Inside UK's most notorious jail where Baby P's evil killer is terrified of attack & rapists & murderers play hide & seek
SADISTIC Baby P killer Steven Barker spent his time in notorious Belmarsh prison 'watching children's daytime TV', a new book claims.
Loathed more than any other inmate in a nick where terrorists and mass murderers do time, evil Barker was confined to his cell due to being 'at extreme risk of harm', according to a former lag.
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The monster, who tortured his 17-month-old stepson Peter Connelly to death, was jailed for 12 years in 2009 over the tot's death in Tottenham, north London, two years earlier.
Despite staying holed up in the jail, he was still targeted by other prisoners hellbent on revenge.
'Many inmates would go to his door, shout abuse and squirt urine from a Lynx shower gel bottle under his door,' the ex-prisoner claimed.
'He was detested. Staff at Belmarsh hated him, too.'
The revealing new book, called Inside Belmarsh, also features claims that Black Cab Rapist John Worboys and Whitechapel Ripper Derek Brown bragged behind bars about concealing bodies.
The hideous pair revelled in being 'hide and seek champions', according to the book about some of the high-security jail 's most notorious cons. There is no evidence that Worboys ever committed murder.
It also claims terrorist Abu Hamza al-Masri — known as Captain Hook — was a serial 'whinger' who refused to be searched by women guards and requested special fittings for his cell.
And former Conservative Cabinet member Jonathan Aitken, who served time in Belmarsh for perjury in 1999, tells how he helped write messages to lags' girlfriends.
Now a prison chaplain, Aitken says one inmate asked him: 'Would you mind telling her that I'm longing to f*** her a different way?'
'Joke about victims'
Nicknamed Hellmarsh, the South East London nick has housed the dregs of Britain's criminal fraternity, including killer cop Wayne Couzens, nail bomber David Copeland and child killer Stuart Hazell.
Authors Jonathan Levi and Emma French have pieced together the lives of some of the most notorious offenders after speaking to former wardens and lags.
The insiders' account of life in Belmarsh tells how Steven Barker — convicted of causing or allowing baby Peter 's death — was forced to lead a hermit-like existence.
A former inmate said: 'In his case, it was deemed too much of a risk to allow him out of his cell. He was constantly locked up. He had greasy blond hair; he was very dirty and had poor hygiene and smelt.
'He is well over 6ft tall. A Lurch-type character. He had all his meals brought to his door. He never showered, never went out on exercise.
'He just sat in his cell watching children's daytime TV.'
The book also details how serial sex fiend John Worboys and murderer Derek Brown developed a hideous friendship inside the nick.
Worboys, 68, was jailed for at least eight years in 2009 for sex offences, including one rape, against 12 women.
A decade later, he got a minimum of six years after admitting drugging four more with the intent to sexually assault them — although cops believe he may have had over 100 victims.
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Picking up women late at night, he would claim that he had won money and offer them champagne laced with sedatives. Once incapacitated, he sexually assaulted them.
One inmate said of Worboys: 'He would joke about his victims at times. He was very polite and quite pleasant to talk to. But as I got to know him well, I saw another side.'
Worboys' prison pal Derek Brown, 61, lured two women from the streets of London 's East End before murdering them in his home. Neither body has ever been found.
One ex-con told the authors Worboys had confided in him that he had 'murdered a boy'.
The lag alleged: 'The boy he claimed to have murdered was a young boy from up north who travelled to London.
'He was 15, had a young face and glasses. I don't remember the name.
'Worboys said he was a hide and seek champion, too, and referred to the missing boy. Him and his mate in Bournemouth, Dave, did the boy.
'I left it and thought nothing of it, then it came on TV about the missing boy, a cold case. I saw it.
"Worboys referred to it again and said that was his case. Brown and Worboys are from the same area and slept with the same prostitutes. They both knew each other.
'Brown never said he was involved, but with Worboys, there is a massive dark side.'
