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British prison documentary. Apparently this is a well-known prison. A lot of rappers mention it. That's what the chat told me. Can we pull out the chat now? No, we're waiting another 45 seconds. Wormwood Scrubs. One of Britain's most famous prisons. From Pete Doherty to Keith Richards. It's locked up the country's ultimate rock star rebels. I really think that it was part of the Jewish issue. His hope that they might be gang raped, humiliated. And it's been home to some of the country's most dangerous inmates. Charles Bronson is one of the most violent. We're just a Bronson. An attack. Over its 140-year history, Wormwood Scrubs has gone from the best prison in the country to one of its most notoriously violent. When somebody takes their life in your care, you feel as if you're personally responsible. This is the untold story of what really happened inside Wormwood Scrubs. It's told by those who were there to witness it. Witness what? In the prison break of the century... George thinking of escaping. George said, I never feel anything else. To the most shocking scandal in prison history. We're going to put a noose around your neck. We're now going to kill you. We look like a suicide and we'll get away with it. We will actually really fright somebody who's going to get killed in that prison at the time. You two, I do not condone anything that's going on. I'm here for the simple education of myself. This is educational. I'm trying to learn. Today, Wormwood Scrubs is Britain's most recognizable prison. If you ask a population to name London prisons, I suspect the Scrubs would be right at the top. It would be the first one they'd say, the Scrubs. It's famous or it's notorious. When Michael Cain's character Charlie Crocker is released from jail in the Italian job, it's Wormwood Scrubs. And on many news reports about prisons, you guessed it. Wormwood Scrubs is in the... Never seen it. Never seen the Italian job. Background. And the prison's fame is not just from films and TV. Over the years, it's seen a steady intake of celebrity prisoners. In 2008, baby shambles frontman and serial drug offender Pete Doherty spent 29 days inside. I'd just like to say thank you to Mr. Lutcher for putting me in the company of the most dangerous criminals in this country. But Doherty wasn't Wormwood Scrubs' most famous rock star prisoner. In 1967, it locked up Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. Oh, wow. It all started when Richards jagged. Never listened to a full Rolling Stones song. Can't name one. Sorry. And some friends were having a party at Richards Sussex Country Retreat, Redlands. Unsurprisingly, drugs, including LSD, were involved. Keith saw someone at the window. I thought it was a fan sort of nosing around to try to get an autograph. In fact, it was 18 police officers. Damn! What the rock stars didn't know was that the news of the world had got wind of the party and informed the police. They failed to find any acid. Wait, the news of the world? Is that what they just did? Like, so the news got informed of the party and then they tricked? That's hatin'. Did find small traces of cannabis. Enough for Richards and Jagger to appear before court on drug use and possession charges. And the judge wasn't inclined to let them off lightly. You have to try to imagine the climate of utter hatred of the Rolling Stones that existed among everybody over 30 in Britain and in America at that time for social offenses which now seem ridiculous. Should we watch a Rolling Stones documentary? I didn't know they was hated like that. It's surprising that I said it does hate, but I didn't know that. Their hair curled over their shirt collars, not wearing ties to the Savoy Hood, that sort of thing. And the establishment really set out to get them and get them they did. Despite the small amount of drugs found by the police, the judge sentenced Mick Jagger to three months inside Brixton Prison and Keith Richards to a whole year in Wormwood. Damn! It was a gasp of complete astonishment. It was the over the top brutality, the savagery of this obvious show trial. You know what's crazy? Just like then when you lock up a musician it does nothing but boost their career. The prize-all against pop musicians. These sort of offenses that were so minor that they were expecting a fine. The police who had actually busted them didn't think that it would be so severe and so savage. Richards was immediately driven off to the scrubs where Phillip Norman thinks the authorities hoped he'd have a hard time. I really think that it was part of the judiciary's hope that they might be gang-raped, humiliated, had their horrible long hair shaved off. But Richards' experience inside wasn't exactly the punishment the judge had been hoping for. Keith was, you know, a tough character. He was a true rock and roll rebel and in fact Keith was rather welcomed by the other inmates. He shouted out encouragement and one of them even asked if he wanted any hash. So he wasn't really