<\/p>\n
So there I was. An Arsenal fan sharing a cell with Thierry Henry, but how did he get there? Well to answer that we have to go back four months.<\/p>\n
It was another mundane night and I was manning the Prisoner Information Desk in the first night centre. It was part of my duties to introduce myself to every new prisoner coming into the jail. There were a variety of origins for these guys. Some came from other prisons, while some came straight from police custody having been recalled. But the majority of men came from court having been remanded or sentenced \u2013 the first timers.<\/p>\n
It was my job to offer them some reassurance. To give them the basic info they needed for that first night and to be a point of contact for all of their questions on their first day in prison. The rest of the jail is locked up, so it is a little less intimidating for new arrivals.<\/p>\n
Most lads are too much in shock to take in what I\u2019m saying – at times I felt like Michael Palin\u2019s character in the Life of Brian: \u201cCrucifixion? There you go, door on the left \u2013 one cross each.\u201d But after a while I could identify lads that were in \u2018healthy\u2019 shock and those that are really rocked to their roots. Oscar was in the latter category.<\/p>\n
Oscar presented at the desk on his own. He was about 5\u201910\u201d tall, thin and baby-faced, and wearing the mismatched and ill-fitting grey prison issue clothing. He had to be over 21 to land in this Local Prison, but I would have ID checked him if I worked in a bar \u2013 he looked 17. There were a few reasons that I was concerned. First off, he had been brought up to the wing on his own. This suggested that he was a Vulnerable Prisoner (VP) \u2013 that could be a nonce (sex-offender) or a grass. Second, the plastic bag that carried all of his bedding was ripped \u2013 he was struggling to hold it together and it was devoid of toiletries or tobacco. But when he stood opposite me his busted lip and black-eye saddened me.<\/p>\n
At that time I was learning to try and speak to the person in front of me \u2013 not their offence, so I made no judgements. I merely invited him to sit down and started going through the motions with him. The kid was broken \u2013 if I had told him that the next step was to remove one of his kidneys I think he might have shrugged and lifted his t-shirt for the incision.<\/p>\n
I told Mr H \u2013 the Kanga on duty that I was going to take Oscar for a quiet chat and shouted my pal Vinney to cover the desk. Then I brought Oscar to my cell and sat him down. I explained that I was a Listener (peer supporter trained by the Samaritans) and offered him a coffee and a smoke. Well the kindness nearly killed him. His breath became ragged, manic,\u00a0 like he was having an asthma attack and he began to shudder, but he started to reclaim control just before I shouted for help. His breathing deepened and turned to sobs, then whimpers before trailing off into sniffles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a nonce you know.\u201d He was well spoken.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never said you were. Nor would it matter to me if you were. I\u2019m just concerned with getting you through tonight for now. Then we will worry about tomorrow.\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n
I asked him straight out, \u201cAre you feeling suicidal?\u201d<\/p>\n
I had been trained to ask this question this way because it usually drew a more honest response than asking \u201cYou are not suicidal, are you?\u201d which really sent the message, \u201cPlease don\u2019t involve me in anything messy or emotional!\u201d<\/p>\n
He paused and thought for a moment before saying, \u201cI\u2019m more scared than suicidal. No, I don\u2019t think I am suicidal.\u201d I explained that the Listeners were on call 24 hours a day \u2013 not to hesitate if he felt he was becoming overwhelmed or felt like self-harming.<\/p>\n
He asked me how he could get more tobacco \u2013 his had been stolen when he was jumped by three lads in the holding cells. The short answer was that he couldn\u2019t get any more until his canteen \u2013 around 8 days away. He took that news with a certain amount of stoicism.<\/p>\n
Often prisoners will call a Listener when their primary aim is to try to bum a smoke. I think that\u2019s why I rated Oscar – he never asked me for a cigarette. We talked for a few minutes, he finished his coffee and cigarette and Mr H took him to his cell. He was to be housed alone which gave him some comfort and I told him that I would check in on him at 8AM the next day when we were unlocked.<\/p>\n
I spent another hour or so dealing with new arrivals but I was still a bit worried about Oscar, so in a quiet moment I went back to my cell, rolled three cigarettes and grabbed a few matches before I went to Oscar\u2019s cell door. When I pulled open the observation panel I could see he was lying on the bed facing the wall, but when I knocked he looked around immediately. He came to the flap and I gave him the ciggies under the door before I said goodnight again.<\/p>\n
I saw him the next morning and helped him add an emergency phone number to his account \u2013 his mum. As a VP he was unlocked separate from other prisoners. Periodically I would push a couple of smokes under the door for him and I gave him the newspaper after I had read it. These small gestures really cost me nothing, but they meant the world to him.<\/p>\n
Over the next few weeks we chatted about one thing and another. When it came to football he was an Evertonian and I a Gunner. He told me how he used to wait outside the Liverpool hotels on match days to gather autographs from various players when their teams were visiting the city. He mentioned he had even been given jerseys and boots on the odd occasion. I listened to him, but I didn\u2019t pay that much heed to what he said. People in Jail just brag. If you believe everybody then more than half of the prison population served in the SAS, while the other half are millionaire cage-fighting playboy Lotharios with a fleet of classic cars (that try to bum a cup of coffee from you).<\/p>\n
Eventually I could see that Oscar needed to talk to me about his case, so one afternoon he sat in my cell and spilled the beans. He had been arrested and charged with a serious sexual assault, although he maintained it had been a consensual arrangement.<\/p>\n
He wanted to talk through the events and timeline and I listened to him without judgement. When he had finished he asked me what I thought his chances were. I shrugged my shoulders and I just told him:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter what I think pal. What you did or didn\u2019t do is down to you, the girl and the courts now. All I will say is that I don\u2019t think any differently of you. I hope that it works out.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Oscar was lucky in one key regard. His mum was not sitting idly by. She had retained a QC who was pressing the Crown Prosecution Services for disclosure of evidence, and that was where I sort of lost touch with Oscar for a while. By this time he had managed to sort his canteen. He had money for tobacco and was managing the daily routine. He moved onto the VP wing in the jail and I went back to greeting new souls as they landed.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later I heard that Oscar had been released when all of the charges had been dropped after a disclosure of evidence. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s necessary or appropriate to go into further detail.<\/p>\n
But I was glad to hear that Oscar had survived his encounter with prison and really I thought that would be the end of it. But a few weeks later, out of the blue I met Thierry Henry.<\/p>\n
He had arrived in an A4 envelope with a brief note from Oscar:<\/p>\n
\u201cDear Moose, I don\u2019t know if you believed me about the autographs, but I thought you would like this one. I figured the screws might not let me send you Robert Pires\u2019s boots! Oscar\u201d<\/p>\n
Thierry has been my pad-mate ever since.<\/p>\n
![\"Thierry](\"https:\/\/festive-payne.109-228-60-161.plesk.page\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/thierry-henri.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So here I am with Thierry Henry in my cell<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[333,359,364,468],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prison","tag-part-2","tag-prison-life","tag-prison-stories","tag-thierry-henry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}