Authors: Robert Jeffrey
The sex offenders, who despite their perversions were often well educated and intelligent, were well aware that on the outside of the prison bars their vile crimes put them at risk of attack. Likewise inside they were at danger from the ordinary run-of-the-mill cons who had a hatred of what they called “the beasts.” Indeed a passport to respect would often be for a straight con to attack a sex offender at any opportunity. Indeed, one infamous US serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, was beaten to death by a fellow inmate.
The regular “smash-ups” were a constant nightmare for the prison staff, but they also affected another group – Aberdeen’s newspapermen and TV and radio crews. Over the years they spent countless hours at the gates of the old jail. Sometimes they could see the action in front of their eyes as cons tore tiles from the roofs of the cell blocks and hurled them at the warders down below. Or on occasion showing hostages to the press, as in the case of Jackie Stuart who was paraded from the rooftop to underline the danger he was in of being killed by one of his captors. Sometimes the press pack just “doorstepped” the place after a tip-off, patiently waiting for a word or two on what was happening inside. Anyone in the news game in the Aberdeen area knew that the phone could ring any time with a tip-off on some sort of trouble or other in the prison.
The road from the Aberdeen newsrooms north to Peterhead was a familiar and well-worn one. The media men and women reporters met each other regularly in Peterhead and it was at times a sort of team affair, each helping the other since it was impossible for one person to keep on top of what was happening twenty-four/seven. There had to be breaks for sleep, food and drink – they were reporters, after all! The news of what was happening was generally shared. And years back the news was not, as now, packaged by the prison service PR teams. You were not hand-fed by the authorities. You reported what you saw and what information you were getting from contacts built up over years of coverage and familiarity. They still say a reporter is only as good as his contacts, but that was even more the case in the days before mobile phones and laptops and search engines. The North-East press gang were wily and experienced reporters of the best kind.
One word dominates when you talk to the veteran scribblers about these long hours outside the prison – cold. The low temperature and the cutting winds that swept in off the North Sea chilled the reporters to the bone. Holding pencils and notebooks – in the later years laptops – was a nightmare. Ever tried to write with a pair of woollen gloves on? The Thermos and, for some, a wee hip flask with a drop of something warming in it were almost part of a uniform. It is amusing that the press gang still remark on the oddity that somehow or other the prisoners seemed to kick up the most fuss in the cold winter months, maximising the discomfort for the scribblers. And themselves. In Aberdeenshire you would think that anyone planning a day or two on the roof without hot food and warm clothing might pick a summer night for their slate-throwing capers. Not so, the weather was not a factor in their plans.
Another topic within the reporting teams was the fact that when they were wrapped up in gear more suitable for Everest some sturdy North Sea fisherman would stroll past heading for the harbour in shirt sleeves, oblivious to the weather. One man with more memories than most of reporting on the fires, riots, dirty protests, rooftop shenanigans and generally on-going mayhem in the jail is Graeme Smith, who for many years was
The Herald
’s man in Aberdeen. Along with George McDonald he kept readers in Glasgow and Lanarkshire well informed on anything happening in his area. An excellent journalist of the old school – his father was also a legendary North-East newsman – Graeme covered his patch so well that it was a rare occasion when the Glasgow news desk decided to “send” – i.e. give – the men in the north some help from the home office. In practice “sending” usually worked the other way round, with the local expert helping the incomer.
Graeme has now left
The
Herald
though he continues to be a major figure in journalism in the area as well as running a public relations operation. He remembers well those cold days outside the prison. One more pleasant memory was of the time TV presenter Lorraine Kelly became a Good Samaritan to the press gang. Lorraine had been sent north to cover one of the major riots and had recourse to the comfort and shelter of the outside broadcast caravan. At frequent intervals she invited the shivering press colleagues in for a wee heat. The girl who had started a glittering career in TV as a reporter on a neighbourhood paper on the outskirts of Glasgow was a real local heroine during these tough days.
Other scribblers and snappers roughed it with less style. Graeme remembers one colleague who bought a fish supper to take to eat in his car at lunchtime only to be called away for some development in the story they were covering. He popped the supper under the seat and returned hours later to scoff it cold. Such interruptions were commonplace – you could spend hours outside the jail or in the local Waterside Hotel, bored and just waiting for something to happen. If eventually you got fed up and decided to go back to the office there would inevitably be a sudden development and you had to return fast. It happened to Graeme many a time. So much so that in long quiet spells his pals would joke Graeme should go home and then the action would start!
If the information on what was going on in these days came not in official statements from the Scottish Prison Service then tip-offs from officers and a pound or two surreptitiously changing hands were an important part of the routine. The stories the press gang covered usually involved violence and serious outbreaks of trouble inside the prison. But there is an old tale of hours being spent trying to find the truth of a rumour that drugs were being smuggled into the jail strapped to the feet of seagulls. As we know, the gulls fly over the walls in search of titbits left by the prisoners, and I suppose it might be technically possible to train one to come regularly to a certain point. It made a good story, but I suspect it was just that. A story.
In the final years the other main media interest was on the political infighting around what would happen now that it was agreed all round that the old place had no future. The options were to pull it down and rebuild it in the same place or to build a new prison on a greenfield site perhaps inland of the town. Or to, as finally happened, close Craiginches as well as Peterhead, disperse the sex offenders and build a new prison to house male and female prisoners and young offenders, in an area adjacent to the existing prison. All the plans had different and varied implications for the locals.
The possibility that the prison in the town would be closed down completely emerged as long ago as 2002 when the then Justice Minister Jim Wallace said that it would indeed close only to make a famous U-turn a few months later after a high-profile campaign led by the wives and partners of prison service officers had secured at least a partial victory. The determined women had to fight for the jail in a way that the prison officers themselves could not – their contracts prevented them talking to the press or taking part in a political action. The women were largely on their own in a fight to the finish with authority and they battled hard and from the heart. It can take a particular kind of man to be a prison officer and wives and partners needed to be a bit special, too. The doughty Peterhead women proved they were up to the challenge.
