LIFE AFTER LIFE

....This was both unnecessary and stupid. All it did was to ‘hallmark’ the crime and make it easier for the police to identify him. Very few women took part in the many thousands of armed robberies each year. And from witness statements, and possibly CCTV footage, it would soon emerge that the ‘woman’ was, in fact, a man in drag. Dave might as well have left a calling card.

  Next, the pair robbed a bank of £25,000, with Dave wearing what was to become his trademark black leather miniskirt and carrying a sawn-off shotgun. By now the police must have known who they were looking for.

  A conversation with Dave during this period would have been revealing. Despite being wanted, I don’t doubt that he felt quite fulfilled. He had finally become that which he had so much desired to be, a fully-fledged armed robber.

  It was at this time, flush with money from the robberies and out clubbing most nights, that he met Sue Stephens, a dark-haired, attractive model. It seems that within a very short period of time he was desperately in love with her and, in fact, couldn’t live without her. 

  This came as a considerable surprise to those of us who had known him well in jail. Not because he had fallen in love with a woman, we knew that he was bi-sexual, but rather that he had fallen in love at all. In jail he had been totally in command of all his relationships and, if anything, was quite cold and mercenary regarding them. I took this to be further evidence of the damage all the solitary had done him. It tends to leave one with a deep and enduring feeling of loneliness. 

  No one knows whether Sue reciprocated these feelings, although her subsequent behaviour would suggest that she didn’t. However, she has been reported as saying that she found Dave to be something of a ‘dreamer’.

     The relationship came to an abrupt halt when, late in December, Dave was ambushed and shot by robbery squad detectives. Remanded to Brixton Prison on serious armed robbery charges, it looked like Dave was going away again for a very long time. They hadn’t reckoned with his escaping skills though. Despite being in the top security category, with all the extra security measures that entailed, Dave managed to escape from a cell at Marlborough Street Magistrates Court, where he was appearing on remand. It was Christmas Eve. 

  Any other, half-ways sensible criminal would have headed for parts unknown, but not Dave. He immediately returned to Sue and the pair were inseparable throughout this period while the hunt for him continued. 

  Having had to shoot him to capture him the previous time, you would have thought that the police would now be treating him extremely seriously. Perhaps it was the ‘gay’ label’ that put them off. Certainly the two robbery squad detectives who were checking out an address they had traced thought they weren’t in any danger. As they walked along a corridor towards Dave’s door, they failed to take notice of the tall, attractive-looking woman in a tight black mini-skirt.

  Dave reacted first. Pulling out a small caliber pistol, he shot PC Nicholas Carr in the groin, then ran off. To shoot a policeman is one of the most serious of crimes. It brings retribution in the form of the most intense manhunt possible. I’m sure the symbolism of an Officer being shot in the groin by a transvestite armed robber was not lost on the Met. This powerful imagery no doubt prompted the next incident.

  I didn’t take the brains of Sherlock Holmes for the police to work out that the key to catching Dave Martin was to keep close tabs on Sue Stephens. They put her under constant surveillance. On the evening of January 14^th 1983 they were rewarded. A bright yellow mini pulled up outside Sue’s address. There were two men in the front seats, the driver had the familiar long, fair hair.

  Sue and a female friend came out and got in the car with the two men. They all drove off in the direction of the West End, several unmarked police cars shadowing them. Thus, a full-scale operation swung into motion involving dozens of officers, many of them armed. They had shot him before and now he had shot one of them. They didn’t expect Dave to go quietly.

  The traffic heading towards the West End was particularly thick this night. The mini and all the cars involved in the pursuit became entangled in a serious jam near Earls Court. In Pembroke Road everything came to a complete halt. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Superintendent in charge of the operation ordered that one of his men get out and try and make a positive identification of Martin.

  The plain-clothed officer crept towards the mini, trying to shield himself from view behind other cars. He had been told to be careful. No doubt he was mindful of the fact that the man they were pursuing was particularly dangerous. Probably for that reason, he didn’t get too close. A profile and the long, fair hair was enough for him to call in a positive identification. 

  The Superintendent gave the word and several armed officers ran towards the car. There was no shouted warning and no attempt to arrest. Instead, they fired a volley of shots at close range into the body of the driver. As he slumped in his seat, the passenger beside him jumped out and ran off. Screaming, the two women cowered in the back seat.

  Now the officers closed in on the form of the driver. He had managed to open his car door, but had then lapsed into unconsciousness. He lay, half in and half out of the car, his head nearly touching the road, the long, fair hair discoloured by the streams of blood that coursed through it.

  As the police gathered around the car, guns still at the ready, they surveyed the results of their handiwork. Seven shots had hit the driver in the body. Any fledgling feelings of euphoria were soon dispelled though by a very obvious fact. The driver wasn’t Dave Martin!

  A quick investigation revealed that they had shot an innocent TV producer named Steven Waldorf. That he worked in the media, a group almost as powerful and as privileged as the police, meant that this couldn’t be covered up. The following morning banner headlines screamed out full details of the foul-up. On TV and radio, every bulletin carried a report of the event.

  If Dave Martin had previously been only a very minor character on the underworld scene, that certainly wasn’t the case now. Steven Waldorf was the household name, but in the next breath came that of Dave Martin. The following Sunday, Dave was on the front page of the News of the World. If notoriety had been what he was seeking, he had it in spades.

  Dave was now public enemy number one as far as the police were concerned, and the most wanted man in Britain. Surely, one reasons, nobody but a fool would stay around. Surely, the drumbeat heralding his inexorably approaching doom must have been audible to him.

  Later, I wondered what was going through Dave’s mind at this time, for, of all the things he was, he certainly wasn’t a fool. Perhaps it was a subconscious death wish that drove him at this moment. However, he got straight in touch with Sue Stephens and arranged to meet her in a restaurant at Belsize Park.

  Dave arrived early to look the place over, but it was a trap. Armed police ran from  everywhere. As he fled down into the nearby Belsize Park Underground Station Dave could only have thought that his Sue had betrayed him. 

