In 1977, Philip Bray joined the Irish prison service, working in Limerick Prison. At the time, prisons were places where pillows, blankets and even food were scarce. Most prisoners were illiterate and luxuries such as televisons and books were unheard of. Over the following thirty years, Philip bore witness to dramatic changes in the prison service. Inside Man is an account of life inside Ireland's first female high-security prison in Limerick – a place where wealthy Englishwoman-come-IRA-...

Jimmy Holland was born into a family suffering at the hands of their drunk and abusive father. At the age of just two weeks, he was placed into care. The beginning of a life lived in a constantly changing environment of homes, authorities and institutions began. Let down and frequently abused, it wasn't long before Jimmy strayed onto the wrong side of the tracks. Before long, the mould for a problem child was set. He quickly turned from substance abuse to drug use and, in turn, to crime - ...

Charlie Bronson has spent 28 of the last 30 years in solitary confinement. He has been locked in dungeons, in iron boxes concreted into the middle of cells and, famously, in a cage. When he is unlocked, up to 12 prison officers - sometimes in riot gear and with dogs - are standing by. Yet this is a man of great warmth and humour who has never killed anyone and has often dealt with his gruelling life with humour - during a siege in 1993 he demanded an inflatable doll and a cup of tea. Now h...

Welcome to Long Bay, Australia's hardest prison. For the first time, guards and inmates of the notorious South Sydney facility reveal what really goes on behind its towering concrete walls.Opened in 1909 Long Bay Jail, originally a women's reformatory, has a dark and extraordinary history.From ghosts to legendary prisoners, there has been an infamous collection of Long Bay 'guests', including the formidable Neddy Smith, convicted rapists the Skaf brothers a...

When super-tough cop Sergeant Harry Keeble announced he was joining Hackney's ailing Child Protection Team in 2000, his colleagues were astounded. Known as the 'Cardigan Squad', its officers were seen as glorified social workers dealing with domestics. The reality was very different. Within a few months he'd fought machete-wielding thugs, rescued kids who had pit bulls chained to their cots and confronted the horrors of African witchcraft, exposing a network of abuse in the process - all i...

Hell in Barbados is the powerful true story of a drug-addicted smuggler who found his salvation in the unlikeliest of places. Told with disarming honesty, the book propels the reader into the mind of an addict and shows us the depths of degradation one man sunk to before finding the inner strength to save himself.Terry Donaldson met with success early in life but his struggle with addiction soon became an all-out war. His Jekyll and Hyde lifestyle – TV presenter by day, whilst he s...

Michael Stone was born in East Belfast in 1955. In 1988 he was sentenced to 800 years in prison. He served twelve years in the Maze prison before being released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. He is now an artist, and proponent of the peace process.

Born into a fog-ridden south London slum in 1931, Eileen Killick quickly learned to look after herself. Her brothers were wayward, her mum had TB and her dad was working all hours on the railways. By the time she was fourteen she had survived the Blitz, a spell in a care home and her mother's death, but she craved excitement, embarking on shoplifting sprees, liberating fur coats and rolling toffs up west with notorious 'queen of thieves' Shirley Pitts.Eileen soon found herself in b...

Martin Bryant – who killed 35 people and injured another 23 at Port Arthur in 1996 – is a 160kg slob who trades sex for chocolate in Risdon Prison. Twenty years after Australia’s worst massacre, his blond hair is gone, and so is his self-righteous smirk . . . but he is as evil as ever, showing no remorse for the crimes that shook the nation. He is just one of the killers in the rogues’ gallery of Australia's Toughest Prisons: Inmates.You will meet the alleged hitman and un...

The long-awaited follow-up to the bestselling Wasting Police Time.Wasting More Police Time takes readers back to the front line of British policing for more fascinating stories and insights.PC David Copperfield was widely praised for the first book, which lifted the lid on bureaucracy, mismanagement and lunacy in the modern force.Now serving police officers from all over the UK talk about the job, its frustrations, excitement and tragedies....

'A wonderful slice-of-life autobiography' Daily Express'I've turned boys into men and policemen into coppers,' said the Sergeant. 'Policemen have got brains, but coppers, they've got brains and common sense.'No two days were ever the same for bobby-on-the-beat Martyn Johnson. Come rain or come shine, he patrolled his patch with a sharp eye for troublemakers and a kind word for those in need of a friend. Whether he was purs...

'Many times I heard people say that you'll have no friends if you're a policeman. How wrong they were. If you were right with them, they were right with you.'PC Martyn Johnson is back on the beat with more hilarious and heart-warming stories from the golden age of policing.With his nose for trouble and a knack for mischief, there's no such thing as a quiet shift for the friendly Yorkshire bobby - from drunken dogs and runaway horse...