Cell 12 on wing three is about 6ft wide by 10ft long. A small window covered by wire mesh offers a dull view of a wall outside. There is a small television on a plastic desk in one corner and a metal toilet in the other. Only the long, specially-adapted lever tap handles give any indication as to the identity of the occupant. For the past six years this has been home to Abu Hamza, the notorious Muslim cleric, one of just nine prisoners held in Britain's most secure prison.
Holding the country's most dangerous criminals, HMP Belmarsh's High Security Unit (HSU) is a prison within a prison. Until now, almost nothing has been known about it. Even within the main jail, most of the 843 prisoners have no idea what goes on inside. But this week The Independent became the first newspaper to be granted full access to the HSU and allowed to speak to the men whose job it is to guard the country's most dangerous criminals.
To get inside the main prison I had already negotiated 15 gated doors and had my fingerprints scanned. On arrival at the HSU – a windowless, grey concrete building opposite the prison's recently-built five-a-side football pitch – the security checks began again. Surrounded by CCTV cameras in a small carpeted reception area, I removed my shoes and belt and put all my belongings through an X-ray machine. I walked through a metal detector and was given a body search – the lining of my jeans, the soles of my feet and inside my mouth were all checked. This security is not just for visitors – the prison guards must go through the same search before they enter.
The HSU is on two floors and is split into four spurs, each with 12 single-occupancy cells. Built alongside the main prison in 1991, it was originally used almost exclusively to house IRA prisoners. But since then it has held KGB agents, al-Qa'ida terrorists and even Charles Bronson – Britain's most violent prisoner – who had a whole spur to himself. While Bronson was deemed too dangerous to mix with others, the men currently held in the HSU are not there because of any physical risk they pose. For the most part it is their notoriety which earns them a place there.
"We get a lot of high-profile prisoners, and prisoners who have the means and capacity to escape," one of the HSU managers explained. "The type of prisoner we have here is a lot different to the type of prisoner in the normal prison. The prisoners here have the means and ability to achieve the results prisoners somewhere else would not." That applies to Curtis Warren, a gangster and drug trafficker who was once Interpol's most wanted man. The fear around Warren is that he would be both powerful and influential inside the prison were he to mix with other prisoners, and he would also be a possible escape risk. A different fear exists around Abu Hamza: that he would use his preaching to radicalise other Muslim inmates.
The prisoners here have a similar regime to the inmates in the main prison except that they are not allowed to work. They are in their cell for 12 hours and out for 12. The day starts at 8.10am. They are given 20 minutes for breakfast, an hour of outdoor exercise, an hour to use the gym and have to clean the wing for half an hour a day. The rest of the time spent out of their cell – five hours – is association time, during which they can chat to one another, play pool or table football, watch television, or use the rowing machine or exercise bike which sit on the wing.
