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Prison Officer framed in a corridor |
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What
is it really like inside a maximum security jail? That was what producer
Howard Belgard set out to discover in this documentary in the Sense
of Place series. |
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Of
all the programmes, this was the most problematic to set up. Not
surprising when you realise that this prison is one of the most
secure buildings in the country.
The staff are rightly proud that no one has ever escaped from Long
Lartin but it wasn’t the measures in place to maintain security
that bedevilled the programme. More of that in a moment.
For a long time I had wanted to make a programme inside the prison
and the Sense of Place project afforded me the perfect opportunity.
If you’ve ever travelled on the train at night between Worcester
and Oxford you can’t fail to have noticed Long Lartin. It springs
up out of the flat and fairly featureless Vale of Evesham. With
its dazzling floodlights and strange curved walls it looks like
something from the set of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Hundreds of local people work there and it houses some of the countries
most notorious criminals and yet for the majority of us who only
see it from the outside, it holds an air of mystery and menace.
A couple of other Sense of place producers in other parts of the
country also opted to set one of their episodes in a prison. None
as far as I know tried to get inside one of the few maximum security
units.
Although it would have been easier to gain access to one of our
other prisons, I knew that in Blakenhurst, for instance, prisoners
were unlikely to have a "positive" relationship with their cell.
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Transmission
dates
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| 28th
April |
Sixth
Sense |
| 5th
May |
Hospice |
| 12th
May |
A
student's view |
| 19th
May |
Long
Lartin |
| 26th
May |
Meadow
End |
| 2nd
June |
The
bench |
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All
programmes go out at midday
BBC Hereford and Worcester
94.7 104 and 104.6 FM
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