A heist too far

When I first met Terry Smith ten years ago, in the library of Long Lartin top security prison in Worcestershire, he was part of a cockney criminal elite as exclusive and self-perpetuating as the Whig junta that once controlled England.

Along the austere corridors in that microcosm of misanthropy and discontent, Smith and his ilk cut quite a dash in their Day-glo designer sportswear, dispensing favours here, meting out summary justice there, employing the less prosperous prisoners amongst us to fetch and carry after regular Lucullan repasts and hooch-fuelled revelries. ‘We were the living embodiment of extroversion,’ Smith suggests in retrospect. ‘A collection of colourful crooks [who] loved to brag and flaunt our natural style, flair and wealth.’

I can certainly bear witness to their predilection for ostentatious embellishment. Yet although Smith owned and orchidaceously displayed his fair share of Schiaparelli pink accessories, he was, even then, an altogether more cerebral and sensitive creature than many of his more uncouth associates. Notwithstanding the careful concealment of this aspect of his personality, it soon became apparent through time spent in joint academic endeavour that here was a man in strange dichotomy. On the one hand Smith was always happy juggling with and assimilating the poetic nuances of a Matthew Arnold. On the other, he was just as comfortable when it came to cutting in half the face of anyone who dared to cross him.

Of course it would never have done to have drawn all this to his attention. For while he was intent on following the path of learning and scholarship, Smith was acutely aware of his status as a double ‘A’ category prisoner and one of the country’s most prolific armed robbers. Cultured taste is seen as a weakness in prison.