Dyna yma y pethau cysylltu bwysig yw Llywodraeth White's Beckinsfield. Llywodraeth White's Beckinsfield yw'r unrhyw yw'r cyfrifiad o'r cyfrifiad ar y cyfrifiad ar fain cyfrifiad. Rwyf yn cyfrifiad ar gyfer cyfrifiad, yma yw Cod AG James English ar Eisteddfod, yn y cyfrifiad a 15% o'r proddur. Cysylltu bwysig ar y Llywodraeth White's Beckinsfield. Rwyf yn y 5 ar 7, mae'r cyfrifiad yn y cyfrifiad. felly mae'n rhaid i brots i ddoedd, felly mae'n ddyn nhw'n ei wneud i'ch meddwl. Mae'n ddyn nhw'n meddwl, ac mae'n ddyn nhw'n meddwl. Mae'r ddyn nhw'n meddwl ymlaen, rhai iddo i'r drwm. Dwi'n golygu! Rhaid i'n meddwl. Rhaid i'n meddwl. Mae'n meddwl i'r meddwl i'r meddwl. Llywodraeth. Mae'n golygu. Fy angen i mi, ac mae'r melysiau meddwl i'r platformau, Fe wych chi'n amddai'r gwestau sy'n gwybod i'r wneud a'n gweithio i'ch stymlu'rOlglol bydd i'r gweithio'r gwybod amdwyd i'n mwyaf yn ffordd i mi nesaf. Felly Grendan yn fwy'r gweithio yn y gyrfa nhw i ddim o'r gwybod, mae nid i gyd yn ei gyd yn gwybod i ddiolch yn dylunio ydyn nhw'n rhegefydd, ond roedden nhw'n ei ei gwerth ad â'r sechsofendas yn rhai sy'n holl. Mae'r gyrfa nhw'n rhaid, mae'n glas yn hynny'n i mi. gwendyn, sy'n gweld ei wneud, dwi'n fwyllgor i'r ddechrau fel yna. Felly, rwy'n gwybod i'r ddoch i'r ddweud i'r ddechrau, byddwch gyda'r cyffredinol, a fyddwch chi'n ddim yn bwysig. A ddweud ei ddweud i'r ddweud, byddwch chi'n ddweud i'r ddweud. A'r gwrth ynghylch y fyddi i'r dryff yn ymryd, dda'r cyffredinol ar hyn yn gwendyn, mae'r cyffredinol sydd yn ymryd, ..wys cae, ac mae'n dweud y 4-year-old, yn ymweld y 4-year-old. Y gwaith ymwyllgor yn ymddir yw'r cyfnodd yma yn myry Hynllian... ..y'n mynd i'n ffantastig ar gyfer, oherwydd. Mae'n dweud ymddir i'n mynd i. Mae'n rhai fwy o'r ddechrau sydd ymweld yma'n mynd i'r ymweld... ..y'r ddweud ymweld ymweld. Yn ymweld, mae'n dweud yma'r session ymweld a'r llai. Mae... Felly, rwy'n gwybod i'n defnyddio, ond rwy'n gwybod i'n defnyddio'r lleidwyr. Rwy'n gwybod i'n defnyddio. Rwy'n gwybod i'n defnyddio, ond ar gwrs o'r tu'r ffordd... ..y'r llyfrbu ddechrau o'r llyfr. Ond rwy'n gwybod i'n ddau i'n gwybod i'r llyfr ei ffordd... ..y'n ddau i ddechrau i'r ysgrifennu i'r amser. Mae'r cyfnod yma yn ei wneud o'r bwyll drwy'r bwysig... ond myr had a baby in her arms, a young baby, which I thought initially was a bit odd. She's having a photo taken as well, that's a bit risky, really. Nothing happened to that photo, by the way. Apparently it didn't develop. I was at the front page of the sun. I was exposed. Yeah, yeah. As soon as that happened, basically I thought that's it, game over. Boom, we're on. And today's guests have got Joe Chapman. How are you, Joe? Yeah, not bad, James. You've led a very interesting life, Joe. I've done that, yeah, and I've got a feeling it's going to get more interesting. Yeah, you were a prison guard in Grendan, one of the most ruthless prisons in the whole of the UK with the evilest criminals on the planet, from child killers, rapists, mass murderers. You've worked with them all. You also worked with Myra Hindley again. To my sins, yeah. There was a big exposure about that as well because you never became close, but you got a lot more information from her than anyone else. Yeah, I think, you know, just to slightly correct you there, I think we did become close in the sense that I was working with her at one point as a councillor, then became a supporter, became a friend. And then, of course, I was then sidelined. And I suppose the point being that I worked with her the way I've worked with everybody in my life and that's by developing a sense of trust and confidence and even friendship. And not just with her, but with other guys coming through Grendan, which has been a long, hard road, or something you can do about it. You've wrought this book out of the frying pan, which is about Grendan. Very pitiful book, some hard-hunting stuff, but we'll go back to the start first. Joe, get me back more information about yourself, kind of where did you grow up and how it all began. Right, well, I'm from Burton on Trent in the Midlands. I was an engineer when I left school. Never, ever wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to be an artist or a writer. I've always enjoyed writing. My dad didn't want me to go to art school with the fairies. Bless him. He wanted me to do a man's job, so I went into engineering. I was not a good engineer, safe to say, quite bored with it. Always interested in people, James. That's been always been my thing. Even as a kid, if my mum said, don't play with Gerald down the road who was real, I would play with Gerald and want to know why, why, why. Other friends of mine that went in and out of Borsala. I knew nothing about Borsala, but I knew a little bit about trouble from looking in on it. So anyway, getting to the point is I was out drinking one night with a load of friends, and within that group there was a guy called Pete. And I'd met him briefly, and then he'd gone away, and then there he was again. And we were just chatting at the bar, and he said he was on home leave from Stafford Prison. He'd been doing burglaries, and he was on a four-year sentence for burglary, which I was quite intrigued by.  And I said, I'm not interested at all in what I'm doing. I'd love to work with people. What's it like in prison? So he told me, and I told him partway through, I don't know when he pikes at that, that I was thinking of becoming a nurse. And he said, did you know there was hospital officers in the prison? You can join a prison service.  No, didn't know that at all. So we chatted a bit more about it, but the thought stuck in my head that maybe there was a way forward, because I'd always been interested in crime and in people, that maybe the prison service might be the right way. Then I put it out of the way for about, must have been, seven, eight months. Now, what I've not told you there was that this conversation I was having with Pete was in a group of people that were unknown to anybody else. I was having an affair, and the woman I was the girl I was with was part of that group. And about ten years later, ten years, blimey, no, ten months. Sorry, my wife now, not ten years. Ten months later, there I was involved in another affair, and on this occasion it was disclosed, my wife discovered what was happening, and lots of big talks, lots of tears, and I wanted a fresh start, and it was at that point where I said, you know, maybe we need to move away, get a new job, move from the town, have a new life, and that was when I thought, yeah, maybe it's right, the prison service might be right.  Why the prison service? And I was thinking, why not? And my mates on the line who were fitters with me said, you know, where's all this come from? And I didn't know. All I knew was that I wanted something different, I wanted it to be about interesting people, so I joined. And then what happened was, because it's a very long, painful story, sure, I actually went to Stafford prison where Pete had been. So he got the inside story, I already knew I was going into a strong, disciplined job. Pete was the guy that recommended me to go for a prison service. He wasn't there then, he'd been released, and he'd disappeared, as far as I know he'd passed away, but that was years ago. But he told me roughly about, from the prisoner's side, what it was like, and from the screws side of it, that I'd better be prepared to wear a uniform, which was a difficult concept for me at the time, because I also had a long, almost waist length there, I was a bit of a hippie, and I've gone back to that now, but that's another story. And I started at Stafford, which was an old Victorian jail, strict uniform discipline procedure.  But it was, I didn't like that, but I was going to run with it, because I saw it as a means to an end. And then I got to the training school in Wakefield, and I hit the training head on, and I didn't like some of it. I didn't like the fact that I was being almost cloned into a stereotypical prison officer. What was the training like? The training was pretty good, but pretty basic. I mean, the training was all about jailcraft, so you were learning how to, security was important, you were learning how to run prisons, landings, we even run courts at that time, so there was a lot of court work. Self-defence and restraint was a bit of judo, quite farcical really. We played games and stuff like that. The training was all about team building, coming together. But on the back of all that, there was attitudes towards prisoners. They called it man management, and I was reading it and looking at it and thinking, no, I don't like some of this, this is not man management, this is just telling people to go from A to B to C. And I started to kick against it. I didn't want to use surnames. Even now I don't like being called Chapman, although I am. I'm Joe Chapman. If somebody wants to bollock me, they can call me Joe. So I started using first name terms on the course, saying if it was a guy called Gary Ellis, I'd say, Gary, would you, and the tutor would say, why are you calling him Gary? So it started from there. I said because he's a person, because I can still discipline him, I can still talk to him, I can communicate with him. There was all sorts of issues for me about warehousing people and pushing them around.  Joe Chapman might be told to do this, that and the other, but he's, there's something there. And there was a chief officer called, chief officer Pete Barker from, I think he was at Wernwood Scrubs, and he'd been to Grendan. So he came over to the course and he listened and he asked if he could to see me, which he did, and he asked me what I wanted to get out of the job. And I said, I don't know. All I know is that there must be something more to just containing people. And he showed me this book, by a guy called Tony Barker. And it changed my life. So you're looking in? Yeah. And that's Grendan. So this is the first book ever written on Grendan? That's the first book written on Grendan for somebody from the outside. It covered the whole Grendan scene. It talks about, because Tony Barker spent an enormous amount of time in there, interviewing prisoners, interviewing staff. He lived on the patch where the prison officers lived and he got a real sense of feeling for the place. And it was run by, the important thing is Grendan used to be run by prison medical services. So it was listed under special hospitals. It was a psychiatric prison. And I wasn't even sure about when they said, look, you do well here. But when I read this book and I could see that the prisoners were calling staff the first name Bob, the officer Bob, and even the governor that was around at the time. It was brilliant. And I just thought, wow, this is really heavy. But I can get in here and I can have a little bit of my personality I can keep. So I put an application in. I was told that it was every chance I'd get it. Nobody ever applies to go to Grendan if they're in the right mind. Because they've joined to be prison officers, not to be spoken to in their first names and treating prisoners in an airyfery way like that. In fact, at the moment I got the posting at school, because Chief Barker and my instructor said, it's a foregone conclusion. You've done well in your training, you'll be finishing, you will be going to Buckinghamshire. Everybody else was waiting for their brown envelope. Because in those days, prison officers were told where they went. You trained at Wakefield or you trained at Laille and then at the end of the course you got a brown envelope. Like the kids yesterday getting their A-levels, this was staff getting told. All of this training in nine weeks means you're going to the Isle of Wight. Whether you live in Leeds or not. But I knew I was going to Buckinghamshire so I sat with my envelope closed. Everybody, you're not opening your envelope? No, because I know where I'm going. I opened it and it was Grendan. It all started from there. So it gets there in 1977, 25 years old. For people who don't know Grendan, what is Grendan? Grendan prison is now, it's a therapeutic prison. It's one of two. There's another one in Dovegate which I was proud to be able to have won the bid to build to open. So Dovegate's got one in Staffordshire, Derbyshire. And Grendan has always been there in Buckinghamshire. It's a psychiatric prison holding around maximum 240 prisoners. Group therapy. In the early days of Grendan they came through a medical referral. So quite a few of the guys coming in on health issues. Quite a lot of personality disorders which are untreatable. So they'd be there. The thing about it was everybody mixed. So the astounding thing and it's the same now at Grendan is you'll mix armed robbers because we've had the Terry Ellis story. Dove a shout out to Terry Ellis who wrote about Grendan living amongst the beast. Great guys, we're on the podcast. Great story. High profile gangsters, bank robbers because I've had, no raise a smith on Terry Ellis, Ray Bishop proper names. People who were they were amongst child killers, serial killers rapists. How was it for these guys to adjust? How was it for the people to adjust because baby killers, child killers, rapists they're tired on a different brush from robbers. Definitely so how was it for not the average man but someone who'd done a bank to come and tell those stories.     