I stop and chat to someone who introduces himself as Paul. He tells me that he’s in for VAT fraud (seven years), and is explaining how he got caught when we are joined by a prison officer. A long conversation follows during which the officer reveals that he also doesn’t believe Barry George killed Jill Dando.

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘He’s just too stupid,’ the officer replies. ‘And in any case, Dando was killed with one shot, which convinces me that the murder must have been carried out by a disciplined professional.’ He goes on to tell us that he has been on the same spur as George for the past eighteen months and repeats, ‘I can tell you he’s just not up to it.’

Pat (murder, reduced to manslaughter, four years) joins us, and says he agrees. Pat recalls an incident that took place on ‘prison sports day’ last year, when Barry George – then on remand – was running in the one hundred yards and fell over at thirty. ‘He’s a bit of a pervert,’ Pat adds, ‘and perhaps he ought to be locked up, but he’s no murderer.’

When I leave them to continue my walkabout, I observe that we are penned in at both ends of the room by a floor-to-ceiling steel-mesh sheet. Everyone nods and smiles as I pass, and some prisoners stop me and want to talk about their upcoming trials, while others who are sending out cards need to know how to spell Christine or Suzanne. Most of them are friendly and address me as Lord Jeff, yet another first. I try to look cheerful. When I remember that if my appeal fails the minimum time I will have to serve is two years, I can’t imagine how anyone with a life sentence can possibly cope.

‘It’s just a way of life,’ says Jack, a forty-eight-year-old who has spent the last twenty-two years in and out of different prisons. ‘My problem,’ he adds, ‘is I’m no longer qualified to do anything when I get out.’