going to a hash-free zone exactly. It was like rock and roll, you know, like anyone else. And Keith was a hero to young blokes, you know. The guitar hero had already emerged as sort of an archetype. You sent that man to a prison where he was one of them down there. People over 30 hate prisoners as well. You know what I'm saying? We sent them to his people. Of the rock business. But even for the Stones' hating establishment it seemed in this case the judge had gone a step too far. The judicial system seemed to realize at that moment this was going preposterously over the top. The next day by the middle of the next afternoon they were actually out. Oh, I thought they was in there serving real time. They got out the next day. Richards' brief stint at the Scrubs brought welcome relief for the prison. But two decades later Wormwood Scrubs welcomed one inmate who was feared by all. Charles Bronson, Britain's most dangerous prisoner. What was in every documentary? Charles Bronson is one of the most famous in the violent category who would just attack and attack. Therefore, had to be kept confined. This color suit means they're a flight risk, like for escaping, right? Because he would attack inmates. He couldn't be confined with anybody else. By the time he got to the Scrubs in 1986 Bronson had visited almost every prison in the country. But the Scrubs was unlike anything he had experienced before. His remarks on the Scrubs for the times he was there are very, very negative. He rates it way down the bottom. And he says, you know, that he was ripped apart and he was often in tears. Who care? He said Scrubs gave me no help. I had a miserable time there. I was like a broken little boy. And, you know, I put it as pretty near to hell really compared to some of the other nicks I've been in. Bronson's experience in the Scrubs was so bad that after two weeks he tried to strangle the governor. He tried to strangle... After that, I know he had a terrible time, for sure. Quickly moved on to another prison. Oh, okay. But Wormwood Scrubs' reputation as one of the worst prisons in the country was sealed. And it's a reputation that it still carries today. It's become famous for a succession of very poor inspection reports alleging everything from brutality to simply very poor conditions for the prisoners who are held there. Wormwood Scrubs is living from one crisis to another. We hear about the rise in self-harm and drug use in the prison and violence and other activities. We've seen increases in serious assaults on staff. We've seen increases in serious assaults by the prisoners. I don't think anybody would be happy with what you see in Wormwood Scrubs now. It's a damning reality for a prison that was originally built to be the very best in the country. One that was meant to treat its prisoners with humanity and transform them into better citizens. That's how it always starts, right? You know, make these state-of-the-art prisons at the time and they're supposed to do this, this and that but you get one bad apple from some other prison that comes in like I'm talking about like a guard or something and then they teach all the other guards this and that and, you know, downhill from there. How did it go so badly wrong? Wormwood Scrubs, Britain's most iconic prison. It has had rock star prisoners and featured in countless films and TV series. But today it's known as one of the worst prisons in the country. The complete opposite of how its founder, Edmund Duquesne, imagined it. Edmund Duquesne. In 1869, Duquesne, a military engineer by trade, was appointed the country's new prison chief. And he had a vision that prisons shouldn't just punish criminals but transform them into better citizens. The core of it is that you don't demand and hope. He had that attitude in the 1800s? That's a good attitude to have in the 1800s, I wouldn't think. In anybody that every life is worth something and that there is redemption possible for everybody. For a great public figure to believe that decent prisons and the possibility of reform was important was a significant thing. At the time of his appointment, Duquesne's vision was a radical one. 30 years before, Britain was in the midst of a crime wave. With the number of criminals at an all-time high, the Victorians embarked on the largest prison-building campaign the country had ever seen. Pentonville, Strange Ways, Wandsworth. These huge prisons were built to strike fear into the minds of the prisoners. Victorian. I always think with the bigger prisons, it's like, you can't catch everything that's going on, man. The bigger the prison, the more negative it's going to be in my mind. You got to make smaller prisons to concentrate their efforts specifically onto, you know what I'm saying? Local prisons, they tend to be big, intimidating buildings. You know, walking onto a wing for the first time, you're very, very aware of the fact that, you know, you're quite small. It was built to send a message to those going within the walls that you are now under the power of the