Walking Through the Valley

By Simon Grosvenor

‘I can see no alternative but to sentence you to eight months, take him down’

My head was numb, I felt physically sick as the court guards took an arm each and led me downstairs to the Crown Court Cells.  I felt so many emotions all at once, anger, frustration, loneliness, but most of all fear.

I screamed at my solicitor and barrister downstairs, “So what happened there ten?! Who’s going to look after my wife now?  I’m a police officer!!!”  I was right; I was still a police officer-for the moment.  But I was now also a convicted criminal about to start an eight month sentence for a crime I didn’t think I had done.

Time stood still as I was stripped of my suit and searched by two officers.  This just felt so wrong, I wished so hard that it was a dream.  I remember saying to one of the female prison guards, “This can’t be happening, it just can’t, I haven’t done it.”  She looked at me with sympathetic eyes and said “I know love, but you will be out soon, don’t worry just ask for the numbers.”  I knew what asking for the numbers meant.  Certain categories of prisoner – including sex offenders, police informers and ex-police officers – are at risk of attack from their fellow prisoners.  They are thus classed as ‘vulnerable prisoners’ and are segregated from their fellow inmates.  I suppose the thought of being locked up with ‘vulnerable prisoners’ helped a bit – but not much!

The journey in the ‘sweat box’, as prison wagons are described, was horrific.  My mind was racing, imagining the very worst of possibilities, I was also thinking about Lee, and Mom and Dad.  They must be so frightened for me.  The van almost drove past my house in Leicester Forest East, and I was straining my neck forward to catch a glimpse of Lee or Dad arriving home after court, but the van turned off before my road – I was gutted.

Arrival at HMP Nottingham is still a blur really.  I remember after requesting the numbers, that I was going spend the night in the medical wing (due to my apparent suicide risk.)  That sounds nice I thought – I was wrong.  The medical wing was full of cells with Perspex glass, so the screws (as I was already calling them in my head!)  could see who was self-harming or trying to commit suicide.  Screaming and shouting seemed to be non-stop; essentially it was a mental asylum for criminals.  Not a nice place, and not clean at all.  I was in cell one, opposite the office, where the phone never stopped ringing.  I was ushered into my first cell, which was empty apart from a plastic mattress on the floor, a metal toilet, and a sink.  I turned and looked longingly at ‘Miss’ who had delivered me.  “Is this it?” I said.  “I’m afraid so, but you’re only here for one night, just get some rest,” and with that she closed the door.  Get some rest!!??  Yeah right – I’ve lost my job, lost my pension, been all over the news, I’m starting an eight month stretch for something I thought I hadn’t done – yah I’d like a rest!!

It then dawned on me, for the first time all day I was alone; no one to talk too, no one to listen, no one looking at me, and no-one to look at.  This was it for eight months, this is prison.  I was exhausted, and had been crying on and off since being ‘sent down’ which was now about five hours earlier.  My actual eyeballs were aching from rubbing my eyes continually.  It was 7.30pm and I was sitting on my mattress feeling about as low as I ever have, when I looked up.  I saw a single piece of paper stuck to the notice boar in my cell.  I stood up and began to read these words.

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.  Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.  In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.  Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.  This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord, ‘You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always.  But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand. Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?’  The Lord replied, ‘The years when you have seen only set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.’

I knew this poem, which is called ‘Footprints in the Sand’ and as I began to read it, tears streamed down my cheeks.  I fought back the tears so I could read every last word.  For the next half an hour or so, the Lord entered my cell.  What a privilege!  What an experience and a spiritual awaking.  I felt the Spirit of the Lord fill my cell from top to bottom.  This was His cell now, and nothing outside that box mattered; only that He was in fellowship with one of His own.  I felt comforted, and uplifted, I knew the Lord would be with me on this journey over the next few months; I know because He told me.

That night, the Lord stood over me all night and protected me.  There was no one there except Him and me.  I slept soundly all the night through, from about 8.00pm till 7.00am.  I am sure not many people could say they slept soundly their first night in prison!  I don’t know how or when the noises stopped, but the Lord can only have deafened my ear to them.