HMP Whitemoor prison documentary

if you're ever sentenced to life and you're planning to escape from prison you better hope you don't end up here in the belly of the Beast Within the prison system welcome to Britain's Alcatraz it's designed to be impregnable it was somewhere you'd never escape from here you'll be locked up with some of the most fearsome criminals in the prison system serial killer serial rapist Contract Killers drug lords the IRA you'll be rubbing shoulders with Gangland bosses and armed robbers you're a different class of prisoner you're kind of above the hoi polloi and coming face to face with murderous extremists the purpose of taking them hostage was to murder him probably by beheading you may even end up in the prison's impenetrable special security units in sterile you're locked in at home it's very very daunting you'll be kept in line by prison guards it's the known contract if you assault a prison officer you are going to get brutally beaten encounter one the prison system's strict regimes it almost assumes the four psychological torture and you'll be serving time with men who may never see the light of deer I've given eight life sentences this is the Inside Story this is the suit they say it's for security I was in one of these for nearly two years from those who've been locked up in here you ain't got money and you're alive wow you can easily become a hitman those who've worked here they managed to get Firearms smuggled into the actual unit and those who know it's frightening reality you're never short of a bit of entertainment if violence and and Mayhem is your kind of energy welcome to Britain's escape proof Fortress hmp why more built on the 94 Acre Site of an Old Railway yard in the middle of the remote fence in Cambridgeshire this is hmp white Moore one of Britain's newest high security category prisons a new breed of prison designed to contain a new breed of prisoner when you got told you again what your heart would stop it is extremely imposing and oppressive and you can feel the whole of the prison system coming down round on you I think gold I'm in a dungeoneer in the belly of the Beast Within the prison system opened in 1991 at a cost of 58 million pounds white mole was seen as the long-awaited solution to modernizing a prison system struggling with a surge in prisoner escapes it was designed to be impregnable it was somewhere you'd never escape from White mirror is you could say is at the start of a new generation of high security prisons this high-tech concrete Fortress was built to replace Britain's crumbling Victorian prisons and designed to contain the most challenging criminals of all the layout was given much more thought in terms of the space inside the prison and how staff could control that space and maintain order so the prison was constructed deliberately to cope with a cohort of very dangerous often very violent and manipulative prisoners for whom Escape ought to be made impossible or as close to impossible as as could be in 1987 the most audacious Escape attempted prison history was made when a hijacked helicopter was forced to land inside hmp Gayatri and two inmates were able to board and get away the MOJ vowed this could never happen again what you will see there that would um probably contrast with some of our other uh prisons is first of all the physical uh defenses uh High walls with escape proof beaks at the top you've got Riser wire you've got fences that have got electric clothes on there is a huge amount of Club circuit television cameras probably fair to say it is one of the most surveilled pieces of real estate in Western Europe Beyond white Moore's imposing walls razor wire and CCTV were constructed four of the Securus residential Wings in the prison system each Wing has three caged off living areas called Spurs that's where you'll be spending most of your time the pubs was to break us down into smaller manageable groups if you want member of Staff in one more and you go down to the end of your spur you have to shout through the bus gov and wave to the office and they'll see you and come and talk to you through the bus unlike normal prisons Where'd I just walk along the landings they don't even want more there will be remote access that will be controlled by a control room far away from the the site of the Wings and the reason for doing that is that parts of the prison could be completely sealed off they restrict restrict restrict strict restrict reduce movement reduce contact with other inmates very severe as well as the escape proof wings at White Moor there's an even more impregnable prison block it was for category air inmates who posed the most serious security risks and it was known as the SSU the special security unit which we should have prison within a prison so it's got its own Watertown fences and then outside of that it's another wall and another fences and then that's the mainstream white more whether you're heading to the wings or the SSU traveling to White mall for the first time is a daunting experience with a helicopter above armed police but going around roundabouts the wrong way and there are motorways flashing people as you approach the prison you just see that huge wall looming up in front of you the screws are aggressive there as soon as you get their reception they're just on it straight away there was three alsatians waiting for me and a sea of prison officers you get strip searched straight away searches are very demeaning and our bad searches bring me to tears nearly four looks up she parted show the cheeks in the ass but squatting with just to humiliate you and then they call you out one by one to like process your property take your photograph give you an ID card and you take them to whichever win you're going to be given a cell given a mattress pillar bedding and banged up locked the big door slammed behind you and that's you you're in the jungle it's your first night at White Moor and you'll be bedding down with some of the most feared criminals in Britain it houses offenders of the worst kind who are not afraid to use violence for example it was home to Kenneth Noy the M25 killer it was home to Paul Massey who was Mr Big in Salford where you at uh big smack robbers Mickey still Essex boys you also had the Dome robbers Billy cockram and Aldo it has a group of gangsters but it also has separately a substantial group of terrorists including for example ushman Khan who died on London Bridge the fishmongus Hall attack Ed as a state-of-the-art flagship category a prison it was designed to keep the public safer than ever but there were problems from the start there was a pressure on them to get it open quickly and so it wasn't as well staffed nor as well planned as it should have been I think the mistake they actually made was they went to the segregation or punishment unit in in a dispersal system and emptied them and moved all the occupants myself included to whitemore in 1991 the first intake of some of the most dangerous and high-risk category a inmates were transferred to Britain's