When last we checked in [6] on Tom Hayes, the “Rain Man” was headed to HM Prison Wandsworth, which Bloomberg describes [7] as "a Victorian fortress south of the Thames known for its poor conditions and violent residents."
You’ll recall that Hayes was the unlucky soul who became the scapegoat for the endemic corruption and unbridled greed that transformed the financial world’s most important benchmark into a tool the banks used to generate outsized gains for their own trading books. In other words: Hayes took the fall for the LIBOR scandal, becoming a rare human casualty in a world where white collar, Wall Street criminals almost never pay for their proverbial sins.
Officially, a jury found Hayes guilty of eight counts of conspiracy. His sentence [8]: 14 years.
For those wondering what life is like behind bars for the man whose head had to roll so that many more "important" heads would not, we bring you Hayes' letters from Wandsworth.
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As originally published by The Daily Mail [9]
It was over. The guard led me into a room daubed in graffiti, with the faint smell of cigarettes and urine. He allowed me to use the toilet, but it had no door – the days of privacy and dignity were over. A plastic toilet with no seat. I couldn’t really comprehend it.
I was led to a small holding cell and the door behind me was locked. I could hear banging and shouting from other cells. I curled up on the only thing in the cell, a wooden bench.
I was then led away by a sympathetic female guard who reassured me. She handcuffed my wrist to hers, and we waited in line for those going to HMP Wandsworth to be searched.
I figured if I sat with my back against the side of the van, no photographer would be able to get a photo of me. I pushed my back against the wall – they had enough photos; they didn’t need one of me at my lowest ebb. As the van stopped at the junction to turn on to Tooley Street, the cameras flashed through the darkened windows. I scrunched back to keep out of shot.
The drive through the busy commuter traffic was strange. I looked out of the window at everyone going home, passing familiar places. The guards played Capital Radio; I couldn’t quite comprehend these were sights I wouldn’t see for years. Life outside the van seemed so normal.
We pulled through the gatehouse at Wandsworth. Vans were stacked up waiting to unload and we sat for about 30 minutes waiting for our turn. Slowly my shock was abating.
We were ordered off the van. Most on it were on remand and returning for the day. I, on the other hand, was going through induction. A strip-search. My modesty seemed strangely immune. Again it seemed like a dream, followed by an awful grey tracksuit and light blue T-shirt.
As an entry-level prisoner, I was not allowed my own clothes. Nor was I allowed my prison bag. I was issued with a blue plastic plate, bowl and mug, and a pack of Happy Shopper tea, UHT milk and biscuits.
It seemed so strange; these were my belongings in a clear plastic HMP bag. I was still wearing my court shoes, which made me look stupid in my tracksuit as we went to E-wing so they could process me. I was given a plate of rice and green beans and an apple. Some induction orderlies [prisoners who work on the induction wing] came to speak to me. They offered advice and some kind words, but I was a fish out of water; all I wanted to do was speak to my wife Sarah, hear her voice, for her to reassure me. I wanted to go home.
A prison guard in the office let me make a one-minute phone call.
I struggled not to cry. I told Sarah I was OK; she sounded fine, but we were both staying strong for one another. Then, clutching my cutlery, tea and biscuits and green sheets/pillowcase and orange blanket, I was sent down the hall.
Because I had been processed I was meant to go to cell E403 (cell No 3 on the fourth floor). I asked a prison officer where I should go and he thought I hadn’t yet been processed. He sent me over the corridor to a holding cell full of Albanians and a heroin addict in withdrawal.
It was about 7pm and I could hear the Channel 4 News from the TVs along the wing. I sat on the concrete floor knowing my face was on the screens next door. The room was thick with smoke. The addict kicked the steel door repeatedly, demanding attention. Officers ignored him.
