Graffitied on to the wall of a holding cell, the words greeting incoming prisoners could hardly be more intimidating: ‘Welcome to hell’.
And whoever inscribed the message wasn’t talking about the accommodation, the staff or the regime at HMP Frankland – but their fellow inmates.
The category A jail in County Durham is known for housing some of Britain’s most dangerous and reviled prisoners.
Many of the 800 men locked up there are murderers, high-risk sex offenders or those convicted of terrorism-related offences.
Charles Bronson, the nation’s most notorious prisoner, and Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, were held there.
Two notorious individuals currently held at the facility are Levi Bellfield, a serial killer and rapist known for his heinous act of murdering 13-year-old Milly Dowler, and Michael Adebolajo, who was convicted of the brutal slaying of British soldier Lee Rigby.
The latest addition to the prison’s inmate roster is Urfan Sharif, aged 43, serving a life sentence for the torturous murder of his own ten-year-old daughter, Sara.
Following an incident where he was assaulted with a makeshift weapon made from the sharp edge of a tuna can lid by two fellow prisoners at a high-security prison in London, Sharif was relocated to this facility due to concerns for his safety and potential retribution.
Former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens and his victim Sarah Everard, who he murdered in 2021
But of all the at-risk prisoners at Frankland one name stands out from the rest – Wayne Couzens.
This week marks the fourth anniversary of the 52-year-old’s arrest for a crime so shocking it sparked protests and demonstrations around the country.
In 2021, Sarah Everard was walking home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south-west London, when she was kidnapped by Couzens, a Metropolitan Police officer.
Claiming she had breached Covid restrictions, he handcuffed her and drove her to countryside near his home in Kent where he raped and murdered the 33-year-old, strangling her with his police belt.
Couzens – who would eventually confess to what he had done – was given a rare whole-life sentence, with the judge telling him that he had abused his position to kill.
And as a former policeman, Couzens is likely to spend every minute of the rest of his life looking over his shoulder.
‘Obviously they become number one targets because people in prison don’t like police officers anyway, and if they get incarcerated with officers they are going to come under attack,’ says Ricky Killeen, a reformed prisoner who served five years at Frankland for his involvement in a machete attack.
‘If it is a high-security prison the violence is likely to be extreme. They will either get slashed, they will get stabbed in the neck, they will try to take their eyes out, they will chuck boiling hot oil over them or use a boiling hot kettle full of sugar.’
Incidents at Frankland have included attacks on prisoners and guards with weapons fashioned from a broken DVD player and ceramic shards from a smashed toilet pan.
On one occasion an inmate’s head was badly burned after having boiling water mixed with melted butter thrown at him. The fat in the butter made the liquid adhere to the victim’s skin, deepening the burns – a practice known as ‘swilling’.
Soham killer Ian Huntley, meanwhile, nearly died after being slashed in the throat with a razor blade that had been embedded in a plastic knife, leaving him with a seven-inch scar.
Couzens, no doubt, will also have been aware of a shocking incident last July at Frankland in which a police officer visiting the prison was stabbed in the chest by an inmate. He was taken to hospital in a critical condition and thankfully recovered.
To protect Couzens from similar attacks, his interactions with other prisoners are severely restricted around the clock.
‘To be a police officer in a Cat A prison would make you a target, but to be such a high-profile prisoner means there is zero chance that you can be on a normal wing,’ a prison source told the Daily Mail.
‘He will have a bounty on his head. Couzens will be serving out his life sentence in segregation. His is a face that everyone knows – and his notoriety won’t diminish over time. ‘He will be on a small, vulnerable prisoners’ wing, kept far from the main population at all times, where there are lower levels of association.’
Sarah’s murder sparked protests across the country, including this vigil on Clapham Common in south-west London, not far from where she was abducted
The majority of vulnerable prisoners are sex offenders.
Indeed, in 2022, a year after Couzens was transferred to Frankland, it was reported that he had become friends with David Fuller – who was dubbed the Morgue Monster for defiling the bodies of more than 100 dead women at a hospital where he worked.
A source told how the pair, both from Kent, bonded after being locked up on the same wing.