newest prison our company of a reputation I'll just escape from master and security prison and a much stricter regime awaited the new arrivals you know we were lined up in the reception area and told by a governor that what we'd experiencing only another dispersal prisons wasn't going to happen there and that they were in charge prison establishment and prison Officers Association saw the creation of Bio more as an opportunity to reset the lines if you like and re-establish themselves as being the ones in total and absolute power but inmates like Paul believed that some of the new prison officers hadn't worked in a category a establishment staff apart from the very senior staff were totally inexperienced they had no idea how basically to run the Maximum Security Prison the general relationship between the prisoners and the staff was one of mutual hostility inevitably there was going to be problems there unhappy with staff and the new restrictive conditions White Marsh category a inmates quickly United and began a campaign for change everybody refused to work and their response was to operate a total lockdown so while it's locked within ourselves we would bang on our doors destroy all the furniture in ourselves and then they knew that they couldn't regain control the balance of power as within three weeks shifted in our fade Britain's newest Maximum Security Prison was on the brink of being taken over by its inmates drastic action was needed a broken right squads and we reach individually taken from ourselves placed into Vans and moved to other establishments or prisons Waking Up In hmp White Moor you'll have spent the night in a Cell alongside some of the most disruptive and dangerous inmates in the prison system one category a prisoner doing time here was Gary Johns sentenced to life for stabbing a man to death at a party in 1993. I was inside 28 years I was in Whitmore for two years for some prisoners in the 80s and 90s escaping was a very real possibility and so the prison service came up with a plan to try to foil any more Escape attempts in the prison service there's such a thing as the e-list which identifies prisoners who are in particular danger of trying to escape they are asked to wear specific clothing and a given enhanced security White Lodge is locked you off for me because I was a e-man at all I'll come near the reputation I'll just escape from a matter of securing prison this is the suit the start were good enough to let me keep him because they said I had it on more times than I'll do it they say it's for security so they can pick you up on camera everywhere you go I was in one of these for nearly two years old enough if you're on the e-list you would be under a stricter regime than the rest of the inmates with fewer Privileges and more restrictions than other category a prisoners it almost assumes a form of psychological torture you know category you're escorted by prison officer who all your movements are monitored in a little small Book Day holds I spent about two years on that which was probably the worst two years of my entire sentence yeah they take all your clothes overnight they take your knife full you've got nowhere digging out even take the suit they make you wear pajamas being on the e-list would even affect an inmate's only chance at connecting with their old lives on the outside every visit you come off of white motor you get strip searched every visit every time you you have contact with the outside world your strip search as strict and oppressive as being on the e-list was you were still housed on the Open Wings but being an e-man had nothing on the newest and most secure unit ever built in the prison system white Mars SSU the special secure unit within white Moor had 10 cells it has since expanded to 30. suppose you'd call it a prison inside a prison a prison within a prison the SSU house category air prisoners who were deemed an exceptional risk and who posed the danger to the public prison staff and even to other inmates the erasing for prisoners in the SSU you have to understand that the SSU was nicknamed The Submarine by prisoners because it was that oppressive it was a very very small self-contained unit it is actually like uh a very miniature prison wing built separate to the rest of the jail with its own perimeter wall with its own fences its own cameras there wouldn't have been any moment where they weren't on camera or they weren't being physically monitored by officers so the the actual security probably from a prisoner's point of view would have been absolutely oppressive but it wasn't just a vast amount of CCTV cameras that made the SSU so impregnable so to escape from the secure unit in the prison you would need to breach the first chain link fence climb the inner wall breach the second chain link fence and breach the outer wall a considerable achievement and would require a great deal of Ingenuity in the early 90s there was one group of high-profile prisoners contained at White Moore who posed a very real threat of attempting to escape they were sent straight to the SSU the Irish Republican Army were Republicans in Northern Ireland who believed that the British were occupying Ulster this was long before 9 11 or 7-7 long before Islamic terrorism first established in 1919 to end British rule in Northern Ireland the IRA fought for independence and a unified Republic it weighs an increasingly violent campaign across Northern Ireland the Republic of Ireland and other parts of the UK the British army retaliated and this period known as the troubles lasted nearly 30 years until the Good Friday agreement was signed in 1998. they classed themselves as prisoners of War so they behaved accordingly and under the prison under the Geneva Convention their Duty as president of war is to escape it's not you know you don't ask that they have to escape and the prison system knows that in 1994 three years after white Moor opened the SSU held a total of five men who'd been jailed as Ira terrorists General thing that struck me most about the IRA was their discipline they would have a rank structure in jail just as they had a rank structure in the ira as an entity in Northern Ireland the IRA tended to keep to themselves they wouldn't really get involved in prison politics uh so like the everyday running they were kind of aloof if you know I mean they would talk to you they weren't unfriendly and there was certainly a level of formality in the way they would deal with prison staff if they had any issues complaints they wouldn't deal with the landing officers like other prisoners did they would want to take it straight to a senior officer or a straight or when Governor but their good behavior was masking a long-running secret plot that would rock white more to its cause the very moment they arrived at whitemore they were already planning a way of trying to escape they befriended a fellow inmate another notorious escape artist called Andy Russell the man who'd hijacked the helicopter that landed inside hmp gartree in 1987 and who was currently doing