state and this is to intimidate you. You know, it's crazy and some people see that and they're like, man, this don't scare me. Watch this. Watch this. And boom, there you have it, the worst prison. And inside the prisons, the Victorians made sure life was as punishing as possible for the inmates. When they weren't kept in complete isolation, they were forced to do grueling, repetitive labor in total silence. Looks like a little bit of slavery. When he was appointed as the new prison chief, Ducayne wanted to completely transform the system. And when an area of open fields in West London known as Wormwood Scrubs became available, Ducayne saw his opportunity. Although Sir Edmund Ducayne had responsibility for effectively every prison in England and Wales, the one he was particularly interested in was Wormwood Scrubs. This was the one where he was going to stamp his thinking on prison design. Ducayne's design would be revolutionary. He envisaged a series of parallel wings running in the North-South direction so that every single cell at Wormwood would get sunlight at some point throughout the day. That's thinking smart. Ducayne also designed what is said to be the country's largest prison chapel, big enough to accommodate every single inmate. It's a reflection of how important Sir Edmund Ducayne felt. Big prison chapel. I imagine on the way to the chapel or coming from the chapel or even in the chapel, there was a lot of fights then. Everybody could go and everybody was... What's the word I'm looking for? Everybody was probably... They promoted for everybody. They pushed for everybody to go. There we go. Christianity to be. He believed that reflecting on your crime and faith in God was central to improving people. You're not wrong. Ducayne also believed that to reform prisoners, it was crucial to take them out of isolation and silent labour treatment and put them to good use. So to make Wormwood Scrubs a reality, he came up with a radical idea. Have the prisoners build their own prison. A small team of convict workers begin by constructing temporary buildings. Bro, that sounds like the worst. Imagine a 2023 mindset prisoner going in to go build his own prison. Like, you got me messed up. I'm not funny to build this. I can't secretly build one room bigger and it'd be mine. Like, no. To house a hundred men. Once that's built, they move on to constructing another one and then once there's a couple of hundred men, they begin the process of building the permanent wings. By 1891, Ducayne's masterpiece was finally complete. Four wings now house almost 1,400 inmates and its huge entrance gate has become an iconic site. Inside the prison, Ducayne installed a strict reforming pathway for the inmates. Cells were provided. They would also work in workshops as they moved through the sentence. Make sure if you're in here watching it, you are not followed. Hit that heart. There's a heart. You should be able to hit a heart and it follows me. Appreciate everybody. And stated that they were effectively being reformed. So this is the new hope. We're going to lock people up in somewhere that is meant to be reasonable conditions to help change their lives magically. So that was the great optimism about Wormwood Scrubs. Ducayne's prison was a sensation and Wormwood Scrubs became the model for jails around the world. But it soon emerged that behind Wormwood Scrubs locked doors, life for the prisoners was still a living nightmare. In 1918, a young inmate named Arthur Wilkinson entered its gates. He was a conscientious objector, locked up for refusing to fight in the First World War. Oh yeah, definitely gone to jail. From inside Wormwood Scrubs, Wilkinson wrote letters to his family bringing to light some of the prison's hidden practices. At the start of a prison sentence, the procedures seem to be the same for everyone. First, a month solitary confinement and then, emphasizing that you are being punished, adding to the bleatness of the cell, your bed is at boards, raised a few inches off the floor by crossbeams. A mattress is provided after a month, but only if you have not incurred any punishment penalties for breaking the rules. Right, that seemed normal. As no rules are issued. You discover what these are only when introducing them. Along with suffragettes, Wilkinson was part of a growing number of middle-class people finding themselves inside the Scrubs and championing reform. Prison reform really grows out of people without experience of prison going into prison. When you take the middle classes into prison and you treat them like the lower orders and they experience the brutality, the reduction of liberty. That's when they start to champion the cause of penal reform. Thanks to people like Wilkinson bringing to light the plight of the prisoners, the Scrubs started introducing revolutionary practices. There were classes run by voluntary teachers who were cons and these were unsupervised by officers. What's fascinating to me in the 20s and into the 30s is that most of the people involved who are