SOME call it the UK’s Guantanamo Bay, others know it simply as Hellmarsh.
With a level of security second to none, no prisoner has ever successfully escaped from HMP Belmarsh, but now its most chilling secrets can be revealed – from secret hellhole punishment cells to inmates’ brutal games.
This chilling UK prison has been dubbed the UK’s Guantanamo Bay[/caption]
Through accounts of daily routines, brutal fights, gang warfare, drug smuggling and moments of unexpected redemption, my new book uncovers the truth about life inside Hellmarsh.
A former inmate told fellow author Emma French and I: “HMP Belmarsh is a brutal place, and every movement around the jail is along long internal walkways. Every move you make is monitored.
“It is run by staff who set examples to instill fear into you. They have a saying: ‘Treat them as you expect to be treated.’
“If you keep your head down, you will be left alone, but if you are rude then they will target you.
“The Ministry of Justice will of course never admit their prison is run on intimidation with a hard line, but it is.
“To be fair to them, as much as I personally am not a fan of Belmarsh, given the serious nature of some of the offenders’ offences, I guess it has to be run in a firm and brutal fashion to keep good order and discipline.”
Belmarsh, in south east London, is the only prison in England and Wales with a “prison within a prison”, otherwise known as the High-Security Unit (HSU).
Surrounded by 20-foot-high concrete walls and monitored by 96 cameras, it’s designed to house some of the most dangerous criminals in the country.
While Belmarsh can hold up to 910 men, just 48 can be confined within the HSU at any given time.
The prison also contains a segregation unit and two notorious cells known as The Boxes. These are bleak, windowless isolation rooms with no beds, sinks or toilets.
Over the years, the HSU has held a chilling mix of IRA bombers, KGB spies, al-Qaeda terrorists and even Charles Bronson, whose violent reputation earned him his own private wing.
Yet, despite its Category A prisoners, Belmarsh also functions as a standard prison. Around one in five inmates is a convicted murderer, yet many others serve time for lesser offences.
How do staff balance handling petty criminals alongside serial rapists, terrorists and gang leaders? And what happens when such high-risk individuals are forced to coexist?
As one former Belmarsh inmate put it: “Over the years, you can be sure that with all the high-profile cases heard at the Central Criminal Court or Woolwich Crown Court, the offenders were detained at HMP Belmarsh.
“Some of whom I have personally met: Mark Dixie (The Sally Anne Bowman case), Steve Wright (The Suffolk Strangler), Stuart Hazell (The Tia Sharp murder in Croydon), Barry George (The Jill Dando case), John Worboys (The Black Cab Rapist).
“Also Wayne Couzens (The Sarah Everard case), Steven Barker (The Baby P case), John Duffy (the 1980s railway killer), Kenny Noye, Ian Huntley (The Soham Murders), and Lea Rusha, Roger Coutts, Stuart Royle, Ermir Hysenaj, and Jetmir Bucpapa, who all pulled the largest cash robbery in UK history – the Securitas robbery in Tonbridge, Kent, in February 2006.”
His list didn’t end there, either: “Terrorists, the London bombers, The Hatton Garden Job crew.
“Many high-profile cases over the years have had the pleasure of experiencing the harsh regime at HMP Belmarsh.”
No one has ever escaped from the high security prison[/caption]
‘Many were completely messed up’
Former Conservative Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken served time in Belmarsh after being convicted of perjury and became something of confidante to many lags.
What really struck Jonathan was their vulnerability.
He explained: “Many were completely messed up. One guy, I found out, should have been released already, but nobody had told him.
“All the time, I felt like I was on the funny farm, yet at the same time, people confided in me.
“‘Do you think my wife will ever let me back?’ or ‘How will I ever lift up my head again?’
“I was a middle-class bloke, and there was a lot of agony-aunting. But I did feel I was being of some use.”
A prisoner officer warned the ex MP he was to be moved, saying, ‘Aitken, you’re going to Beirut.’
Another inmate warned: “Oh, don’t go to Beirut. That’s where the real hard men are. If you get on the wrong side of them, they’ll crush your balls, mate.”
Aitken added: “I had no idea what he meant. Eventually, I learned Beirut was just B Wing.
“That night, I heard a ritual called ‘doing a quizzy’. Inmates shouted questions across the wing.
“Sometimes they were crude. ‘Who’d like to s**g Officer S?’
Rahim Mohammadi had a job handing out milk[/caption]
“Sometimes they were coded messages. ‘Remember to tell the court the car was green.’
“But that night, it was about me. ‘What are we gonna do to him?’
‘Let’s eat his balls!’
‘Let’s give him a good kicking!’
“It was nasty. They were high on drugs, but it was still terrifying. The threats felt real, and I took them seriously.
“I have never felt more lonely, frightened or vulnerable. I knelt and tried to say a prayer, but I was too scared.”
Prison jobs for monsters
Some prisoners are allowed to work at Belmarsh. Ex prisoner Mike observed that in his experience, some of the best prison jobs went to the worst people.
He revealed: “The honour killing. The guy who put his daughter in a suitcase. He made tea for the prison officers at Belmarsh. Some multiple murderers, horrible human beings, get privileges like that.”
He’s talking about the case of Mahmod Mahmod, who orchestrated the murder of his own daughter with accomplices including her uncle.
Mike recalled another depraved murderer having a degree of responsibility in Belmarsh, too.
He said: “The Colindale killer has a funny eye. He had a job giving out milk. He killed a woman on an allotment because he wanted to run the allotment.”
Mike is referring to Rahim Mohammadi, who strangled 80-year-old widow Lea Adri-Soejoko with a lawnmower cable in February 2017 at an allotments plot in London.
I have never felt more lonely, frightened or vulnerable. I knelt and tried to say a prayer, but I was too scared.
Jonathan Aitken
One ex-inmate of several prisons described the exercise yard at Belmarsh as “small and secure, nowhere near the boundary fence.
“No spur (wing) mixes with another spur on exercise. The surrounding fence and wall are huge with razor wire running around the top, CCTV watching your every move.
“If you stop and bend down to pick something up off the floor you are challenged there and then.
“This is even after the exercise yard was previously checked and searched by staff prior to the inmates even going out on the yard.
“I guess a testament to their paranoid security measures. There are posters on the walls throughout the prison warning staff. They state, ‘Believe nothing, check everything, keep calm and carry on.’”
Former officer Nik said of the meals served up: “The food was grim. But sometimes we ate it. Some of the curries were actually okay.”
Inside Belmarsh: Banged Up in Britain’s Toughest Prison by Jonathan Levi and Emma French is published on July 3.
