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Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


 Issue No. 87 Autumn 2022
Peter Atkinson
It’s not Over ‘til it’s Over
By: Peter Atkinson.
I was much taken by Graham Mumby-Croft’s article in the Spring issue of the RPG Newsletter about the incidents he experienced as Duty Governor. A flood of my own stories came to mind as it probably did to many readers of the Newsletter. By no means the most celebrated but certainly one of the more interesting stories involving a category A prisoner called Derek Wallbanks, popped into my head from my early days at Wakefield prison. A few readers might respond, “oh, yes. I remember that bundle of trouble”.

Derek Wallbanks was born near Gateshead in 1951. To say he was a handful right from birth would be an understatement. He became involved in crime from an early age, inevitably leading to a 15-year sentence for armed robbery and attempted murder of a Policeman, in 1976. On entering the prison system, he was given category A status and quickly began to cause considerable trouble to the authorities. He was losing his remission via numerous Governors adjudications with great rapidity. Amongst a number of moves around the Dispersal system, he entered the portals of Wakefield around 1980 half way through his sentence. What’s that got to do with me?

One Sunday evening in 1983, I was Duty Governor for the usual 24-hour period, as it was my turn. The Governor was John Symonds. Around eight o’clock at night, I got a call from the Orderly Officer (O/O) to tell me that a Category A prisoner was bleeding heavily and needed an escort out to hospital. I was told he was a prisoner called Mr Wallbanks and, “…there was blood everywhere….”, and he needed treatment. After Association he had returned to his cell and cut his haemorrhoids with a razor blade and was allegedly bleeding extensively. He had been moved to the prison hospital. Could I authorise the setting up of an escort that would obviously have required some armed police officers, given Mr Wallbanks’ security status. Two things crossed my mind; first, setting up an escort like that on a Sunday night would be no easy task. Second, I was mindful that some months earlier a dangerous prisoner had been transferred to hospital out of another prison and some of his armed chums had jumped the staff, effecting his escape.

I told the O/O, to give me a moment whilst I checked something out. My wife Catherine had been a very experienced operating theatre sister and I asked her what were the implications of a person cutting their piles and bleeding a bit. She said that it was unlikely to be life threatening as piles are veins not arteries, and if a doctor attended, he would probably “pack the wound” which could be left until morning. I had in my head that Mr Wallbanks was engineering a pre-planned escape and with this in mind, along with the advice from Catherine, I told the O/O that he was going nowhere and should remain where he was until our prison Doctor was called in to assess whether the situation was grave or not. Catherine was somewhat aghast that I had based my decision on her unseen assessment, but I had sufficient confidence in her medical experience. The O/O was far from happy and tried to persuade me that Mr Wallbanks should go to hospital immediately. I stuck to my guns and said I was coming into the prison.

I arrived at the prison and went up to the Control Room (CR) above the main gate and spoke to the O/O. He was agitated and far from happy and told me that he had called in the Chief Officer, Denis Ryan. Denis was a nice man and when he arrived he told me that he had spoken to the Governor who had agreed that Mr Wallbanks should be taken to hospital.

1983 was pre-Fresh Start and the authoritative definition of who had final say in a decision between an AG11 and a Chief 1, was decidedly unclear. I was the official Duty Governor and I thought I was able to pull rank. I suggested this was an escape attempt and we should keep him inside. At that point, with the help of the CCTV cameras, one of the operatives saw that the doctor had just made his way into the prison. I managed to persuaded the anxious group in the CR to wait and see what the doctor had to say. Reluctantly that was agreed. We watched the doctor on different cameras as he made his way through the prison and into the hospital. 

It was a very long 15 minutes before the CR phone rang and the O/O answered. The rest of us stood around anxiously whilst the doctor relayed his decision that it was not a life-threatening situation. The prisoner’s wound had been “packed”, and the prisoner’s treatment could wait until the next day. I instructed that an escort should be set up for the following morning. With plenty of time to arrange the details, and I left for home. Phew. I was mightily relieved that the doctor had done what Catherine had suggested, and Catherine was just as relieved as me.

Interestingly, the story doesn’t end there. I had been posted to Cat C prison Lindholme as Deputy Governor to Dai Thompson in 1988. Just before I got my first in-charge posting to Wetherby in 1991, I was walking across the prison yard one afternoon. A slightly built, medium height, athletic looking prisoner approached me for a chat. In a Geordie accent, he asked if I had been at Wakefield prison some years earlier, because he thought he recognised me. I said I had but why did he ask. He said his name was Wallbanks and he had been at Wakefield as well. I asked him what he was doing at Lindholme and he told me that he had four weeks left to serve and the authorities wanted him to experience a jail away from the dispersal system before his final release. I confirmed with him that we had never met but I said I remembered the incident when he cut his piles. I said I wanted to ask him about that incident and whether his amateur surgery was an effort to try and spring an escape. I told him that it was me who had stopped him going to outside hospital on that Sunday night because I was convinced that he was going to have it away. I told him that he could tell me the truth as it didn’t matter any more. He replied that his intention was not to escape but he just, “…wanted to jump the queue for some treatment because my piles were giving me jip…”. Whether rightly or wrongly, I believed him. He had lost every day of his remission and was just weeks away from the end of his sentence. He said he had been judged as unsuitable for Open prison so had been sent to Lindholme instead. It was a cheerful chat and i wished him well on release and we went on our separate ways. 

Interestingly the story didn’t end there. Having settled at Wetherby YOI, I happened to read a newspaper article in October 1991, describing an incident at a house in Brunswick Grove, Newcastle. An old couple who lived in a small bungalow had been taken hostage and a siege had ensued with a police presence. There were reports of a gunman holding out. After nine hours, the gunman suddenly left the bungalow wielding a hand pistol. He fired two shots at the ground and then pointed the gun at the armed police surrounding the property. Believing their lives might be in danger, one of the police marksmen shot the gunman dead. The individual concerned was the 40-year-old ex-offender Derek Wallbanks, who had only been out of prison a matter of weeks. The gunman’s weapon was an athletic starting pistol.

PETER ATKINSON