controlling the Scrubs, who have power in the Scrubs, seem to be open to trying new things. Imagine that today. Wouldn't happen today. What do you mean imagine that today? Unsupervised? Like they'd be fighting low-key, they'd be in their trade and spice, they'd be doing all type of... And soon, it wasn't just those in control of the Scrubs who wanted to reform the prison, but the entire world. In February 1938, four young men were facing the dock for stealing £13,000 worth of diamonds. They attacked... In February 1938, four young men were facing the dock for stealing £13,000 worth of diamonds. How much is that now? 1938 to 2023? That's probably a crazy amount. They attacked a jeweler and injured him very severely. Probably, if I remember rightly, they were lucky they didn't kill him. But these weren't just run-of-the-mill thieves. They were Mayfair socialites, sons of successful businessmen and high-ranking army officials. The tabloid press of the time had a field day. This went international. These days, we would say it went viral. But despite the accused's upbringing, the judge did not go like... Why is he talking like that? The leader of the gang, Robert Harley, received a seven-year prison sentence and, worst of all, flogging. He was sent to Wormwood Scrubs to endure 20 strokes of the dreaded, cat-a-nine tails. Hold on. Wait a minute. Heavier sentence of four, seven-year servitude and 20 strokes of the cat that Robert Paul Harley unmoved. Oh, wait. You was getting time plus beatings back in the day? You was getting beat and getting time back in the day. This is shocking. This is revolutionary to me. I never knew that. When you went to jail, they were spanking you. Strokes of the cat. It's crazy. Britain had for years a corporal punishment as a penalty, which could be inflicted by the courts. The cat-a-nine tails was a cane, but with lots of ends. So when you were beating somebody, he could be hit simultaneously by several lashes. It could be... It was a near-working smarter, not harder. Very, very brutally used. I actually believe in the availability of corporal punishment, but not, for heaven's sake, in the cat-a-nine tails. Prisoners have described it as the worst pain they have ever endured. And Robert Harley's flogging at Wormwood Scrubs got the whole world talking. It was generally considered that corporal punishment was something that was pretty well exclusively endured by the lower economic orders. It wasn't really anything that you did for gentlemen. Society was very divided. My bad. Hold on, do we? Quite right, too. Others said, oh, can't do it to people of that class. Jolly bad form, what? But there was a huge division. A petition was signed by leading MPs and clergymen calling for Harley's sentence to be commuted. And the case was debated in the Commons. What that in turn did was to actually focus attention on the use in any event of the cat-a-nine tails and what role it had to play in a society that regarded itself as civilized. Spurred by Robert Harley's case, reformers eventually won and flogging was abolished. Wormwood Scrubs was finally entering the modern era. I don't see how that was even a thing. I've never seen a man of 19, whatever, beating people was, you know, acceptable. But that's wild. When you get a whole whooping and prison time, it's tough. But it was not the end of Wormwood Scrubs' reputation for the inhuman treatment of its prisoners. In the early 1960s, one man walked through its gates to begin a sentence that would personify the overbearing power of the state. Then, was George Blake, Britain's greatest-ever traitor? Like, traitor as far as, like, espionage? Is that what the word is, espionage? Or what's the word I'm thinking of? Espionage? No, it's not espionage, is it? When you're a traitor against, like, your country, what is that word? We see in the late 1950s, early 1960s, an uncovering, if you like, of spy rings in the UK and in the West. And of course, as these agents are apprehended, a large number are given very long custodial sentences and end up in establishments like Wormwood Scrubs. In 1961, an MI6 spy by the name of George Blake was sensationally uncovered as a double agent. At the time, this is a man who is public enemy number one. It emerged that for the past decade, Blake had been feeding top-secret information to the Soviets. He had betrayed the names of hundreds of British spies, resulting in many being imprisoned and executed. Damn. So you've, you've planned both sides. You really got people, you know what I'm saying, unalived. Your fellow brethren, that's crazy. When Blake was uncovered as a double agent in May 1961, at his trial, the Lord Chief Justice Parker said that what he'd done was akin to the greatest treason that anyone... Treason! Treason. There we go. ...and he was determined that he should pay a full penalty for that. 42 years was a sentence. The longest sentence in British criminal history to that day. By a long way. I'm honestly not mad at that, though. That seemed about right. For treason, betraying