Well this education department is very strange. Their idea of teaching is to throw a text book at you and leave you to get on with it. The staff seem more concerned about their own political position in the department and are constantly taking snipes at each other. The IT guy seems totally disinterested in helping prisoners with their work, but he clearly gets a buzz from giving them a hard time if they are late. He also delights in making us wait right up to midday so we are last in the lunch queue.

At least they are letting me get on with it, so one way or another, I should be able to improve my overall skills with all the Microsoft office functions. What would be really good is if I could learn to build a web site. A couple of the other prisoners are very knowledgeable so I can probably get them to help.

We get Friday afternoons off to change our prison clothes and collect our stuff from the prison shop, and with a bit of luck could also get an hour in the swimming pool – could be worse!

Not being with the kids is the hardest part. I didn’t realise how it would feel to lose so much contact. The short phone calls are hard but obviously the visits help. That said at the end of the visit when its time to leave I know the kids are doing their best to hold it together.

I just got to find out about town visits. I get to go out from 9am to 6.30pm twice a month but have to stay within a 25 mile radius of the prison, so no chance of getting home. They kick in after you have served one quarter of the total sentence, so nothing till November – hell that’s bloody ages. What about those pictures of Jeffrey Archer cruising about, that they showed on the TV news? I wonder if he waited a year. I know I will look it up in his book, which is in the library.

The last few weeks have been very quiet, the state of alert has now receded. They posted a notice saying the guy had sadly died but no other details.

The farm job has been fine but now I have managed to get to the top of the waiting list in the Education Department. I will be starting IT next Monday and they pay £8.40 a week. I had worked up to £16 on the farm, which was really helping pay for phone calls, although I am not now making so many. It has been impossible to keep anything going on the outside and I just got a bollocking from a senior officer for trying to sell t-shirts on ebay. So much for them not reading your mail!!

Have decided to let the plates stop spinning outside with the business ideas I had, and just keep my head down and get through this whole thing. I finally got a letter from the appeal court yesterday saying that the appeal papers had been received. At least that’s a start. It now goes before a single judge within the next couple of months who decides if the appeal has any merit. Then the appeal itself takes place several months after that. I reckon, all being well, I am looking at an appeal date around May or June. If it doesn’t succeed I’ve still got over a year to go, Oh my God. I hope I am not stuck here that long. Surely I will get some kind of reduction.

Both the solicitor and the barrister felt the sentence was over the top, but I have had no luck whatsoever in terms of what has happened since it came to court. At one point they had convinced me the offence would be considered as simply reckless behaviour within the rules of Company law. Instead I ended up with two charges involving fraud. At least the main one did not succeed, and fraudulent trading definitely sounds better than fraud. However three and a half years was never on the radar.

The wife has taken the view that we should not rely on any reduction, but at least the prospect of one makes it a bit easier to get through the weeks here. The kids seem OK and are just getting on with everything, they never used to see me that much anyway but now I really have started to appreciate what I had. I am convinced we will be a much closer unit in the future. It just seems so far away.

Now it’s all gone off here as well. Saturday night one of the guys came back from a town visit pissed and ended up in a fight. He stabbed the other guy with something – apparently there was blood absolutely everywhere. Then it went from bad to worse. The guy who started it was shipped straight across the road to the high security prison and was dead within three hours – hung himself! Christ I thought once I got to an open prison these type of things didn’t happen. B wing was locked down all day Sunday and there were dogs everywhere. Must have been at least 20 of them – they came in six white vans. Prisoners on B wing were told to go and collect their food one by one from the dining room and were then locked down for the rest of the day.

The atmosphere has changed dramatically. There is an air of apprehension and the whole place is really hushed. No doubt more information will filter through in the next few days. I wouldn’t be surprised if it hits the newspapers, but then this kind of stuff goes on all the time in the high security prisons and nobody gets to hear about it. I think the national average is way over one suicide per week. So maybe this will remain quiet. Either way I had better let the wife know – if she reads about it in the papers she will panic. So much for her thinking this is a holiday camp.