And it's tough, I mean Terry's book when he wrote it, when I read it okay the air's went on back of my neck came up a bit because we were living amongst the beasts and I thought oh here we go somebody else who's going to have a go another bit of nonce bashing if you like which I'm up for but as long as they're looking at their own stuff so what Terry described in there is the difficulties of having to sit on your hands effectively because you can't hit out and listen to people telling their tales which are horrendous tales but they're going to do their work in therapy and they're going to do it well that mix is not so bad because it's part of part of it is tolerating people you may not like them and I wouldn't say to anybody who is listening to this who thinks by the way that I'm a nonce lover who thinks that I'm the sort of person who just works with sex offenders and somehow because I support people in the community who've committed child sex abuse child killings I'm more than that, I always have been but the ignorant only see that but the way it works in therapy and the way it works as you get involved as an officer is you start to be balanced in the way you look at things and this is what happens to guys coming in and they'll say right he's never going to be my friend because I know Terry's changed his life no laser smith changed his life no couldn't read or write got life done over 200 banks yeah he learned how to read and right now he's got his publishing company, great man so is there anyone ever came in though he came in like an armed robber came in sat with people attacked people and then just kicked straight out there's been hundreds over the years I mean in the early years I can't draw names to mind with you at the moment but there was more than enough coming through Grandin Gates every week, every year who said I can't sit with this I can't deal with it I would always try to help them and say look you've got to try and look at it this way look at it that there was one guy who again he's passed away now he lived just up the road in Alisbury this is what I used to be able to do in the early days when he first came onto the groups he was forever smashing up leaping in the air, throwing his chair around smashing the door I'm not fucking sitting listening to this crap and I said to him one day you know I get it, I get why you feel that way the rest of the group who were a mix of burglars killers and child abusers they get why you feel that way but you know why it's so fucking frustrating you're hijacking every group because of what's locked inside when you talk to me one to one that is sensible and he liked that he said what so you think I'm I'm alright now but you just got to stop stop just performing if we can stop the performance and hear what's going on inside anyway I get to the point I asked him would you let me tie you to your chair on the next group what are you talking about I said tie you your legs and arms to the chair because we had chairs with little arms on you've only got the power of your voice you've got to sit with it you've got to hear what's happening will you let me do that now I knew I'd got the ability and the power at that point and the authority to tie into his chair it sounds crazy because we're in an experimental phase people who were therapists now would go you fucking doing what we did it now John the guy I'm talking about didn't know what was going to happen but he said I'm up for this so he's tied to his chair and it started we just had a general group and the money hated spoke but the money hated said I know you hate me and I want to help you he was starting to lose it then he said later on in the group if you really cared about your kids and about your family would you carry on committing crimes that was it John had gone but he couldn't go so we left it the guy wasn't purposely goading him he made a valid point he listened to what's saying tried to get up chair fell on its side it looked terrible but in this I saw in John's eyes there was tears everything stopped I asked John what was happening mate he said I can't do this anymore I can't do it anymore I can't do what he said I can't carry on fighting and the other guy on the group who was a fighter said no mate you can't and I said you know what I didn't have to tie you to a chair for you to get that we'll undo it and I undid the chair I off expected him to lash out but he didn't and he'd gone on his chair and there was tears and the group gave him the praise and he said to the guy opposite I'll never fucking like you I'll never ever understand what you've done but I'll give you a right on this occasion I want to stay out and I want to look after my kids that's how it all was do they change his life after that no not entirely he worked through Grendan well he worked on his violence he worked on his his thinking process it didn't change his life immediately when he went back out he got into trouble again and he got into trouble for burglary and I met him a few years later because he was working in Ellsbury and I met him and we chatted and I said what went wrong he said money it's a classic I came out I'd done everything on myself I'd listened to what was happening with other people why did I ignore the fact that I was sat with burglars who were in therapy and then I went out fucking trying to burglar then he changed his life second time around after he came out of Wandsworth then it changed and about three years later still married kids growing up got a good job yeah fair play so what was your first day like in Grendan right you got a prelin visit so the prelin visit you went in which doesn't happen well it does happen now because officers have taken in for trial periods first day was not in uniform it was in civvy clothes I didn't get my uniform until I started proper I came in through the gate the Grendan gate were you nervous yeah I've been to Stafford and I'd worked in Stafford and I'd sort of communicated with prisoners there but only on a brief basis what kind of prisoners were nervous at LTPs was it long term no no Stafford was a local from the court so you'd have people doing time for well robberies burglars there was homeless people who'd theft sex offenders were kept isolated mainly by to the hospital unit I didn't meet any there in fact I didn't meet any until I got to Grendan so it was a totally nighting day from petty criminals to the sex offenders so later say you were nervous then yeah I didn't know who was who so I went in in civvies walked through the gate and the weirdest thing ever was there was a young officer in uniform came over grabbed me and gave me a kiss I was out in here and the gatekeepers laughing and he shook his hand his name was Dave and oh I'm making this full name but basically he said you know what 18 months it's been and there's not been any new staff company in your area now I was the newest welcome so that went on and the whole thing the whole day as I moved through the gate into the admin block everybody was friendly there were shaking my hand there was people who there was one guy mowing the lawn right and he looked up and he said all right goff I said yeah mate no problem no problem at all he said you'll be down our wing later I didn't know what you meant by that but he said oh you'll be on our wing later young lad he said I'll see you when you get down there I thought how's he know that he's a prisoner mowing the lawn anyway got down the chief took me up in the office chief officer and said you've met Dave at the gate I said yeah he said he's very happy to see you I said I know he showed that we had a laugh about that and he said you'll be going on to G wing oh thank you very much he said so we'll get the staff to pick you and take you down there and you'll be going it's a boys wing by the way boys I don't know he said yeah young boys how young between sort of 18 and 21 and then we've got a adult wing so they had two boys wings and four adult wings you're going with the boys no disrespect you're 25 closer to their age group there's some good stuff down there so that's where I went and the whole day was surreal because I was looking at what I'd seen at Stafford which was do your buttons up son take your feet off the chair calling them sir and gove and here I was in Grendam where I couldn't tell sometimes the prisoners from the staff and when I could tell the staff in the uniform they didn't have their ties on took them off there were people clearly carrying keys who were having conversations with lads who were clearly doing long sentences and when I looked on the roll board and I looked at some of the sentences being served I think the first one I saw that I asked about was HMP which is equivalent of a life sentence for a young lad and he was sat in the office and they said you tell him what HMP is about and this young lad had basically caved somebody's head in with a claw hammer for nothing effectively because he was pissed and as I'm looking at him and he's talking to me in such a matter of fact way about why he was there it was quite powerful because initially I'm thinking why you sat here like this I had the same feelings as everybody else even though I'd put a uniform on or was about to I was coming into a job and I was weighing people look should you be here do you have any right to talk to me like that Grendan cuts right through that so the first day I got out there my head was buzzing I didn't know I covered it quite well in my book there was laughing and joking sometimes inappropriate stuff there was party time but then I hadn't gone on to the group yet the group therapy everybody was greeting me but there was an undercurrent of seriousness so everybody was kind of being friendly I didn't know the extent of the creams yet when did you start finding out all the stuff what people had done I would say I'd been there for about three or four days before because I didn't know how far I could go I'm a new starter and I happen to say to the principal officer on the wing is there any chance of looking at some files and he said I thought you were never going to ask of course there is so I started going in the filing cabinet and reading I told the young boys the intrigues to be why they were there are you thinking to maybe try and help them straight away I tell you what the dilemma I had and this is the dilemma that gets to everybody do I meet the people first and then read about the crime or do I read about the crime and then meet them if I do how am I going to be affected if you read the crime first then you're judging straight away so I had the benefit not done my own work I had the benefit of meeting people for three or four days and trying to guess and liking them and in the best sense of the word good sense of humour a lad that's on the same wavelength of me I played drums, there was a guitarist on there who I found out later was a sex offender but played a pretty good guitar so I was getting in there and looking at people as they were living and then I read it and then it's at that point where you suddenly think shit this is serious what was the first one you read the first one I picked up was was a young guy that had been he'd raped a woman he'd been doing a paper round or at least not a paper round but he was doing some magazine deliveries and he'd seen this woman every morning leaving the house or a husband leaving the house giving her a kiss and she was always in a dressing gown and he fancied her he was attracted to her this is a boy of 18 she must have been in her mid 30s but clearly in his eyes showing quite a bit and was frustrated by the fact that he was growing up and he hadn't got the experience with women but he was also into the control element of sex and felt that that was his type of woman and then it was about all of a sudden now this is what really got me without any influence of drink or drugs or anything else he decided he was going to go in that house after the husband had left and when he went through the door he didn't know what he was going to do he wanted her to see him he'd exposed himself to a few women and on the basis that he felt that if he exposed himself one might take the opportunity there's a lot of skewed thinking into what was going to happen when he rushed through that door and of course the husband had just left the woman turned round when she first saw him what was going to happen there was fear so I was getting locked into the young lad who decided to barge his way into this woman's house and to do what what did he think he was going to do he had no answers for that's crazy had no answers at all other than that he