your country, like, that's tough. Especially as a Brit, you know, people who are, you know what I'm saying, like, love y'all, y'all in love with y'all countries. So it's like... Yeah, 46 years? That, that seemed good. There was no way that he was going to fulfill that sentence as far as he was concerned. He was beginning immediately to think about how he could get out. There's a small cohort who have some sympathy with him. And those are prisoners who, by virtue of their political sensibilities, like his anti-state stance. And people have been jailed for anti-governmental stances that are going to have sympathy with others that have taken an anti-governmental stance. One man who would find himself in wormwood scrubs for his stance against the government was anti-nuclear activist Michael Randall. Get your name and number to the governor. So I said, it's Michael Randall. Oh, he's still alive! Michael Randall, what? Just Michael Randall. I said, sir. I said, well, I like to talk man to man. The governor leaned forward and said, well, this is a matter of prison discipline. Now, are you going to call me, sir? And I said, no. And he said, right. Seven days, non-associated labor, which means solitary confinement. I was in prison for organizing a demonstration at an air base at Weathersfield in Essex where nuclear weapons were being stored and carried. This is Anne and myself. We had got married just a few days before, outside the old Bailey just before the start of the trial. That one is outside the old Bailey with myself, Anne, and the other people who were accused at the same time under the Official Secrets Act. While in wormwood scrubs, Michael Randall, along with fellow inmates Sean Burke and Pat Potter, became friends with George Blake. They were at the urinals together. And he, Pat, said to George, do you ever think of escaping? And George said, I never think of anything else. Together, Randall and the rest would hatch out a daring escape plan. And their actions were about to propel wormwood scrubs into a frightening new era. Think I heard about this, right? In the 1960s, ousted double agent George Blake was serving a 42-year sentence at wormwood scrubs. But with the help of fellow inmates Michael Randall, Sean Burke and Pat Potter, he decided to attempt an escape. Michael Randall's, you know what I'm saying, fully trained M6 agent or whatever. By 1966, his three fellow inmates had been released and they could finally put their daring plan into action. Wait a minute. Time out now. So they devised a plan to escape, got released and still executed the plan to get the one person out. And when I tell you that's another level of loyalty that I ain't never seen, I'm like, yo, I'm already free. What am I doing? So the escape came on a dank, drizzly evening on Saturday, October the 21st at about 6.30. It was done by throwing a rope ladder over the wall, George Blake climbed, Sean was on the other side holding the rope. I should add that the rungs of the rope were strengthened by knitting needles and this was a contribution of my wife Anne. The W wife. Blake managed to climb the ladder, but as he made it to the other side, he fell and broke his wrist. Sean had to bungle into the car. He drove off at speed. So this guy had to be before they discovered bar wire or something. There wasn't no bar wire on top or nothing. No double gate, no middle part with guards and dogs. And bumped into a car in front and the car stopped and waved him down and Sean said, you'll be lucky, mate. It was all on the news. It was on the telly. And then we suddenly had a feeling in our gut, my God, this is big news. The group hid out in various London safe houses. But Blake's broken wrist was becoming a problem and with his picture all over the news, he was unable to go to hospital. Can I go last? I don't know. So Randall had to look for a more willing type of doctor. I went to see this doctor. Who had been in the anarchist movement? He said, well, on the understanding that some people have an aversion to hospitals, I'll come and treat him. But the doctor did not have any bandages to make the cast. So to obtain some, Randall had to think outside the box. We had friends who worked at the BBC on the Doctor Who series in the makeup department. She looks like a movie. Is there a movie about this? So the BBC made their little contribution unknowingly to the whole escape. With Blake patched up, the group could now move on to stage two of the escape. We drove to Dover, across the Calais and then drove nonstop till we got to the border between East and West Germany, where we could see the lights of the checkpoint and let him out. Wave goodbye. And that was it. With Blake's safely-in-communist hands, Randall made it back to the UK. Oh, he stayed. It was not until 20 years later, following a newspaper investigation, that his identity and role in the escape was finally revealed. We were charged on three counts, helping a man out of prison, assisting an escaped prisoner and essentially getting an escaped prisoner out of