Jailhouselawyer's Blog

Liana called into see me yesterday morning at 9.30, just as I was having breakfast (a bacon butty, cup of tea and a fag), and brought her's and Lasma's and Edite's washing to shove in my washing machine. When she uses the door knocker, she slams it once, and it always makes me jump, and reminds me of the days when prison officers wore steel toecaps on their boots and would crash against the outside of the cell door as they looked through the spyhole. I greeted her with "fucking hell!". She repeated parrot fashion "fucking hell, fucking hell, awhy? awhy?". I was still reeling from the shock, and thought it was a bit early to be disturbed. Even as a child it took me awhile to get the cobwebs of sleep out of my head when I woke up, unless I was going on holiday or it was Christmas Day or some other special occasion. After breakfast we took Rocky for a walk in Pearson Park, and then Liana went home.

Early evening I was in the bath and crash went the door knocker. Liana went straight up to my study and not finding me there came back down again. I told her to get the washing out of the washing machine whilst I finished off. When she came back in, she said, "I go home". I replied jokingly "You want sex?", as I stood bollock naked in the bath. I thought she had gone home but I found her waiting in the lounge. "You still here?", I asked rather stupidly as I could see that she was. "I want sex", she said. "No, I want to talk".

I asked her if she was still writing down the hours that she worked at Poskitts, the idea being that when the contract ends I will assist her to claim the unpaid wages. She assured me that she was. And then said that she was now getting paid £5.35 per hour. But before I could give a sigh of relief, she added that she had not been paid in 3 weeks. She said that she kept asking for the money and Poskitts kept saying later, later. I pushed her further and she said she had paid a deposit for the privilege of working, paid for work boots, paid for transport to and from work. It was beginning to look murkier and murkier. She did not give me the £5 per week she owes the council for council tax.

Besides supplying ASDA, she packed carrots for Netto and the market and some for the Prison Service and some to be fed to horses. I get Rocky's meat unfit for human consumption from a local butcher. Liana said that all the carrots except those destined to be eaten by prisoners were decent quality. What Liana described as rubbish are not fed to horses or thrown away but are instead sold to the Prison Service for human consumption, albeit by prisoners. According to the Prison Rules, prisoners food rations are required to be sufficient in both quality and quantity. I think I will be having a word with the Director General of the H.M.Prison Service, Phil Wheatley, and make him aware not only of the Russian/Latvian Mafia connection to the contract awarded by the Prison Service, but also ask if he is aware that food not deemed fit for animals is being fed to humans, prisoners, whom he has a responsibility to care for.