time for it Eddie Russell who had already been involved in escapes you know he's going to be game for it so they've brought him along obviously if he tried to escape from other prisons as well he was always trying it forced the pilot to land and picked up the two guys and and got them away that one of them was out for 18 months with Russell teamed up with the five men jailed as Ira terrorists they began to devise a plan they're trained to look at every aspect of a prison and use it to your advantage so these guys are plotting all the time that's why they're in the unit but then they've realized in the unit they can suddenly manipulate people they're schemed in secret smuggled in parts and built the necessary tools they'd need while successfully distracting the unit's prison guards who had no cause for concern you have in a way a rather strange standoff between prison officers who have become quite relaxed around their secure inmates and inmates who are all the time planning quietly subtly to Stage an extraordinary prison break they bullied and intimidated them they started to hang sheets up in the association rooms and in the Hobbies room to stop stuff seeing what was going on and stuff would pop their heads in and the harangue the staff what are you doing this is nowhere this is our area keep out they groomed them if you like to think that they weren't dangerous and they weren't any problem and they weren't going to be any problem having taken care of the staff the six inmates were able to finish constructing the equipment needed for their unbelievable Escape attempts volleyball pulse and then they've got the knuckles that you put on the end of Olympic bars to hold weights on they use them to brace the two poles together and rope through the center of it with little slats of wood through it and they used to climb up they use the poles to put the ladder up onto the wall they went to elaborate lengths and they assembled an extraordinary amount of equipment the prisoners then managed to convince staff that they were being monitored too closely but in the unit what they had done was they had complained that the cameras were watching them all the time so that the screws went out we moved the camera over this side but he'll be facing there so that's how they managed to get out of the unit unobserved they even protested to offices about the stringent search methods so that visitors went unchecked the IRA prisoners were pressuring staff and were pressuring the um the management of white Moore to relax the regime to the point where even their visitors were coming in jail without getting proper searches and the IRA they took advantage of that they managed to get a firearm smuggled into the actual unit under the cover of Darkness the gang cut through the first fence but as they encountered the second fence they set off the tremoral arms alerting staff and then they got to the wall and they managed to get over the wall one um I think one prison officer was shot inside the prison a bullet reflected off the floor and hit him in the bed he didn't penetrate bruised him once over the outer wall they were on the Run closely followed by the prison's guard dog patrol when they let the dogs off and that's your fine pepper into their faces dogs start sniffing up the pepper they're not chasing them now they started attacking the screws because they're confused with the officers fully aware that the escapees have firearms they follow at a distance as the men run towards a disuse railway line their idea was to disperse into the fence so that'd be harder to find the police helicopter and some heat detection equipment to identify where they were to the two-hour search all six men were recaptured and the prison staff returned them to their cells in the SSU an escape of this caliber from an SSU is going to make people's heart beat very fast in the prison system I've got item to call some of them when I got back a day old had black eyes and bruises and such got good I didn't get them climbing over the walls did they I think they took the case of a European Court of Human Rights about three or four years later it got there and they were awarded payouts for the damage that had been done to them by the prison system white Mars reputation as the escape proof prison had been completely shattered the attempt to escape was humiliating for the prison and the entire Criminal Justice System the next day Home Secretary Michael Howard called for an official inquiry the Escape was well planned and well executed and it's it caused a lot of political embarrassment and rare prisons people were cheering in themselves when they at the news on the radio the findings of the Woodcock inquiry report were damning with staff and the prison service being criticized throughout they mentioned that the prison escaped attempt was always a disaster waiting to happen and that everything which could have gone wrong has in fact done so as a result of the escape and the inquiry into it the SSU at White Moor was immediately closed down and a tidal wave of change swept over the whole prison service when that report came out the whole system changed it was unbelievable the whole system from category dispersal prisons to open prisons became locked down we just suffered for it after that from then on it was just suffering because of what they did and prison just became a lot harder security was hastily tightened to previously unheard of levels based on 64 recommendations outlined in the report eventually hmp white Moore's SSU reopened stronger than ever newly arriving inmates would find themselves confronted by a regime stricter than ever before and I think it was the fight in me that kept me going because a lot of people string themselves up cell phone take drugs marbled I took the battle to them white mole was designed to be Britain's most escaped proof prison but after an audacious Ira getaway attempt it shattered reputation needed to be rebuilt the SSU a special security unit for the most dangerous and disruptive prisoners in the system was reopened with even stricter routines and higher levels of security it installs fear it filters like a ripple system less than a year after their Infamous escape attempt category a inmate Kevin Lane arrived at White Moss SSU from hmp wormwood scrubs he had a fearsome reputation for violent conduct they treat everybody differently you turned out to have a bad rep like I did Lane is violent he will hit you if he says he's going to hit you and if you ain't strong you won't be at the top of the chain it's the known contract if you assault a prison officer prison officers are then going to assault you there is no two ways about it you are going to get brutally beaten known as lights out lane as a teenager for his brutal fists the boxer an ex-bouncer was handed a live sentence in 1995. having been convicted of shooting 44 year old businessman Robert McGill giving Lane was was one of the good guys in Wymore actually he was a nice fella he was great fire Kevin a great boxer Lane was accused of being a