Inside the UK’s broken prison system where tinkering around the edges will no longer work
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s only three ways to spend the taxpayers’ hard-earned when it comes for prisons. More walls, more bars and more guards.”
Prison reform is one of the hardest sells in government.
Hospitals, schools, defence – these are all things you would put on an election leaflet.
Even the less glamorous end of the spectrum – potholes and bin collections – are vote winners.
But prisons? Let’s face it, the governor’s quote from the Shawshank Redemption reflects public polling pretty accurately.
Right now, however, reform is unavoidable because the system is at breaking point.
It’s a phrase that is frequently used so carelessly that it’s been diluted into cliche. But in this instance, it is absolutely correct.
Without some kind of intervention, the prison system is at breaking point.
It will break.
Inside Preston Prison
Ahead of the government’s Sentencing Review, expected to recommend more non-custodial sentences, I’ve been talking to staff and inmates at Preston Prison, a Category B men’s prison originally built in 1790.
Overcrowding is at 156% here, according to the Howard League.
Sophy Ridge talking outside Preston Prison
One prisoner I interviewed, in for burglary, was, until a few hours before, sharing his cell with his son.
It was his son’s first time in jail – but not his. He had been out of prison since he was a teenager. More than 30 years – in and out of prison.
His family didn’t like it, he said, and now he has, in his own words, dragged his son into it.
Sophie is a prison officer and one of those people who would be utterly brilliant doing absolutely anything, and is exactly the kind of person we should all want working in prisons.
She said the worst thing about the job is seeing young men, at 18, 19, in jail for the first time. Shellshocked. Mental health all over the place. Scared.
And then seeing them again a couple of years later.
And then again.
The same faces. The officers get to know them after a while, which in a way is nice but also terrible.
Sophy Ridge talking to one of the officers who works within Preston Prison
The £18bn spectre of reoffending
We know the stats about reoffending, but it floored me how the system is failing. It’s the same people. Again and again.
The Sentencing Review, which we’re just days away from, will almost certainly recommend fewer people go to prison, introducing more non-custodial or community sentencing and scrapping short sentences that don’t rehabilitate but instead just start people off on the reoffending merry-go-round, like some kind of sick ride.
But they’ll do it on the grounds of cost (reoffending costs £18bn a year, a prison place costs £60,000 a year, community sentences around £4,500 per person).
They’ll do it because prisons are full (one of Keir Starmer’s first acts was being forced to let prisoners out early because there was no space).
If the government wants to be brave, however, it should do it on the grounds of reform, because prison is not working and because there must be a better way.
Inside Preston Prison, Sky News saw first-hand a system truly at breaking point
A cold, hard look
I’ve visited prisons before, as part of my job, but this was different.
Before it felt like a PR exercise, I was taken to one room in a pristine modern prison where prisoners were learning rehabilitation skills.
This time, I felt like I really got under the skin of Preston Prison.
It’s important to say that this is a good prison, run by a thoughtful governor with staff that truly care.
But it’s still bloody hard.
“You have to be able to switch off,” one officer told me, “Because the things you see….”
Staff are stretched and many are inexperienced because of high turnover.
After a while, I understood something that had been nagging me. Why have I been given this access? Why are people being so open with me? This isn’t what usually happens with prisons and journalists.
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That’s when I understood.
They want people to know. They want people to know that yes, they do an incredible job and prisons aren’t perfect, but they’re not as bad as you think.
But that’s despite the government, not because of it.
Sometimes the worst thing you can do on limited resources is to work so hard you push yourself to the brink, so the system itself doesn’t break, because then people think ‘well maybe we can continue like this after all… maybe it’s okay’.
But things aren’t okay. When people say the system is at breaking point – this time it isn’t a cliche.
They really mean it.
UK
How Britain’s most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective’s talk
Britain’s most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch.
Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink’s-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials.
Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink’s-Mat Gold in 2019, said: “I go outside and they say ‘he’s here’ and I say ‘who’s here’ and they say that table over there in the corner, that’s Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head.”
Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink’s-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold.
After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron.
“They said what are we going to do?” said Mr Brown.
“I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives.”
Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown. Pic: Robert Mulhern
Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink’s-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery.
Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery.
He said: “He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it.”
The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole.
Read more:
What happened to the Brink’s-Mat gold?
Kenneth Noye, left, and Stephen Cameron
Mr Brown, 86, said: “I went over to him and said ‘thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in’, but I don’t believe you’ve turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer.