really fancied her and he fancied her for a long time today was going to be the day he would have sex and she was petrified so then there's a bit where he's got a karma he's got a hold of her he's forced her upstairs child's still in the house in the next room and he's taking her clothes off ripping her clothes off there wasn't much clothes on husband's come back so he didn't get a chance to carry out what he was going to do he was asked he was recognised it was obvious who he was so I read that whole mess and thought Jesus what's happening this is a guy that I'd met and looked at and thought seems to have his head screwed on seems to be into therapy and doing so you've immediately got these thoughts that I can't connect the kid with what I've just read I can't make sense of it so Grendam what was your opinion on him after meeting him for the first time thinking he's friendly, reading his file did your opinion kind of change at the start I'd rather he wasn't there I'd rather I didn't have to work with people like that did you think you'd made a mistake going to that prison to work at the start slightly I knew I wanted to be there I didn't know what therapy was about nothing I didn't even know what counselling was how many fails did you read that day I can't remember in excess of a dozen the trouble was each one more extreme than another not necessarily I can see that I can see the burglary I can see the need to have money I can sometimes see our killing happens our murder happens especially if there's drink involved so I'm sort of looking through that very little knife crime by the way interestingly very few stab-ins and the only reason I mention that is because where we're at now but anyway but then I'd open the file as I did on this guy and I opened another one that was sexual abuse of a step-daughter of a niece, sorry of a niece and a step-father who was abusing the person who would abuse the niece and this was all written in there that this guy was involved in a incestuous situation in the family and he'd carried on through the family effectively and this is a young guy that again I was looking at and thinking it's normal innit see it and grinding see a lot of the sex offenders is there a link to them majority of them being abused themselves no not necessarily it's a bit of a myth really a lot of but I made the early mistake years ago in saying yeah that's what happens people get abused and they become abusers and that's not the case and it's for a variety of reasons I'm just putting another book together at the moment struggling a little bit because of my time although I'm retired but I'm trying to make sense of it all myself even now it sounds crazy I've been working with people for all these years and I'm now trying to look back and say yeah that's why that was happening it could be to do there's all sorts of theories but effectively there's the brain for a start there's neurological reasons social reasons especially if you're involved in cultural incest in the family and stuff like that the psychology of it all drink and drugs which is no justification but it lowers inhibitions so all of that's in there as well inadequacy I saw a lot of kids when I was working on G-wing who were sexually offending because they were inadequate themselves it was their easy route to sexual gratification so that side of it became pretty understandable was there a lot of self-harm in the younger wings there wasn't a lot interestingly when Grendan was built it was built with its own morg because the doctors that built it on the medical model thought there's going to be a lot of trauma a lot of people acting out and there's going to be deaths self-harm whatever and there wasn't and the morg was used for storage when I got there the kids I'm saying kids there were young men to 21 I was 25 so you can see the difference wasn't massive and they were you get the odd one who would cut up you get the odd one who would take medication tablets or whatever but the majority of them felt supported and that was the powerful thing about Grendan and there was a hospital unit by the way which is the most important thing an acute psychiatric unit well because Grendan were taking people in board a line they were working with prison medical services taking people in generally who were never going to go into therapy they just needed an acute psychiatric unit and they needed hospital officers on tap there was other people who came through the acute psychiatric unit who became stable enough to go into the therapy so it was used as a vetting process in fact one guy I don't suppose you'll mind me mentioning him hopefully he's a guy called Frank Cook I don't know whether you've heard of Frank but he was from I think he's from the Doncaster area but he was northern gangland enforcer and violent man who came into Grendan able to do a lot of damage people needed to get a handle on him and how he was and how he would work within the therapeutic system was he going to be further danger within that and I met Frank in the hospital unit and he spent his time up there sorry the medical superintendent Ray Gillette spent a lot of time one on one with Frank helping him and he brought a book out which I haven't got him from to me at the moment which was called Hard Cell now Frank was one of the ones who was vetted by going in through the hospital unit down to the wings and then back up again it was a sifting process so if someone was going to be self-arming then they'd have a night in the hospital or nine times out of ten actually they would be put into a dormitory with others so the support was fantastic everybody whether you were in there for sexual offences whatever your offences were you were supported by the staff and the prisoners in that unit and it was brilliant I started to relax after about four or five weeks I started to get excited about going to work I hadn't got my wife down then brought her down to live on the patch to just have your own hosties in there I was living in a hostel with other staff because all the prison officers lived on the estate as you drive into Grendan there's a state on the right hand side all the prison officers lived on that estate the majority were hospital officers as well so there's an element of medical expertise psychiatric expertise psychological was there any protection bats and grendan any protection units any protection wings segregation grendan adds segregation units there was one on the end of A wing and there was two on the end of G wing for the boys wings never used again they were used as storerooms how long did you work on the young offenders well I did it three times I made the decision I was going to try not to last too long on one unit so I worked on the boys wing on G wing for just over a year G wing went to F wing and then relocated so effectively I was on F wing working with boys again and then I went to the adult wing which was B wing for another year or two 20 odd years I was there so I jumped around according to how I was feeling at any given time and I went back and I worked in the assessment unit three times which was one of the best experiences ever the AU the assessment unit is where you meet the guys coming in first day you meet them in reception you bring them in, you settle them in Terry Ellis talks about it in his book which was quite spot on powerful this is where people like I'd done as an officer suddenly realise we're here what's fucking happening why is this officer shaking my hands and saying I'm Joe would you like a cup of coffee for fuck's sake that doesn't happen many places so I loved working on the assessment unit and breaking people in going to a reception and saying this is who I am this is where you are are you ready, you prepared, let's go down we had a reception group on the wing which I was running on a couple of occasions and they would be the four or five prisoners would take that other prisoner and make them welcome and explain everything that was going on so it was but you met everybody in the prison if you think about it and I got to know 40 guys in that prison I got to know what they were in for whether I liked them or not sounds terrible I'm not there to like people did you ever look at someone and go I fucking hate you no did you have to be as professional as possible no, I mean I did I should have been but I wasn't I never hated anybody that I met never really hated anybody what about your first ferry possession that was difficult to remember so far people don't know what is a ferry possession ferry possessions ran three days a week normally on a Monday Wednesday and Friday there was group meetings so they'd meet in the morning or afternoon alternately and it would be an hour with six or seven prisoners of a mix of offences and a couple of staff and there might be in my case there was a social worker on the wing called Eileen who was on my group as well and there was a guy the officer now this was a very good time for me because the officer on the group was Tony Carter who's sadly dead now he was hospital officer and Tony was dynamic he'd been there for a couple of years and he worked he had such respect and so the first group and I'm struggling to remember what it was because it's too many years ago but I do remember sitting there bolt upright and was told to relax was asked if I'd introduced myself to the group by one of the prisoners not my colleague and off I went and I really introduced myself Tony afterwards said well he said a bit too much there Joe he said they didn't need to know where you lived and what I'd done and stuff like that and I'd been bullied at school and I was a bully and I'd fucking really this prisoner wish he'd never asked me but once the introductions were done with me they then went round the group and it was like you know the university challenge when people I'm Brian and I'm from Oxford University whatever it was like a bit like that around Robin and I remember one called Chris who was on my very first group who was the son of a wind commander Air Force wind commander I'm Chris I'm doing I don't know how many years it was now but he was doing over six years for rape moved on hi I'm Barry I'm doing four years for burglary and they all went around like that and I'm doing HMP for murder and I'm like really you have to be careful not to get too stuck on the fact that that person has just hit you with something you're interested in more than the rest but I found it an interesting process and then the first group was boring because they were going around job interviews there was jobs going on the wing wing chairman was coming up which I'd never even heard of because the guy that was in as chairman was about to step down so they were all saying yeah put me hand up I want to be wing chairman why do you want to be wing chairman and there to give reasons pantry job that was the one that hit my eyes there was a guy called John skinhead John on the group and he put him for the pantry job and he was a guy who was clearly well respected by the the odd men on the wing the guys who could handle themselves and John says yeah I'm having the pantry job so I looked at him and they all said John what do you mean you're having the pantry job you're applying for it no I'm having it so that kicked off an interesting conversation why would you want a job in the first place for more chips the fact that my dinner's going to be hot every fucker else is going to be cold blah blah blah and he was flippant he was really pushing buttons and a couple of the guys were saying you've not got the anger this have you you're asking as you're applying I'm not fucking asking you for anything you're a nonce I don't fucking answer to nonces wonderful procedure because then he put himself straight in the spotlight so the other guys and Tony said John you're not doing yourself any favours here are you I don't care so I saw the dynamics of somebody who'd arrived in therapy and was hitting all the buttons and it was an interesting process because the others just sat with it they advised him he was getting angry everybody else was calm I was getting angry everybody decided I liked the guy that was a sex offender as a person I liked him until he started and then he reminded me of my days when I was being bullied so me and John had these dynamics I couldn't share it so it all got very interesting for me because after the group forgive me if I'm talking too much because I talked for England after the group we have a staff feedback meeting where you're allowed to go in and say how you felt about how the group went today and I was fuming completely fuming I thought why is that guy sat here why is he even sat here if he just wants to rubbish everybody and Tony said to me Joe how did you find that and I said tough I found it tough why because he's taken the piss basically he don't want to be here why is he here and Tony said why do you think he's here so as far as I'm concerned to get more chips that's about the limit of it in it and