Kenny Noye, Public Enemy No 1.

Kenny Noye With Me In Prison.

Valdemoro Prison, Madrid, Spain. 1998.

I arrived on wing 9 (the international wing) after being processed through ingreso, the reception wing of Spain’s top security prison. I was carrying my bag of personal belongings and a mattress, sheets and blankets.  With aching arms and much relief, I dropped the lot at the bottom of the stairs next to the wing office.

 A screw (prison officer) told me to search out any Brits here who I might share a cell with, or he will allocate me a cell. Not wanting to be placed with Arabs, Turks or Gypsies, I hurriedly entered the sala (recreation room) and searched for Northern European faces. I spoke to several frogs, clogs and krauts (French, Dutch and Germans) before I hit on an English face who talked out of the side of his mouth.

 He very cautiously questioned me about why I was in Valdemoro. I told him I had been transferred from La Moraleja prison in Dueñas, near Palencia to attend my trial in Madrid. He asked if I knew Kenny Noye was in here. I told him I didn’t.  He asked if I would like to meet him. I said that I prefer to find a place to live before the screw finds one for me. He told me not to worry because there was a bed in his cell. I immediately went back to the screw and told him I am in with the Brit face.

The Brit accompanied me through the noisy sala into another large recreation room lined with bookshelves and men quietly reading and writing at tables dotted about the place. My new cell-mate told me to wait while he approached a lone figure hunched over a writing pad.  He whispered something out of the side of his mouth and stepped back so the man could eyeball me. A perceptive little nod and the Brit face beckoned me over. I walked over to the table to look down on the hard face staring back at me. He looked a bit younger than me and looked tanned and fit. He gave me a craft (masonic) handshake, which I responded to and asked if I needed anything. I pulled a chair and joined him and that was the beginning of getting to know each other. I had just met Britain’s public enemy number one, Kenneth Noye.

We didn’t become big pals or anything like, but we dined together three times a day, we trained in the gym and we marched around the yard day after day chewing the fat about all kinds of things. There is a lot more to say, but that and what I think about Kenny Noye can wait till my next blog.

My First Book Signing Event.

My First Book Signing Event.

 

The sun shone brightly as the cowboy cast his long shadow through the doorway of the book store. The shadow broadened as the sun was blocked by his enormous pardner. The Clint Eastwood style hats shaded the hard faces of the big men who strode meaningfully toward me.

I eased out of my chair in readiness for … what? I wondered.

‘You Christopher Chance?’ asked the grizzled face of the big man.

‘Yes,’ I replied as his big hand thrust toward me for a vigorous handshake.

His partner grabbed my hand when it was released from his friend’s great sausage fingers. ‘My name’s Jeff,’ he growled, ‘and I stayed up half the night listening to you on the Roy Basnett Show.’

‘So did I,’ said his big friend, grinning all across his stubble haired face. I half expected him to strike a match across his cheek to light the cheroot hanging from his mouth.

Thus began the warm inner glow of realising that I have at least one fan in this great wonderful world of writing. Everything was suddenly worth it. The day proved to be full of warm feelings as men and women from all walks of life asked me to sign their books.

Prior to the event I was quite nervous because I feared a low turnout and feeling like a fool with a stack of unsigned books at the end of the day. I decided to create some interest for my work by sending out many press releases.

The effort was worth it because I was invited to a popular late night radio show in Liverpool. Also, I was mentioned in local newspapers around the north-west of England.

The event was at Borders book store near the John Lennon airport in Liverpool. I liaised with the events manager, Kerry, who set up a display and posters prior to my arrival and featured my signing on the Borders events page on their website.

During the two day event, Sam, the store manager had various staff members announce my presence in the store every twenty minutes on their PA system. They also gave a meaningful description of my books, which helped to drive sales.

Borders staff members were enthusiastic and helpful during the two days and they brought my wife and I coffee and tea from their Starbucks coffee bar several times. Their smiles were for everyone, not just for us.

During the time I was there, I signed forty books, so that equates to one book every ten minutes approximately. The time flew by because I was talking to people most of the time about the hardships of foreign prisons. Surprisingly, most of them were women. One of the conclusions I drew from this was that people in hospitals lie awake at night listening to late night talk shows because a lot of my books were being bought for people in hospital.

A Mediterranean type man appeared by my side, seemingly out of nowhere. He was tall and smartly dressed in a Crombie overcoat and polished black shoes, more like Arthur Daley than an elegant Mafioso don. He spoke out the side of his mouth.

‘Hello Mr. Chance,’ he stage whispered, crouching by my side so his head was level with mine. ‘I’ve read your books but I want two signed for the family.’

He is a member of a notorious Greek family operating in Liverpool and the north-west of England. I signed his books and he was gone, lost from view in the crowds of shoppers in the Mersey Retail Park. I hope you enjoy my books George.

Several of my books were bought by people purchasing a beach read before going to John Lennon airport to start their holidays. Amazingly, I have had some feedback on my website already and that warm glow is still there.

I felt particularly good when members of staff bought my books. That in itself made me feel good and confident regarding my future. Writing really has turned my life around.

Guantanamo Bay Holiday Camp. (Gitmo Food Comparisons).

Guantanamo Bay Focus.

 

Guantanamo Bay is a holiday camp compared to European prisons. The food is great and the conditions are hygienic, which is more than you can say about French and Spanish prisons.

I have never seen the inside of GITMO, so like you I can only rely on informed sources.