Worboys said he was a hide and seek champion, too, and referred to the missing boy. Him and his mate in Bournemouth, Dave, did the boy
Lag, on John Worboys
An ex-prison officer named Jo remembered Worboys 'clearly', adding: 'I said at the time, 'If I got into his taxi, I would've felt completely safe'. That was the strange part, he had a warm, friendly face.
'On the wing, he was always polite. He'd say, 'Morning, ma'am', and he wasn't a disciplinary problem. He didn't come across as threatening, though of course, we all knew what he'd done.'
Hook-handed hate preacher Abu Hamza was held in Belmarsh's High Security Unit. The former imam of Finsbury Park Mosque in North London, he was extradited to the US in 2012, where he is serving life for terror offences.
An ex-inmate who was in the Belmarsh unit with Hamza described him as 'overweight, diabetic, high blood pressure, not very healthy', adding: 'Hamza was a serious complaints person. His disability allowed him to request a special fitted cell.
'Read a Bible'
'He had an adapted toilet with holding rails, a new sink with touch taps because of his one hand, his bed was adapted with an extra mattress to ease his back issue.
'He refused to be searched by female staff because of his Muslim faith (it was not allowed for a woman to touch a man), and he would argue with staff at any opportunity.'
Met Police officer Wayne Couzens — who murdered marketing executive Sarah Everard in 2021 — tried to keep to the medical wing of the prison to avoid retribution, it is said. Jail worker Nik revealed: ''He barely spoke.
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'He was always in the healthcare wing, under constant observation because he was a high-risk target for other inmates, purely because he was a police officer.
Another ex-officer recalled: 'Wayne Couzens was there for the trial. He read a Bible for 18 months.'
An officer called Caroline, who carried out Couzens' suicide watch, added: 'He was so quiet, like a mouse, didn't really speak.'
Child killer Stuart Hazell — who got at least 38 years for murdering 12-year-old Tia Sharp in New Addington, South London, in 2012 — was held on remand at Belmarsh during his trial.
One con whose prison stretch coincided with the killer's said: 'He was broken by the brutal regime at Belmarsh. I have seen offenders plead guilty at the last minute because of the stress.
'One such offender was Hazell. The public were led to believe the evidence against him was so strong, he did the right thing and pleaded guilty.
"The facts are — and this was said by him to me — it was simply the aggravation of the journey, the process that made him change his plea to guilty. Belmarsh broke him.'
Barry George — wrongfully convicted of the 1999 murder of BBC presenter Jill Dando — was bullied by staff, the book alleges.
A former inmate said: 'Staff were very hostile towards him. They all called him 'Mrs Dando', which was, frankly, a little discourteous.
'He complained about the food and the conditions.'
The ex-lag revealed Barry's cell was full of law books, adding: 'The public perception of him is that he is a slow, simplistic man with mental health issues, not very articulate and with no academic skills. This is wrong.'
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange caused a stir when he was visited at Belmarsh in 2019 by celeb backer and former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson.
Ex-prison officer Nik said it caused 'havoc' among staff, admitting: 'It was bizarre seeing someone like her in that environment.'
Of Assange, the former prison worker added: ''He's unhygienic, arrogant and narcissistic. He thought he was above the regime and made life difficult for staff. He refused to conform and thinks of himself like some kind of god.'
Another ex-lag called Mike added of Assange: 'He looked like Father Christmas on crack.'
Inside Belmarsh: Banged Up in Britain's Toughest Prison, by Jonathan Levi and Emma French, published July 3.