Disaster, the wife has crashed the car. Pulled across in front of an oncoming vehicle on the way to school. Says she has been so stressed she doesn’t know if she is coming or going half the time. The other car hit right where the kids were sitting. Looks like just a couple of bruises, but seems the car is a write off. We have only got third party insurance, as it was the only way I could get my eighteen year old daughter on the policy! What a bloody nightmare.

She has now managed to get an old banger for £150, but how long that will keep going in this weather is anybody’s guess. I’ve told her to cut down the visits immediately – better they are safe.

I was just beginning to get on with it all. It’s dreadful not being able to help, and of course it’s all my fault. Can’t say too much.

Still no definite word on the appeal. I will phone him myself and try not to lose it. The 28 days to file it are just about up, so I need to make sure its all done. If the solicitor wasn’t so unreliable I wouldn’t worry. I am sure there is no way he would screw something up this important, although before the hearing I seemed to have to remind him about everything. He is by far the most expensive incompetent I have ever employed, and it’s far too late to try and change, that could make it worse. At least the barrister is good and I know I’ve got his number in my mobile phone. That’s a relief, I will get the wife to look at the number in the memory and call him, I’m sure he won’t mind.

I need to try and calm down. This is just appalling.

Turns out over 80 percent of people do not attend their appeals. Normally the person appealing is not spoken to at any point in the proceedings. If the appeal happens within the next few months I will still end up with time to serve whatever happens. It would be totally over optimistic to think I would get so much knocked off I would not be coming back here for a bit longer. So attending and ending up in Pentonville needs to be avoided. Apparently you can sign a form to waive your rights to attend. I need to see one of those as soon as possible.

The farm has moved me on to vacuum packing the potatoes. This means that within a few weeks my pay will go up to £16 per week. That will really help and will mean I won’t need the wife to send in money for phone calls. I will also feel less guilty about buying a few extras. I am getting through ten stamps a week at the moment and the phone is around £10.

Desperately trying to keep a few projects going on the outside, but people are just not responding quickly enough. I was hoping to keep some money coming in to the family, but to be honest I am not sure if it is going to work. This is very stressful but I must at least try. I’ll keep at it for now.

The kids were just great again. I still can’t tell if they are struggling with it all at home and at school, but they are so positive when they visit. The wife seems to be struggling with everything, but then she never was very good with domestic stuff. I am sure she used to think the crockery got from the sink to the dishwasher by itself because someone told her it was an automatic! That said it can’t be easy, and some of her so called friends have been less than friendly since it all hit the local paper – so much for keeping it quiet.

She tried to phone the solicitor who has not returned any of her calls. We paid him £40,000 and he treats us with total disrespect. Apparently this is not unusual and if I try and call I will end up using all my phone credit and then get even more annoyed. All we want is confirmation the appeal papers have been lodged, as it must be done within 28 days of being sentenced. I will write to him instead, that way I won’t lose it so badly.

A couple of the guys here have got appeals coming up during the next few months, so it will be helpful to see how they get on, particularly as some are in for similar ‘clerical’ offences. If you attend the appeal you end up being taken to Pentonville afterwards and can get stuck there for weeks. However, there are apparently ways round it, so must try and find out how.

Despite having only served a few weeks, the fact it’s a New Year already feels more positive. 2005 was really bad, completely overshadowed by all the worry before the trial. Even in the times I was thinking it wouldn’t come to this, there was always that nagging doubt.

I tried to find out what might happen if it did come to this by trawling the Internet when the wife and kids were not about, but found very little apart from the difference in the types of prison. I hope that Sean’s blue book makes it to the search engines.

Went to bed early on New Years Eve to get it out the way, but it had to happen – someone set the fire alarm off at midnight. Everybody out and over to the dining hall in the freezing cold. Then all the central heating and hot water went off till midday the next day. No doubt if we find out who it was words will be had.

New Years day was really no different to an ordinary Sunday. The library was open as it is run exclusively run by inmates most of the time.

Today, more of the same then back to work tomorrow morning at 8:30am. The family are coming in the afternoon just before the kids go back to school. It will be great to see them again, I do hope the kids are as positive as last time - great inspiration.