  He fled ever deeper into the tunnel system, but the police were ready for that. They sealed off both ends of the tunnel. After a couple of hours of negotiations, his situation futile, Dave gave himself up.

  Even with the hindsight of many years, the final acts of the tragedy still seem very strange. Remanded to top security conditions in a special unit in Wormwood Scrubs, Dave embarked on a hunger strike and demanded to see his beloved Sue. For whatever reasons, she didn’t come. Then he took and overdose of medicines he had saved up. Dramatic photos showed him being rushed to hospital by ambulance to have his stomach pumped out. 

  Sharing the same special unit at the Scrubs was Dennis Nilsen, the gay serial killer. Dave then embarked on an amazing relationship with him, which led to the latter declaring that he was in love with Dave and, had he met him outside, he would never had started killing. 

  To those of us who had known him well, this was just further evidence of just how strange Dave’s thinking had become. The ‘chaps’ despised cowardly sex offenders like Nilsen, a man who had lured his innocent and unsuspecting victims to their doom. In the long-term jails, given the opportunity, they would have beaten him senseless. We couldn’t understand why Dave was even speaking to such an individual, let alone befriending him.  

  The actual trial was all too predictable. The judge made much of the fact that Dave had been on an armed robbery where a guard had been shot and that he, personally, had shot a detective. He was described as a ‘very dangerous man’. The sentence was 25 years.

  Who knows what Dave was thinking as the top security convoy dropped him off at Parkhurst. It looked very much like the wheel had turned full circle, except that his time Dave would be located in the ultra top security ‘Special Wing’. In its time, this prison within a prison had housed the Krays, the Great Train Robbers, IRA terrorists and other notorious prisoners. Its normal complement of no more than ten prisoners were watched day and night. Escape from here would be very difficult, if not impossible.

  Despite the fact that all the other prisoners in the ‘Special Wing’ were doing very long sentences too, Dave’s elitist nature soon came to the fore. The prisoners always decided amongst themselves what they wanted to watch on the TV in the association room. Normally, an informal show of hands would suffice. Needless to say, Dave invariably liked to watch something more highbrow. A couple of times he had got up and just turned the TV over to the channel that he wanted to watch.

  On this particular evening the vote had gone against him again. He jumped up to turn the TV over, but this time one of the other prisoners had had enough. He jumped up and physically confronted Dave, who, being no fighter of course, had to back down. He retreated to his cell with the insult of, “You’re only a fucking poof anyway”, ringing in his ears. It was a very public humiliation. As he slammed his door against a world that constantly belittled him because of his sexuality, Dave must have reflected that not even the armed robberies and the 25-year sentence had brought him the respect he so craved.

  All long term prisoners experience moments of despair, times when there seems no hope, and the pain of a meaningless existence becomes too much to bear. Most have contemplated suicide, however briefly. For the vast majority, the moment passes. As miserable as the situation may be at the moment, life is still the only game in town. 

  But not, it seems, for Dave. He made a rope out of a torn sheet, tied one end around the bars of his window and the other around his neck, then stepped off a chair to slowly throttle under his own weight. It couldn’t have been an easy death. My bet would be that, in those last moments, he was thinking of Sue.

  His latter-day arrogance apart, those of us who had known him well were deeply saddened. Whatever he had deserved, he hadn’t deserved that. I walked again in my memories with the soft-spoken, shy, intelligent young man who I had known at Parkhurst all those years ago. I tried to square that image with the strutting poseur who had so briefly blazed a path across the criminal firmament. And failed. I could only conclude that ‘the system’ had moulded him in its own image, then let him loose on the world.

  No doubt there were those amongst the ‘chaps’, myself included, who felt guilty that they had so regularly put him down. For, in the final analysis, the passing of such a bright, strong spirit diminished us all. And we were the weaker for it.

The End

Within days he had befriended Peter, a young London guy who was only 21. Although Peter had clean-cut good looks and something of a baby face, he wasn’t at all effeminate and, to the best of everyone’s knowledge, he wasn’t gay. He had an easy-going personality and went out of his way to seek the approval of the ‘chaps’, whom he looked up to with some awe. From a criminal perspective, he was quite silly and his crime had been pure foolishness. He was also very easily led. He was forever getting into trouble with the warders, usually through doing something on someone else’s behalf. Soon, he and Dave were inseparable.

  Long Lartin was so hi-tech security-wise, that virtually everything was alarmed and linked to the central computer. Not only did all the doors lock and unlock electronically, every inspection panel on the walls and ceilings of the landings were fitted with alarms.  I suppose Dave just couldn’t resist it. Within days he had bypassed the alarms and was taking the inspection panels off. Many of these led to ducting, which, whilst not leading outside, did run all over the wing. A favourite pastime of Dave and Peter’s was to get in the ducting that ran above cells that gay couples frequented, and listen to what they were up to.

  To the uninitiated, this might seem hilarious and harmless fun, but to people who were trying to survive in the jail, it was an unnecessary complication. Many people had money, drugs, weapons and other contraband items hidden about the wing. It was like a constant game with the Security Department. There was a degree of ‘live and let live’. Further, the warders didn’t want to unduly antagonize everyone by conducting full-scale searches all the time. Occasionally things were found and they were satisfied with that.

  A serious security breach like removing an inspection panel was another matter entirely. If they discovered something like that it would be a direct challenge to them. You could expect them to close the wing down and search every cell from top to bottom. A lot of people would lose a lot of valuable things. Needless to say, quite a few cons on Dave’s wing weren’t too pleased by what they saw as unnecessary foolishness.

  All of a sudden, I had a lot more to focus my attention on than Dave’s antics. A violent incident on my own wing saw myself and two of my friends remanded to the punishment block as part of an ongoing police investigation. We had been down there about a month when, late one night, Dave was brought down with his friend Peter. They had tried to escape.

  A different code applies to the punishment block than to the main prison. As it is a place where everyone is under considerable stress, old feuds tend to be forgotten and everyone tries to support each other. It was only natural that Dave and I speak again. Several of us had already sent canteen goods over to him.