professional Hitman who was paid up to 100 000 pounds for a contract hit on McGill but Lane denied the charge insisting it was based on one piece of forensic evidence found in a car he borrowed from a friend days before it was well known that Kevin didn't commit the crime he was in for amongst prisoners everyone knew that I mean I think most of the screws know it as well when arriving at White Moor the last place you want to be heading to is its reopened special security unit sterile you're locked in at home and the metal table fixed to the floor metal seat fixed to the floor stainless steel toilet no seat is very very daunting new security measures in the SSU meant more frequent inmate checks by its officers I was checked in Marcel every 20 minutes I thought I had a bleeding tick 16 years later when I came off the cave I was forever doing that there's no bucket here at the door that's because you're checking someone looks at you you look at them are they coming in on me why are they checking that's what goes on torment terrible torment I used to say I won't be beat you are not gonna beat me I won't have it and I'm gonna keep going and I think there's the fighting me that kept me going because a lot of people string themselves up cell phone take drugs marbles I took the battle to them and it kept me going locked up in the SSU you were expected to conform at all times or suffer the consequences if you step out of line in the SSU you can expect violence and plenty of it the doors had a chub padlocks on and Deadpool so they have to take the padlock off then go to an intercom in a Control Center and ask for that cell to be opened as the door opened I ran and met him kicked the bottom of the shield down I had some boxes in the way so they couldn't get through with a shield they're hitting me with their truncheons and they're punching me the Iceman I couldn't see out of it it was split like a melon if you stepped out of line in the SSU you were taken to his isolation block known by inmates as the Box you're placed in there naked they might give you a bibbon a brace and a blanket but normally I've never had them isolation in the unit is isolation you are on your own there was a parapet wall and a perspex window quite high up of course you couldn't jump and touch it where that psychologists would walk around there and take notes on you about your behavior you're laying there naked with people walking around looking at you like an animal there's no Heating in there it's designed to make you feel cold and to make to make you feel vulnerable by having no clothes on you shivering along I wish it had been a bit warmer and what I give them something to write about while in isolation you're routinely monitored day and night the flat will open you're in bed at night they shine a torch in your face to see movement so you've been woken up all night it's not a good imagine going through that week after week month after month why'd you need to wake him up because you're a [ __ ] [ __ ] that's why and you need Juggernaut and dynamite you're going to sleep that was my Approach if your behavior improved you'd be taken out of the box and placed back in the SSU and eventually if you no longer posed a risk to staff you'd be allowed back onto a Spur but under strict supervision to move me I'd have to get permission from the control center yes it is okay to move Lane you can move them on the walkway or we can move them on the twos they would turn them help to be moved and there would be an alsation with me and members of Staff if you're on the book so every time you move that book gets signed by what officer you've been moved at this time taken to that place so you're their responsibility because you've searched every two weeks and move sell every two weeks you never never get time to settle no matter how tight the security measures are at White Moor prisoners will always find ways to break the rules and there are a few problems in prison more serious than the business of a legal Contraband in most prisons in this country the biggest business going in the prison for prisoners is selling drugs um because there are so many addictive prisoners in in the system during the 90s I think the drill of choice was Cannabis so in the afternoons you get unlocked after dinner and uh don't do me cleaning again when I finished I can't get stoned afterwards it does kill time so people take it for that reason and just to get away from the stress of Life full stop Behind Bars drugs were coming in through visits so female visitors would bring drugs in and they'd insert them into themselves and then during the process of the visit they would take the drugs out and then the prisoner would then give them a kiss put them in their mouth they'd have a kiss and the imprisoned them would swallow the drugs and then regurgitate it later on or wait for it to pass through the system you can't search people's cavities it's against it's against prison rules but it wasn't only from visitors the drugs like cannabis were readily available inside white Mall I believe and there was some incidents that took place that the majority of smuggling was down to staff corruption staff were bringing stuff in for prisoners if you approached them and it goes wrong you're in trouble so you wait for them to approach you and they do there's one in white will come to me and tell them about his wife just divorced him and he needed money and so I went I've obliged in my time at White Moore a member of staff was um as far as we know recruited by a drugs gang to join the prison service he joined the prison service and he was running drugs he was being closely monitored eventually he was caught and and ended up with a custodial sentence a member of stuff that was on nights um all of a sudden became quite cash Rich he was bringing stuff in and managed to get through the X-ray system by bringing in fresh food particularly fish in tin foil and he was hiding drugs inside tin foil not long after opening like more succeeded in cutting down cannabis use with the introduction of mandatory drug testing since cannabis could remain in the body for up to a month or longer inmates were quick to look for Alternatives which left less of a Trace you know the very thing that was supposedly intended to stop the use of drugs in prison particularly cannabis encourage the use of even worse drugs like heroin people didn't want to get the nickens for failing for cannabis so most people started smoking heroin they created their own Aryan problem in prison with everybody was a different monster harder to detect how do a new spread across the prison and so did its Associated problems so I thought I was addicted to drugs like heroin inevitably found themselves in debt then those enforcing that they reduce violence chaos chaos more violence if you ain't got error in your trouble you'd like you're physically rattling if you ain't got a joint eye you're really pissed off but you know what I mean you ain't gonna be really Red Robin people all that but with everybody was a different monster