As communications technologies proliferate and diversify, a new generation of security difficulties are presented to prison systems and for all kinds of reasons satellite technologies, telephony, access to data control systems, the internet, digital copiers and even photography are tightly controlled in prisons. Walkie talkies might seem like the tools of a bygone age but a mobile phone lost on a wing would be like a loose canon so most prisons ban even basic mobiles from secure spaces within the complex. Even so, as with the presence of drug dealing in secure institutions, there is always a way in for the determined smuggler. In prison every member of staff is responsible for security or its failure.
Although security searches of all incoming staff were part of the requirement of the basic security system. It was common knowledge that there simply was not the funding for such a level of staffing which could make it effective. The priority for the security department was containment, so the trafficking of unsanctioned favours into and out of the prison was tolerated or at least overlooked. This included class A drugs, lesser narcotics and a whole host of other things, including, almost unbelievably, prostitutes.
Perhaps it was the defiant arrogance of his black AMG Mercedes on a regular officer's pay, perhaps the thin, slightly crooked line of the fiercely shaven lips, perhaps the unassailable swagger of his overconfident walk, the large kit bag he always brought in, or the 'roid driven way he always slammed down the big dumbbells with which he punished his upper body but Bantock really did not like Lee Dursley.
So the day that Dursley was seen in the changing room at the gym block with his phone by an auxiliary member of staff, Bantock was quietly informed and he instinctively knew this was not just an honest mistake and the incident brought a welcome focus on the needs of the job and not on his own problems
Robert Kirkland, a colleague from basic training more than a decade before and now a security senior, picked up Bantock's call with his usual buddy manner but fell quickly into his official seriousness immediately the situation was described. No indication had been given to Dursley that he'd been seen with a mobile phone inside the jail so Kirkland was free to proceed to investigate the man without alerting his quarry. Security is a paranoid business and Bob Kirkland had often seen irrational anxiety lead to wasted time and effort while really dangerous situations could arise under the noses of the same officers and go uninvestigated. Bob had a similar distrust of Dursley to that felt by Harry Bantock, lots of the staff were phased by him and the man was moody. Long before the corridors and gates of prison wings were wired for CCTV, security had ways of "seeing" what staff and inmates alike were up to.
Kirkland wrote nothing down and said nothing to his boss. All kinds of things could happen to an officer who challenged his superiors' authority or integrity. Kirkland had a mortgage and 2 kids in primary school, he already knew a lot about illegal activities conducted with the knowledge of his immediate superior and Bantock was not the only officer in a key position who resented such flagrant corruption and vice. He also knew that both his boss and the Governor were in the same Freemason's lodge. The walls of the prison were permeable only to permitted staff, vetted volunteers, visitors and by legally and illegally transmitted goods and services. That left a lot of scope. Anyone who Kirkland suspected could act both internally and externally against him and he knew it. He might hit a few rats but the rest could overrun his life very easily. This was not a time for hasty actions.