  Like myself, Dave’s cell window looked out over the punishment block’s small exercise yard. The very next time I was let out on exercise, I went straight over to his window. It wasn’t just idle curiosity. I fully intended to try to escape again myself, even if it wasn’t going to be from Long Lartin. Every bit of information about how the security worked was valuable.

  Although he explained it to me several times, the technical detail of how he bypassed the electronics of his cell door was beyond me. But he had managed to open it himself, without it registering as being open in the central control room. He had already rigged Peter’s door in a similar fashion and went in to join him.

  All the cell bars at Long Lartin were made of manganese steel, specially hardened and supposedly un-cuttable. Dave had taken his record player to pieces, fitted carborundum discs stolen from a workshop to the central spindle and made a very workable circular saw. Over a period of a couple of weeks he had ground away Peter’s bars. At the end of each session he would fill the cuts with a special filler that was also stolen from the workshops and paint it with quick-drying paint. Peter not being a top-security prisoner, his cell bars didn’t get the careful scrutiny that higher security category prisoners got.

  The pair of them were quickly out of the wing, but now the plan really fell apart. The grounds were bright as day, lit from tall light masts. CCTV cameras scanned every square foot. Two 18 feet high fences, separated by about 20 feet, ran around the perimeter. Each fence was festooned with rolls of razor wire hanging half way up and barbed wire at the top. Geo-phonic detectors under the gravel path that ran along the inside of the first fence would pick up the sound of their feet. Trembler bells fitted to every panel would alert the control room if they touched the fence. In the circumstances, the rope and hook they had between them was grossly inadequate.   

  In reality, they stood no chance at all of getting away. It was just Dave doing what he enjoyed to do. Namely, bypassing as many security measures as he could and winding the security department up in the process. That, and adding to the growing legend that was beginning to be attached to his name. 

  A further and rather unexpected development was that Peter suddenly realised that he had been used. They wouldn’t let Dave and he out on exercise together for security reasons, so the first time Peter was let out into the small yard he went straight over to Dave’s window. I don’t know what he expected, but his reception wasn’t at all to his liking. Suddenly he began screaming abuse at Dave, punching at his windows and throwing small stones from the yard at him. Several warders had to drag him back inside.

  To those of us who knew the score, it was all so very obvious. Although Peter had never been known to be gay before, quite clearly a lot more had been going on than just a joint escape attempt. Equally clearly, Dave had used this relationship to inveigle Peter into escaping. He had never shown an interest in escaping before and was doing a comparatively short sentence. The fact that he was in a low security category and his cell wouldn’t be subjected to rigourous searches had clearly been another factor too.

  Shortly afterwards I was moved out to another prison, to await trial for the violent incident. I never saw Dave Martin again. But, from time to time, I did hear about his exploits. At Gartree he joined together with a Midlands guy who, although in a high security category, was generally regarded as a complete fool and definitely not one of the ‘chaps’. Despite Dave’s now confirmed expertise in escaping, the deadly combination of his homosexuality and a desire to attract attention, made the vast majority of serious people avoid him.

  Once again, Dave and his accomplice had got out of their cells and away from the wing. They then broke into the workshop compound. Here they managed to get into a workshop and proceeded to try to weld together a ladder with which to scale the fences. For some reason they couldn’t make the ladder. The workshop civilians had the surprise of their lives when they entered the workshop in the morning and saw Dave and the Midlander sitting there, drinking their umpteenth cup of tea.

  For a period of several years, nothing was heard of Dave. Prison Governors have almost unlimited powers regarding the prisoners under their control. The Rule 43 mentioned earlier has two sections, 43a and 43b. Under the former the prisoner can request to be held in the punishment block, away from a tormentor, for his own protection. Under the latter, the Governor can hold any prisoner in the punishment block, for an unlimited period, if he considers him to be a threat to the ‘good order and discipline’ of the prison. This is very much a catch-all term for what is, in effect, indefinite solitary confinement. The only appeal is to the Visiting Magistrates once a month, but as they are invariably only the ‘rubber stamp’ of the Governor, the prisoner can expect little relief here.

  Not being able to curb his rebellious spirit and frightened now of his escape skills, Governors resorted to holding Dave in their punishment blocks under Rule 43b. They regularly moved him from jail to jail too. Solitary confinement as a fixed term is hard enough to bear, but at least you can count the days off knowing it will come to an end. The unlimited nature of solitary under 43b is particularly onerous. You just can’t see the end of what is an intolerable existence. 

  This then is the man they released directly on to the streets when he finally came to the end of his sentence in the summer of 1982. Small wonder that his parents are on record as saying that their son came home a changed man, full of hatred and bitterness.

  None of us in the jail heard anything further about him, but then we didn’t expect to. Criminally speaking, he wouldn’t have moved amongst our friends and acquaintances. If attention-seeking gays are beyond the pale in prison, then they are even more so outside, especially where the serious business of crime is involved.

  At first he got a job as a security guard. From a criminal perspective, paying regard to his particular skills, this seemed a sensible course of action. Through his job he could identify worthwhile targets, then come back and bypass the security guarding them. This was his general intention, but only as a means to an end. Whilst still in uniform, he burgled some of the shops he was being paid to protect, and stole jewellery and guns. 

  The key was the guns, because for Dave to achieve what he wanted most, to be regarded as one of the ‘chaps’, he had to be an armed robber. Again, in purely criminal terms, this was much akin to a skilled surgeon wanting to work as a butcher. But the macho image of the ‘chaps’ was largely formed around armed robbery.

  Dave would still have had a problem finding anyone to ‘work’ with him though. Certainly none of the ‘chaps’ would have. Especially when he announced his intention to carry out the robbery dressed as a woman. He was already a liability. As an untried and untested robber, no one could say what he would do in an emergency. The last thing any professional robber wants to do is to shoot someone unnecessarily. In this regard, Dave was highly unpredictable. Further, should it come to a physical struggle, as it so easily could, the skinny Dave would be easily overpowered. 

