Minnie Ha-Ha's having a laugh in Cell Block H

Minnie Ha-Ha's having a laugh in Cell Block H
22:09pm 30th July 2007

Richard Littlejohn
At this rate I'm going to be out of a job.

It's only a couple of weeks since I remarked that life in modern Britain is becoming increasingly difficult to parody.

Staying ahead of the game is well nigh impossible.

Regular readers will know that this column pays the occasional pilgrimage to Slade prison in a futile attempt to keep up with the insanities in our penal system.

On my last visit to Fletch, I imagined Genial Harry Grout running a flourishing heroin and pornography franchise.

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Regular readers will know that this column pays the occasional pilgrimage to Slade prison in a futile attempt to keep up with the insanities in our penal system

I should have known better.

Earlier this month it was revealed that not only were the prison authorities turning a blind eye to heroin use, they were also issuing inmates with Steradent tablets so they could keep their needles clean.

Oh, and homosexual prisoners are being given access to gay porn.

But never in my wildest imagination could I have invented the latest parcel of lunacy.

A woman doing life for throttling her baby son is suing prison authorities for refusing to let her have a Native American drum so she can talk to dead animals.

Apparently, after she was sentenced, the woman, who hails from Birmingham, announced she was a Red Indian.

As you do.

Last time I looked, there wasn't a Cherokee encampment under Spaghetti Junction. I haven't spotted any reports of tepees being pitched on the halfway line at Villa Park.

There are plenty of Indians in Birmingham, but to the best of my knowledge none of them is Red, unless Martin O'Neill has been busy in the transfer market during Villa's pre-season tour of the U.S.

I'm told Red Robbo is still knocking around, but he's never claimed Apache ancestry as far as I know.

Mind you, it's at least a year since I was last in Brum. Given the scale of immigration, maybe there's a lost tribe of Seminoles camped out in the Lickey Hills, petitioning to turn the old Longbridge car factory into a reservation, complete with casino.

Anyway, this madwoman now styles herself Chaha Oh-Niyol Kai-Whitewind and claims, inevitably, that her "yuman rites" are being violated by the prison authorities at Low Newton, in Durham.

She not only wants a drum, she says she is entitled to potions, spell books and a peace pipe to allow her to practise her religion, which she describes as "Shamanic Paganism".

Minnie Ha-Ha has written to the prison governor, stating: "I do not not believe in violence. I have respect for all life and individuality. This prison, like many others, has an unwritten policy of pagan persecution."

Her respect for human life obviously didn't extend to her 12-week old son, Bidziil, whom she strangled to death for refusing to breastfeed.

She is, of course, stark, staring bonkers. The only thing she needs in her cell is extra padding. But she won't have any difficulty finding some spiv lawyer to take up her case. Don't be surprised if the prison gives in.

That'll be fun for the other inmates. Imagine trying to sleep while Loved By The Buffalo, or whatever she calls herself, is up all night doing a rain dance.

(There's a bloke in the East Stand at Tottenham who bangs a drum at every home game. It's quite amusing from my vantage point on the other side of the ground, but I wouldn't want to sit next to him. Maybe he's the medicine man of the White Hart tribe.)

If Pocahontas gets away with this, you can bet that other prisoners will soon be pulling a similar stroke. Within days, some old lag in the Scrubs will be claiming to be the Last of the Mohicans. Give it time, they'll have their own happy hunting ground on the playing fields at Ford Open.

You may think this is a bit farfetched, but perhaps you missed the story over the weekend that the Home Office is considering building special prisons for Muslims, so that convicted terrorists don't have to mix with filthy infidels. Poor old Captain Hook is whining that he's being bullied in Belmarsh.

We could always arrange a transfer to Guantanamo Bay, where he would feel more at home.

Why stop there? Why not separate nicks for Rastafarians, complete with steel drums, complimentary ganja and a drive-by shooting range?

Or jails where traditional East End gangsters can celebrate their culture; sipping Gold Watch round the old Joanna, singing Knees Up Muvva Brahn, sawing the barrels off a pair of matched Purdeys in the workshop and feeding each other to the pigs on the prison farm?

Tucked away at the end of the story about the Birmingham Blackfoot was the following admission from the Prison Service:

"There are 282 prisoners in England and Wales registered as pagans who can worship in their cells or in dedicated communal areas of the prison. Certain religious artefacts may be allowed in their cells, but each is subject to risk assessment.

"These artefacts include items such as a hoodless robe, a flexible twig and rune stones."

Where will it all end - day trips to Stonehenge for druids? Human sacrifices on B-wing? Roman orgies in the shower block?

You couldn't make it up. There's a Springsteen song, Blinded By The Light, which begins: "Madman drummers, bummers and Indians in the summer."

Sounds like the roll call at Parkhurst.