“And he said ‘I want to make sure you don’t say I’ve been dealing drugs’ and I said ‘I’ve never said that Kenny’.”
The retired detective told Noye he wasn’t going to change his presentation just because he was there.
“He said ‘mate, I wouldn’t expect you to and I’ll come up [on stage] if you want me to’.
“Can you think how he’s turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that.”
The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I’d been told about the meeting.
A Sky News podcast told the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist in 2019
I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983.
“It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better,” said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean.
He said he chatted to one of the show’s writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more.
“They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I’m just very sad that that is what people will believe.
“And I couldn’t work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops.”
He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.
Oasis have reunited on stage for the first time in almost 16 years – with brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher sharing a high five and the briefest of hugs as they closed a performance that for fans was more than worth the wait.
After the split in 2009, for many years Noel said he would never go back – and for a long time, as the brothers exchanged insults through separate interviews (and on social media, for Liam), it seemed pretty unlikely to ever happen.
But now, here they are. As they walked out on stage at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, all eyes were on the Gallaghers for a sense of their relationship – dare we say it, friendship? – now after all these years.
There was no reference to their fall-out or making up, but the gestures were there – lifting hands together as they walked out for the first time.
The headline “OASIS REUNITED” was shown on stage at the gig. Pic: PA
Fans at the Oasis gig. Pic: PA
Headlines and tweets of speculation and then confirmation of the reunion filled the screens as the show started. “This is happening,” said one, repeatedly.
In the end, it was all about the music.
Liam has received criticism in the past for his voice not being what it once was during his solo or Beady Eye performances, but back on stage with his brother tonight he delivered exactly what fans would have hoped for – a raw, steely-eyed performance, snarling vocals, and the swagger that makes him arguably the greatest frontman of his day.
This was Oasis sounding almost as good as they ever have.
Fans sang along and held up their phones to film as Oasis performed. Pic: PA
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Oasis: ‘It’s good to be back’
They opened with Hello, because of course, “it’s good to be back”. And then Acquiesce, and those lyrics: “Because we need each other/ We believe in one another.”
The song is said to be about friendship in the wider sense, rather than their brotherly bond and sibling rivalry, but you can’t help but feel like it means something here.
Over two hours, they played favourite after favourite – including Morning Glory, Some Might Say, Cigarettes & Alcohol, Supersonic and Roll With It.
Liam Gallagher as Oasis takes to the stage in Cardiff. Pic: PA
In the mid-section, Liam takes his break for Noel to sing Talk Tonight, Half The World Away and Little By Little; the tempo slows but there is by no means a lull, with the fans singing all his words back to him.
Liam returns for hits including Stand By Me, Slide Away, Whatever and Live Forever, before sending the crowd wild (or even wilder) with Rock And Roll Star.
Noel Gallagher performing on stage. Pic: PA
An Oasis fan is pointing at the stage during the gig. Pic: PA
When the reunion announcement was made last summer, it quickly became overshadowed by the controversy of dynamic pricing causing prices to rocket. As he has done on X before, Liam addressed the issue on stage with a joke.
“Was it worth the £4,000 you paid for the ticket?” he shouted at one point. “Yeah,” the crowd shouts back; seemingly all is forgiven.
After Rock And Roll Star, the dream that very quickly became a reality for this band, Noel introduced the rest of the group, calling Bonehead a “legend”.
Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs of Oasis. Pic: PA
Liam Gallagher carried a tambourine in his mouth during the concert. Pic: PA
Then he acknowledges all their young fans, some who maybe weren’t even born when they split. “This one is for all the people in their 20s who’ve never seen us before, who’ve kept this shit going,” he says before the encore starts with The Masterplan.
Noel follows with Don’t Look Back In Anger, and the screens fill with Manchester bees in reference to the arena bombing and how the song became the sound of hope and defiance for the city afterwards.
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‘I’d have paid £10,000 to see them’
Two fans sat on their friends’ shoulders as Oasis performed. Pic: PA
During Wonderwall, there’s a nice touch as Liam sings to the crowd: “There are many things I would like to say to you, but I don’t speak Welsh.”
It is at the end of Champagne Supernova, which closes the set, that it happens; Noel puts down his guitar, and they come together for a high-five and a back-slap, a blink-and-you’d miss it hug.
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“Right then, beautiful people, this is it,” Liam had told the crowd as he introduced the song just a few minutes earlier. “Nice one for putting up with us over the years.”
From the roar of the audience, it’s safe to say most people here would agree it’s been worth it.
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