  However, late in 1982, Dave robbed a security van with an accomplice, who shot and wounded a guard. Dave was dressed as a woman…..

to be continued

 I saw Jeff at breakfast the next day, but we didn’t speak. There was no sign of Dave, but that wasn’t unusual as he never got up for breakfast. The meal served, the warders went around and locked everyone up, except for Jeff and the other orderly.

  This other orderly was something of a strange guy. A violent and well-known ‘face’ from South London, Terry was doing 15 years for a string of highly professional armed robberies. However, he had made himself unpopular with the ‘chaps’ at Parkhurst by becoming too close with the warders. Not only did he make tea for them, he also socialised with them about the wing. This didn’t mean that he wasn’t staunch though. He knew about the escape plot and distracted the warders when Jeff wanted to do something.

Recently he had begun leaving his radio on the hotplate, playing loudly. This would serve to drown out any noise Dave and Jeff might make on their way out of the wing.

  Terry made tea and sandwiches for the two warders left on duty in the office and stood in the doorway, laughing and joking with them. Outside, his radio was playing loudly. 

  Jeff immediately hurried along the landing and quietly let himself into Dave’s cell with the cell door key. They quickly put on the close-fitting uniforms, the boots and the caps, tucking their long, flowing hair up inside the latter. The blue shirts and ties added the finishing touches. 

  They were now wearing what every warder in Parkhurst was wearing, but there the similarity ended. For they were two of the most unlikely-looking warders you would ever see in your life. The tall, gangly one was undoubtedly the skinniest warder in the Prison Service. The short one was equally skinny, but the striking feature was his height. He failed the minimum requirements by at least three inches. Individually, they looked distinctly odd. Walking along together they looked extraordinarily comical.

  They left Dave’s cell carrying the bolt-croppers concealed in a pillow-case. There was nothing out of the ordinary in this, warders were forever walking about with inmates possessions in pillow cases. Then they crept across to the wing gate. This was a tricky bit, because Dave would have to unlock the gate and lock it again, all without making enough noise to alert the warders in the office barely twenty feet away. The heavy gate always made a high pitched squeal as it swung open. The warders knew this sound well and listened out for it. It could well herald a P.O. or Chief on his rounds.

  This morning though, the squeal was drowned out by Terry’s radio. Locking the gate behind them, Dave hurried along the short corridor to the gate that led outside the wings. Within seconds, Dave and Jeff were outside. They had overcome the first hurdle, but the second one beckoned.

  Walking as upright as possible, with their caps tilted down slightly over their faces, they strolled down the hill towards the CCTV camera. They would find out soon enough if those presumably watching in the control room noticed anything untoward. The camera stayed pointing up the hill and didn’t swivel to follow their progress. They were past the second hurdle.

  They approached the gate of the compound and, perhaps, the most difficult hurdle. Here the camera was barely yards away and focused on the gate. Dave unlocked the gate and they both passed through. The camera stayed pointing at the gate. The most difficult part was behind them. 

  They walked quickly to the far end of the deserted compound and up to the massive double gates. Using his ‘doubles’ key, Dave unlocked these, pulled down on the long lever that disengaged the gate’s bolts and swung it open. They passed through and Dave locked it behind them. No one but the Security P.O. could follow them now. There was only the perimeter fence that stood between them and freedom.

  Taking the bolt-croppers from the pillowcase, Dave went to the section of the fence that adjoined the wall. Here he would be partly shielded from outside view by the wall. The first snips were awkward, but once the blades of the cutters were through the mesh he made a yard-long, horizontal cut at knee height.       

  Turning the cutters upwards, Dave now made a vertical cut. Jeff had put on a pair of heavy canvas gloves taken from one of the workshops. As Dave levered the section inwards, Jeff gripped the edge and pulled.

  Until this point, everything had gone according to plan. But as with most plans, there is always an element of luck. Their luck now ran out. 

  It was a fact that the compound and the compound fence wasn’t patrolled at that time of day. However, Parkhurst wasn’t the only prison on the island. Camp Hill, a lower-security, prison was just a few hundred yards further up the road. One of their dog-handlers had gone home for breakfast, taking his dog with him. Returning the way he had come, he walked along the outside wall of Parkhurst. As he reached the point where the wall ended and the fence began, he suddenly came upon Dave and Jeff. Both parties were taken completely by surprise.

  By now, Jeff had managed to pull the cut section of the fence inwards, exposing a triangular hole. Dave made a dive for it, thrusting his head and shoulders through. The dog barked furiously and went to bite him. At the same time, the warder pulled out his stick and started to beat Dave about the head and shoulders. 

  Realising that he stood no chance against this determined assault, Dave pulled himself back inside. To crawl through the hole unhindered would have been difficult, the efforts of the warder and his dog made it impossible. The two of them had to watch helplessly as the warder took his radio from his belt and put in an emergency call.

  Dave quickly stepped behind the wall, out of sight of the warder. Within minutes other warders would be everywhere. He didn’t want them to find his keys.

  Barely two minutes passed and a large group of warders came running into the compound. Dozens more appeared outside the fence. Temporarily though, Dave and Jeff were still safe. No one had a ‘doubles’ key to get them through the big gates. 

  Another few minutes passed and the Security P.O. duly appeared. He unlocked the double gates and the warders poured through. They grabbed Dave and Jeff roughly and   marched them back the way they had come. The gates of the punishment block were already open as the posse of warders propelled Dave and Jeff inside. They were pushed into separate cells and made to take everything off. Completely naked now, they were turned around and doubled over so that the warders could see between the cheeks of their arses. But it was all too late.

  Satisfied that nothing remained hidden, they threw the pair a boiler suit each and retreated with all their clothes. As the doors banged shut, Dave and Jeff contemplated a thoroughly depressing future. There would be the solitary confinement and the loss of remission, of course, but they would also be separated and sent to different jails.

  By dinner time the escape was the talk of the jail. There were several different versions circulating, but all of them told of their being nearly through the perimeter fence. There were also a variety of reactions. Some thought it hilarious that a pair of ‘poufs’ had nearly done what the combined resources of the so-called ‘chaps’ had failed to do. Others tried to belittle what they had done purely because they were gay. But those who gave credit where it was due, had to concede that Dave and Jeff had done an amazing feat.