apart from that putting pressure on other people picking on people he knows can't defend themselves Tony said how's that where's that coming from and the psychologist the very important man in my life Bernard Marcus OBE sat there twiddling his tyres he did and listening and he said were you bullied at school Joe I said what do you mean he's bearing in mind we're prison officers together there's no prisoners around now and there's a psychologist and Tony said it's a fair question were you bullied at school I said I'm not here for fucking therapy am I and Bernie said what makes you think that I said because I'm here as an officer I'm a discipline officer for a start I'm not a scab lifter now scab lifters were hospital officers I was a slow ped I wore my app with my slash peak over my face like that I'm a discipline officer I'm not here for your fucking therapy Tony said just get your back up yeah made me angry and Bernard the psychologist said you're getting very angry Joe right and I'm going what is this you know I'm here to I'm here to sort of do therapy they said yeah we do prisoners honestly I struggled because all of a sudden my so called friends on that staff group were saying do you remind yourself of somebody and Tony said John try and make you identify with certain things was there any times when you were sitting at therapy and you actually broke down yourself yeah many times again there was two things that happened to me whilst I was in therapy one is that I struggled to hold on to my own emotions in terms of my anger my frustration and I'm a giveaway on that by the way because when I'm really angry my wife will watch me go for my sort of pale glow I've got a bit of sunburn now by the way I'm not angry but I go from a pale sort of colour up to like incandescent purple and my veins stick out up here so there was a lot of that happening on groups where my anger was triggered then I'd be listening to people and one the first guy that ever triggered it was the guy that had come to the group he'd been on home leave and he'd been to visit his grandma during the course of the home leave and he was at the end of a long sentence and he'd shot his granddad and he'd killed him and it was manslaughter not murder diminished responsibility partly but who he'd meant to shoot was his stepdad and the granddad he saw a figure through the glass door and he let him have it and it wasn't his stepdad answering the door it was his granddad and he killed the only person who actually cared about him whoever gave him anything and then he went and he met his grandma on home leave and he came about and she's dying and she's going to be dead and the tears came and I felt with him I sat where you are now actually as close as that and all of a sudden I started to feel this immense feeling of sadness this guy was like doing a I'd done a long sentence he was going out to God knows what and the two people that really cared about him had gone and one reason I could have been angry that he'd shot his granddad I was more angry at the point where he'd missed his dad at one point his stepdad because I'd heard about it but that's by the by by now what it is I was concentrating on this guy going out and I felt it felt so powerfully got nothing he's gone out to nothing and there was tears and for an officer in uniform I took my tie off which was another thing I did regularly to say to people I might be in uniform but I clicked my tie down here because that's me being different I'm not wearing it here and I put studs in my ears but I wore studs because that made them see that he might be a screw he might be a prison officer but it's something different about him little didn't know how different so my emotions went now I was supported by other prisons on that group who were saying Joe you're alright with that I'm going yeah no I'm upset for you I really am upset that you're going out like that in my mind I'm thinking put yourself together mate that happened when it came to people going through difficult times with deaths it happened when they'd lost children that they were not around for it came when they'd had babies that they couldn't be there for I wasn't spilling out all over the place I didn't cry my eyes out every day but I walked into motions and I fought it I fought it for a while Did you ever feel sick at any point with some stories? Yeah The first one that really sickened me was there was a guy when I started at Grendan that was doing a life sentence he was cat A and he killed a 4 year old raped a murdered a 4 year old girl and whether it was true or not but I was told at the time because he was on my wing that having done the rape and left the body lying there he put a twig inside her and kicked it so far it disappeared and I thought why would anybody do that to a child now this guy was then walking around after he'd come off cat A with everybody else and getting on with his life in Grendan and I was sickened by what I'd heard something in me wanted me to chase the file to read it I didn't do that it's not on my wing it's not my responsibility so I'm not going to chase it Did I want to hate him at the time I think I did in my mind but if I'd have hated him I'd have had to have looked at him and him and him and where would I have been I'd have been no better than anybody else and what I fancied myself as being at that time was equal now that might sound strange but I was an officer in uniform but I was told by other officers in Grendan that your personality is the most important thing here gaining respect will be out of giving respect I wanted to be part of the group I wanted to be looked at as someone who would help if I could I wasn't a qualified therapist I wasn't a qualified counselor at that point but I was someone hopefully at the age of 25 who they could sort of look up to as a role model and that's the sort of path I went down to the point whereby when I left the boys wings after about I think four years we'd done a lot of group games on the boys wings and one of the group games and one of the testing points for people on the group was to stand in the middle of the circle of the group put a blindfold on and drop backwards turn around and drop backwards without even knowing whether anybody was going to catch you and I did that about a dozen times as an officer took my keys well away so they couldn't grab my keys but I decided I'll have some of this just to see where I stood within that group and I did it and I got caught every time bastards let me down a bit slower one time or lower but I did those games I did all sorts of activities gymnasium I became involved in sport I tried to be a PEI but I couldn't pass the test but I taught weightlifting powerlifting and Olympic lifting and I was I looked after the boxing squad which was another so I found that by working in other areas I'd become sort of well in a uniform but on an equal basis you try to get not both a relationship but a trust how was that then coming home and listening to those stories do you become immune to it from the child killers how do you do that? I'm immune now you become cold-hearted not cold-hearted you can't do the job because even listening to those stories it gives me a sore head and that's me just listening for you being there but you cannot do the job I would be better to leave the job if I couldn't sort of put those emotions to one side and it's terrible you have to really really learn to do it but if you're meeting the people after the event and you're not involved in the event and this is what I often say to people I would never ever ever criticise anybody for hating sex offenders for hating child killers who've taken their family member away even an armed robber that shot a security guard and killed him has robbed that family of a father I wouldn't expect them to want to know that I was shaking his hand and having tea with him a lot of gangsters get glorified everybody loves a gangster film true of crime so for a gangster who's killed people how do you what bracket do you put them in from a sex offender a gangster who's shot and killed someone to someone who's ripped their head I don't put them in the same bracket however I don't allow either the sex offender to project his self as a victim because the armed robber or the gangster has given him a hard time and I don't allow the gangster to put himself on a pedestal and say he's any better in therapy because of what that guy's done what I do say is accept what's being said and what you've heard but deal with your own shit how are you treated from people from the outside knowing that you are working with sex offenders and child killers I've been aided I've been verbally attacked and I've had people criticised me for all sorts but they've not understood when it comes to family and friends and people that have known me for years I think my sister might say that she'd always suspected I might end up in prison working with people because I think I've always been that way and somebody in engineering when I was leaving most people would be mused by it but one bloke said to me and I can't remember his name sadly he said you're anybody's dog and he meant I said what do you mean by that he said you get on with everybody get on with the fact that I do the work I do or did people that know me well get on with the fact that I can be supporting a sex offender in the community as well as supporting someone who's murdered who's a gangster who's an armed robber who's a burglar, a drug dealer whatever I can equally do that the ignorant people in this world are the ones centering on Myra Hindley and think we've had some fantastic love affair and I'm out there to fly the flag for child abusers which I'm not so we'll touch on that that you mentioned that Myra Hindley who's one of the biggest one of the biggest child killings and was it five kids? it was five children over a course of her and is it Brady? so how did that relationship come about then between you and Myra? well because I've been awarded for my work with prisoners violent prisoners and their families I've had this award called the Butler Trust Award where they give you a badge and you go up to Edinburgh and Holyroob Palace and shake hands with the great and good and off you go and part of that award was to they said what would you like to research you can do a piece of research what would you like to do and I said I'd like to research women in prison and as to why they don't get therapy and counselling so okay fine so the prison department paid me 12 female prisons and chat to them present the research and look at whether there could be a grandum for women which there's never totally been there was something started at Winchester years back women don't get the same and I added to what Cookham would so on the way down there I knew that Myra Hindley was there didn't think I'd get to meet her because I already knew that she was kept separately she was in the hospital unit I was going to ask the question but didn't think I would and I went round the rest of the community met all the women had a chat, had some lunch and then the governor said there's somebody who would like to see you up in the hospital, it's Myra and I said okay fine I'll come up there to sit and have a chat with her and we sat in the kitchen told her everything, I told everybody else about where I was from, about Grendan it was a weird feeling because I I'm one of these that knew about the moors murders but I didn't know the absolute details but I knew it was bad enough what was the details? meeting, where do you want me to start it was the fact that they just basically she and Brady had taken innocent children virtually for pleasure killed them and buried them on the moors and she's a woman bearing in mind and I had long since been working with men and not with women offenders I don't know what sort of woman I was going to meet but what I'd got was what everybody else was that she's done her time and she's probably going to stay there forever but I was happy to meet her because I'd met other women that had been involved in child killings as well the other woman that was there is Carol Hanson who was involved with her husband with child killings and Carol was there meeting Myra was no different I went and sat with her in the kitchen but the powerful thing about that and it's appeared in the book I did which is called for the love of Myra I don't have a copy at the moment but the kitchen was no bigger than about three foot by about six so your sat where you are now I would have been sat closer so that our knees were touching that was quite powerful but that was the only place we could meet so and I did say at the time I said you know we'll sat a bit close you'll be on my knee before we know she said chance would be a fine thing so she said a sense of humour was there we had a laugh and joke we talked about Grendan we talked about her journey and she said well to me it's just about to be decided my journey I said what do you mean and I'm