A Prison Diary

DAY 5, MONDAY 23 JULY 2001, 5.53 AM
The sun is shining through the bars of my window on what must be a glorious summer day. I've been incarcerated in a cell five paces by three for 12 and a half hours, and will not be let out again until midday; 18 and a half hours of solitary confinement. There is a child of 17 in the cell below me who has been charged with shoplifting, his first offence, not even convicted, and he is being locked up for 18 and a half hours, unable to speak to anyone. This is Great Britain in the 21st century, not Turkey, not Nigeria, not Kosovo, but Britain.

On Thursday 19 July 2001, after a perjury trial lasting seven weeks, Jeffrey Archer was sentenced to four years in jail. He was to spend the first 22 days and 14 hours in HMP Belmarsh, a double A-Category high-security prison in South London, which houses some of Britain's most violent criminals.

This is the author's daily record of the time he spent there.