Published: 4 October, 2012
EXCLUSIVE by DAN CARRIER

THE dying mother of one of Britain’s longest serving prisoners had to be wheeled through jail security – half conscious – to say goodbye to her son after a compassionate home visit was denied.

May Massey, 86, has an untreatable brain tumour and has been told she has weeks to live. She is surviving with the help of an oxygen mask. Her son John, 64, from Kentish Town, is serving a life sentence for the 1975 murder of pub bouncer Charlie Higgins.

His name is notorious for embarrassing prison authorities earlier this year when he escaped from Pentonville Prison in Islington by clambering over the 40ft walls. He had absconded from custody twice before, meaning that he has served longer in prison than was originally ordered at his trial.

His sister Jane Massey told the New Journal: “John is no risk to anyone. We told the prison they could have a guard handcuffed to each arm, just let John home for an hour so his mum could say her goodbyes. They said, ‘no’.”
 

‘I just want to see Johnny,’ the words of May, 86, as she goes to visit her prisoner son for a last time

WEARING a fluorescent all-in-one jumpsuit reserved for the most dangerous prisoners in Britain, John Massey was led to a small room in Belmarsh high-security prison on Tuesday to say goodbye to his ailing mother May.

Massey, who is serving life for the murder of pub doorman Charlie Higgins in 1975, has long seen out his sentence.
But a series of high-profile escapes means he is still behind bars, more than 30 years after originally being found guilty.

His family, from Kentish Town, had to pay £550 for a private ambulance to take his mother May, 86, who medics have confirmed has just weeks to live, to say goodbye to the son who has spent most of his adult life behind bars.

Prison officials refused requests by the Massey family to allow John a compassionate visit in which he would have been taken, under guard, to his sister Jane’s home, where their bedridden mum is seeing out her final days. They say this is due to John, 64, escaping earlier this year.

May, hardly able to speak, mouthed the words with a gasping croak: “I just want to see Johnny” to a New Journal reporter just before making an hour-long journey by ambulance to Belmarsh in south-east London.

She was then taken by stretcher, dropping in and out of consciousness, through the gates of the high-security prison – sometimes dubbed Britain’s version of Guantanamo Bay due to the numbers of terror suspects held there without charge. There, she was wheeled into a small side room to say goodbye to her son.

Weak and permanently on an oxygen cylinder, May was able to recognise her son. She was, her daughter Jane said, highly emotional.

John told his sister Jane he was grateful for the chance to say goodbye, but the prison setting has deeply upset both of them.

Jane said: “She managed to make him laugh a couple of times but it was very hard for both of them. He kissed her when it was time to go and said: ‘Just remember I love you.’

“It was an exhausting day for her and the ambulance staff were so concerned they used a blue light to get us home.”
The family were not left alone during the two-hour visit – the prison chaplain was there throughout, and they were joined for the last half hour by an officer.

Mr Massey’s living conditions at Belmarsh are the type of regime usually reserved for
the highest-security prisoners or those recently found guilty of serious crimes.

His family say he is allowed just 15 minutes outside his small cell each day. He has 20 minutes for a shower and another eight minutes to make one phone call. Otherwise, he is kept in solitary confinement in a cell that includes a bunk and toilet.

In June, he clambered over the 40ft-high walls of Pentonville Prison in Islington, using a makeshift rope, and got to the old people’s home where May was then living in Kent after hearing she was rapidly deteriorating. He was arrested five days later in Faversham.

Mr Massey, now in his 60s, has been told by prison wardens he has no chance of being allowed to attend his mother’s funeral. Because he is deemed a Category E prisoner – one of the highest security rankings in the system – he was told all formal requests to visit his mother to say goodbye would be automatically refused.

Sister Jane said: “Even the Kray twins were allowed out to say goodbye to their mum. This feels completely unjust.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said it would not comment on individual cases, but added: “All applications for compassionate release are considered and rigorously risk-assessed. Release is only granted in exceptional circumstances, the primary consideration being the protection of the public.”

Massey has a longer history of escapes. In 1994, he crawled through a toilet window at the Prince of Wales pub in Kentish Town after being taken by guards on a visit to the family’s home in Castle Road. He fled to Spain and lived there for three years before returning to Britain and a prison cell.

In 2007, while on a day release scheme, he was returned to prison after missing a curfew while visiting his father, Jack, as he lay dying at the Royal Free Hospital, in Hampstead. He was arrested at the Fiddler’s Elbow pub in Kentish Town.

In 2009, while serving more time at Ford open prison, in West Sussex, he walked out to see his sister Carol before she died. He had again been denied a visit after hearing she had just weeks to live. Instead of returning to Ford, he lived for 10 months quietly at his sister Jane’s home in Barnet before being taken back to custody.

She said: “If he was such a danger, and such a priority, why did it take the police nearly a year to come to my house and take him back to prison?”

But this history means her brother is unlikely to receive parole for a crime he committed in 1975 and for which he has served all his tariff. It also meant that when his family told the prison of May’s diagnosis, he was refused the chance to visit her one last time.

Her doctors wrote to prisoner governor Phil Wragg. In a letter seen by the New Journal, a Barnet and Chase Farm Hospital consultant said: “She has an aggressive brain tumour and is likely to deteriorate quickly. She is unlikely to survive more than a few weeks, possibly shorter.”

Jane said: “We said to them: bring him here, please, so he can say goodbye. Shackle him, have two officers handcuffed to him, anything – just let his mum see him one more time.”

Strict criteria for home visits meant the request was flatly refused – so the family asked for a visitor permit to take his frail, bed-bound mother to the prison instead.

Mr Massey was not told his mother would be allowed to visit him until the morning it happened, in case the Ministry of Justice found a reason to cancel it.

Sister Jane added: “The fact is John has served his time. He is not a danger to anyone, and the use of high-security prison is ridiculous. He escaped previously to see members of his family for the last time – that should be taken into account.”