just about to find out whether I'm going to be in prison for the rest of my life or whether somebody is going to give me a chance for a bit of release what do you want I said what do you think I'd like to be released whether I deserve it in the eyes of the public is different she never asked me whether I thought she deserved it at that point I don't think I've had an answer at that point because not for me to judge and that was it so she said interesting interesting I'd like to hear more I said well I might be coming back I don't know the governor's got ideas for me to come and do a bit of work here and that was it then I went back and I was in Grendan he was about two or three weeks later and the governor called me to his office and he said there's someone on the phone who would like to speak to you the governor at Grendan they know each other well Chris Ellis who said it's not me that wants to speak there's someone else and they put Myra on and Myra said I was really interested in meeting I was really interested in what you had to say and the way that you were presenting yourself and I need help I need some counselling support would you be in agreement to come down and do that if it could be arranged and I sort of said yeah I'm happy enough to do that but I don't quite know how it's going to work and I said well I think the governor's are going to talk about it with you anyway but I just wanted you to say that I was impressed by what I heard and I think you would be able to get me through this next difficult period and I said well in that case fine I'll do what I can and that was it conversation over then I was left with a dilemma I couldn't carry on I was working at Grendan as a uniformed officer I couldn't be given time during my work time to travel 110, 150 miles down to Kent and 150, 110 miles back I had to do it on my time off, my weekends and the governor had agreed that if I was going to do that it would have to be in my time off he would sanction it and get the home office to sanction me going down there he said I would welcome it Joe everything was above board everything was above board so what was your job then to get information to understand who she was, what she'd done basically I didn't know what my job was going to be I mean she said to council me but actually it was more to do with providing emotional support psychological support clearly there have been conversations until this day I don't know what conversations about me between the governor in Cocomwood and Tim who doesn't live far away from here by the way who was the governor in Grendan and I was never a party to anything that was said in between Tim did say he would have to seek permission from the home office so would I which was given Chris had already agreed the governor in Cocomwood she would accept me so yeah it was all set up but it was it was if you think about the things I've just said to you and it was more to it than that I was just a uniform prison officer I got no rank I was qualified as a counciller at diploma level and I got an online psychology degree which wasn't worth shite but I was doing the work I thought fairly well with prisoners so maybe that was my qualification but I was a prison officer in uniform going down in civis into a female establishment in Kent and working with female prisoners So what was it like when she started working with her? It was fine because I took her the same way as I'd taken everywhere out everybody else we did agree we agreed right from the off I said right here's the deal here's the compact if you like to call it that if you're going to talk to me first of all I'm going to want honesty it goes without saying if you're going to talk to me it's no good if you're going to not be honest with me if you're going to talk to me it can't be confidential right? what do you mean it can't be confidential? in terms of if you're talking to me you're supported by another four or five people I'll be part of that and I will share it with significant others in your life that's the way I've worked with every prison I've come across that if they've got a mum or a dad or a brother or a sister we're interested in them and they're going to tell me one thing and them another and set up for failure that's not going to happen that you have was it was? she had a partner at the time because she was in a lesbian relationship a partner was visiting regularly at that time and she had visits from David Aster who was the main supporter financially and of course occasionally from Lord Longford and from Peter Timms the next prison governor was she ever still speaking to Ian Brady? no she stopped speaking to Ian Brady way back and the last contact with him was I can't remember now but Brady wasn't on the scene at all there was no communication with him whatsoever most of what she learned she learned through the media you know what was happening with him so point being what she told me was never going to be absolutely confidential and I said if you carry on and you work through your bits and you're honest about it and you find wherever you want to be then that's fine I can support all of that and I did but we only add somewhere in a region of 10 or 12 what could loosely be called counselling sessions and I mean loosely because they were interrupted we were in the governor's office so there was phones going there was noise outside twice we had a chat in the hospital unit but it was all done wherever we could meet and then what happened was the papers kicked off they all went ballistic they were on the front page of the sun I was exposed soon as that happened basically I thought that's it game over somebody I was working with Myra in the prison with the governor's with other key staff with Myra's personal officer producing reports for the parole board and somebody to this day we don't know who it was took my report and sold it to the sun newspaper and the front of the sun it says Myra freedom scandal she's going for release so you were getting the blame for trying to help her to get her release clever headline yeah that paper sold out because when I went because the governor called me Saturday morning it was quite early and said Joe are you sitting down and I said why should I be and she said the shit's hit the fan was her words and I said what do you mean and she said you need to get a copy of the sun newspaper it's all gone pear shaped somebody's giving you a report they've got it out there you need to see the headline and I said oh okay just go off and have a read of the report and then give me a call later Myra sends a regards her love and hopes that Wendy and Sophie are going to be okay through it which was a nice touch but I went down to get the paper I couldn't get one I went to the garage went into town I'm sure to get one I don't even know where I got that copy from so I went through a couple of hours of what's been fucking written and I read it and thought what you know she's going nowhere but that's what they produced who do you think sold the story who do I think I don't know could it have been her no she'd never have done that could it have been a partner no the people that were close to her in a circle cos she had a very tight in a circle none of them would have done that but you don't know because back in the day you were talking about 16 17 years ago this was what's the date you're talking like 50 grand 100 grand for a front page story I don't think anybody that knew David Astor would be sure to 50 grand if they really wanted 50 grand okay I did get it but anyway I was paid my salary was paid but most of the people that supported Myra were not in there for money the close circle however I don't know whether orderly officer you know anybody in there that had keys to the gate officer did she ever talk about like the mud dozen stuff did she ever open up about everything that she had done and what was that like first hearing that it was tough it was tough because basically she not opened up at all much during her sentence as much as I was pushing her to open up so it was tough for her because I wasn't going to leave any stone unturned she wanted me to challenge so I was going to challenge certain things but it was tough for me to hear as well because just by coincidence and again it's mentioned in the book I sort of hit the killing of Leslie and Downey coming up to the Christmas period when everybody's getting ready for Christmas festivities and everybody's getting excited about Christmas for their children I'm sat talking to Mya in the governor's office about Leslie's killing and about Leslie's murder and it was bloody difficult to sit there and to sit through that we did something in the beginning where initially the first two sessions we talked with the light out she said I want to speak but I want to speak with the light out so why would you want to do that she said because at this moment in time the fluorescent light hurts my eyes but also I want to be able to talk without you reading what's happening on my face and I said why would you want to do that anyway I said ok so we'll do it it was getting dusk so we spoke in the darkness but not complete darkness you know and I said to her afterwards it was a couple of months after I said what was all that about why would we really have to go through that fast just for a couple of interviews and she said it's something I wanted to do I didn't want to see your reaction I said what sort of reaction were you expecting you were going to see shock horror disgust whatever did you have an attraction for you I said no attraction in terms of she liked me she called me a rock in one letter she was always pleased to see me she said in those first two sessions we hadn't got into anything heavy but I was going to mention the fact that I was parted to killing these children and what I'd done certainly with Keith Bennett in a part in that and the most important one to her was the first one because she told everybody that Brady had basically instigated the lot and that he was the one who'd chosen her for the killing when he wasn't it was her but what she'd done it for was mainly because she wanted to just speak and then my reaction was judged by the way I'd reacted subsequently and I said what do you see in my eyes now what do you really expect what have you seen since you've told me this you've gone through Leslie and Downie's killing Leslie and Downie's killing which by the way when I finished I then got to get in my car and drive all the way back home and that was sometimes very difficult at Grendan I had therapy meetings followed by staff feedback and an element of supervision with Myra I had what she'd given me driving thinking about it and then I'd wait until I got back to work maybe three or four days later before I could speak to Dr Jack Wright who was a psychiatrist at Grendan and offload so I carried it and I do remember that night of when we went through Leslie Ann's murder driving back and it was cold, it was winter and driving back up the motorway I was looking into the distance my mind was on the moors it was awful I was thinking of kids getting ready and families getting ready and not having your child on a Christmas day How long did their killing spree last over? It went over a period of four years so it was finished in 66 so it started in 62 63 I think and that was five killings from the ages of 17 six years old and eight years old and there was gaps before them could there have been more? Could there have been more? I think there could I mean because it ended the way it did I mean it ended because Brady effectively lost the plot he stopped being careful and the Edward Evans killing was a mess, an absolute mess What happened? Well he got Edward Evans to come back to the house he'd met him out in Manchester there was rumours that around that Edward was gay and that Brady had been frequenting the gay places and that he himself was gay but effectively he'd brought Edward Evans back to the house ostensibly for a game of cards and then bludgeoned in with an axe but before he did it he'd actually got Myra's brother-in-law David Smith to come over and witness what he was doing Myra's part in all of this because she said she wasn't around at the time she was in the kitchen and stuff like that How true is that though? How true? Was it true or was she also a liar? She stuck to me with the fact that she was nothing at all to do with that she knew what was going on she could have heard it and what she did she admitted to hearing what was going on but as far as they were concerned and then entering at a point when it was too late but David Smith was traumatised by it I mean you can imagine can't you so what I'm saying is where it went wrong was Brady did what he did thinking somehow along the line Smith was going to go along with it who actually went back and told Myra's sister who then phoned the police and so next day he was arrested so this cleverly controlled murders that they had in the past with the burying of the