A Fair Cop
Описание книги
The true story of a young police officer’s imprisonment for a crime he did not commit.It was Michael Bunting's life ambition to follow in his father's footsteps and become a police officer. But six years after his family watch him pass out and begin his life's dream, he is serving a sentence for a crime he didn't commit. This is his story.Beaten almost senseless as he tried to arrest a violent criminal, the 23-year-old PC was left with head injuries and blurred vision that took him months to recover from. Back at work he was astounded to learn that his attacker had filed a complaint against him and that the Police Discipline and Complaints Department were following up the allegation.Two years later he was found guilty of common assault against his assailant and received a prison sentence that left him living his devastated life amongst the criminals he had previously sought to keep off the streets. Hard-hitting and at times heart-breaking the book is a graphic account of life behind bars for a policeman in one of England's hardest prisons.An extract from A Fair Cop:"The prisoner arrived once more with the trolley and placed the plate of food on to my hatch. 'Bunting,' he shouted pleasantly. I wasn't fooled. 'Thanks,' I said, as I walked across the cell to collect it. As I put my hand out to reach for the plate he snatched it away. He held it up to the hatch and peered through at me. 'PC Bunting, isn't it?' he asked, and then took a deep breath to muster as much saliva from the back of his throat as he could. With one swift movement he spat a big glob in to the middle of the food. The white phlegm floated around in brown gravy. 'Hey lads, I'm feeding the pig,' he said. With this, two other prisoners came to my cell hatch. They looked at me, sniggering. They then spat in my food too. The first prisoner put the plate on the hatch and gestured for me to come closer. 'You're in our territory now, you f***ing filth, and we're gonna f***ing carve you up.'
Оглавление
Michael Bunting. A Fair Cop
A Fair Cop
Michael Bunting
The Beginning. 8th September 1999
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Early Days. 29th March 1993 (six years earlier)
Chapter 2 Rich Man Hanging
Chapter 3 Summer Madness
Chapter 4 The Monkey Man
Chapter 5 Football Crazy
Chapter 6 Carried by Six or Tried by Twelve?
Chapter 7 ‘Not Guilty’
Chapter 8 Trial and Sentence
Chapter 9 My Mate Tony. 8th September 1999 (continuation from ‘The Beginning’)
Chapter 10 Silver Service
Chapter 11 I Need the Doctor
Chapter 12 A Pig in the Zoo
Chapter 13 Big Boys Don’t Cry
Chapter 14 Game On
Chapter 15 On the Bins
Chapter 16 Anyone for Cards?
Chapter 17 Watching the Clock
Chapter 18 Life on the Out
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
Отрывок из книги
I remember one message in particular. It read, The Ointment are back. The Ointment is a gang of hard villains from Yorkshire. I had dealt with one of its members before. He had been owed money from a drug deal and when the deadline for paying the debt had passed, he used a machete to cut off the debtor’s arm at the elbow. He even paraded the injured man up and down the street while he was bleeding profusely, demonstrating what the outcome would be for other would-be defaulters. I was now in the same cell that was once occupied by one of this notorious gang. He had used human faeces to write the message. The stench was nauseating. I was in their world now, and I was petrified. There was a bench bolted down to the concrete floor, which was damp. A metal cage welded to the ceiling protected the light bulb. I took this personally. Did they really think I would damage the light? Society was against me now. At least that was how it felt. I was being treated in the same way as the hundreds of criminals I had arrested over the past six years or so. I would not allow myself to think that I was one of them, though, and I saw my conviction as a miscarriage of justice. I hoped it would be corrected.
There was also a musty odour, a smell I was familiar with, as most police cell areas are like this. I could hear the voices of the court cell staff. They joked about something they had seen on television the night before, and discussed who was to do the sandwich run for lunch. Everything was normal for them. Occasionally, I’d hear an officer’s radio in very close proximity to my cell door. Each time I heard the jangling of keys, my hopes would be raised that I’d be let out. I had only been locked in the cell for about twenty minutes and already felt unbearably oppressed by the size of it. It seemed strange that I was sitting in such surroundings in my best suit. I knew that every stitch of my clothing would be taken from me at HMP Armley, the notorious category B prison in Leeds, home to hardened criminals, rapists and murderers. I would be known to them, as I was a serving Leeds officer and my case was in the media. This increased my fear as I consciously tried to stop the shaking. The consequences of being sent to a category B prison could, realistically, be fatal.
.....
Then, the sight I’d been dreading was in front of me. Armley Prison is an old stone building, blackened with pollution, and it looks similar to an ageing castle. It’s massive; it has to be, as it holds over a thousand inmates, some of the nastiest criminals in the UK. It stands as a visual representation of institutionalisation and is an enormous warning to anyone contemplating a crime. The walls are high and topped with about three feet of closely coiled barbed wire. There is no way out of this place. Stunned, I shook my head in despondency. The driver pulled up in front of two large doors. They were about ten feet tall and looked Victorian. We waited. I saw scores of prison officers coming and going, as there had obviously just been a shift changeover. They all seemed so intent on what they were doing, clutching their empty lunch boxes and pacing to their cars to go home and get on with their lives. Again, I felt abandoned. No one seemed bothered about me. Why should they be? When the doors eventually opened, I was horrified by what I saw. There were about fifteen prison officers standing around. Some stood with their hands in their pockets whilst others casually smoked cigarettes. Several others swung large bunches of keys on long chains around their fingers, just as the Group 4 officer had done with the handcuffs.
One of the officers approached the driver’s window. ‘Who’ve we got here then?’ he asked.
.....