Dhe first night in the cell for newcomers was probably the worst in Boris Becker’s life. Former conservative cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken suspected this after the tennis legend was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. Aitken knows what he’s talking about. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1999 for perjury. The former politician, who served eight months in three prisons and was subsequently ordained an Anglican minister, is now speaking on the radio, however, painting a less dramatic picture of what awaits Becker behind bars than many British newspapers. These relate to a damning report by Her Majesty’s Inspector-General of Prisons on the “crumbling, overcrowded and vermin-infested” Victorian Prison at Wandsworth, south London, where Becker is being held – awaiting a possible transfer to a less severe prison. Drug abuse and mental illness are rampant at the country’s largest prison, according to the assessment released in January. The prisoners are bored to death. The inspector reported one prisoner who came out blinking – because it was the first time he had been outside in over a week.
Boris Becker, convicted of breaching UK bankruptcy law, was taken the five miles from court to Wandsworth in a white prison car on Friday after his sentence was handed down. His partner could only throw him a kiss in the courtroom in the glass booth, in which Becker took note of the judge’s decision. The fallen star had evidently expected imprisonment following the guilty verdict three weeks earlier. In the last few days, Becker, who had been declared bankrupt, had been seen at large at the luxury department store Harrods. He had left the shop with a holdall he had with him in court. You could buy a bag like this anywhere, but Becker chose Harrods. That prompted The Times to comment that the “80s prodigy who’d gone to his head with fame and fortune still seems like an overgrown kid in a candy store.”