JOHNNY’S STORY by LBII, BWA
“These things happen. I do not know whether they are accidents or preordained but these things happen. I brought this on myself so it’s hard to say and I can’t complain”, says Johnny as he smiles…with his eyes. Sitting two yards from Johnny, I never would have been able to tell that he had spent two years of his young life in six different HMPs. It might be because I don’t know how youngsters who have spent two years in six different HMPs are supposed to look like archetypically. Or perhaps because Johnny O is not upset or even mildly bitter about life as I had half expected him to be. He cracks jokes easily and has a good word or three for everyone who passes by. A usual Friday night out – no, what started as a usual Friday night out, two and a half years earlier, kicked off a series of events that eventually culminated in the banging up of an only son, Johnny, abroad. Johnny, decked out in his freshest garms and a