All the sounds of prison that now wash over me as ambient noise seemed so clear. I felt exhausted. A three-month trial, three-and-a-half years of bail. Years of uncertainty, years of fighting were over. At about 10pm, one officer popped his head through the door. Prisoners were coming and going as they were processed and he seemed surprised to see me. ‘Hayes! What are you doing here? You’ve been processed!’
I clutched my meagre belongings and followed him. I felt like a refugee with my bedding and plastic bags. Then he realised they had paired me with the addict in withdrawal. I waited for 20 minutes while they moved the addict, then they put me and another first-timer in cell E403 together. I took the bottom bunk. The addict had taken the pillow. I made the bed. Fortunately the weather was hot, because the orange blanket was threadbare and offered no insulation at all.
While my cellmate snored, I stared at the bunk above. My mind was racing and, although I was tired, I couldn’t sleep. During the trial I had taken sleeping tablets, but I didn’t have any now. Not having a watch meant I had no notion of time. Eventually the sun came up and I heard aircraft on the approach to Heathrow. I knew it must be 6am, because nothing lands before then.
I had been given some milk and oats for breakfast the night before, but we had no kettle or hot water to make porridge. I rang the bell to ask for some hot water.
The prison officer dismissed me. ‘Wait till we unlock you,’ was the response. We got unlocked at lunch.
My first exercise time in the austere concrete yard reminded me of the film Midnight Express, as people circled the yard anticlockwise.
I thought about the lunatic in the film who decided to go the other way and pondered what would happen if I did that. Some guys worked out, others smoked or harassed people for ‘burn’ [tobacco].
I wandered in circles aimlessly, enjoying the sunshine and natural light.
I think in my early days I stood out – I probably still do – but certainly some people recognised me from the media coverage. People seemed to labour under the misapprehension that I had made ‘trillions’ for myself. Others didn’t recognise me but, seeing the court shoes, realised I was a recent arrival and inquired whether I had brought a ‘package’ with me.
Confused and apprehensive, I told them I didn’t have anything with me.
I later learnt that this refers to drugs inserted in your anus. I was also told that on occasions these will be forcibly removed by other prisoners using a spoon, so I’m lucky that I didn’t have a package.
As we left the yard, one prisoner covered himself in olive oil and tried to set himself alight – his hydrocarbon knowledge wasn’t the best, I thought.
During my healthcare visit the nurse offered me a hepatitis B vaccination. I refused on the basis I couldn’t fathom how I could catch a blood-borne virus. Later, after observing various biting incidents, I have now had my three jabs and am vaccinated.
Just before 5pm, the cell door opened and I was ordered to gather my ‘possessions’ and told I was moving. Although I’m now a veteran mover, at the time I hurriedly gathered the biscuits and UHT milk, my green sheet and orange blanket and, feeling like the refugees from Syria who were all over the TV, I shuffled after the guard, bidding my cellmate a laconic goodbye.
Looking back now, I feel sorry for my first cellmate. I really chewed his ear off in that first 24 hours; all the hurt and pain poured out as I paced that tiny cell. I barely listened to his problems. Although I can’t recall his name, I’ll be for ever grateful to him for listening and helping me through that first 24 hours.
Confused, I asked where I was going. ‘To CSU,’ came the response. Me: ‘What’s that?’ Prison officer: ‘Care and segregation unit.’ Me: ‘Why am I going there?’
At this point, as we made our way down into the basement of E-wing that houses the segregation unit, I felt panicked that I was being taken out of the general population to be held in isolation.
Prison officer: ‘You are a potential Category A prisoner.’ Me: ‘What? I am the most unlikely Category A prisoner ever!’ Prison officer: ‘You have the means to escape.’ Me: ‘Escape? I’ve been on bail for three years!’ I later discovered I had been put in the CSU for my own protection. Because my case had been so ‘high profile’, it was feared I would be targeted. In fact, I was in the same cell that Max Clifford had been in a few months earlier, E010.