these are people that have just got no um No Boundaries no filters these are people that will literally break every Taboo in the prisoner's handbook if you say to them I'll give you two bags of iron if you go and stick a knife in that geez's neck they will do it believe me I've seen it done loads of times start committing sexual favors for people so you get have it you can't pay it you know get in here and suck my [ __ ] bend over so I can show you there's blood as that is and as war is that's it there's people in the prison system doing that right now and where there are drugs in the prison system there are drug dealers running most of the illegal activity behind bars in the 90s was a group of organized criminals who masterminded illicit operations on the inside in the same way they ruled the roost on the outside so that they rule by fear and often they've got gravitask there's an aura about them they're extremely confident and Extremely Loud they are very very dangerous and they are feared possibly none at White Mall were more feared than Manchester's Mr Big Gangland boss Paul Massey in Salford was seen by many as a Robin Hood Type figure the reality was it was an extremely violent person away from the SSU even though you were still banged up life on the wings of white moment sticking to a normal prison routine half six seven in the morning you'd hear the screws come onto the wing is it kind of a familiar sound you hear a lot of gates going a lot of keys rattling and then sure enough around about 8 15 they come on to the Spurs and unlock everybody you go to work always always held on the wing and those people who haven't got jobs are locked in themselves but I was a cleaner so my morning was reached out there was early morning gym with Coach him come back have a shower do me cleaning you're looking about 15 Steps long is what the the the spur was I'd have to Hoover that that'd be my job and someone else should probably be to clean the kitchen my job was to clean the ground floor empty the bins and clean the showers everyone had their own shop on the cleaners there's about six cleaners to each Spa you'd be locked up then for an hour and a half um you were let out a half past one and the same routine again but still depressed contained you definitely know you're contained below me and contained on the Open Wings of white Moor are some of the country's most violent men inside for running organized crime networks in Britain and around the world they were Chinese guys there that had come as part of Triads and we got Yardie gangsters from London we got the the boss boys from South Shields the northern gangsters we got um got gangsters and gang laws from Manchester from Liverpool Michael Steele was one of a new breed of British criminals in the 1990s modern gangsters more ambitious more ruthless and more Reckless than ever before along with Jack Worms the pair committed possibly the biggest ganglang retribution here in British criminal history the assassination of the Essex boys I can remember it vividly this is Britain you find three men down a track in Essex literally assassinated they were Patrick Tate the leader Tony Tucker and Craig Rolf it remains one part of British criminal folklore that's very hard to ignore but maybe the most reputed of the new breed of British gangsters to have spent time in white Moor was Manchester's Mr Big The seemingly Untouchable brutal Gangland boss Paul Massey in Salford was seen by many as a Robin Hood Type figure who's involved in protection records his minions with Rob Juarez is the reality was it was an extremely violent person who hurt a lot of people and people went to Paul because they needed him it's a John Wayne of the world I love John Wayne was looking after the underdog if there was a conflict between two people poor try and see try and resolve it for the better of everybody no that someone was wrong he'd say you're wrong like me yeah you don't flare it up the police didn't see Massey as Robin Hood you know they saw him more of a robin so and so and so they put a lot of time in effort into bringing him to justice but nobody would give evidence against him Marcy had built up a hugely lucrative business from running protection rackets and selling drugs in nightclubs but one night he was arrested on his own patch for attempted murder and sentenced to 14 years inside the repair went to his head and he thought he was invincible mass is going from to Club around Manchester and he's showing off throwing bottles at Dorman and calling girls over and got into an altercation with some lads who were on a Stag Night from Leeds and Paul stabbed one of the guys in his inner thigh he nearly bled to death Massey entered white Moore's wings as a high-profile well-known face with a reputation that preceded him in days they live in having that sort of status it's a big help because you have access to people and things that that other people won't have access to you might say I asked me doctor's birthday could you uh send it by a 3 000 cat pound car and I'll pay you when I get out you're a different class of prisoner you're kind of above the hoi polloi if you like I know this sounds will try and and crap but that's how it is in there Paul didn't have protection what Paul had was notoriously and he had respect and God he had my respect there was a lot of old school criminals in the prison system so he'd be welcomed or they'd know your case or they'd know about it or they know someone knew you tanksters they've got large networks of people and they've got large amounts of power and the ability to put pressure on people and often they've got gravitas there's an aura about them they're extremely confident and Extremely Loud and they tend to draw attention to themselves and they attract people in and they are feared they they are very very dangerous and they wouldn't think twice about taking you down a back alley and shooting near the back of the head even though they were banged up these rich and Powerful criminals like to keep their Empires on the outside running and that applied to Paul Massey too I mean by the very definition of the word gangster you've got a gang outside who will be handling your business and normally it's business as usual if you're say taking protection money off a load of different people when you go in general that doesn't stop he needs people that he can trust to keep his businesses going that are going to keep his family in their lifestyle that they've become accustomed to in that respect they're no different to me and you and if a gangster's illegal business was still running on the outside it would inevitably find its way inside as well the only um way you're going to be able to run a business in a high security prison is really through your visitors to pass instructions through your visitors and receive updates and briefings from talking in code well I suppose Cockney rhyming slang started off as a criminal code you run in jail the way you run outside if you want something done you hire someone to do it or you pay someone