bodies making sure they've checked her all still wearing the same stuff and there was no evidence left around cleaning the van all of that had gone it was getting Edward's body out of that house you know as best they could wrapping him up and putting him out of the way Did you ever ask her was there more? No I did I said join the course of it I said were you involved in any more and no said I wasn't involved in any more Could Brady have been involved in any more Did you ever speak to him? No I tried I wrote to him on two or three occasions first occasion was just a hi I'm Joe Chatman you probably know I'm counselling Myra it would be great to have a chat with you I left it nothing don't even know whether it got to him second one I had a little bit more information so I'd written to him saying listen Myra has told me what's been her part in it it's unraveling I'd like to get your side on it I'm starting to see some of the things that you've alluded to I'd like to chat to you about that and here by the way is a letter in Myra's handwriting that she'd given me to give me authority to sort of speak to you but she doesn't want to speak to you Did she ever break down crying or anything or was it just all The Leslie Undowney one she did because that was that was more to do with the fact that I think she'd started over the years she'd started to home into the person she used to be and she used to be without doubt when you listen to people that knew her as a child she was good with children she was trusted I mean she used all of that eventually to do what she did but she was good with kids and as time went by and she was introduced to staff and she was when I first went to cook them and this is important to mention this is there was a life as evening going on and Myra had a baby in her arms a young baby which I thought initially was a bit odd but it didn't strike me as odd the fact that she was old in the baby so much as the fact that the baby was there because the prison rules were no kids under the age of 18 having said all of that with me I had been given permission all the way through my career to bring my kids into prison at various ages so I was in this bit of like she's having a photo taken as well that's a bit risky really nothing happened to that photo by the way apparently it didn't develop and I believe it because it's never materialised why is that allowed though from the biggest child killers in UK why is child's allowed in they shouldn't have been basically but they were and the point where it went wrong for me as well was that my this is going back to Grendan again I know we're on the Myra thing but it's sort of interlinked is that traditionally right from the start in the 60s through to well even now they have socials but Grendan used to have wing socials and used to have charity concerts at Christmas where staff and their children could come to the charity Carol concerts they could come watch the pantomimes and staff and their children which included my children could come to the Christmas parties which I ran for I think I ran 8 years Christmas parties at Grendan so for me children coming into a prison to be with amongst child sex offenders and killers and stuff like that has been something that was always second nature and to you it's sounding like yeah I don't think that's right that's like giving a killer a gun or a rapist putting them in a fucking a room full of girls I tell you what was I'm now able to say was that I don't think the process I followed through that period was any different to anybody else's but I think because of what happened with me and my daughter they were right to stop it not because my daughter was at any risk but because that loophole that little bit of what was happening natural for prisons had to stop so in a way did I ever feel I'd done wrong by my kids and by my daughter now it says no and Sophie was here now she would say the same that's not the point people might side didn't like what had happened people might side didn't understand it my daughter was 8 when she was taken into Cocomwood because she wanted to know where dad was working on a Sunday and I said to the governor you've got this life as day happening our children allowed in and she said well yeah I suppose so but a lot of the staff are not bringing their kids they used to bring their dogs and the horses and stuff in and I said can Sophie pop down and join in with what's going on yeah she said of course she can so that wasn't a problem so Sophie travelled with me on her own to Cocom and she went into the life a unit that's down there and she was taken under a wing by the women in the life a unit all of whom I knew I'd known them all for nearly a year and she enjoyed cooking she went to the she went to the air dressing salon first and just had her nails done and then they took her and she did a bit of cooking she went and helped out in visits serving but in the afternoon she came up into the admin block where because I've been to see Myra and Chris said Myra's got this cardboard globe that she wants to make with Sophie is that okay they can sit and make it while we have a chat said yeah of course she can so she sat with my daughter in the governor's office the side deputy governor's office making this cardboard globe and then there was a knock on the door and I think it was a principal office or somebody there said Myra's off on her way out and she's wondering if Sophie can go down to the gym she's going down to use the gym, the trampoline and that will have a look through around the grounds on the way through in actual fact Myra wasn't going with the principal office she was going with Nina Wild who was her I didn't know that at that time but who later became her lover right so Nina who was a criminology student working in Cookham who had keys went with Myra and my daughter to play on the trampoline to go walks in the grounds to look in the pond at the frogs and tadpoles and then came back up right because you've stole people looking at it saying they were going fuck me man you can understand that so what is the benefits for that? there's no benefits other than I didn't say okay look if anything I was condemned by David Aster for doing that for producing the worst negative publicity ever did that come out in the press that? yea years later though this is the clever bit this is what sometimes the media do and I hope you never get into that ball game is they wait for a period of time and then they make it current when Sophie went in to meet Myra if she was eight when it hit the press she was thirteen okay she's still a child but it was five years before they then brought it out as if I'd done it currently you know so everybody's going what's he doing it doesn't matter there's eight and thirteen what's the difference really there is a bit of difference but not to make a great deal but what they did was they immediately went on the attack attack attack I was heralded as the worst father in Britain and basically the mirror went for it and who could be stupid enough to do this and it was me but I still I accepted what I'd done and I said why I'd done it and the people that knew me and we're not just talking professionals we're talking prisoners that had known me for years who weren't sex offenders, who were gangsters who were people who might have also been shocked by it they're not shocked by it because my kids came in to Grendan my son my older boy when he was I believe fifteen or sixteen and he was going down the wrong track came in and sat with a couple of lifers in Grendan see I don't see that as much of a problem because somebody who's maybe done a big robbery done a murder but maybe changed their life because I know guys who do go round schools and prisons and talk about the younger things that have done, don't go the same route but for a child killer to sit with a kid that's a totally different ball game at the age of three years I was doing a drum marathon because I'm a drummer, played drums at weekends as well and I was doing a drum marathon twenty four hour non-stop and he came in to watch that my son did left out for twenty four hours to feed me and give me water and help me to the toilet sorry help me to the toilet was a guy in for child killing okay it's the way it was he was the best choice for it and he did a fantastic job and we had our pictures taken in the paper with our little check for four hundred and fifty quid and everybody liked that and a few years later when he hit the press because of his past crimes you know what I mean right at the beginning I said to you I treated everybody the same and I went through this powerful experience and by the way the only prison officer in the UK that's been given authority to do any of this I have the authority I think because of the way I worked and people trusted me I think governors trusted me you can't do twenty years in a job and say yes to everybody I can say no I can't be compromised I refuse to be compromised by anybody so they knew there was a strength there and I'd learned to use that strength and I'd learned to connect with people and Dr Ray Gillette who was a medical superintendent at Grendan huge guy he was rumour as he was a weightlifter himself I used to spend a lot of time with who would be the first one to write yes by all means in furtherance of therapy his name was Ray Gillette Ray can I attend this prisoner's funeral family funeral next weekend as a family friend yes you can not as a prison officer as a friend but in furtherance of therapy I'm still a prison officer I still carry keys the guy himself can't go because he's locked away doing another in this guy's case five years he can't go to the funeral but I could go what was your last session with Maira did that end after the papers no it went on again I can't remember what the absolute last session was but it went on a fair while after all of that because it was a big people wouldn't know they got to buy the book I can't remember what the time scales were but it went on for months and then all of a sudden there was a move because of the way the papers had gone ballistic Maira got into a relationship this is why we started to disagree and fall out because she had somebody that she introduced to me as a lifelong partner and I was happy with that because she'd finally got this woman back in her life this is a woman who used to be a prison officer who helped her to try and escape who did a prison sentence herself her life was rubbish who was getting on with her life happily back in home I don't think she's a serial manipulator though manipulating a prison guard including herself she's not manipulating me do you know what I'm talking about though if she manipulated a prison guard and then one of the young girls who's a psychologist and then you she may have seen you as a target Maira but she felt dismal I know what you mean but what I was about to say because you're a friendly guy who kept everybody equally 99% of other guards other screws wouldn't have gave her the time of day you gave her interest so she's probably thinking he's a target maybe having an affair with him maybe get keys and possibly escape do you know what I'm saying I know what you're saying James but we weren't that attracted if she's had an affair with a prison guard already and a young psychologist then she's obviously that could go for a load of people that met her in the meantime but the point I'm making with this is that I'm the sort of guy that will meet her and say you know what the woman's lovely lovely person and she was introduced as a long long term partner and then a year later or less I'm finding out she's having an affair with Nina with the criminologist right so they get sacked for that they really get sacked for that they're visiting students it's a visiting students they're not working for the prison service but given keys dubiously the prison officers weren't happy with the fact that a woman visitor had been given keys but that happened it does happen sometimes visiting psychologists used to be given keys to help them move around as a private counselor I'm not working as a prison officer at Cochum I'm in civis roughly dressed as I am now but looking younger and more handsome was given keys to go and pick up my clients or pick up women prisoners from their selves and take them to the probation department to council and then go back I walked everywhere I had keys and they'd given her that same privilege what was in sense me more than anything was that Myra was denying it so we got into this stupid situation where I said to her I'd seen a card she gave me a card to put in an envelope and give to the chaplain and in the card it was to Nina it just said I love you well doesn't that say something I love people I love you on a card you won't get one from me but when you read that it looked quite powerful everything else was sort of standard and then the phone call she was having to a partner to Trish was getting less and less the phone call she was having