Thugs, Thieves, Shady millionaires, and Murderers.

As some of you may know, it was the Behind Bars conference today. I had no idea what to expect.

As I sat in the hall, with Ryan one side of me, and Kris on the other, we began to discuss the sorts of people who we would be meeting during the day, and the various natures of their crimes.

As I had walked into college that morning, I was greeted by the sight of two of the largest men I had ever laid eyes on. The sort of large, where you can’t quite tell if its muscle or fat, and you aren’t planning on finding out any time soon. One was about my height, and one about a head shorter. Both were about two of me wide.

We had paid £31 to attend for the day, which seemed at the time, a little steep, but looking back, I would have happily paid triple that amount.
Ryan said that the reason for the cost being so high was that Garry Glitter was going to make an appearance, as a sort of surprise guest, and the two hench strangers were his body guards. Ryan then proceeded to sing us all a rendition of some of Garry's classics, "Do You Wanna Touch Me," and "Leader Of The Gang."
-Don't quit your day job Ryan.-

Finally, the first "Crim" as we had decided to call them, had taken the floor. He was about 6ft 1, wearing a dark suit, with a blue striped shirt. Perfectly ordinary looking.

To get things rolling, he asked us to discuss in groups, what we would do to criminals, and how we would punish them, ect. Another man, this time with greyish hair, and a cream coloured suit and trousers, stuck his head over my shoulder, and asked us (Me, Kris, and Ryan,) about our thoughts. He seemed to like them, and said to me that to "lighten the mood," he would get me to stand up, in front of the audience of about ninety people, not including the rows of staff that lined the far wall, and the two massive skinheads, who must have counted for about 5 people each by themselves.
At this point, I was ready to physically put a bullet through my head.
I had just be told, that I would have to stand up, in front of half the staff, a room full of about ninety strangers, and a bunch of people who had spent some serious time in prison, and tell them all about our ideas of how to deal with criminals. I was shitting myself.

So, I dragged myself up to the front, turned to survey the audience, trying my hardest not to stare at the titans sat at the back of the room, and delivered my ideas.

-I would like to add at this point, that the views I expressed while stood in front of the assembled audience, are not to be taken in any way seriously. As the man in the cream suit had said, it was to "lighten the mood," and apparently to test my metal. The man in the cream suit knew a few things, that I, at the time, did not.-

The man in the dark suit said that, "it had been suggested to me that you should come up and share your ideas..."At this point, I looked across at the man in the cream suit and said, "Yeah... thanks for that..." whilst giving him a feeble thumbs up.

Ordinary looking host: "So... Zach is it? How would you deal with criminals?"

-Deep breath-

Me: "Firstly, I would like to say that this idea is largely thanks to Kris, Ryan, and of course myself. Basically, our methods would mainly deal with white collar crimes. Depending on the nature of the crime, say if someone had stolen something, we would take their hand, and take off most of the layers of skin with a belt sander. That way, they wouldn’t be able to handle anything for a fair amount of time. If they continued to re-offend, then you would then take a finger, and another finger, then all the fingers, then half of their hand, then their whole hand up to the wrist, THEN their arm up to the elbow, THEN their arm up to their shoulder. This way, they wouldn’t be able to commit the crime anymore!"

-It gets worse.-

Ordinary looking host: "So, what would be your method be to re habilitate your criminals?"

Me: "Well, I would make them sit in a corner and think about what they had done."

Ordinary looking host: "Right... ok..."

Me: "And then if they tried to escape prison, we could take their legs! Then we would end up with just a torso with a head!!!"

At this point, the audience was in a mix of people pissing themselves with laughter, and people checking that their limbs were still safely attached to their bodies. As I had feared, the massive one of the massive skinheads at the back piped up with, "You got a lot of balls standing up there and saying those things with us lot sitting here..."
I simply met his stare, and returned it, with a wry smile and a casual salute in his general direction.
The man in the dark suit, also voiced my "bravery," at speaking my mind with those two sat directly within my line of sight.
I simply replied, "Oh, actually I saw those guys as I came into college this morning... I nearly PISSED myself! They are BLOODY MASSIVE aren't they?!"
Thank god everyone laughed.
I was just lucky for me, that the blokes sat at the back weren’t the kind to take offence at a bit of good humour. Needless to say, I’ll still be double locking all my doors tonight.

Later on, I found out which figure committed what crime.

The slightly smaller skinhead, as it turns out, was put into prison under false charges. He served 14 months, despite being innocent. He was later acquitted (set free.) His only criminal offences, was getting into a fight with someone on a rugby pitch, and beating up his ex wife’s boyfriend, after he told his daughter to "shut the fuck up"
The slightly taller skinhead had been part of an ongoing battle with the police ever since the age of 7. As far as he was concerned, it was the police's job to try to catch him, and his job to try to escape.
The man in the cream suit, who had seen me for what I was straight away, and had wanted to see if I really had the bottle to share my ideas with the rest of the class, used to be a multi millionaire. His company turnover was about 50 million a year. As it turns out, he made his millions through... ostrich farming... *shrug.* You don’t ask questions of someone that successful. He claimed that he was innocent of the charges put against him, but I think he was clever enough to make the story sound however he wanted.
So... Judging by the title, there is one person I have left out. The murderer.
There is only one person left, who I have not commented on. The man in the dark suit.
Perhaps the most ordinary of the lot, had committed the most grievous crime of all. Murder.

Looking back, during my short time in front of everyone, I was swindled into talking by a top conman, intimidated by a harmless thug, clashed swords with a lifelong rogue, and stood side by side with a murderer, whilst I jokingly told him about how we should be cutting peoples limbs off and leaving them as torso's.

Even knowing that, I still probably would have gone up there... but my god. No wonder the man in the cream suit was so keen to get me up there. He knew exactly what he was doing, but thankfully so did I. I’ve either got some serious nerve, or I live a charmed life.

Sadly, there was no Gary Glitter.