  Our crowd, who knew the full details, had nothing but respect and admiration for them. Merely to make a ‘doubles’ key was un-paralleled. In fact so much so that the prison authorities hadn’t accepted that Dave had made a ‘double’. With the massive double gates now locked, they argued that they must have climbed over them, although the fact that they couldn’t find any rope and hook did confuse them. They hadn’t found the cell or gate key either and assumed that Dave had managed to hide them somewhere. 

  It would have been very embarrassing for them to admit that a con had got hold of a ‘double’. It smacked of corruption in high places and the Home Office would want chapter and verse. And what Security P.O. would want to admit that his was the first jail where a con had got his hands on a ‘doubles’ key?

  Dave and Jeff, languishing in the punishment block, were largely oblivious to all the gossip and rumour. Dave was quite used to people knocking him. His answer was simply to shut them up by pulling off something quite amazing. That, in fact, was what he was working on at the very moment.

  The warders had carefully searched Dave and Jeff’s clothing for the keys. They had also meticulously searched the area nearest the hole in the fence. They had found nothing, except the bolt-croppers and the gloves. Having stripped them both naked, they were convinced that they weren’t hiding anything. They could only assume that Dave had thrown the keys over the fence. 

  In this they were quite wrong, for Dave still had them. When he had stepped behind the wall, out of sight of the warder with the dog, he had taken a metal tube out of his pocket. It was about four inches long and an inch in diameter, with a screw top. It looked like a shortened cigar tube. 

  There was already a length of hacksaw blade inside. Dave quickly dropped the three keys in with it and screwed the top on tightly. Dropping his trousers and pants, he squatted down. He pushed the rounded end of the tube up his arse. As his sphincter muscle closed behind the screw top, the whole tube disappeared from view.

  It was now up inside his rectum and safe from anything but an intimate body search. Dave could retrieve it at any time. He often carried things about like this.

  Locked in his punishment cell later that evening, Dave removed the tube. Wiping the outside with a tissue, he unscrewed the top and took out the hacksaw blade. Very gently, he started to saw at the exposed part of the top hinge of his cell door. Within two hours he had sawed enough. He started on the bottom hinge. Another two hours saw him satisfied with the progress on this too. He put the blade back in the tube, screwed it shut and pushed in back up into his rectum. Then he lay down for a few hours sleep.

  The following morning Dave slopped out, collected his breakfast and was locked up again. As was the case in the rest of the prison, the majority of the warders went off for their breakfast, leaving just one in the office. Dave immediately went to work on his door again.   

  He had left just enough hinge to support the weight of the door when it was opened. Now, in under 20 minutes, he cut through the remainder. With the hinges severed, he gently eased the hinged side of the door inwards. Once it cleared the jamb, he slid it sideways so that the lock and bolt both disengaged from the other jamb. He was out of his cell.

  Moving silently to Jeff’s cell, he quietly slid back the bolt and unlocked his door with one of the keys. They both padded noiselessly to the gate leading out of the punishment block. Dave inserted the gate key and turned, but it was a particularly stiff lock. As the levers sprang back there was a dull, metallic ‘clunk’.

  This was one of the small sounds of the normally silent punishment block that the remaining warder was quite familiar with. After being in the quiet for a while, one gets to know every sound, even the small ones that register only subliminally. This was an important sound though. It could be the first warning to a warder dozing, or doing a crossword, that a senior officer was coming in.

  Alerted now, the warder came out of the office. He was astonished to see both Dave and Jeff halfway through the gate. Recovering quickly, he pressed the nearest alarm bell.

  Dave and Jeff both stopped. It was no use their running as dozens of warders would be on the scene very quickly. A chase around the jail would be futile. They both filed back into the punishment block.

  In due course, the news of this latest attempt reached us. I was astounded that Dave had managed to take his door off from the inside, and without making enough noise to alert a warder sitting in an office only yards away. Mentally, I kicked myself. I now realized what a treasure we had allowed to slip through our hands.

  Either one of Dave’s escape attempts rated amongst the best I had ever heard of. Taken together they demonstrated a skill, genius and resourcefulness that was breathtaking. If we had paid more attention to Dave’s escaping skills rather than to his sexuality, a mass break-out in the early hours of the morning would definitely been on.  That though, was the end of my first experience of Dave Martin.

  Living in the long-term prison system is sometimes akin to traveling on the Circle Line. With only six or seven top security jails, friends and acquaintances almost inevitably bump into each other again and again. Especially if they are troublesome prisoners who get moved about.

  A short time after Dave was transferred out of Parkhurst, an incident took place that disrupted any further thoughts of escape that my friends and I had. Nearby Albany Prison staged a roof-top protest against the parole system. As a measure of solidarity, Parkhurst joined in. About seventy of us stayed out on the compound all night in protest. As one of the ringleaders I was put in solitary for a month on bread and water, then transferred out to local prison. Within another month though I had been transferred to Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire.

  Long Lartin was very much a state-of-the-art, top security prison, supposedly the most secure in the system. There were electronically unlocking doors, inbuilt alarms, CCTV cameras everywhere, trembler bells on fences, geo-phonic detectors to detect someone digging a tunnel out and arc-lights that bathed the whole jail in brightness at night. No one had even got close to getting out.

  On the positive side though, the jail had a very relaxed and well-resourced regime. Workshop wages were good enough for inmates to be able to buy a whole range of stuff from the prison canteen. At weekends some prisoners clubbed together to cook lavish meals in the little kitchens on each of the six wings.

  There was a lot of time allowed out of cell for association and everyone got regular access to the sports-field and yard. No only were radios allowed, record players were permitted too, a significant concession not found in other jails. Much civilian clothing was permitted too. Consequently, although Long Lartin was a long way from being an alternative society, there were still too many things missing that one took for granted outside for that, it was possible to have a life of sorts. Many troublesome prisoners settled down here.     