the country. Damn. And how much time you give it at? 20 years later, at that point, I'm thinking I'm scot-free. 20 years later, I'm still looking over my back. And a paper, another paper did it. Amazing thing was that we were found not guilty. Amazing thing was that we were found not guilty. Oh, wow, okay. I don't have any sympathy with passing on information to the Russians, especially the names of agents. We didn't agree with that whatsoever, but we thought the sentence of 42 years was disproportionate. After he'd escaped, Wormwood scrumps became a more security-conscious prison. Restrictions were put on prison's movements and association and so forth. So the consequences of Blake's escape were not good for his fellow prisoners. You think Blake cared? He was gone. I'm out. Good luck. This is not just an escape, but this is a pretty spectacular escape. Now, what we've got to remember about prison escapes, although they're the stuff of film and legend, for the most part, they don't happen. Blake manages it. And certainly, having seen that happen, the spotlight is going to very, very firmly shine on prison security after that. Rehabilitation efforts gave way to dog patrols. They've got dogs. CCTV monitoring. And a new priority. No one can escape. They've got some barbed wire, finally. Prison in the 70s and 80s become very militaristic, very violent. They're very, very disciplinary. And scrubs for a while were sort of synonymous with that. Hard authoritarian style of imprisonment. And by the 1970s, a new breed of prisoners arrived at Wormwood Scrubs. People like DeMors murderer Ian Brady, Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe, violent, psychotic type offenders. It is weird. For their own protection, Brady and Sutcliffe were held in individual clothes. Who's the Brady guy? Did we do a documentary on him yet? I know we did one on the Ripper. Slee watched cells. There is going to know about their offenses. More often than not, they're also not going to like them. The real difficulty is protecting prisoners such as that and keeping them away from other prisoners. But the deadly serial killers would eventually come face to face for the very first time. There is a story that tells of the game of chess being played in Wormwood Scrubs between Ian Brady, the Morse murderer, and the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe. I think Brady the Morse murderer. That sounds familiar. Sutcliffe says he's absolutely chilled. He finds him the sort of cold psychopath. Which when you think about their offenses, what Sutcliffe is essentially doing is he's saying, you know, Brady, he was wrong that his victims were just chilled. Who was Charles Savildomer? Richard. Sutcliffe, of course, killed numerous women. So it's partly to do, I think, with his own individual psychology, which is placing... Oh, I do remember Sutcliffe. So it's partly to do, I think, with his own individual psychology, which is placing himself above Brady. I'm not a cold serial killing psychopath, such as him. Yeah, you are, buddy. Prisoners such as that, they create an atmosphere around the prisoner. Don't be delusional. The typical prisoner for somewhere like Wormwood Scrubs is going to be a Raman prisoner or it's going to be a short-term sentence prisoner. They're going to be burglars. They're going to be car thieves. They're going to be the housebreakers. They're not sophisticated offenders. When you get really sophisticated offenders in, their influence on the prison can be quite destabilizing. While psychotic killers were in its midst, life inside Wormwood Scrubs took a turn for the worse. Can imagine. There was something creepy about the Wormwood Scrubs and the way things were conducted. There was a Wormwood Scrubs way of treating prisoners and they couldn't understand it. But it just wasn't like they've treated conditions in other prisoners. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. We watched the documentary on Myra, for sure. And I remember the name, Ian. This is a phase where, for example, there is not in-cell sanitation. People are having to urinate and defecate into chamber pots and keep it in their cells overnight if they can't throw it out of the window. Tensions between... Yo. If I use the bathroom number one and leave the toilet seat up, like, I will almost throw up out of my sleep. Like, I gotta... I'm sad now. I couldn't do that. Old peeing water and doodle? Imagine that. In your cell? This is a, what, 5x5 cell? Man, look, man. Stay out of prison, people. Prisoners and staff soon reached boiling point. By the early 80s, Wormwood Scrubs prisoners were regularly rioting and in a blaze of publicity, the governor resigned, publicly calling the prison a penal dustbin. Wormwood Scrubs, 1970s and 1980s, goes through a really, really bad time. Bad inspection reports. A governor walks out. It's characterised as a brutal, difficult, violent place. The prison is really desperate for some positive PR. It was in 1986 that the positive PR finally came. I was in the enemy office and