to Nina couldn't get enough of each other's conversation so I said there's something going on here it must be what are you trying to say she's a good friend does she get angry why would I suggest such a thing insensitive disgusting to suggest I'd be involved in that if she's lying about that then did you not question everything else that she said yeah but I checked it out because the lying if she's lied to me about being involved in the crimes and she wasn't really involved does that sound clever really if she'd have lied to me about things she hadn't done that would have been different and in this case it was I haven't been having an affair with Nina there is nothing happening there's nothing going on she's just a good friend truth of it is there weren't just good friends and the only way first of all I could find that out of myself was being a bit devious pretend I left the prison don't leave the prison come back cell door slightly open with Nina in a clencher and now we're kissing so how's she allowed in there like that then she was allowed in she was allowed anywhere she wanted to be so she was just a visitor and she was in the cell cuddling she was doing work on the personal officer scheme she shouldn't have any of those fucking rights do you know what I mean because obviously what she's done as well in the past oh sorry yeah I thought you meant Nina she shouldn't be down the first place I'll argue that Nina could be there and should have been there but not given the amount of freedom she finally got because people do turn up and they do in criminology students and stuff like that whether Myra should have had what she had freedom wise is up for grabs I wasn't questioning the amount of freedom Myra had had because of the amount of freedom that people were having in Grendan in fact a guy's fast to say now doesn't matter what a person's crimes that they've committed for me it doesn't matter because I'm working with them for the future it matters to the victims and their families what they see being portrayed so in that respect that isn't my issue it sounds cold but I don't walk into a prison and start arguing a toss about people's rights and freedoms what I do is look to the governor's to make the right decision I'm not saying it's the governor's fault what I'm saying is that prisons should be more open there should be more freedom of movement I mean Terry Ellis didn't witness Grendan as he could have done he would have been gobsmacked in the early days it was open door policy very few gates were locked very few doors were locked so you as a prisoner could walk where you wanted the member of staff you know you're going over to the gym fine on your way open the door off they go it only closed when one bloke jumped over the wall so the freedom afforded in prisons is only ruined by those who abuse it I was part of for my sins I was part of getting that children in prison stuff really screwed down tight because of what I did I wasn't the full reason I thought he was taking kids into Ashworth as well apparently where Brady was but I'll hold my hand up and say that's what I've done for the whole of my career and my kids are fine they've not suffered through it they've got a grounding in terms of criminals they're not involved now but as I went through my time as I went through it all they were living some of it with me because I was seeing people in the community as well helping them and supporting them so what I'm saying James is that my grendan experience was extended into the prisons really and so going through all that then through your 20 years what kind of stuff then were you dealing with mentally yourself loads of stuff really but I was coping because I had qualified people to turn to most importantly of all I've had the support of my wife and family and that is important I'm not just saying it because she's just walked in by the way she knows how I feel and that has been over the last 30 years that's been a godsend my kids are now grown up they let me get on with it Sophie wouldn't want to go anywhere near a prison now because she's a grown woman she's been a child minder she's got her own views about child abuse and they're quite strong they've taken on my views there same with my son none of my kids have actually said they want to be in the prison service or they want to be working with criminals far from it so my mental stuff and this is important to say this probably if you don't mind is when I hit the decks mentally and I became mentally ill and had a complete breakdown wasn't because of working with prisoners and not knowing what was happening behind my back with some pretty unscrupulous managers and what was happening with Grendan well I shouldn't have gone back to Grendan I left because I was out of it and it changed I was the same person but Grendan had started to change it had started to become more screwed down security wise it was more institutionalised it was a B category prison less privileges I wasn't able to walk in there and do what I'd done before take people out for parties and go and mountain climbing and bloody kayaking that's all gone even my band work which was the big thing that kept me going getting prisoners together in a music group was screwed down because I was made responsible for every fucking guitar string in the prison so you're allowed to take people out?  I was there but they could run away at any time did anyone ever try? no, oh hang on I lied yeah they did one did it, one did it yeah bastard it happened twice with me but the one that did it the first time and if he's watching I'm not going to name him but Danny you caused me a lot of problems but I understand why you did it we went on a our bounds camping expedition, me and a PEI we walked and now Danny went for I believe eight miles on his own with a map and compass we got down to a wooded area not far out of Ellsbury we pitched our tents we were only going to be out for another night then back to the prison and I cooked out to cook the supper no sign of Danny so I went to walk into this little car park area and there's a bloke stood there with his hands on his hips looking a bit pissed off and I said are you alright mate? he said yeah some bastard snicked my car and I said I know who did that I said I think I know who's done it went back to my colleague who's superior to me senior and said we've got a problem Danny's gone and not as he has he's gone but he's gone in a car he's run so we had to pack up camp quickly eat the sausages and everything which we did pack up camp go back to the prison and stand the ridicule that we had to stand for four days because the idiot went away in a car but the good thing was this he was lying in just after Christmas that year just in the new year I was working with a guy another prisoner at Grendan whose dad was a copper and I knew his mother well and I used to give calls for him to call home and he said can I give my mum a call home again see if everything's okay at home which I did quite often she'd had a visit wanted to check she was alright so he rings her and she said can you put Joe on the phone so he did just had this we've had this strange call from somebody called Danny who said that if he turns up here we could put him up for the night and I said really? she said do you know who that might be I said I know exactly who it might be I said so could you get your husband to give him a lift when he turns up and what he did was turned up immediately arrested and back him went with scrubs so when I met Danny I said what was it all about mate why did you do it because I finished the camp for the other prisoners B you put me under hot water and C you're stuck here now and he said I just did it he said the car was there the door was out and the keys were in and my mind just went it's coming up to Christmas how long was it doing I can't remember but it would have been around a sort of 10 year mark but he was nearly there he was going out at some point I know you keep everybody on a level playing field Joe but say someone had done something to one of your kids how then would you treat them how would I treat them I couldn't treat them like I've talked to you about I'd let someone else deal with that you know that's that question many times I couldn't if you're emotionally involved with something you can't do the work that I've done you can't carry on doing what I'm doing and even now the contacts that I've got you can't carry on doing it it doesn't matter who it is really but if it was mine I'd be devastated I'd probably want to do a serious damage how many times did you used to get therapy is it every week every month when you're working grinding well that's debatable but in the early days we had the feedback staff feedback groups so in the early days that was all that was all working well so you'd get that three times a week you'd get staff feedback and that lasted for about three and a half years four years then you get it once a week on the adult wings then after that very little towards the end which was the point they called them staff sensitivity groups very little happened towards the end and there was a lot of staff getting unhappy about the way Grendan was going getting upset, getting tearful in staff meetings, getting angry my anger got the better of me it completely consumed me before I hit the deck and I became ill because of what was happening to the system, what was happening to people in Grendan all prisoners were getting stuffed up by stupid security measures the one thing that really did me one order that came down was order to all staff all uniform staff whatever you hear on therapy groups is no longer confidential to the therapy group it will be fed back to the security department nah that's not why therapy works you've got to be able to tell me something in confidence within these four walls knowing that's protected for a while while you work through your stuff how did all the other screws handle that people has been there 20 years, 25 years how was all their main service they were struggling as well and a few of them left while all the stories and all the shit that you're hearing that eventually would wear you down because the brain stores everything it does, again you're right you get fed up and sick and tired of hearing it does ever make you question the world to see if there's any goodness in it if you're constantly hearing bad stories they scream but I know there's goodness in it I sometimes pull away from social media my wife would say not enough because I'm on there I become consumed by it I look at all your page today is the first time I've looked at it with Daniela's story and all the shit that's coming out there and I'm thinking yeah we've got those people but we've also got people who are level-edded who are kind, who are compassionate who are not ignorant they can see a little bit further and you know what I was asked the other day how I felt about pedophile hunters what am I supposed to say to that crack on if that's what they want to do if they're saving children from abuse then yeah by all means do it but don't criticise me for the little bit that I do to try to stop future victims What did counsellors and psychologists say that the link is for all the trail killers and rapists that are linked with their mindsets it's so complex you wouldn't believe you know you can cut it into 60 different types of sexual offending and you go from voyas you go from the looking at child porn or looking at porn on the internet to the guys who carry it out and not only do it they kill and they rape and they murder so between there there's a whole host of sexual offences with a whole host of different reasons and what people don't like to hear but I always say it is a pedophile a true pedophile is different from a sex offender that might offend against children who wouldn't normally not be his target group and that sounds odd the difference is a pedophile will actually become entrenched in the law must change they don't feel anything about what they've done they'll always have that target group in their minds they'll always fantasise so there's always going to be that rest there that will never go away that will be there for life so they're going to come out into the community unless they can find their way through and people can help and support that they're back in prison again and they're back in time and time again someone who's committed offences against a child who is inadequate who has focused on that child for sexual gratification at that time because they've not been able to have sexual relationships with adults that's a different ball game if they then form satisfactory relationships with an adult the child sex disappears the fantasies may still be there but that's the other thing when you work with people who do this sort of stuff you've got to be able to have a relationship that is so tight that you've got to trust that that person is going to tell you how they're feeling when they're feeling it and