I couldn’t watch TV. All that sitting and watching TV as a student seemed such a waste of time; now I had all the time, I wanted to do nothing and watch TV, and I couldn’t even turn it on except to try to figure out the time of day (I still had no watch).
I broke the day into segments. I needed to get from breakfast to lunch, lunch to dinner, dinner to bed, to try to sleep, and I had been prescribed sleeping tablets to get me through the night. Because I was on ACCT [Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork, for prisoners considered at risk of suicide or self-harm], the light was turned on every hour to check I was still alive, and would disturb me yet further.
I don’t blame the prison for that, but I operated in a bizarre dystopia, exhausted in the day, unable to sleep at night.
I was locked up for roughly 23 hours per day in the segregation unit. Everywhere I went I was accompanied by three officers.
As I walked on my own round the tiny exercise yard for 30 minutes, three prison officers looked on. I was observing the rank filth of the prison; the yard covered in rubbish thrown from the cells. It was almost as if neither prisoners nor officers really had any respect for the environment in which they lived.
The cell was covered in graffiti, which I would idly read, trying to imagine all the people who had been in the same cell since 1851 when the prison was built.
Being let out for any reason was a treat. A shower, collecting “food” from the server, a healthcare appointment – anything for some form of human contact with anyone.
I knew my mum and Sarah were going to try to visit on Wednesday morning, a reception visit allowed during the first few days. I anxiously watched the clock on the TV, having discovered the radio channel had one. I was becoming anxious. What if they had forgotten me? I was desperate to see them. At 10.15, someone came to fetch me for my visit. I breathed a sigh of relief.
The hour flew by. I ate chocolate and drank tea from the cafe in the visitor sector and felt a little happier. My wife assessed the centre to see if it would be suitable to bring my year-old son Josh.
I had never had the chance to say a proper goodbye to him. The morning of the sentence, I had left him as normal at nursery school and had not come home.
Soon the visit ended. There were tears all round as we said our goodbyes, and Sarah hugged me.
Even though the August weather was 25C, the basement cells at Wandsworth were freezing. The floor felt like ice. I sat on the bed and wrapped two blankets around me. You can do ten seconds of anything, I thought, so you can do this. Seven years is a lot of ten seconds, though. My fellow occupants of the ‘Seg’ were a noisy collection. Most were there as punishment and spent large amounts of time shouting and kicking the doors. My first cell had been adjacent to one such door-kicker. Now I was in a marginally quieter cell, but I was still woken by kicking at 3am.
Shouted conversation took place between cells. I stayed quiet and listened. The speakers would be out early next year, I learnt. How I envied them.
Being in isolation, you become attuned to the slightest sounds as you try to figure out what’s happening on the other side of the door. Footsteps, the clink of keys, the near-constant shouting echoing round the old building.
Someone from the governing board came to see me on Friday evening. Once again I appealed to him that I wanted some company.
Governor: ‘OK, but don’t get yourself beaten up.’ Me: ‘We have a mutual interest in that not happening.’ And so my time in CSU ended. I collected my still uneaten biscuits, tea bags and UHT milk (there are no kettles in case inmates throw boiling water at the officers), my bedding and my book and carried them back upstairs.
I was in cell E432 on the top floor; it was considerably warmer than the basement. My new cellmate arrived on remand for a drug offence. Arrested on Wednesday and unable to shower, he stank. His obesity and the hot weather meant I regretted leaving the CSU. He stripped to his underwear; he was very hairy. He was a big TV fan and knew all the daytime programmes. He watched every soap. I tried to negotiate a slot to watch Channel 4 News between Hollyoaks, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Neighbours and Coronation Street. Instead, we agreed I could watch Newsnight at 10.30. University Challenge was rejected.
Over the weekend the prison was shortstaffed, so we had no association time [time spent outside the cell] on either Saturday or Sunday. That meant no occasion for my new cellmate to shower. The temperature was high and, at some point, he lay down on my bed. I looked at his huge, sweaty, near-naked body lying on my bedding and felt vaguely sick.
