scottish-penal-system

Once the cons were in the cell, they__ pull razors or homemade daggers out and rob the YOs of their trainers, leather jackets or jewellery. You couldn__ placate them; it would be akin to expecting not to be bitten from a Rhodesian Ridgeback whilst petting it! Bar L was full of rough, colourful and out-of-control junkies who wouldn__ think twice about stabbing you or slashing you just to get what you had on your feet to pay for their next hit of smack.

There are now babies being born in our hospitals with crack or heroin habits, come on, fuck, no one would have dreamt such a horrible thing would happen to a newborn babies in Scotland. I didn__ think the sons and daughters, mothers and fathers of Scotland would have been messed up in such a nasty circle of misery, depression, violence, suicides and prisons because of drugs.

On the morning of Wednesday 13 March 1996, Thomas West Hamilton shattered the peaceful country town of Dunblane, Stirlingshire, with a fusillade of gunfire that reverberated round the world.

TC Campbell doesn__ need any introduction, the man is a legend in the prison community and outside when this very strong-minded man was trying to prove his innocence for the six murders he had been convicted for. TC went on a fifty-day hunger strike, he ended up in hospital. This man was willing to die to prove his innocence, if he never done his famous hunger strike he probably would have never go the MPS in government to sit up and take note.

I will not go into detail but the screw put up a little bit of a resistance, fair play to him, but we were so desperate for the drugs in her medical bag that nothing was going to stop us getting at them. That is what happened, we got the bag of drugs from her hand. I can tell you, we were like two tramps round a bag of chips in a bin.

The last person to be hanged in Glasgow at the age of 31 was a beast by the name of Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel, he swung from the gallows in Barlinnie Prison on 11 July 1958.

At one point the worst thing to happen was the odd stabbing or slashing, the violence that we live with nowadays used to only be seen in Hollywood gangster movies such as Gangs of New York, Menace to Society and Boys and the Hood. Even when we were reading about the crack hitting London, no one in Scotland would have thought in their wildest dreams that it would have taken off in our cities, towns and now even highland villages.

I was reading that there are children at the age of twelve and thirteen selling their bodies at dinnertimes for as little as £5 when they should be at school. Now if that is not a problem, I don__ know what is. The drug problem has got way too far out of hand.

I pulled the homemade jail knife out that I had in my hand, Porkie pulled out the very sharp lockback knife that he had concealed up his sleeve. We told the warden and nurse to sit on the floor, and if they did as we told them then no one would get hurt.

I keep telling the screws over and over again, __f you treat a young boy in prison like a dog, keep him in a cell that is like a cage and constantly beat him and bully him, that boy is going to grow up hating yous and the system._ The only thing on his mind will be revenge, maybe it is not revenge on the screws that so frequently bullied and tortured him, but in the boy__ eyes he is getting revenge on the uniform, as it all means the same thing in the boy__ or man__ eyes.

Gary Moore is another legendary figure of sheer violence. In prison, Gary has spent most of his adult life inside one jail or another. When, on the odd occasion, he does get out of prison, it doesn__ take him long to go on a murderous campaign of total terror. Gary has been charged and stood trial for some three or four different murders.

I have known Hammy for years, he has been shot in the chest twice at point blank range with a sawn off shotgun. The other hard men must have been shocked when he got out the car he was in and chased them with his own hand gun, he has also been stabbed multiple times in prison and out on the rough tough streets of Glasgow but he is still standing.

Bongo and Shug seen what was going on and decided to smash holes all over the roof of the hall, just for something to do. Bongo was first on to the roof, where, unknown to him he was being filmed from a cell in the hall straight across from him, but Bongo didn__ give a fuck as he never even wore a mask to try and protect his face, he was in his element, so was Shug. And to their credit, they didn__ half wreck the roof of the hall.

When the infamous Shotts riot of _93 kicked off, Dingus was in the hall but he never started it or took any part in it whatsoever, he just sat in one of his friend__ cell, smoking hash, waiting for the riot to end. Dingus had seen all the crazy shit before.

Big Rab has worked in Barlinnie__ Wendy House for over seven and a half years. The average time a screw works in the seg blocks is two years, this man has seen it and done it all. Most prisoners will agree, he isn__ a dog either but can be when he wants. He has had legendary roll abouts with some of Scotland__ hardest criminals but at the end of it he doesn__ hold any grudges.

I was also in Glenochil Prison in 1992 when Hammy was stabbed five times in the chest and belly off another man called Fudge, but give Hammy his dues, he never tried to jail bait his attacker up. Fudge never got any more time to his sentence for the frenzied attack on Hammy. This man has also had pit bulls and rottweiler dogs set on him and guess what, he beat the dogs.

The screws have brought all the revenge attacks on themselves. Most prisoners that have done some nasty damage in the system have come through the young offenders, where that was just a breeding ground for hatred from the screws point of view. They were famous for bullying and battering young, defenceless boys to the point of death, in some cases.

Just as chillingly as Manuel took police to the spot where he had buried 17-year-old Isabella Cooke, it was reminiscent of this when Brady took police to Saddleworth Moor in Yorkshire, when he and Hindley were flown there by helicopter to walk on the graves of more victims.