that ain't easy work you started in Grendan Joe was there more pedophiles coming in at your later stage because it seems to as if there's so many now it's the same one in every fair it has the pedophile tendencies which is one in every street I think because the way that we've got now with social media with technology, the internet and everything and because also I don't know what the statistics are at the moment for conviction rates I don't know whether they've grown or not but they've always been around there's always been pedophiles for as long as we can go back there'll always be sex offences, there'll always be child abusers and I think everybody plays a part in making sure that that's not happening so and I don't care what part people play in it personally and at 68 years of age and coming up to the point in my life I am I've done my bit but all I would say in this is that the bit that I've done I have no regrets and I certainly and I'm not saying just for the sake of it I didn't know Terry till I read that book I ended a bit of googling around and thought oh right but I knew Ray's a Smith and Ray Bishop he was ready I think when he came into Grendan there was a few people who might have wanted his autograph for different reasons because he was a face he was somebody that was known and Ray was there so that connection was made straight away which I was on to but the pair of them weren't there to do anything other than their therapy see I think they're two good guys but then people will say how can you say they're good guys when they've robbed banks and done all the shit that they've done but the fact that they've changed they're good guys maybe they were good guys in the beginning I didn't know Ray when he was a toddler but the point being what you do and all the victims you do you claim and you go through a realisation that for what you've done it's been madness but was it worth it does Terry really think that what he did as one of the faces on the scene was worth it I don't think so What do you think of your present system George do you think it's set up to fail I think at the moment because a lot of people who go in re-offend at the moment just to put Grendan to bed Grendan's ever achieved maximum it deals with 240 people at any given time in therapy, in and out as an estimate maybe what 25% of them might come through with a real determined effort the rest might learn on their way so even Grendan has its massive failures but the prison system at the moment what does me at this moment in time is we're concentrating on COVID so all of the messages I'm getting and all the stuff on my pages about how awful it is these guys locked in their cells coping with extreme heat, COVID restriction on visits, all of that what people are missing is the prisons were in crisis before this started what's the space when they start to open up again nothing's changed so in short there's not enough staff in short there never will be and the staff that are working in the prisons now there's fantastic work being done by prison officers who were able to find the space to do that work, the majority of them were just locking, unlocking doors racing to riot bells dealing with violence dealing with druggies at the moment nine times that and could spice it the system I had the benefit of a little bit of cannabis maybe LSD in the 60s, 70s have a lot of hooch oh yeah that was it could you just let some prisoners have it if they knew they had it no no no no no no that was never going to happen in Grendan people tell me, well you might not think it happened Joe but it did, well big deal you never told me when you were there I never saw it, well I did, I found it Springill at Christmas time we used to go over the fields and get the the whisky and rum and spirits and that to stop the prison officers club from the little parcels so hooch has always been a big thing in Grendan, hostages anything like that now Hostage situation, there was one major one and I can't even remember who it was now but he caused havoc where they had armed police armed with live ammunition to take him out and in the end they used the tear gas and he took a prisoner hostage there's been a couple of major incidents the closest where ever came to a riot was Felton Borsdal way back in the I think it was late in the early 80s they brought a load of kids in from Felton because they decided they wanted to fill the boys wing and they sent these group of kids and they just went ballistic, they didn't want to be there for therapy and in the end they set fire to the dormitory and went around with pool balls and socks and that's closer if you came to a riot but it was dealt with and Grendan went back to being in Grendan Do you have any contact with anybody still from Grendan? I've got contact with ex-staff, I don't know any prisoners in there at the moment, as far as I know I might do they pop up from everywhere but no and I'm not really welcome back in there at this moment in time because of what I've said in the time in my book and things I've said in the meantime but I've not anti-Grendan I'm anti the way it's being used at the moment as a tick box exercise towards parole for some people If you could change the prison system for your way that you think would benefit how would you change it? It can only be changed by putting more staff into the prisons on to the landings who can actually communicate with prisoners who can show that they might wear a black and white uniform but they're people and they can care they can't care at the moment Some though, some screws are practical they are but you see I was always able and this is where I can stand up and say I'm proud of myself is I was able to confront that on full on I wouldn't have gorillars if I was working with a gorilla on my team they've gone there's no way that person's going to stay on the team Shaved head, tattoos Well not necessarily you just stereotype them but I know what you're saying they have and there's a few I mean I was into the weight lifting that there's a few that push weights on that Appearance can be deceiving Oh yeah don't be taken by tattoos because the guy could be the nicest person ever So really the point about prisons at the moment is is that they're just a tinderbox they're just waiting to go all the time and the staff that come in who are going to abuse it they're abusing their own colleagues and I don't think corruption needs to be got a grip with there's always been corruption the training is good but Jesus Christ some of the young people that are in the uniform now that I've met in gate lodges and in prisons when I've been visiting as a lawyer they just need more training You know What are your plans for the future then Joe? Well my wife wants me to take up golf but no I don't know the future for me at the moment is I'm trying to put together everything that I've done and just there it is the book I did the first book I did under a little bit of pressure because as I say I suffered depression and OCD part of my recovery process was to lay it all out for the psychologists so keep the books going redo my website I've got this group going by the way and I've mentioned it should have done on Facebook which is Victim Unseen which is for the families of sex offenders not the sex offenders the families who are going through all sorts of grief because they happen to be associated so we're giving a bit of support to them So is that like maybe someone's boyfriend or a sex offender Husband boyfriend, son, daughter whatever friend, good friend who's serving time for sexual offences they get visited and they get supported we could go on for another two or three hours about whether that support's deserved but that's what they do so we've got a group now to say right when you're going through the crisis and the idiots are ending up outside your house putting bricks through your windows let's try and support a little bit that because they're not the ones responsible the bloke who's responsible is locked safely behind bars the families at the moment if you're looking a new book by the way Terry and Chris Alston have brought a new book called HMP Help Me Prepare if you're looking there there's a bit on Victim's Unseen and there's a bit by a lady called Rosie that's all I say and she's written such a moving account of how it was to be the wife of someone who's now doing time for that but the rest of the book is important as well so my bit now what I'm doing now is helping Terry a bit he's helping me a bit because he's inspired me to do what I'm doing I'm still doing well I was doing up until the last year a bit of prison law work for a lady called Alice Swift and I told Alice I'd mentioned her because she's like me but she's female and she's doing prison law work she tells it as it is she cares about what she does she cares about her clients regardless of what they've done and you need people like that you need people who say we're into less victims and stop chatting shite on the internet but get out there and do it and just work and meet people we're sure doing a lot through you your work you do I love all of them you know I'm what I am at the end of the day and I get my wig and make-up on at weekends playing my drums in a glam rock band because you've played with Slade and stuff as well haven't you? we've been on the same bill and I enjoy it I enjoy the buzz is that your escape? it's my escape as well as getting out and about with the family because let's not face it she's locked in the bloody study until you've finished but there's a bit of escape so get out with the family and enjoy life we've just done Cotswold Wildlife Park when I look round there I tend to be thinking I wonder how many of these families have got people in prison I'm on a day out for Christ's sake you can't stop thinking so new book out when do you think the release date will be? I don't know I'm thinking I'm open before Christmas but I'm only about 54,000 words in at the moment where can people get your first book Joe? it's going to be on Amazon it's going to be as it is in Kindle on there there's out of the frying pan which is on Kindle and Amazon books and there's for the love of Myra which we've talked about I don't even know what the title of the next one is going to be but it's going to be about working with sexual offenders and their families would you like to finish up on anything Joe? no just thanks for the time really it's difficult I've done so many over the years on TV and on radio where I've been questioned we almost went into a Myra Hindley thing there but it's not just about her there's other people and at the moment the knife crime thing I'd like to say is I'm not heavily involved with that but that needs full support the one I put on my page the other day about the little girl that was just riding in the park and she's dead now because somebody decided to take a knife and kill her we've got to deal with that sort of shit there's so many problems on this planet but first of all it's best to deal with your own problems and then you can try and help others because there is so much to deal with but life goes on and I wish people well again there's going to be people watching this who think Jesus is still alive but I am still alive but you know you get to an age where you become a bit of a dinosaur and you know I do want to go down and see Ray Bishop I'd like to see Noel Razorsmith along with Terry down in London and talk about it all and maybe me have a bloody grand and reunion Christ that would be good wouldn't it that would make headlines but I'd also hope that that you know you if you're doing this sort of work that you'd be allowed behind closed doors a bit and have a look at it properly yeah we've been trying to get behind closed doors and go more into depth of people who are in this system and that have never really left it but again it's all down to red tape and I can be a threat as well sometimes because what we put out is not really edited it's all raw but that's it that's what people want to see it is and I think that has got to be the way it is people are not going to like what they hear maybe not like some of what they've heard from me today but you know that's life it's still fascinating it's still your life where of course people are going to question it but it's good for you to put it straight from your mouth and not the front page of the Sonner papers I better understand I've only had one massive lot of criticism over the last year and he just didn't like the fact I died my hair you know if that's all I've got the best I've got on Facebook that's fine but the rest of it is pretty positive and I'm happy with that yeah he got a stick to the positives but Joe again thanks for coming on today and telling your story I wish you all the best for the future and we'll get you back on me and get your second book out lovely, cheers James check out more of my podcasts on the right and be sure to like share and comment your thoughts on this week's podcast thank you