out
of their envelopes before placing them in piles, cards on one side, letters on
the other, while I continue to go over the script I’ve written that day. Terry
asks if he can keep one or two of the cards as a memento. ‘Only if they hve no address,’ I tell him, ‘as it’s still my intention to
reply to every one of them.’
Once I’ve
finished correcting my daily script, I turn my attention to the letters. Like
my life, they are falling into a pattern of their own, some offering
condolences on my mother’s death, others kindness and support. Many continue to
comment on Mr Justice Potts’s summing-up, and the
harshness of the sentence. I am bound to admit they bring back one’s faith in
one’s fellow men…and women.
Alison, my PA,
has written to say that I am receiving even more correspondence by every post
at home, and she confirms that they are also running at three hundred to one in
support. I hand one of the letters up to Terry. It’s from his cousin who’s read
in the papers that we’re sharing a cell. Terry tells me that he’s serving a
life sentence in Parkhurst for murder. My cellmate adds
they haven’t spoken to each other for years. And it was only a couple of hours
ago I was feeling low because I haven’t managed to speak to Mary today.
Day 8 - Thursday 26 July 2001
5.03 am
I’ve slept for
seven hours. When I wake, I begin to think about my first week in prison.
The longest week of my life. For the first time, I consider
the future and what it holds for me. Will I have to follow the path of two of
my heroes, Emma Hamilton and Oscar Wilde, and choose to live a secluded life
abroad, unable to enjoy the society that has been so much a part of my very
existence?
Will I be able
to visit old haunts – the National Theatre, Lord’s, Le Caprice, the Tate
Gallery, the UGC Cinema in Fulham Road – or even walk
down the street without people’s only thought being ‘There’s the man who went
to jail for perjury’? I can’t explain to every one of them that I didn’t get a
fair trial. It’s so unlike me to be introspective or pessimistic, but when
you’re locked up in a cell seven paces by four for hour upon hour every day,
you begin to wonder if anyone out there even knows you’re still alive.
10.00 am
Mr Highland, a young officer, unlocks my cell door and
tells me I have a legal visit at ten thirty. I ask if I might be allowed to
take a shower and wash my hair.
‘No,’ he says.
‘Use the washbasin.’ Only the second officer to be offhand
since I’ve arrived. I explain that it’s quite hard to have a shower in a
washbasin. He tells me that I’ve got an ‘attitude’ problem, and says that if I
go on like this, he’ll have to put me on report. It feels like being back at
school at the wrong end of your life.
I shave and
clean myself up as best I can before being escorted to yet another part of the
building so that I can meet up with my lawyers. I am deposited in a room about
eight foot by eight, with windows in all four walls;
even lawyers have been known to bring in drugs for their clients. There’s a
large oblong table in the centre of the room, with
six chairs around it. A few moments later I’m joined by Nick Purnell QC and his junior Alex Cameron, who are accompanied
by my solicitor, Ramona Mehta. Nick takes me slowly through the process of
appeal against conviction and sentence. He’s fairly pessimistic about
conviction, despite there being a considerable amount of evidence of the
judge’s bias when summing up, but he says only those in the court room will
remember the emphasis and exaggeration Potts put on certain words when he
addressed the jury. The judge continually reminded the jurors that I hadn’t
given evidence, and, holding up Mrs Peppiatt’s small diary not my large office diary,
repeatedly remarked that ‘no one has denied this is a real diary’. He didn’t
point out to the jury, however, that even if that diary had appeared in the
original trial, it
of their envelopes before placing them in piles, cards on one side, letters on
the other, while I continue to go over the script I’ve written that day. Terry
asks if he can keep one or two of the cards as a memento. ‘Only if they hve no address,’ I tell him, ‘as it’s still my intention to
reply to every one of them.’
Once I’ve
finished correcting my daily script, I turn my attention to the letters. Like
my life, they are falling into a pattern of their own, some offering
condolences on my mother’s death, others kindness and support. Many continue to
comment on Mr Justice Potts’s summing-up, and the
harshness of the sentence. I am bound to admit they bring back one’s faith in
one’s fellow men…and women.
Alison, my PA,
has written to say that I am receiving even more correspondence by every post
at home, and she confirms that they are also running at three hundred to one in
support. I hand one of the letters up to Terry. It’s from his cousin who’s read
in the papers that we’re sharing a cell. Terry tells me that he’s serving a
life sentence in Parkhurst for murder. My cellmate adds
they haven’t spoken to each other for years. And it was only a couple of hours
ago I was feeling low because I haven’t managed to speak to Mary today.
Day 8 - Thursday 26 July 2001
5.03 am
I’ve slept for
seven hours. When I wake, I begin to think about my first week in prison.
The longest week of my life. For the first time, I consider
the future and what it holds for me. Will I have to follow the path of two of
my heroes, Emma Hamilton and Oscar Wilde, and choose to live a secluded life
abroad, unable to enjoy the society that has been so much a part of my very
existence?
Will I be able
to visit old haunts – the National Theatre, Lord’s, Le Caprice, the Tate
Gallery, the UGC Cinema in Fulham Road – or even walk
down the street without people’s only thought being ‘There’s the man who went
to jail for perjury’? I can’t explain to every one of them that I didn’t get a
fair trial. It’s so unlike me to be introspective or pessimistic, but when
you’re locked up in a cell seven paces by four for hour upon hour every day,
you begin to wonder if anyone out there even knows you’re still alive.
10.00 am
Mr Highland, a young officer, unlocks my cell door and
tells me I have a legal visit at ten thirty. I ask if I might be allowed to
take a shower and wash my hair.
‘No,’ he says.
‘Use the washbasin.’ Only the second officer to be offhand
since I’ve arrived. I explain that it’s quite hard to have a shower in a
washbasin. He tells me that I’ve got an ‘attitude’ problem, and says that if I
go on like this, he’ll have to put me on report. It feels like being back at
school at the wrong end of your life.
I shave and
clean myself up as best I can before being escorted to yet another part of the
building so that I can meet up with my lawyers. I am deposited in a room about
eight foot by eight, with windows in all four walls;
even lawyers have been known to bring in drugs for their clients. There’s a
large oblong table in the centre of the room, with
six chairs around it. A few moments later I’m joined by Nick Purnell QC and his junior Alex Cameron, who are accompanied
by my solicitor, Ramona Mehta. Nick takes me slowly through the process of
appeal against conviction and sentence. He’s fairly pessimistic about
conviction, despite there being a considerable amount of evidence of the
judge’s bias when summing up, but he says only those in the court room will
remember the emphasis and exaggeration Potts put on certain words when he
addressed the jury. The judge continually reminded the jurors that I hadn’t
given evidence, and, holding up Mrs Peppiatt’s small diary not my large office diary,
repeatedly remarked that ‘no one has denied this is a real diary’. He didn’t
point out to the jury, however, that even if that diary had appeared in the
original trial, it
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