple of rats sniffing around the bins. We walk down the landing and Hussain opens the door to the Listener Suite. This name is quite misleading, as its basically two derelict cells knocked together. The windows are broken and the temperature is barely above freezing. Its harshly lit by a couple of strip lights and it stinks of cigarette smoke. Theres no furniture except for three plastic chairs and a revolting toilet in the corner. It resembles a 1970s police interview room and is hardly an ideal space for giving emotional support to vulnerable inmates. Nonetheless, this is where I do most of my work as a Listener. I have recently been trained by the Samaritans to help prisoners who are suicidal, self-harming or just losing their minds. Ive now been Listening for several months, and witness more suffering in a single day than I would have previously seen in a whole year.

Sitting waiting for me is Rob, a rather large prisoner in his late twenties.

Ill leave you to it, says Officer Hussain as he locks us in.

Rob is sweating profusely, and glares at me through enormous bloodshot eyes. Hes wearing his prison clothes inside out, with crazy gibberish scrawled all over the fabric, and he is obviously having some form of psychotic episode. Over the last couple of months, Ive become quite accustomed to meeting people suffering severe mental illness in prison. Most of the time they are far more likely to be the victim of violence from other inmates rather than the perpetrator. That said, Rob looks seriously scary. I cautiously sit down on the seat furthest away from him. Hi, Im Chris. How are you feeling this evening?

What the FUCK are you asking me that for? he hisses. Its around this point that I regret coming in here alone. Listeners are technically supposed to work in pairs at night, just in case we get stuck with a dangerous inmate. But over Christmas, our numbers have plummeted, while call-outs have soared, so the rules have fallen by the wayside.

Right, sorry, stupid question, sorry. I notice that Rob has half a comb sticking out of his hair, and Im unsure if this is a fashion statement or a potential weapon.

What do you know about quantum mechanics? he demands.

Quite a bit as it happens, I say. I actually studied physics at Oxford, and that was the only part I found interesting.

We spend the next 10 minutes discussing waveparticle duality.

Im seriously impressed with your knowledge, I say warmly, congratulating myself on building up such a strong rapport.

He nods and leans in conspiratorially. Assuming that hes finally going to open up about his inner turmoil, I lean in too. Instead, he grins like the Grim Reaper and says, Sing me a song or Ill slit your throat.

My spell behind bars coincided with the worst prison crisis in history. In 2016, there was a 27% increase in prisoner assaults nationally, with assaults on staff up by 38%. The number of self-inflicted deaths had more than doubled since 2013, with 113 prisoners taking their own lives.

I spent nine months in Wandsworth before being shipped out to an open prison, which was like the Ritz in comparison. This book charts my unlikely and often surreal experiences through those crazy months, and tries to explain why our jails are in such dire straits. Prisons are frequently in the news, and the crisis is usually blamed on drugs and plummeting officer numbers. These are definitely real issues, but for me, the main problem, which hardly gets any airtime, is that prisons are extraordinarily badly run. If Wandsworth was a hospital, patients would be discharged with far more diseases than when they arrived. If it was a school, pupils would graduate knowing less than when they enrolled. The management was so grossly inept that if they were running any other part of the public sector, theyd be immediately sacked. But prisons exist in a vacuum, where the authorities can tightly restrict all outgoing information and cover up their own incompetence. Free from public scrutiny, Wandsworth and other prisons are able to continue failing on an epic scale.

I was perhaps unique in Wandsworth, as Id spent years making documentaries. I knew that the biggest barrier to capturing a decent story is access. Its often very difficult getting into interesting places, as the gatekeepers dont want anyone seeing whats going on. Even when access is granted, film-makers are often put under such tight restrictions that we only film what they want us to see. But in Wandsworth, I was just another prisoner. I had no press pass, minders or aggressive PRs telling me not to ask interesting questions. This unfettered access gave me a front-row seat for the extraordinary chaos that unfolded in Wandsworth every day. I kept detailed notes of everything I witnessed, which formed the basis of this book. I hope my unvarnished account will provide a strong argument for urgent prison reform.