I was being eaten up inside; those moments of quiet time allowed me to be alone with my thoughts and try to work out how I was going to cope with seven years of incarceration.
I was learning a bit more about prison life; I witnessed someone getting ‘bent up’ [prison parlance for restrained] by the prison officers. Another officer ordered me back to my cell. When I pointed out that the commotion was taking place directly outside my cell and I had no way of returning to it, he locked me in the shower room with a paedophile killer (who claimed he had written a book that was in the library).
Because it happened after a weekend with no association time, I needed a shower, but had no toiletries or towel and so was unable to take advantage of this unexpected situation. Instead, I was locked away with a lunatic who engaged me in conversation. The officers forgot about us. After I had banged on the door for 30 minutes, someone passed by and unlocked the door. ‘What are you doing in here?’ they demanded. The irony of being locked in a room by someone else, then asked how we got there, was lost on him.
The same day saw another prisoner jump on to the netting between the landings. He refused to leave until he had a KFC. It duly arrived and, once he finished it, he came down and was removed to CSU.
The prison seemed to operate on a reverse incentives system: the worse you behaved, the more you got.
Monday came and I had now been in prison for one week. As sure as night followed day, it was now time for another cell move. This time over the corridor to E401 – it had a pillow and a kettle! My new cellmate was a nice guy called Tim. We got on well. He had a two-and-a-half-year sentence and was due to be released in February. I felt jealous, but we had plenty to talk about and he was very considerate, listening at length to my frustrations. I had my first communal shower; the facilities were very dirty. I needed to shave. I asked for a razor and some shaving foam and was told, ‘Shaving foam? You’re in prison now. Use soap.’ The prison razor and soap left me with a bad shaving rash.
I don’t recall much about Tuesday and Wednesday; perhaps my body was coming down from operating on adrenaline. I got to speak to Sarah twice in snatched five-minute conversations. Her visit booking for Thursday hadn’t been dealt with. I felt crushed.
On Thursday morning, the cell door was unlocked. ‘Hayes, you have three minutes to pack your stuff. You’re going to Nottingham.’ Again I felt crushed. ‘Why Nottingham? So far from my friends and family?’ ‘I don’t know. The decision has been made by the area officer.’ I was on my way out of Wandsworth. I said goodbye to Tim and made my way down to reception. I changed out of the prison tracksuit I had now worn for 11 consecutive days and back into the same clothes I wore to court on August 3. As I left, the reception orderly reassured me. ‘You’ve won the prison lottery,’ he said. ‘People would give their right arm to get there.’
It gave me some hope, but at that time it just seemed a lot further from Sarah. I got into the prison van alone; I was the only passenger. As we went through the gatehouse at Wandsworth, I contemplated how little time I had spent there. But I was no longer a prison virgin.
I’m in the Open University room typing this, because my cell is so cold right now. I use my electric toaster to try to heat it up, but I still sit there with about five layers on.
Last night, some lunatic prisoner in the wing next to mine broke a lot of pipes and flooded everything, so we were locked up with no water, hot or cold, unable to flush the toilet, in the freezing cold. The cell below me engaged in a ‘dirty protest’, smearing faeces everywhere, and smashing up the room, and the cell opposite had someone having a psychotic fit from taking ‘spice’ [synthetic cannabis], banging and shouting.
I lay on my bed and wondered how I had ended up here.
I often look at the trees on the other side of the fence from my cell; I’ve become quite the ornithologist. It seems so strange that we live in the same place but they are free, able to come and go from the trees on the ‘free’ side of the fence.
The wagtails sit on the razor wire and I like to see them choose from all the rubbish thrown from cell windows.
I’m becoming more immune to prison life now; being strip-searched has lost the embarrassment and indignity I felt at first.
Drug overdoses and fights are de rigueur, and the monotony of life here takes over.’