  There were a couple of dozen Londoners in residence when I arrived, all of them doing very long sentences. That most of them were ‘A-men’ defined them as a sort of elite, but the fact that they regarded themselves as the ‘chaps’ gave them a leading role in the jails life. Although we were greatly outnumbered by prisoners from other parts of the country, we were significantly more violent and always stuck together. An attack on one of us was usually treated as an attack on us all. 

  Several of these Londoners were old friends, others I knew of and they knew of me. To avoid too many of this type getting together and the control problems this would cause, the prison authorities spread them out amongst the wings. I suppose it was a back-handed tribute to my potential for causing trouble that I was placed on a wing with just one other Londoner.

  Terry was about forty years old, the broken nose and cauliflower ears a sign of the professional boxer he had been in the past. Once a promising middle-weight until poor eyesight ended his career prematurely, he was now, several stones heavier and a bear of a man. He turned from boxing to bank robbery and had worked with several notorious ‘firms’. His twelve-year sentence reflected the seriousness of his offences.         

  Despite his size and fighting prowess, Terry was quite gentle and well-mannered by nature. He also had a very well developed sense of humour and loved to play pranks. We quickly became friends and relaxed into a familiar and supporting relationship that is one of the few good things about prison life. 

  I had only been at Long Lartin for about two months when Dave Martin arrived. Like myself, he had been on a journey around the local jails, but his had taken a bit longer. He had the white and stressed look that is the hallmark of someone who has recently done a lot of solitary confinement.         

  Most ordinary people don’t understand the impact of solitary confinement. I believe that its effects were so important in the moulding of the person Dave Martin was to become, that it is worthwhile to briefly explain here. To the average person, to be placed in a small room where one is to be left on one’s own for a long period, might not seem to be much of a threat. One might imagine long periods spent reading, or just simply relaxing.

  The reality is very much different. In psychological terms, solitary confinement is known as ‘sensory deprivation’. In our normal environment we are constantly bombarded with a multitude of stimuli. We interact with others, watch TV, cook, clean the house, play games, etc. In solitary confinement, all of these things stop, and stop abruptly. This tends to induce a sense of panic. One has to fight for control over a situation that one realises could quickly become intolerable. From moment one, there is a continuous fight to maintain control.

  As reasoning individuals, we know that we can’t stand this indefinitely. That is why, in controlled ‘sensory deprivation’ experiments conducted by universities, there is always a panic button that one can press when one has had enough. In solitary confinement there is no panic button. No matter what you say or do, you will stay in solitary until your period is up. 

  Needless to say, some people ‘crack up’. They might scream, or become violent when the warders open their door at meal or slop out times. Then they will be beaten up, put in a canvas, restraining suit and left on the floor of a ‘strip’ cell for days. Some never recover and end up certified and sent to mental hospitals. Most prisoners’ greatest fear is to lose ones mind whilst in prison. 

  The actual environment of the punishment block isn’t conducive to mental stability either. It is a place to where the troublesome and mentally ill gravitate. The air is constantly rent by screams of anger and pain from those being brought down by the warders. And every so often, usually during a period of quietness, there comes the frantic scream of someone who has finally lost control. It reminds everyone else of their own mortality. For myself, I felt that if I screamed just the once, I might never stop.

  So for a spirited individual, solitary is an awesome threat. One realises that one might have to make a stand against unfeeling and unjust authority just to stop them from breaking one’s will. But waiting just over the horizon is the awful prospect of several months in solitary.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

We now had a gate key that would let us out of the wing and bolt-croppers to cut the perimeter fences. But the main problem was getting to the perimeter fences unseen, because if the alarm went up before we got there, the police would have the jail surrounded before we could cut through the fences.

  Then there was the problem of getting away. We had some outside help, but you couldn’t ask them to come over to the island, because when the alarm went up the island would be sealed off and our help sealed in with us. We would have to make our own way off the island and link up with our help on the mainland.

 Dave, with his newly enhanced credibility, now sat in with John, Stewart and myself when we discussed the escape. Quite strangely, Mick was suddenly decidedly unenthusiastic about the whole project. I quickly came to the conclusion that he didn’t want to go. He had been involved in the Brixton escape and all the trauma that a failed escape entailed. An escape attempt was one of the most serious of prison offences. The penalty was normally two to six months in solitary in the punishment block, including 15 days on a bread and water diet. For those with a fixed sentence, there would be anything from two to six months loss of remission. Then the offender would be placed in ‘patches’ and probably spend several months in the punishment block of a local prison, where conditions were always Spartan and brutal.  

  Mick had settled into his sentence at Parkhurst and had even got himself a budgie, a sure sign of settling down. In addition, his appeal against sentence was due to be heard shortly and he was hoping to get some time taken off. We decided to press on without him.

  The ideal escape scenario was for us to get out of our cells at night, tie the couple of old watchmen up, let out scores of people, get out of the wing and storm the fences. For this plan though we would need several more things, the first of which was a cell door key. Even with that though, someone would still have to get out of his cell first, to be able to unlock others.

  Dave said that he could make a cell door key easily, and after what we had already seen no one doubted him on this. He went on to say that he could take his cell door off from the inside by sawing through the hinges with a hacksaw blade that he had. Then he could let others out with the cell door key. The final obstacle would be a double-locked wing gate that the ‘singles’ key wouldn’t unlock. 

  Much of this made for an attractive plan. A mass breakout in the middle of the night would mean that quite a few of us would stand a good chance of getting away. The final, double-locked gate wasn’t an impassable barrier either. With the night-watchmen tied up we could afford to break it down, then storm the fences with the bolt-croppers.

  The hardest part, in my opinion, would be for Dave to take his door off from the inside. I had never heard of it being done before. With the greatest skill and patience, he would have to silently cut through the two big hinges which were partly concealed by the locked door. Then he would have to lift at least 200 pounds of steel and wooden door out of its frame while the lock and bolt were still shot into the jamb. And, as this would be in the quiet of the night, he would have to do all this without making a sound.