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If you ever thought, as I did growing up there, that Northern Ireland's fame was limited to 30 years of bombs and bullets, or building a ship that sank on its maiden voyage — you'd better think again. Twenty-one years ago, we were also host to the biggest robbery in British or Irish history at the time — in fact, the sixth biggest robbery in the world. Pretty impressive, eh? In one sense, it was impressive. On December 20, 2004, £26.5 million in cash was stolen from the Northern Bank headquarters in Belfast's city centre — in clear view of the public as Christmas shoppers strolled round the continental market just feet away. Glenn Patterson, an admired Belfast-based novelist, has written a book showing how the robbers did it, and how they got away with it. It was not just a monetary robbery, but a symbolic one. The Northern Bank building is a landmark in Belfast's post-industrial city centre, a great, sturdy 1970s edifice in concrete. It's a building you can imagine Bill Bixby walking out of, coat over shoulder, in the credits for The Incredible Hulk. But the robbery was not the first of its kind that year. Already in 2004 there had been other 'tiger kidnappings', where robbers would take family members hostage and force bank employees to help them to carry out the heist. In response, the Northern Bank had changed its operations so that two key holders were needed simultaneously to access its cash vaults. The criminals' solution? To abduct two employees' family members at once. Kevin McMullan, the bank's assistant manager, and Chris Ward, a junior employee, both had a knock on the door the night before the robbery. Armed men took over their homes and held their families hostage while McMullan and Ward were taken away. The men were held overnight, then told to go to work the next day and act normally. At clocking-off time they were to use their access to remove cash from the vault, disguised in containers to look like rubbish, and load it into a waiting white van. And so they did: great blocks and boxes of new and used notes, kilos upon kilos of it. The cover of Patterson's book shows a CCTV image of Ward leaving the bank's side entrance with a holdall over one shoulder. The holdall contains £1.2 million. Little wonder he's leaning to one side to counter the weight. So who did it? There's no doubt: the only criminal outfit in Northern Ireland with the organisational capability to plan and execute the robbery so methodically was the IRA. (The single sign of amateurishness was that two men in the van wore Russ Abbot-style ginger 'Jimmy' wigs beneath their baseball caps. This odd sight alerted passersby and almost foiled the robbery.) Opinions are divided on why the IRA carried out the robbery. For a pension fund? Investment abroad? • The 21 best history books of the past year to read next The whole story is presented beautifully by Patterson, who adopts the right tone for each phase of the tale. The abduction scenes have the horrible tension of a thriller, and reminded me of Brian Moore's great Troubles novel Lies of Silence. Elsewhere, Patterson adopts a tone of amused incredulity at the shocking details of the robbery and its aftermath. 'You have to take your hat off to this country. It has a way of exceeding your worst, most lavish expectations.' But the robbery also presented a political problem for the British and Irish governments. In 2004, the fledgling Northern Ireland Assembly had collapsed, and there were 'talks about talks' to get it up and running again. Indeed, when MI5 detected high levels of phone activity between senior IRA men the night before the robbery, they optimistically — naively — thought it meant an announcement was imminent on the decommissioning of IRA weapons, to break the political deadlock. When it was announced who the likely culprits were, Sinn Fein — the IRA's political wing — complained of a smear on republicans. But as Patterson points out, in one of the few passages where he sounds truly angry, this was a common tactic for Sinn Fein. He reminds us about the brutal murder of Robert McCartney after an argument in a Belfast bar in January 2005, when nobody in the pub — including the future Stormont minister Deirdre Hargey of Sinn Fein — would speak to the police about what happened. Instead, Hargey claimed that reports of IRA involvement in the murder were 'part of the onslaught by the media and governments and political parties to criminalise Sinn Fein and the republican movement'. 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And in a world where every conspiracy theorist sees two-tier justice in any outcome they don't like, the aftermath of the robbery provided a real example. The senior IRA man Bobby Storey — believed to be the brains behind the robbery, and 'a great human being' in the words of Gerry Adams — died in June 2020 and his funeral attracted more than 1,500 people, in contravention of Covid regulations. Other people could have no more than 30 at theirs. None of the Sinn Fein politicians who attended were prosecuted, while at a Black Lives Matter protest in Belfast a few weeks earlier, 70 people were fined. Patterson had once planned to write a screenplay of the robbery. I wish he had. It has everything: tension, dark comedy, human interest, big issues and more. But this book will do very nicely in its place. And if the Northern Bank heist was indeed a symbolic robbery, then here is the other symbol. Why did they do it? Because they knew they could get away with it. As Patterson points out: 'Something [else] disappeared in that white van in December 2004 that has never been recovered.' The Northern Bank Job: The Heist and How They Got Away With It by Glenn Patterson (Head of Zeus £16.99 pp272). To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