Chief Warrant Officer James Kluck is in charge of feeding the detainees as well as the 1,780 soldiers at GITMO. He does a great job and everyone, including the soldiers, has a problem keeping their waistlines trim.

Everyone gets two hot meals a day, which includes breakfast. In France I was given bread and water every morning. In Spain I was given warm, milky coffee and bread with spam, jam or biscuits. No hot breakfast in either country, regardless the snow and icy winds in winter.

As well as dishes such as Chicken Cordon Bleu and Turkey a la King, there are many other nutritional delights (halal of course), whereas in France I had atrociously cooked horsemeat and in Spain I was served a pig’s ear more than once for my main meal.

I have been served food by fellow inmates with cigarettes dangling from their mouths whilst scratching the crabs in their groins. I have seen runny noses in winter and sweating foreheads in summer dripping across open food containers. Some of these ‘drippers’ have Aids and TB, but who cares? Nobody, because the eyes of the world are focussed on GITMO looking for the slightest hiccup that can be blown out of all proportion by America’s enemies; tree-huggers, politically correct weirdoes and armchair warriors who haven’t yet ventured further than the end of their street.

Some of them will have a pop at me now for writing this, but unlike them, I have a thick skin and I have ventured further than the end of my street.

My first taste of French prisons happened only last year when I, Christopher Chance was arrested and thrown into the Douai Dungeon,(Maison d’arret, 505, Rue de Cuincy, 59507.France),  last year.

I was arrested and held for extradition to Spain to complete a prison sentence that began in 2001. I was released from Malaga prison after serving twenty months of a three year sentence for hashish smuggling between Spain and Morocco. Hashish destined for the coffee shops of Amsterdam.

My slick lawyer wangled my release on an appeal scam and I was released on Christmas Eve 2002. A subsequent hearing decided I should return to prison to complete the sentence, but I had returned to England for medical reasons and was having surgery in St. Albans City Hospital when these decisions were made.

I travelled around the world oblivious to the European Arrest Warrant issued by the Spanish.

 In 2005 I went to Cyprus for eighteen months to write another book. I returned to England by driving through Greece; Italy, France and then by car ferry across to Dover, passing through the frontiers without a hitch.

After a short Christmas break my wife and I decided to move to France to start another book. On 3^rd January last year we drove off the ferry at Calais into the arms of the waiting, armed French police to start a nightmare journey through French and Spanish prisons.

I was separated from my wife who was ordered out of the Calais port and advised to continue her journey alone because I was going to Spain.

I was then taken to holding cells near Bologne-Sur-Mer, where I was stripped naked for an orifice search. I was then put in a cold, filthy cell where I remained on the concrete floor with a dirty blanket for 36 hours.

On 5^th January 07 I was taken to the Douai Dungeon, a 17^th century prison famous for its busy guillotine, where I was again stripped naked for another orifice search. For the next 15 days I was fed bread and water every morning for breakfast. In all this time I was allowed only three showers.

I was put in a cell with the infamous French surgeon, Doctor Jean Beclet who sliced his wife to death with a meat cleaver in her chemist shop in Douai as customers ran screaming in terror. I slept badly in this cell with the homicidal doctor lying in the bunk opposite me.

On 10^th January I was taken in leg-irons and manacles to the Douai courts where I was paraded in full view of shoppers across the square and into the courts. Papers for extradition were signed and I was returned to the Douai Dungeon where again I was stripped naked and searched by my escorts who had never left my side throughout the day.

On 16^th January I was again trussed in leg-irons and manacles for the journey to Fresnes prison, France’s harshest prison where I was again stripped naked and searched. I was fed bread and water every morning and locked in solitary confinement for three days and nights in a cold, dirty cell.

During my time in French prisons I was verbally abused constantly by my jailers and each time I was moved, even from cell to cell I was stripped naked and intimately searched by prison officers with a penchant for rolling back foreskins and gawping up backsides. I started each day with a breakfast of bread and water. I was never allowed to supplement my other dismal meals with cakes or biscuits from the prison shop.

On 19^th January I was heavily manacled and taken to Orly airport with four armed guards, who on arrival at Orly were joined by two legionnaires armed with machine-guns. I was escorted through the busy airport concourse with weapons trained on me as shocked tourists moved out of the way, some taking pictures probably thinking I was bin Laden in disguise.

I was handed over to my Spanish escorts for the flight to Madrid. I had never committed a crime in France, I was held merely for extradition.

I had lost several pounds in weight and I was to lose much more by the time I left my Spanish jailers. Meanwhile, the GITMO inmates have each gained an average of 13lbs, thanks to Chief Warrant Officer James Kluck and the American Administration.

A more in-depth account of life inside Spanish prisons can be read in my books: ‘The Lone Brit on 13’ and ‘Carabanchel’; two books penned in the chaos of prison, surrounded by necrophiliacs, paedophiles, cannibals, rapists and murderers.

I am now out on parole from Daroca prison in Spain and living in the UK.

Because the eyes of the world are on GITMO, it is my opinion that the inmates are well fed in hygienic conditions, something amiss in French and Spanish prisons.

There seems not to be much in the way of complaints from the GITMO inmates regarding food.

Not surprisingly, it is the French and Spanish who are most vociferous about how prisoners are treated at GITMO. Perhaps they should focus more on the hygienic conditions and the quality of the food at GITMO as a guide to putting their own prisons fit for human habitation.