‘We call them The Odd Couple,’ he said. ‘They know some of the same areas from back in the day. The idea of them swapping stories turns my stomach.’
But according to Mr Killeen, who has his own YouTube channel Behind the Bars TV, even being placed with other vulnerable prisoners is no guarantee of safety.
This is because alongside rapists and paedophiles are inmates who, during their time inside, have run up debts buying drugs from other prisoners and have had to be moved for their own safety.
‘These are the ones who will attack these police officers or paedophiles,’ says Mr Killeen.
A parliamentary report in 2023 revealed that some prisoners at the jail had been offered bounties of up to £10,000 to carry out attacks on other inmates.
One took up a contract to fund his ‘dependency on vapes’.
Last year, an unannounced inspection found that while the establishment was rated as safer than other jails holding similar prisoners, there had been 147 assaults in the past six months, which was a third higher than in the same period before the previous inspection.
To reduce risk, Couzens has food brought to his cell, where he spends up to 20 hours a day. While he could visit the gym or attend education classes with people on the same wing, the source says that they would be more likely to take place in his cell.
Like others at Frankland, that cell is equipped with its own telephone.
‘Prisoners are allowed to stay in touch with approved friends and family,’ the source explained. ‘Friends and family time is limited to pre-agreed times and you have to pay for the calls with credit. Some prisons have just voice calls, some have the video facility. It’s not uniform. All calls are recorded and can last up to 30 minutes. A prisoner is allowed one free video call a month.’
It has been reported that Couzens has maintained contact with relatives, including his mother.
The Mail revealed how in 2022 she had attempted to send him a book and some clothes to celebrate his 50th birthday.
Urfan Sharif, David Fuller and Levi Bellfield, who have all been held at HMP FranklandÂ
But the delivery was blocked by the authorities – prompting the killer to lodge a formal complaint and threaten to seek financial compensation.
It is understood Couzens had been told that he was not being singled out but that preventing him receiving the parcel was standard policy and that no prisoner is allowed packages sent from home.
However, this didn’t calm Couzens, who angrily pointed out that a similar parcel – which contained some clothes and a set of headphones – had been allowed to reach him earlier in the same year at the top-security jail. It turned out this had been allowed as a ‘one-off’ after he arrived at the prison and was still settling in.
Couzens then complained to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, moaning that the rules had not been explained to him properly meaning he and his family were unaware that he was not allowed gifts from home – and his mother had been left out of pocket.
A source said: ‘It might seem incredible after his case horrified the country – how he took advantage of his police status to target, deceive, rape and murder poor Sarah – that Wayne Couzens was doing this.
‘But that’s exactly what happened – just a year on from getting his life term he was writing busybody letters of complaint about not getting a birthday present. The whole episode was unbelievable.’
Cells also boast a television and, in Couzens’s case, an Xbox 360, which he was allowed to buy as a reward for good behaviour under the Prison Service’s incentives scheme.
But a decision to bar him from playing violent video games did not go down well.
‘He was cock-a-hoop at getting the console but very disappointed he couldn’t order the violent 18-rated games,’ a source told The Sun. ‘That means he cannot sit in his cell playing Call of Duty and Gears Of War. He was moaning about that and will have to content himself with things like the motorsport and fantasy games. But it is pretty sick that he wanted to play the shooter games, given the fact that he was obsessed with guns before he killed Sarah.’
Couzens’s lifelong obsession with guns was revealed when he was found guilty of the murder of marketing executive Sarah.
He shot a classmate in the testicles with an airgun when he was 14 and later joined the Territorial Army before becoming a police firearms officer.
While some will question why inmates should be allowed any such ‘perks’, accommodation at Frankland is far from luxurious.
Last year’s inspection report found that some mattresses were so flimsy they would sink between the metal bed slats. To prevent this happening, a number of inmates had removed the privacy screen from in front of their toilet, using it instead as a makeshift base for their beds.
Other had found it more comfortable to simply move their mattress on to their cell floor.
But one is thing for certain.
Whatever Couzens’s bedtime routine, given his background and the threats facing him, he is unlikely to sleep easy any time soon.
