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Authors: Bernard O'Mahoney
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his keys or he was checking to see whether I was at home. Either way I had him. I ran on tiptoes to the door, bread knife in hand, whisked the door open and ... It was the rent man. He said good morning and tried to act normally, but I could tell he was a little anxious. I put my knife-hand down and told him he had caught me in the middle of cooking. He said: "I'm glad I've caught you. You owe me nine months' rent." I said I didn't owe him anything: I had given my flatmate the rent. We chatted for a few minutes before I realised that Chris had been spending the rent money. My face must have contorted with rage, because I could see the rent man beginning to get anxious again. I said: "You better go, mate. Come back another day." He left rapidly.
I think if Chris had turned up at that moment I would probably still now be serving a life sentence for his murder. Instead, I had to be content with taking out my anger on his property. I pulled his double-bed out of his room, dragged it into the back garden, piled everything he owned on top of it and set fire to the lot. I gathered up what was mine and left, leaving open the front and back doors for would-be burglars. The bonfire raged in the garden.
It was the middle of winter. I spent a week sleeping rough in an old caravan at the side of a restaurant. A good friend called Jayne let me stay at her flat occasionally, but her boyfriend got the wrong idea, so I stuck to the caravan to save her any trouble. I have never been so cold in my life. The caravan was full of old beer crates, so there was barely room to sit down. I had no bed or blankets and had to sleep on the floor, huddled in a ball: I remember waking up one morning to find that the milk in the bottle had frozen and pushed its way out an inch to look like a red-top stalagmite. To make matters worse I lost my egg-and-potato round when my van broke down, and because I didn't have an address I couldn't get any other job.
One Saturday I met up with a known thief in Wolverhampton. It was late 1978. I had been making an effort to stay out of trouble with the police, especially as I was still on bail, but I was about to find myself led astray by a dark blue velvet jacket with huge lapels, the sort of garment Marc Bolan might have worn. This one was hanging in a shop that we were browsing through. I told the thief that I liked it. He offered to steal it for me if I paid him half its value. I agreed and waited up the road while he went shopping. He arrived back 15 minutes later with a smile on his face and the jacket in his hand. Unfortunately, he had been spotted by store detectives who had followed him to see if he was planning to go anywhere else. When they pounced I had the jacket in my hand, so I was charged with theft. I didn't need my solicitor to warn me that I was almost certainly going to jail.
The velvet-jacket case was given a date at the magistrates' court before the milk-bottle-and-assault case. Any slight hope I had of avoiding jail evaporated when I arrived at court and discovered my case was to be heard by a fearsome stipendiary magistrate with a reputation for harsh sentencing. He adjourned the case for reports, but said I had already been given every chance and warned that he had in mind to impose a custodial sentence. I walked out of court knowing my luck had run out. I was homeless, jobless and facing a prison sentence that was unlikely to enhance my future employment prospects. I walked aimlessly around Wolverhampton until, near the offices of the Express and Star newspaper, I saw a sign in a window saying "Join the Professionals!" It was the army recruitment office. An idea bubbled up in my mind: I didn't want to become a soldier, but I thought that if I signed up I could go back to court, wave my recruitment papers at the magistrate, be let off the sentence and then before I got anywhere near a military base I could say I had changed my mind and resign.
I congratulated myself on my cunning, then walked in
I think if Chris had turned up at that moment I would probably still now be serving a life sentence for his murder. Instead, I had to be content with taking out my anger on his property. I pulled his double-bed out of his room, dragged it into the back garden, piled everything he owned on top of it and set fire to the lot. I gathered up what was mine and left, leaving open the front and back doors for would-be burglars. The bonfire raged in the garden.
It was the middle of winter. I spent a week sleeping rough in an old caravan at the side of a restaurant. A good friend called Jayne let me stay at her flat occasionally, but her boyfriend got the wrong idea, so I stuck to the caravan to save her any trouble. I have never been so cold in my life. The caravan was full of old beer crates, so there was barely room to sit down. I had no bed or blankets and had to sleep on the floor, huddled in a ball: I remember waking up one morning to find that the milk in the bottle had frozen and pushed its way out an inch to look like a red-top stalagmite. To make matters worse I lost my egg-and-potato round when my van broke down, and because I didn't have an address I couldn't get any other job.
One Saturday I met up with a known thief in Wolverhampton. It was late 1978. I had been making an effort to stay out of trouble with the police, especially as I was still on bail, but I was about to find myself led astray by a dark blue velvet jacket with huge lapels, the sort of garment Marc Bolan might have worn. This one was hanging in a shop that we were browsing through. I told the thief that I liked it. He offered to steal it for me if I paid him half its value. I agreed and waited up the road while he went shopping. He arrived back 15 minutes later with a smile on his face and the jacket in his hand. Unfortunately, he had been spotted by store detectives who had followed him to see if he was planning to go anywhere else. When they pounced I had the jacket in my hand, so I was charged with theft. I didn't need my solicitor to warn me that I was almost certainly going to jail.
The velvet-jacket case was given a date at the magistrates' court before the milk-bottle-and-assault case. Any slight hope I had of avoiding jail evaporated when I arrived at court and discovered my case was to be heard by a fearsome stipendiary magistrate with a reputation for harsh sentencing. He adjourned the case for reports, but said I had already been given every chance and warned that he had in mind to impose a custodial sentence. I walked out of court knowing my luck had run out. I was homeless, jobless and facing a prison sentence that was unlikely to enhance my future employment prospects. I walked aimlessly around Wolverhampton until, near the offices of the Express and Star newspaper, I saw a sign in a window saying "Join the Professionals!" It was the army recruitment office. An idea bubbled up in my mind: I didn't want to become a soldier, but I thought that if I signed up I could go back to court, wave my recruitment papers at the magistrate, be let off the sentence and then before I got anywhere near a military base I could say I had changed my mind and resign.
I congratulated myself on my cunning, then walked in
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