Barry Deeks The Bizarre and Enchanting Life

Chapter 8

Incarceration

I was arrested on the 11th of June 1998 and I spent two nights in a police cell. I can remember the coldest of nights after having prints taken from the whole of my hands. I was questioned for a short while and I made sure that I would get a long sentence, long enough to give me time to manipulate the system.

Two nights I spent in the police cells then on the Saturday I went to the Chester Magistrates court. From there I went to a group 4 prison called Altcourse in Liverpool. Otherwise if I hadn't have gone to the police station I would have gone camping that weekend in the lake district on the Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme.

I was put on the vulnerable prisoners wing Renoldstown blue. The next day I was moved to the hospital wing, I was not told why. I didn't stay there, after returning to the magistrates for pleading directions.

The jail was termed a Micky mouse prison. Probably because it was poorly run or an easy jail. It was only six months old and had been painted in brightly new paint in many different colours.

I stayed on the hospital wing for six days during that time I went back to the Chester Magistrates for pleading directions. After another two hearings I was sent to the Crown court for two hearings. On the second hearing I was sentenced to 3 years in prison, of which I was expected to do half. My Guardian demons arranged for the sentence to be cut short by a month, they had other plans for me.

I found prison very exciting, so many interesting people, we went to the library together and the gym. We walked to and fro from place to place across the court. People would hurl insults from the other wings all around, from people who had nothing better to do than hate.

I used to shout out from my group at people who shouted those hateful remarks, I said things like,"I'll lamp you" or, "you don't want to meet me on the out". Even though I could not see the prisoners hurling the remarks and I didn't care about being recognised, I hurled remarks back at whoever.

Football is something I enjoyed as never before, I played whilst I was not in the gym at the sports hall.

I noticed a lot of hypocrisy in prison. One in six of us is abused sexually according to a study I read in a magazine in 1996. To me it appears to be a low estimate. There must surely be a lot of paranoid liars walking about in prison and indeed society at large. Labelling someone with behaviour that mirrors your own actions is called attachment, a very primitive defence mechanism. One can use this mechanism to hurl hypocrisy at literally anyone, it used to be called projection.

Despite all the excitement I was scared, I may be the best protected guy on the planet but I don't trust my elite, after all they threw me before a lorry. If you ever become a boss don't employ the human elite. My so called friends come with daggers in their smiles.

Throughout my time in prison I never saw my parents but I wouldn't have missed the experience for the World. When I went to Risley HMP the guards asked me if I was happy with my sentence. I said I wanted at least six years which was double my sentence, just to be facetious.

I went to the 'B' category side of the prison for two days, from when I got there on the 12th October 1998. My movements from pad to pad became quite complicated. I had spent one of my two month and nine day blocks on category 'C' wing known as Paterson.

There was a category 'D' wing, the open wing, the lowest security there is in prison, from where I had a chess board repossessed and nobody found out. One person actually found out but it didn't come on top (get discovered), I'm a shifty rum bugger at times.

I've done some bad things but the positives I think outweigh the negatives. As they say I look after people, the needy and the less well informed. I think that my in effect stealing of a chess board is, although naughty, it helps me relate to people.