  It would be a feat that would need incredible patience, skill and strength. I thought it couldn’t be done without making enough noise to alert the night-watchmen. And even if it was possible to do such a thing, it wasn’t possible for Dave to do it, he of the 32-inch chest and skinny arms. I vetoed the idea, much to Dave’s annoyance.

  Suddenly though, everything had to be put on hold. We were told on good authority that, after lock-up one night, a dozen warders had stayed behind with the night-watchmen. They had stayed out of sight in the night-watchmen’s office. Quite clearly, something had been said. Even Parkhurst wasn’t without informers. 

  None of our immediate group were suspect, but Mick was still being informed about our progress, more out of courtesy than anything else. However, although he would never inform on anyone, he was often quite lax about who he discussed things with. Our guess was that he had said something to the wrong person.

  As it was, Mick took the opportunity to declare that, in the circumstances, he wasn’t going to do anything for a couple of months. Reluctantly, we had to concede that we would lie low for a couple of weeks at least.

  Dave wanted to keep working on ideas though. He lived on such a high state of alert that all the new heat made little difference to him. Our feelings were that if he wanted to carry on, that was up to him. We could hardly stop him anyway.

  As the days passed, Dave would occasionally pop into my cell and bring me up to date with the ideas he had and the progress he was making. As we couldn’t make our move at the moment, it was all largely academic to me and, in truth, I only gave him part of my attention. I continued to underestimate him and he continued to surprise me.

  One day, Dave said that he thought he could make a ‘doubles’ key. Now no one had even made a ‘doubles’ key before, in any jail or at any time. Some of the old, great ‘key-men’ had made ‘singles’ keys that worked, as had Dave so very recently, but none of them had even tried to make a ‘doubles’ key. 

  For a start, no one had ever had so much as a glimpse of one. Out of all the warders in the jail, only the Security P.O. had one. He would go around, on his own, ‘double-locking’ strategic gates and doors late in the evening, and unlocking them early the next morning. Once they had been locked on the ‘double’, they couldn’t be unlocked with an ordinary ‘singles’ key.

  From looking at any jail gate lock, it could be seen that the ‘doubles’ key-hole was set up and out to one side of the ‘singles’ key hole. Further, legend had it that the ‘flag’ on the ‘doubles’ key wasn’t fixed to the ‘shank’ at an angle of 90% like it was on ‘singles’ keys. But as no one had ever managed to bribe a Security P.O., no one had ever seen one, so everything was just supposition.

  Dave suddenly came up with an idea that was a quantum leap in key making logic. He suggested that, if he put the ‘singles’ key that he had made, into the ‘singles’ key hole and turned it, at the same time as he put a straight ‘shank’ of a key with a prong sticking out at an angle into the ‘doubles’ key hole and turned that, then the ‘double-locked gate would open.

  If he was expecting my opinion, then he would have been disappointed. Whilst he might be a mechanical genius, everything that went on in the obscurity of a lock was a total mystery to me. I couldn’t appreciate the problems, so I couldn’t offer any suggestions. It was all way beyond me, and everybody else for that matter. But, as he didn’t actually require me to do anything to help, and as I still didn’t take him completely seriously, I just told him to carry on.

  Just above the ‘fours’ landing was a raised ‘cat-walk’ that led to a gate that opened into the roof-space. This was a crucial line of defence for the prison. Anyone who got into the roof-space could easily remove several tiles, climb onto the roof itself and then lower themselves to the ground with a rope. As only the ‘Works’ department ever went into the roof-space, and then very rarely, this gate was always locked on the ‘double’.

  This gate would be very difficult to get to without being seen. Any warder walking the length or breadth of the lower landings couldn’t fail but to see someone going across the exposed ‘cat-walk’. And once across the ‘cat-walk’, Dave would have to stand at the gate, right out in the open, to tamper with the lock. Taking all the circumstances into account, I would have said that it was logistically impossible. For everybody else it probably was, but not for Dave.

  He had noticed that, during the lunch hour when everybody was locked up, the few warders on duty stayed in the wing office. No one patrolled the landings. The only inmates allowed out were the two ‘hotplate’ orderlies, one of whom was his friend/lover, Jeff.

  Dave first made a cell door key, which he gave to Jeff. Waiting until the warders were in the office having their lunch, Jeff crept along the landing and unlocked Dave’s door. Dave went straight up to the ‘fours’, crawled across the ‘cat-walk’ and went to work on the lock. He inserted his ‘singles’ key into the ‘singles’ key-hole, inserted the ‘shank’ with the prong into the ‘doubles’ key hole, and turned both. The gate sprung open!

  Working quickly, he removed the whole lock assembly with a screwdriver and hurried back to his cell. Once inside, he took it to pieces, measured all the levers and other parts with a small metric ruler and re-assembled it. Then he hurried back up to the ‘fours’, re-placed it and ‘double-locked’ the gate, before returning to his cell and locking himself up. The whole episode had taken less than 20 minutes. You couldn’t fault Dave for his nerve and his genius was breathtaking. It was something straight out of James Bond. Bond though didn’t have an image problem because he was gay.

  The following day Dave came into my cell and told me what he had done. We now had a ‘doubles’ key at our disposal, which added a whole new dimension to our escape plans. It meant that there wasn’t a gate or a door that we couldn’t go through, at any hour, day or night. In fact, we could go through doors that none of the warders, except the Security P.O., could go.

  It raised some interesting possibilities. At various points in the inner perimeter fence were set massive double gates. They stood 18 feet high, the same as the fence, and were made of the same thick, wire mesh mounted on a steel, tubular frame. Once through these gates, there was only the second perimeter fence which adjoined a 16 feet high wall. You could make a choice, either cut the fence or rope and hook the wall.

  Normally, would-be escapers didn’t consider these double gates to be a weakness, because they were always locked on the ‘double’. For all intents and purposes they were part of the main fence. With our ‘doubles’ key though, now we could stage a mass escape from the main prison yard.