Amid all the uncertainty about its long-term future the prison still took enormous flak from the HM Inspectorate of Prisons. About the same time as Jim Wallace was making his U-turn a report was issued that spelled out in detail the deficiencies of the prison. An “intermediate” inspection listed a catalogue of complaints. It pointed out that each cell was smaller than the current standard of design and a number of items did not comply with current standards. These included inadequacy of in-cell sanitation, electrical supply to cells, facilities for disabled prisoners, cell call systems, heating and cell windows. It concluded that among other complaints the prison had not been updated to keep abreast of current living standards. It said that “blocks of wood or locally improvised draught excluders were used to fill the gaps left by broken windows, etc.”
One reason for this frankly disgraceful state of affairs was jaw-dropping – the budget for capital expenditure on the prison in 2002–03 was £40,000. Compare this with more than £100 million for the building and commissioning of the new HMP Grampian. This dispiriting report went on to say that, “it was difficult to identify parts of the estate that could be described of ‘high standard’ and of the quality found elsewhere in the SPS estate.
“Office accommodation, work sheds, the condition of the football pitch and staff facilities were all of a poor standard. Despite this, it was encouraging to note that the establishment was exceptionally clean and tidy.” Not a happy story with the staff as well as the prisoners suffering from poor conditions. But there was at least to be some physical improvement in the final years, though there was always a reluctance to spend too much on a place on the verge of being demolished.
The fight to ensure a prison stayed in the area went on for years and changed course a few times. Initially the women on the march concentrated on the success of the sex offenders unit, hoping to keep it in the area. They made several compelling points, among them that their menfolk were protecting all of the people of Scotland by keeping paedophiles, rapists and murderers under lock and key. And the wives took every opportunity to point out that their husbands and partners were working with remarkable success, acknowledged worldwide, in trying to turn lives around and prevent reoffending. The sex offenders unit in particular had its work recognised by winning some important awards. But with or without a sex offenders unit it was important for the economic health of the area to keep a prison in the town rather than move it out to, say, Ellon or some other greenfield site.
The campaigners made much of the fact that the option to move out of town had the disadvantage that it would cause much disruption in an area which, unlike Peterhead itself, had not over the years, in quiet times and violent times, learned to live with a prison in the centre of the community. One of the big problems with Peterhead was said to be its remoteness from the Central Belt and the consequent difficulties for visitors to get to the jail. To locate a new prison out in the back country of Aberdeenshire without the travel connections that the fishing community has would just exacerbate the situation. Peterhead is still not the easiest place to get to, but it is easier than travelling to some new prison out in the countryside where there are barely a couple of buses a day.
The campaign organisers also pointed out that the support of the community in Peterhead was of great help to their men who faced such a stressful job. Their neighbours and friends knew well what the prison staff had to deal with. To rebuild the trust Peterhead folk and the jail’s workers shared in another more rural place could take years. The campaign organised a petition that showed that the community support was really impressive – more than 17,000 people signed to save the jail. It was not just the ordinary folk of the town that wanted the jail, or a replacement, to stay in the area. The campaign grew to have strong support from local politicians who well understood both the special relationship the communities around the jail had with the prison staff and its commercial value. Indeed Alex Salmond, the Banff and Buchan MP, and Stewart Stevenson MSP were with the campaigners when the petition was handed in. Alex Salmond said that it was a campaign that raised serious issues for all Scots and it was not just about Peterhead. Mr Stevenson said, “The officers at Peterhead do a great job and it is not one that is easy to do. They are recognised throughout the world for their expertise. I believe very strongly that the prison should remain open.” He added that there was cross-party support for the wives’ campaign, which is “good news.”
In the final years it was not just the ageing fabric of the building that demanded change. At some times both Peterhead and Craiginches were at maximum capacity. Indeed at one point Craiginches was overcrowded by 20 per cent, with 263 prisoners shoehorned into a place designed to hold 225. Peterhead was at its maximum of 306. But it was to be several more years after the petition was handed in before the decision was finally taken to build a new prison near the old one which was to be demolished.
The new establishment would have a capacity of around 700. This would make it a super prison in Scottish terms. At the start of the Peterhead story it was pointed out that in the 1880s Scotland was looking over its shoulder to what was happening in England. Again more than 100 years later in the final decision on concentration or dispersal of sex offenders, a lead was taken from what was happening south of the border where the idea of dispersal had firmly won the argument several years earlier.
Now in the days before HMP Grampian finally opens, the debate on the size of new jails is a major penal issue in England – and it looks as if the argument in favour of “super jails” is winning.
The Guardian’s
home affairs editor Alan Travis wrote in June 2013 that “more than thirty ‘run-down and poorly’ located jails, including some of the [English] prison system’s most famous names – Dartmoor, Holloway, Pentonville, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs – should be closed down according to prison experts.” The main expert in this case is Kevin Lockyer, a former senior Ministry of Justice official and himself an ex-prison governor. He wants to replace “damp Victorian dungeons” with ten to twelve new hub jails holding up to 3,000 inmates.
This plan was opposed by Juliet Lyon of the Prison Reform Trust, who claimed it would be a gigantic mistake to pour money into a “super-sized big-brother prison building drain” and that when it came to prisons the idea that big is beautiful is wrong. She conceded the need to close some outdated prisons but wanted the money saved reinvested into community solutions to crime – though she was not specific what that cumbersome phrase meant. Lockyer, who had produced a report for the right-leaning think-tank Policy Review, expressed a view that could not be more different. He wanted to bust what he called the myth that “small is beautiful.”