IN JAIL

 

    

     Pentonville Prison isn’t on Pentonville Road but a short bus ride away on the Caledonian Road. The oldest prison in London, it opened in 1842 and was the first in the world designed to reform its inmates. 

     There were more executions in Pentonville in the twentieth century than any other British prison, including Dr Crippen, Timothy Evans and John Christie. Evans was innocent of two murders later attributed to Christie. It was one of the miscarriages of justice that led, in 1965, to the abolition of the death penalty for murder. 

     You could still be hung for piracy or high treason until 1998, although no-one has been executed in the UK since 1964. Three Georges – Best, Michael and O’Dowd (Boy George) have been briefly detained at Pentonville for minor offences. Oscar Wilde was sent there in 1895 to begin two years of hard labour.

     Pentonville currently has 1300 serving ‘At Her Majesty’s Pleasure’. Disappointingly, there are no tours, not even a gift shop.

    Opposite the prison, the Breakout Café is the sort of greasy spoon where the coffee choice is black or white. I can imagine it’s normally patronised by hoodlums and gangsters molls waiting for visiting time, perhaps carrying a cake containing a file. Sadly visiting isn’t allowed at present. So when I stop for tea there’s no-one to avoid making eye contact with, just a couple of guys attaching a package to a drone. I presume they’re Amazon delivery men.

     Jail/Goal Trivia: The original Monopoly board featured the streets of Atlantic City. Prior to the first London version, the British almost exclusively used ‘gaol’ rather than the American ‘jail’ as their preferred spelling.