"I convinced myself I was going to die in prison."


I had a few problems and issues in prison. The HIV care in there obviously isn't as good as I was being able to receive on the outside. You are in their hands...I convinced myself I was going to die in prison. They wouldn't give me my tablets. I was three weeks late for my hospital appointment. You're around a thousand men, some of them not with the best of hygiene, there is always a cough, a sneeze, a sore throat, a something going round the wing.

There are communal showers, communal everything. Initially I was in a double cell that was only meant to be a single cell, so in very confined spaces, not with the best of healthcare and a very poor diet. I thought: this is it. When I eventually got to see the private consultant, five months later, there in the presence of a prison officer, he informed a host of other inmates of my status... People certainly took me differently after he opened his mouth.

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