somebody said, here's a story for you. Do you want to do this band in Wormwood Scrubs? You know, it's funny. They lock up a lot of these artists and use their music against them as, you know what I'm saying, in court. But then music is the positive PR that they need in the trails. That's probably why they lock up so many. I used to promote bands inside the prison. Organised a few concerts inside the prison. I was told by one of the prison officers there's been a band formed in the prison. What were the instruments? Almost every prison story is, oh, by the way, there's been a riot in the prison. It's overcrowded in the prison. It's terrible. There's a band in this prison. It's going on a Friday night when they used to be here from six to seven. And I was very surprised. The whole concept was three convicted murderers and three prison officers. I've never had that before. Three convicted murderers and three prison officers. So they've joined two opposite sides of the fence, obviously, freedom and locked up for life joined together. That seems weird. It's not traditional. Hello. It was unique in one sense and there were very, very good musicians as well. My name is John McCarroll and I'm the drummer in the Scrubs band. Where are you on here? I'm the good looking one. That's you there? Oh, the one with the beard. Seriously? Yeah, it was a mistake. Basically, you've got Dave Bruce. Dave Bruce was the founder of the band. He was a prison officer. He was a prisoner. He was called Finn. Finn, that's the one. Very, very quiet man. He learned his English in prison. That's me. He was a singer, rhythm guitarist. These were people who had done murders and the people who were locking them up all together in some kind of heavy metal band. You know how dumb man music brings people together, period. All different types, walks of life. For a brief time, the Scrubs, as the band was known, hit the headlines. The good news story, the prison so desperately needed. What's that movie? Is that what this is? Yo, isn't there a movie made after this? It's a Jack Black in it or whatever his name is and it's the prisoners and they got a... I could be wrong. It must have affected the prisoners and it brought a positive light to the prison. We were getting a lot of media attention from all around the world and it was good. Good attention. It shows that not all prisoners are bad. I understand there's victims involved but whilst we're in my care, in the custody of members of the victims... Yeah, outfits and everything. But whilst we're in my care in the custody of members of the Scrubs during my time, they were alright. They're welcome. They're in a way. That's it? The man who says to the Conservative conference, prison works. It ensures that we are protected from murderers, muggers and rapists and it makes many who are tempted to commit crime think twice. Facing up to the new dynamic Shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. We will take a new approach to the whole of law and order. Both political parties wanted to be top dog in fighting crime and punishing the criminals and in Wormwood Scrubs it would be a game changer. From that point onwards you get a spike in the prison population and it begins to climb and climb and climb. Plus the 80s and 90s came along right? Was it School of Rock? Yeah, yeah, I think that's it. Weren't they in jail or what? I don't know. The fact of that practically is that a prison system had around 44,000 people in the early 1990s. Yeah, 80s, 90s came along drug and the drug movement. A quarter of prisoners were sharing cells designed for one person. It's now a prison system holding about 84,000 people. Wow. You can remember going around local prisons like Wormwood Scrubs that were very shocking. But no one was prepared for the revelations that came out of Wormwood Scrubs in the early years of the 21st century. Broken limbs, previous bodily harm. We're now going to kill you but it will look like a suicide and we'll get away with it. As Wormwood Scrubs entered the 1990s political pressures were placing the entire prison service more stressed than ever before. But while the spotlight was on riots in prisons like Strangeways what was going on in the Scrubs was hidden and far, far more dangerous. Is the prison guards doing this now? I was Chief Inspector from 1995 to 2001. I was responsible for inspecting the conditions and treatment in every prison in England and Wales. We first went into Wormwood Scrubs in 1996. We were very disturbed because there were lots of reports of bullying in the segregation unit. But we couldn't get to the bottom of it. Everyone was clearly covering up. Yeah. You know prison, prison, prison politics you can't trick. But there was a climate of fear. But in December 1997 human rights lawyer Daniel Jacoba got a tip-off about a prisoner being abused by guards inside the prison. He started lifting the lid on one of the greatest scandals to ever hit Wormwood Scrubs. We were approached by someone who worked inside the prison, effectively a kind of