Cat O'Nine Tales

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While I was incarcerated for two years, in five different prisons, I picked up several stories that were not appropriate to include in the day-to-day journals of a prison diary. These tales are marked in the contents with an asterisk.

Although all nine stories have been embellished, each is rooted in fact. In all but one, the prisoner concerned has asked me not to reveal his real name.

The other three stories included in this volume are also true, but I came across them after being released from prison: in Athens — ‘A Greek Tragedy’, in London — The Wisdom of Solomon’, and in Rome my favourite — ‘In the Eye of the Beholder’.

Mr Justice Gray stared down at the two defendants in the dock. Chris and Sue Haskins had pleaded guilty to the theft of £250,000, being the property of the Post Office, and to falsifying four passports.

Mr and Mrs Haskins looked about the same age, which was hardly surprising as they had been at school together some forty years before. You could have passed them in the street without giving either of them a second look. Chris was about five foot nine, his dark wavy hair turning grey, and he was at least a stone overweight. He stood upright in the dock, and although his suit was well worn, his shirt was clean and his striped tie suggested that he was a member of a club. His black shoes looked as if they had been spit-and-polished every morning. His wife Sue stood by his side. Her neat floral dress and sensible shoes hinted at an organized and tidy woman, but then they were both wearing the clothes that they would normally have worn to church. After all, they considered the law to be nothing less than an extension of the Almighty.

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