The artificial lights burned my swollen, tired eyes while the stench of dated concrete and accompanying dust enhanced the irritation. The intimidating glare of five prison service personnel was stark and vivid, impacting my being, choking my airways and increasing my heart rate. Two of them sat facing me, positioned as close as possible to prevent me attempting to attack the prison governor if I were to be so reckless. They sat with arms folded, glaring incessantly into my tired eyes, which undoubtedly reflected my broken spirit. Their intimidation struck its epicentre with impact. The Quaker-inspired idealism of solitary confinement held that isolation would bring a man to his knees, broken, so that he would repent for his sins. As the ages have determined, it has been a catastrophic failure, and that failure did not exempt me. The ferocious, intimidating energy inside this dimly lit, secret societal room only served to provoke my disorientated mind and my unconscious addiction to self-loathing. The energy radiating from my being melded with the atmosphere engineered by the political legislators of the day and by political actors before them. My self-loathing, my pain, my trauma and my unconscious incompetence seeped from my dry pores. With each breath I took and each exhale from my dehydrated mouth, my hostile, hate-driven worldview was evident.

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Steely eyes bore into me from all angles, their whites vividly luminous, striking the intended fear of imminent violence if they so chose. I fixed my gaze on a particular spot on the dullish-brown yet smooth adjudication-room table. My pale, sweat-soaked hands were clasped together in front of me. The aggression of their glares was effective, choking me out and rendering me still. I dared not look up. “What’s the charge?” the Governor demanded of his staff. He sat with shoulders back and head high at the opposite end of the long table, his posture signifying his authority over everyone in the room. “Refusing a direct order,” stated the segregation unit’s senior officer, perched to the Governor’s left and within my right periphery. “OK, read the charge,” the Governor responded. “At approximately 9.30 am on Wednesday 4th June 2001, I opened prisoner BH6999’s cell door and requested he leave the segregation unit for B-Wing, to which he refused. I therefore placed him on report,” stated the senior officer. “Is that what happened, Mr Smith?” the Governor asked, turning to his right, where the reporting officer sat with his arms folded. I broke ranks from my chosen viewpoint and looked up to meet Mr Smith’s eyes. He stared directly at me as he lied to his superior. A smirk emerged upon his face, displaying both his contempt for me and his power over me. “Yes, that’s what happened.”

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The inferno of hatred and violence in my soul raged and burned. I immediately planned revenge. My memory of the rest of the adjudication is somewhat of a blur, drowned out by the violence and nightmares of the ensuing two decades. Nevertheless, kangaroo court cases do not take long. Soon after my “guilty” verdict, I was facing a particularly grim steel door leading to possibly the most uninviting isolation cell the modern British penal system could offer. The window was thick Perspex, almost entirely covered in brown, dark-yellow and black blemishes and blotches that reduced the incoming light to almost nothing. On the right was a bare concrete slab with no mattress. On the left stood a small metal sink; in the far-left corner, a filthy metal toilet. The heat radiating from the cell was suffocating and harsh. Two prison officers stood to my left, one of whom had opened the cell door. Another stood to my right, while two more stood directly behind me. All were in very close proximity. “In you go,” barked the reporting officer, Mr Smith. Again he directed that excruciatingly irritating, arrogant smirk at me, confirming his power over me and my helplessness.

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At eighteen, memories of happiness or love and their associated emotions were so rare to me. Fear-driven emotions associated with suffering, anger, rejection, abandonment and isolation dominated my every waking moment. I recall a sharp and sudden burst of injustice-induced anger that catapulted my thirst for revenge to an uncontrollable level. I launched my bony right fist towards the smirking officer. It struck his cheek with a loud cracking sound. He fell away from me to his left, and the violence in response was triggered in an instant. Memories of what followed have haunted me for over two decades. The flashbacks are violent and vivid and snatch the air from my lungs. In my twenties, I punished both myself and society. I became a perpetrator of harm towards people in society, in proportion to the harm inflicted upon me and more. The torment and anguish manifested in Class A drug addiction. I would cry and scream to the heavens in despair, my feet covered in blood as I searched for a live vein through which to inject high doses of heroin. Then I would smoke crack cocaine while the sun rose and fell three times without sleep.

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In my late thirties, attempting to go about my business on London buses and tubes, I would find myself darting into the sanctuary of doorways. I would crouch there, disorientated and in a state of indescribable panic, my skin cold yet my pores pouring with sweat as I chain-smoked with my heart pounding. I spent nearly an entire year in what I would now describe as a prolonged state of hypervigilant psychosis, enduring ferocious nightmares almost daily. They encapsulated the entire breadth of my unresolved trauma, yet frequently melded with happy memories.