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MONDAY 30 SEPTEMBER 2002

600 am

Over the past few days I have been writing furiously, but I have just had overnor – so much for freedom of speech Heout any written material came from the Holed out – not too difficult with nearly a hundred prisoners on remand who leave the prison to attend court every day

800 am

After breakfast, I’m confined to ht hours

600 pm

Mr Marsh, a senior officer, who has a rare gift for keeping things under control, opens the cell door and tells er41 I am escorted to a private room, and introduced to Mr Spurr and Ms Staiven the responsibility of investigatingthe past four days (every one of thee at the director-general’s judgment, thi

s doesn’t coreat surprise

Mr Spurr’s intelligent questions lead ht an injustice I tell him and Ms Stamp exactly what happened

On Friday 27 Septeations’ had been ainst me It turned out these related to a lunch I had attended on Wednesday 25 September in Zucchini’s Restaurant, Lincoln (which is near the Theatre Royal) with Mr Paul Hocking, then a Senior Security Officer at North Sea Camp, and PC Karen Brooks of the Lincolnshire Constabulary

I explained to Mr Spurr that the sole purpose of the lunch as far as I was concerned was so that I could describe what I had seen of the drug culture per British prisons to PC Brooks, who had by then returned to ith the Lincolnshire Police Drug Squad After all, I’d had severaland or Brooks in the past on the subject of drugs I did not know that prison officers are not supposed to eat meals with prisoners, nor is there any reason I should have known this Moreover, when a senior officer asks a prisoner to attend a , even in a social context, a wise prisoner does not query the officer’s right to do so

As for SO Hocking, I have been distressed to learn that he was sun from the Prison Service on 27 Septe his pension if he did not do so42 PC Karen Brooks was ated coeant Kent of the Lincolnshire Police, and she reeant Kent interviewed ation of the saht the Prison Service had acted hastily and disproportionately in transferring me to HMP Lincoln

As Mr Spurr leaves, he assures me that he will coh he still has several other people to interview He repeats that he is interested in seeing justice being done for any prisoner who has been unfairly treated

It was some time later that the Daily Mail reported that the Home Secretary had bullied Mr Narey into the decision to have me moved to HMP Lincoln

The sequence of events, so far as I am able to establish them, are as follows The Sun newspaper telephoned Martin Narey’s office on the evening of Wednesday 25 Septehly coloured account of the Gillian Shephard lunch This provoked the Home Secretary to send an extraordinary fax (see overleaf) to Martin Narey de that the latter take ‘iainst ainst the press’s atteed, buckled and instructed Mr Beaumont to transfer me forthwith to Lincoln Narey also went on a nuhly personal terms in what the Independent on Sunday described as ‘an unprecedented attack on an individual prisoner’, especially in the light of later pious assertions that the Prison Service is ‘unable to discuss individual prisoners in detail with third parties’