whistleblower and at the time he was concerned about a certain amount of violence directed against a particular prisoner. We didn't perceive this was some kind of big problem. It was a problem relating to a single prisoner because we knew what happened eventually was he began to see people they would say but I heard someone in the next cell get beaten and their name is X and they want to see you. We were learning of new cases as we were coming to the prison. Cases that had literally just happened. Makova uncovered shocking evidence that the Scrubs guards were regularly abusing, beating and even torturing inmates. How you think that was wrong. People coming to work taking their problems out on the prisoners and see this is what I be saying man, these prison guards man, they be wildin' out. Broken limbs assaulting a cage. Broken limbs? You can't even really hide that. Grievous bodily harm. Rape allegations. I think it locked kind of hard, didn't it? Shouldn't be on the floor. The video is almost over, let me just look at the allegations which were consistent of mock hanging. We're going to put a noose around your neck we're now going to kill you but it will look like a suicide and we'll get away with it. We were actually really frightened somebody was going to get killed at prison at the time. And worse than that, the Scrubs guards weren't just taking it out on their own prisoners. A prisoner was transferred from Bristol prison to one with Scrubs for a beating over the weekend so that he could appear at Bristol Crown Court on his case. Wait a minute, he had a drive-through beating? That's not funny. Like they was in cahoots with other guards at other places. You send them here, we'll give them what they call it a whopping and then send them back. That's tough. You know how high up how high up that issue has to go? Like how high up in the chain of command for you to be able to send a prisoner from another prison to catch a beating and go back? Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir David now Lord Ramsbottom We were a whore. What was his name? The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Sir David now Lord Ramsbottom We were a whore. Don't get no better than this, this is what I'm talking about. Lord Ramsbottom Ports to find that he's in a condition to prison. Get into it. Sir David to his credit immediately took seriously what we were saying had a strong ring of truth to it. He was very concerned and he took it immediately to the Home Secretary I think the very same day or the following day he took our dossier to the Home Secretary. The case, complied by McOver, eventually led to an unprecedented trial. 27 prison officers were charged with 13 different assaults. 6 prison officers were convicted. There had never been a mass prosecution of assaults by prison officers against prisoners. It was an unprecedented criminal investigation. G4S next. In my view it is one of the worst scandals to have hit a prison. The case led to sweeping changes inside Wormwood Scrubs. For example, unbelievably there was a drinking place inside Wormwood Scrubs prison and you could go and have a drink and go back to work. Oh, this was that prison? I remember that. I remember this. They had like a little bar inside for employees for screws. That was almost immediately done away with. But today, Wormwood Scrubs is plagued by another problem. Inmates hurting themselves and others. We are really in a situation where prison deaths have become an endemic feature of the prisons. When somebody takes their life in your care, you feel as if you're personally responsible. I don't believe what you're talking about, sir. It's not something that you ever get used to. It's not something that you ever take lightly. You're talking about very vulnerable prisoners held in awful conditions and for many of them self-harm, suicide is the reality of their experience. There's not many organizations where you go to work every day and you may be confronting somebody who's attempting to kill themselves. You may be confronting somebody who's armed and wants to harm you or you may be confronting somebody who's armed and wants to harm somebody else and you have to get yourself in between them. It's a day when you could influence people in terms of life and death. When Wormwood Scrubs was built its founder, Edmund Duquesne had a vision of a reformed and humane prison. But more than 140 years later that vision is still far from reality. I'm particularly concerned about the overall conditions that there are there, which is infestations, broken windows, to- Infestations, like what you mean by that? Like it's above infestations? Well, looks that don't work. It's really conditions that are appalling for anybody to live in. Almost 150 years from when it was built it seems that Duquesne's great vision for Wormwood Scrubs as a reforming prison is still waiting to be realized. It's never going to happen. Like, it's never going to happen. 150 years later, come on up. Stop. T.L.O., leave a like, comment, subscribe.