to do it or you you know if it's personal you do it yourself but there's always plenty of willing hands to do these things for gangsters that need a business of a violent Niche to be dealt with inside the prison the Dirty Work was contracted out to other willing inmates so a lot of guys will hire themselves out as Hitmen at two gangsters two main gangsters they're actually called runners in prison pollens like they might say oh Paul Massey's got a couple of Runners over there we'll get one of them to come over and a runner is somebody who's like hangs around the gangsters is accepted by the gangsters but does all their menial work so if you want to cut a teammate Johnny put a tea on or you know go over to b-wing go out and exercise until so and so on being blah blah blah I used to do things what I'm not really proud of there's been times when people have had issues with other people and I've resolved them in good ways and in bad ways and got paid and now talking about it seems alien because it's like I'm a different person now and then when I really look back into the archives I did some some real dirt and yeah that's that's how that place can get you a white Moor Massey would sometimes pay Runners with drugs to lay down his own brand of Justice when he felt it was needed Paul Massey heard there was someone on my spot who had I think he'd ripe woman and beat her with a table Lick in Manchester and because that was his manner he felt he had to do something about it as you do and he couldn't get onto our spur so he put a contract down the guy and they went and they proper really hurt this Giza Massey paid the inmates two bags of heroin and was never charged for the contract hit but it was a completely different matter for his two runners nobody could do anything to Paul Massey they weren't going to take him to court for that he was a high risk category yeah you know what I mean what are they gonna put on an escort and everything to take him down they're cool because he's not accomplishing something it's not happening and then unfortunately when they were nicked for uh attempted murder on this guy uh they grasped Paul Massey up of course he's a company rhyming slang uh it's from grasshopper meaning copper so in the old days when a Copperas surprising they say there's a grass coming grasses are very useful to to the authorities and they're hated by prisoners obviously because they're a traitor to their own kind um which is why they're dealt with so badly in jail being a known grass inside would leave you just as vulnerable to inmate attacks there's a pedophile on a rapist it can come from anywhere but it's Gonna Come that's a bad scenario because you're gonna wake up every day with that on your mind where it's going to come from that could send you mad Massey avoided punishment on the inside and was soon released in 2007 he would later find himself becoming the Target and victim of the new generation of younger gangsters with a very different chord Paul was old school these young kids in Salford weren't interested in fighting if you annoyed them if you you know did the wrong thing they'd shoot you simple as with Massey trying to reinstate his authority as Mr Big in the Manchester underworld he ordered a hit on a man named Mark fellows for selling drugs on his patch Somebody went to Mark Fell as his door with a gun to shoot him because it was alleged he was selling drugs on Paul Massey's patch and the guy pulled the gun out on Mark's doorstep he didn't fire Mark shut the door after discovering that it was massive behind his attempted slaying Mark fellows decided to retaliate with his own assassination attempt Mark's panicking thinking this guy's gonna kill me he's gonna do this to me so he stupidly thinks I'll get him first pause come out and Parks his car Mark sees him runs across the road out and fires with a machine gun he didn't believe he had a choice it was either him dying or Paul Macedon him go to a grave or him go to prison for the rest of his life so he chose the letter fellows would later find himself in white Moor sentenced to a whole life term as a Marked Man he encountered another gangster this time from Liverpool to knowlesley called Kieran Blair and not long after fellows arrived in Wymore he's attacked by Blair who slashes him across the face in Revenge supposedly for The Killing of Paul Massey they slashed him well they do it again knocking down in violence but they've took away a man from his children so there are obviously people loyal to Paul who have issues with Mark but there'd be a lot of people in the system that had a lot of respect for Paul and liked him a lot and from his area that's where that fellow RF problems hmp whitemore is teaming with notorious gangsters but they're joined by another group of British criminals banged up for life armed robbers I had two trials at the Albany the first trial they couldn't agree uh second trial family guilty within 15 minutes and I was sentenced to eight life sentences on the wings of white Moore you'll be living amongst gangsters murderers drug addicts and armed robbers and you'll quickly get to know your place in every form of life there's an hierarchy Fizz is no different armed robbery is considered the sort of creme de La Creme of crime uh you're doing you're risking big Stakes for big money it's as simple as that they tended to be a very very close-knit Circle almost like a family white moira's locked up men who've been involved in high-profile robberies including two of the Millennium Dome robbers Billy cockram and aldocharochi the gang broke through the perimeter fence of the complex in a JCB Digger drove it right up to the side of the Dome itself and smashed through a section of wall Made of Glass and Metal they were like the James Bonds off of the robbery world if you like they had the ideas and tried to get away with the biggest dual robbery that had ever been known but the police had been tipped off and were waiting for the Gang more than a hundred officers many of them armed laid the Trap evictions for armed robbery carried some of the heaviest sentences in the criminal justice system I committed my first crimes back in the 1970s as juvenile when I became a career Criminal Smith had spent years in and out of prison for armed robbery and Firearms offenses but there was one conviction which would culminate in him receiving an eye-watering sentence I'd always served the previous sentence in 19-year sentence and I got done for a a set of Robbies called The Laughing bank robbers robberies and they were called that because we robbed the bank on Christmas Eve and wore a center hats over our ski masks so I was the only one arrested about the whole gang and um I was put in jail the evidence piled up against me there had loads of photographs of me in a ski mask so you couldn't tell it was me but they had one of my face I had two trials at the old way the first trial they couldn't agree uh second trial found me guilty within 15 minutes and I was sentenced to eight life sentences Smith received his huge sentence