   Such an event would undoubtedly have been the most spectacular escape in penal history. Parkhurst housed some of the country’s most dangerous inmates, including a dozen or so IRA men doing very long sentences. This was a classic example of why Dave came to be viewed with such seriousness by the prison authorities, if not by his fellow cons. The former weren’t concerned so much about his escaping on his own. The hue and cry would be minimal, as he was doing only ten and a half years for largely non-violent offences. What really concerned them was all the violent and dangerous men he could take with him.

  However, it was still only a few days since there had been the alert over the warders staying behind at night. John and Stewart both thought we ought to lie low for a bit longer. In truth, Dave was still suffering from his credibility problem. If one of the ‘chaps’ had achieved what Dave had achieved, then his opinion would have carried much more weight. 

  This time, we resolved to keep the secret between Dave, John, Stewart, myself and Jeff. The latter had decided that he now wanted to escape too. As Dave had made so much progress on his own, we could hardly say that he couldn’t include his mate. But we did stipulate that we would only tell others who might want to be involved at the last moment. This was a sensible security measure. 

  At this stage I was still making most of the decisions. With Mick out of the running, strictly speaking, the ‘singles’ key was mine. Even though Dave had made it, he had done so with my impression. However, he had gone on to make a cell door key and a ‘doubles’ key, so the situation regarding ‘ownership’ of keys and when they should be used was now quite ambiguous. But as Dave was being perfectly open with me, this wasn’t a problem.

  Dave then decided that we now had everything we needed for the escape and to wait could only jeopardize our chances. The situation was always fluid in top security jails and anything could happen. Apart from anything else, a chance and thorough search could reveal the keys. Dave wanted to press on. 

  He now knew that, during the meal-time lock-ups for breakfast, dinner and tea, there were very few warders on duty. Further, his mate, Jeff, would be out at these times, in his role as an orderly. He had already demonstrated that Jeff could unlock someone’s cell and let them out. He then came up with a brilliant and audacious plan. 

  As part of his orderly’s duties, Jeff was always in and out of the wing office, cleaning and fetching cups of tea for the warders. He had noticed that there was a locker in one corner of the office that served as a cloakroom. Here the warders hung their overcoats and other parts of their uniform that they weren’t going to wear immediately. Over time, bits and pieces of spare uniforms had collected in this cupboard, together with hats, ties and boots.

  Dave got Jeff to steal parts for two complete uniforms, together with two spare hats. Apart from all his other talents he was something of a skilled tailor. In his cell he altered the uniforms and hats so that they fitted Jeff and himself perfectly. This was especially difficult as he was much too thin to be a warder and, at only five feet three inches tall, Jeff was much too short. When he finished he got Jeff to replace them in the office cupboard.

  Then Dave came to me and explained his plan. One breakfast time when the wing was locked up, Jeff would unlock Dave’s cell. He would go in and both would change into the two altered uniforms. Then they would unlock me.

  Dave would then let the three of us out of the wing and into a short corridor. At the end of the corridor was a gate that led outside. Once outside, Dave and Jeff would make out that they were two warders escorting me somewhere. They would escort me down a hill towards the punishment block. 

  The pretence was necessary because, although it was very unlikely that they would bump into any warders at this time of day, the path down the hill was covered by a CCTV camera on the nearby Security Wing that was monitored in the control room.

  A short distance past the camera was the gate to the exercise compound. As all the cons were locked up, this would be deserted and un-patrolled. However, just inside the gate was another CCTV camera that would ‘see’ anyone entering the compound. Here again, the warders uniforms would play a vital part. 

  At the far end of the compound were a set of double gates. Dave would unlock these with his ‘doubles’ key and then we would be between the fences. It would be a simple matter to cut the outside fence with the bolt-croppers that were buried out in the compound anyway.

  It was another brilliant plan, but my first emotion was anger. Although Dave had made provision for me, there was no provision for John and Stewart. Further, there was no realistic possibility of their being involved. Two warders couldn’t escort three cons, that would immediately raise suspicion. To alter more uniforms would take more time and the bigger the group of people moving outside the wings at this time the more it was likely to raise suspicion.

  When I explained all this to John and Stewart they said that it was best that just the three of us go, Dave, Jeff and myself. I was nothing if not loyal though. Even with their blessing it might still look like a slippery move. Also, there was a second problem. The unwritten, largely unspoken ‘chaps’ code was all-powerful in Parkhurst, and ‘gayness’ was a major barrier to acceptance in polite society. I was in the code’s grip as much as anyone.   

  As Dave and Jeff’s homosexuality was a major facet of their characters, it would certainly be mentioned in their records. I the event of all three of us escaping together, the press could well pick up on this fact. I could imagine banner headlines about ‘gay escapers’. As silly as it may sound, this was a major deterrent to me.

  Last but not least, the authorities had me down as one of their most violent and dangerous prisoners. As an ‘A-man’ my photo would be permanently on display in the gate-house where warders would see it every time they came and went from work. Therefore, I had a highly recognisable face. Should they warders in the control room pick me out on one of the CCTV cameras they would surely wonder where the two ‘warders’ were taking me at this time of the morning.

  I told Dave that I couldn’t go with them and was on the verge of telling him that he had taken a liberty to go so far without us. As far as John, Stewart and myself were concerned, that was the end of any escape plans for us. We would have to start all over again. After Dave and Jeff had made their attempt, at the very least, all the locks would be changed and, no doubt, other security measures would be put in place.

  I could have got heavy with them and threatened them, but that itself would have been ‘out or order’. The rights and wrongs of the situation had become confused. I had provided the impression, but Dave had gone on to do so much more by himself. 

  By now they both were sitting there, quite shame-facedly. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. They were both nice guys and it wasn’t easy for them in prison. “And I suppose you want a pair of our fucking bolt-croppers to do the perimeter fence with too, don’t you?”, I said in a tone that sounded angry but was meant to be ironic. Dave nodded his head, sheepishly. I told them exactly where a pair were hidden, in a partition wall up on the ‘fours’.

  Once evening association had started, just after 6pm, there would be no more spot searches for the day, unless there were very unusual circumstances. By late afternoon, Jeff had collected both the bolt-croppers and the two altered uniforms, caps, etcetera and taken them to his cell. Now they were ready for the following morning....