20th May 2010

I’m afraid that I have to let you all know that Charlie is in a bad way at the moment. Visitors that have not been banned are saying that he has dark circles around his eyes and that they have never seen him so stressed out. He’s now on basics and I’ll let Charlie tell you what that means:

They’ve put me on basics. I’m back to closed visits, only seeing people through a thick glass window. I have to wear prison clothes again and they’ve put me in a cell with no window. It’s very damp and disheartening and all I have is a mouldy mattress on the floor to sleep on. I’ve also been put on basic pay of £4 per week, out of which I have to buy all my own canteen, so there’s nothing left to make phone calls or buy stamps to write to friends. I'm very tired and stressed out by everything that they are doing to me.

They’ve been fucking around with my post for months now. They’re slowly cutting me off from all my friends by stopping their letters to me and stopping my letters to them. People I usually write to must think that I’m ignoring them, but it’s not true. I think my personal box must be bulging by now with the letters they’ve not let me see. And they’ve just taken so many of my friends off my visitors list that there are very few left. Surely this is against all my human rights?

I’d better tell you what happened the other week with the dog. I was in the gym in my gym shorts when they told me that they had banned my own brother, Mark, from visiting me the next day and gave me a list of all the people that weren’t allowed to visit me any more. I started banging and smashing on the door, I was so shocked and angry. It seemed like they were trying to bury me and every trace of me. Cut me off from every one important to me. I was so angry and took my anger out on a piece of gym equipment. That’s when they sent the dog in.

There were twelve screws in riot gear outside the door. More than enough to stop me, but the order was to send the dog in to attack a 57 year old man dressed only in gym shorts. Why did they do that? Why didn’t they just send in the riot squad with their shields?

I can’t blame the prison officers for it. They didn’t want to do it and they were absolutely disgusted at sending in the Alsatian. One screw later told me that he had never seen anything so inhuman in his thirty years in the service. They were just obeying the orders from above!

I’m normally an animal lover, but what can you do when a ferocious dog is biting you? I got it in a headlock to try to protect myself. The dog soon backed off, but I was badly bitten. Isn’t that excessive force to set a dog on a near naked man who’s locked in a room with no escape? It surely can’t be legal!

As I said in my last report to you all, the prison authorities are trying to push Charlie into a reaction that will bury him for years to come. Judging from the reports coming out of HMP Woodhill, they are getting close to succeeding unless they stop this inhumane treatment of a man who just wants to be free at last.

I predict a riot!

One last thing I would like to point out: Has anyone ever heard of an attack dog being used before in a British prison to control a prisoner? In 2006 New York based Human Rights Watch stated that they knew of no other country outside of the USA (and only a few states there) where such tactics are used and then only after ALL viable options have been exhausted. This is a clear case of inhumane treatment and possibly an illegal use of a prison dog.