in 1998 at the age of 38 as part of the government's two-strike life act policy implemented in 1997. all of your previous convictions were classed as one strike and if you committed another crime of violence or robbery then that was your two-strike and you would automatically get a live sentence so I was given eight life sentences um eight lots of 10 years imprisonment for um possession of firearms concurrent I said to my QC do you think I'll ever get out of this sentence and he said you've got to get used to it this is your life now even though Smith was a fearsome criminal he was also a devoted family man with a wife and children all of which he would have to leave behind you are always expected every time you go to prison for your relationship to break up Robert De Niro said it perfectly in heat in the film hate if you're not ready to drop everything at a moment's notice and just piss off don't be a criminal I have to be honest I did enjoy committing on Robbies it was it was about that's probably why I never really got involved in class A drugs because I could never get the same height inevitably when you're staring down the barrel of eight life sentences the future can look Bleak from inside prisons are designed to break you mentally physically and spiritually I think their visits in prison for years because I couldn't stand having visits from people I knew and then going back to a prison cell so I cut off everybody in the outside and pretend that they didn't exist and that's what you've got to do in prisons being accepted in prison by your own kind is Paramount to serving a long stint inside there was a lot of guys who were serious professional criminals [Music] um who were in one or who were armed robbers and yeah what you do when you're in that that kind of uh that kind of company is your gravitate towards each other robbers that's the thing because it's like uh it's like an eight percent of information they really tend to talk about the crimes they've committed and the crimes they're going to commit and that's what we did if no one knows you then what we say in prison is there's a smell about him that means nobody knows who he is nobody knows where he's been so when you're coming into a category prison if you don't know anybody in this category gay prison you become a suspect whether you're a known or unknown entity in a place like white Moor being locked up 24 7 with the prison's most serious criminals can sometimes take a turn for the worst you all pushed him to give her any small spaces seeing the same people every day and gossip and backbiting is a real problem because it only takes someone uh to say that you've informed or that you're dodgy and that gets the whole wing on it and next thing you know you're being beaten to death in yourself gossip on the wings can lead to problems with inmates mental health there's a lot of paranoia and there's a lot of really deep thinking about the situation you're in I was a paranoid wreck for about five or six years I became so paranoid when I heard someone talking out the window at the turn my radio off and listened to hear what they were saying make sure it wasn't about me someone might not say good morning to you and you might go back to yourself and I've done it I think why didn't you say good morning to me I'm going to have to take him out before he gets me one guaranteed way of sparking the rumor mill into high alert was the arrival of a priest on the wings oh it's coming back from c180 up late with a big Jody mate of mine Bud uh we see a a priest on the end of the landing and I went wall someone's Universal bad news when he went yeah and then when I got further up I realized he was waiting for me and it turned out my 19 year old son died outside in mysterious circumstances and um I I was devastated you are in a an environment where everything is expedited magnified the emotions are magnified it's all pressure pressure pressure and Noel wasn't in a good place inmates were allowed to attend relatives funerals outside of the prison and under heavy guard one of the security staff I'd known him quite a while I was um I broke his mate's jaw when we were in Rochester postal many years ago now he was like high up in security and white well he didn't like me I didn't like him and what they've done basically I went I had to go and make an application to speak to the governor to ask for to be allowed to go to my son's funeral and they made me big and in the end they said no and took great Delight in it Noel was going to do something extremely serious someone was going to get severely stabbed maybe Kevin Lane came to me and he went look he said they don't have to let you go to the funeral he said but I think they have to let you take you to the chapel arrest so I went and see a screw and he said yeah they do fellow prisoners were outraged with the decision not to let Noel attend his son's funeral there was a lot of discussions about kicking off wrecking the wing and stuff like that so people's emotions are running very high especially when you see your power in yourself breaking his heart I come up with a plan to pour washing up Liquid over the floor ring the right bells and when the screws come in now we're going to attack them and the night before this I just thought no I don't want that to be a testament of my son and I went on and said no don't do it don't do it the next morning bang they had me in handcuffs with six screws down to South London to the chapel arrest and I managed to see my son in his coffin it's just a horrible time and I'm thinking is this really what I've aspired to you know I'm in the most top security prison in Europe surrounded by all the faces and gangsters who all know me and and this is the rest of my life I'm never getting out and I actually have a serious finger about that and and for months I grieved and I thought about it and eventually I went to him and I said look I need to get some sort of closure on this the career criminal had found a tragic and heartbreaking reason to reform and was transferred to hmp grendon grendon prison was an experiment by the prison service to offer a Therapeutic Community within a prison environment it was very brave it was an idea that if you had difficult Violent Men and you subjected them to the right kind of psychotherapy they could be cured there was a lot of Tears in pain in grenin I mean we had we used to do this thing called psychodrama once a week where you'd have five or six guys who would act out scenes from their lives and the other people played a part and I I dealt with my son's passing really with those guys there they were like Brothers to me I opened up to them I abandon my family I really when I think about it now I just ate myself for it you know I mean I had to work on it in therapy and I feel loads of cute other Joe I wasn't I wasn't there for him if I'd have been a normal father I'd have been there you know I mean if I'd have been a normal Geezer then I wouldn't be sitting in a top security prison with eight life sentence right around me asking