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