me someone's outside diet I regret nearly everything and when I look at pictures of myself when I was younger so want to go back there and and you know give me a good shake up and tell me not to do the things that I've done because it was a waste of life it really was it really was and if I could go back I'd change it all Smith was eventually released from prison in 2010 and by this time events in Britain would Herald the arrival of a new group of prisoners onto white Moore's Wings it's become one of the places where terrorist prisoners are sent most regularly with one inmate that would later bring Carnage to the Streets of London he was a bomb wait Britain moved into the 21st century his prison population would radically change once more and nowhere more so than a hmp white Moor as it's developed over the years it's become one of the places where terrorist prisoners are sent most regularly white Moore is constantly evolving and those rather 90s concepts of gangsters is ebbing away to be replaced by a different form of criminal the influx of terrorists to whitemore from the early 2000s was a global sign of the times and a new approach was needed to combat this extremism the staff feared they were losing control because of the influence of islamist extremism and people who are promoting a terrorist ideology freely on the wings and in response to that the University of Cambridge was commissioned to do some research since then de-radicalization programs have been introduced at White Moor for those convicted of extremism offenses they provide intensive mentoring theological and ideological advice and are designed to help inmates to disengage from terrorism the healthy identity intervention or hii is probably the Mainstay of the prison Services offending behavior intervention for violent extremists it's an untested program it hasn't been properly accredited and what I've heard from people who've been in the program and and this is you know supported by other evidence that's in the media is that these programs are extremely easy to game in other words it's very easy to pass the program in 2010 19 year old Usman Khan was arrested for terrorist defenses including conspiracy to murder from 2012 he attended white Moore's de-radicalization program Usman Khan was born in Stoke-on-Trent at the son of Pakistani immigrants he attended School in Britain and then seemed to go to Pakistan what exactly happened to Usman Khan in Pakistan is still a matter of conjecture certainly he developed a reputation for being a radical for being a proto-terrorist something which he fundamentally denied Khan completed his course and his sentence at White Moore and was eligible for release what happens is you go through the program and you know you're able to then progress despite the fact that you might still completely retain your terrorist affiliations and the program hasn't worked Usman Khan was saying and doing the right things and he was talking the talk as it were but he was not walking the walk at all he was her bomb waiting to go off Khan was released in December 2018 after serving eight years of a 16-year sentence [Music] just one year later he would go on to cause Carnage on the Streets of London In fairness to the prison the prison had no control over him being released at the time the rule stated that he was at the automatic release Point um from his from his sentence in November 2019 Khan attended an event in London which was celebrating the five-year anniversary of learning together the study course established in British prisons like white Moor which brought together offenders and those in higher education so Paul sat there quietly and then proceed to stab to death a young man and a young woman who retaining the confidence and injure three others there's a perversity to this at a celebratory event for graduates of the learning together program he used that as his stage for some of the most horrendous terrorist violence that we have seen his victims were 23 year old saskia Jones and Jack Merritt 25 who were University students and had been innocently sitting close to Khan and Usman Khan was shot to death by the armed city of London Police that afternoon on London Bridge what we saw was a catastrophic system failure that meant that key information was lost opportunities were missed in order to detect and stop his descendant murderous violence September 2020 two inmates brustum ziamani and bass hotson went on trial for attacking a prison guard in whitemore earlier that year footage of the incident was used as evidence in court one a convicted terrorist and another a person that he had radicalized attacked and very nearly murdered a prison officer are these things linked yes of course they are there's absolutely no doubt in my mind the purpose of doing so was to take him hostage and the purpose of taking him hostage was to murder him probably by beheading the prison CCTV footage was used to convict the men and both inmates were sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted murder Professor Ian Atchison LED an independent inquiry into islamist extremism at White Moor he made recommendations to the government on how terrorists should be contained one of the key recommendations that I made was the creation of Separation centers small units which I believe needed to be created in order to incapacitate a small number of Highly subversive and ideologically bulletproof offenders islamist extremists in the men who put 20 burglars in One Wing they'll talk to each other at Burnley and reinforce all the stereotypes they got about Burnley so I think they should be treated as any other prisoner dispersed over the system the way normal prisoners are what you have to do is make sure these people cannot continue to be able to try to convert others to the cause of terrorism you get the right people around individual offenders who are uh you know assessed to be extremely dangerous and you manage those people from the you know the day they are convicted to the day that they stop being supervised in the community and potentially Beyond if needs to be I think that is the way forward since its opening in 1991 hmp white Moore has been an ever-changing entity with a checkered history to prove it and as the new waves of prisoners arrive and the challenges they bring in golf whitemore Spurs and wings the inmates of old are leaving the claustrophobic confines of its now 30 year old walls behind them actually leaving prison is probably one of the best feelings in the world stepping outside that gate [Music] you never look back just get out of that prison and walk away from it that's like one of the superstitions just don't look back or you'll end up back into prison I must have look back at every single one I went to foreign

Channel: Behind the Bars TV - Ricky Killeen

Views: 1,371,669

Keywords: prison, documentary, prison documentary, Channel 5, jail, prisoners, ira escape, IRA prisoners, hmp whitemoor

Id: -SyhbcFJDtI

Length: 65min 20sec (3920 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 07 2023