My Week: Michael Shields

By Michael Shields
The Observer

You could say my week got interesting on Wednesday. There I was, standing in the prison gym in a pair of rubber gloves holding a mop when one of the guards sidled over to me. I was just about to start cleaning the gym, one of the morning duties in my role as gym orderly at Thorn Cross young offenders' institution in Warrington. (As you might have heard, I've spent the last four-and-a-half years in prisons in the UK and Bulgaria.)

The guard told me the governor needed to talk to me about my Prince's Trust scheme in January. Something didn't ring true. If he'd said the governor wanted to discuss my Christmas home leave I'd have bought that, but not this. Instead, it meant one thing. This was it: I was being taken somewhere quiet finally to be put out of my misery; I was going to be told how Jack Straw had finally decided he wasn't going to grant me a royal pardon for the attempted murder of Bulgarian waiter Martin Georgiev in 2005.

It didn't matter that he probably knew that I was innocent. Or that another man had confessed. Or that my trial in Bulgaria was a major miscarriage of justice.  

At least I was going to find out. The constant waiting was getting too much and, to be honest, I'd practically given up hope anyway.  My target was simply ploughing through my sentence and getting out when it finished in May 2010. I knew I could do it - Thorn Cross is an open prison and I was allowed home leave.

I'd been in far worse places - being chained to a radiator in a Bulgarian police station for 24 hours springs to mind. Or a prison in Varna, on the Black Sea coast, where cockroaches crawled over my face most nights as I slept.

So I hardly hurried behind the guard on the way to the  office of the top governor, or Number One, as we call her.

"You're an innocent man. You're free," she said. I couldn't tell you how many times I'd imagined that situation playing out. It had happened in my dreams more than a few times. This couldn't be happening. Could it? But then she was handing me the phone and telling me to phone my mum. Typically, when I had some big news, the home phone was engaged - I should have known, I did grow up with three women in the house. Instead, I phoned my solicitor, John Weate. He roared down the other end. You could say he was pleased.

Me? I still wasn't ready to believe it. They were going to turn around in a minute and say it had been a mistake. Somebody had sent the wrong email. Pushed the wrong button in the justice office. "Sorry Michael, back to your cell." I tried my parents again five minutes after speaking to John. He'd beaten me to it. Mum answered the phone in tears. She could barely speak she was crying that hard. "Never mind all that," I said. "I need picking up."

The next half an hour while I waited for my parents to arrive was the longest 30 minutes ever. It dragged more than any point of my four-and-a-half years in prison.

Finally I saw the car of Joe Anderson, the leader of Liverpool's Labour party and of my justice campaign. As the car rolled through the prison gates, I saw Mum and Dad in the back. From the Number One's office, I could also see loads of journalists and photographers waiting outside. Yes, this was happening. I really was about to walk out of there a free man. Mum and Dad came running towards me and bear-hugged me like never before. Joe wasn't far behind.

Some of my pad (cell) mates were walking past. They realised what was going on. "I'm out," I said, laughing uncontrollably.

I got into Joe's car, still shaking a bit. We were going to drive past the press on the way out, he explained. I hadn't even had time to have shave or a proper wash. I felt like a scruff. "Give them a smile and a thumbs-up," said Joe.

I just wanted him to put his foot down. I sat in the back next to Mum and Greg O'Keeffe, the Liverpool Echo journalist who has been covering my case.  We were heading for a press conference. It still felt like a blur. It was a happy blur though.

We took a slight detour. I was desperate for a shave and a change of clothes. We went to Joe's house and I had a shower and got rid of the stubble.

When I was ready, I walked into the living room. My sisters Melissa and Laura had arrived while I'd been in the shower. They were glued to the BBC and Sky footage of my case. On the screen was the picture of me walking out of prison with Mum and Dad only an hour earlier.

Surreal wasn't the word. Every time the presenter said "Michael Shields" my stomach flipped. I'll never get used to hearing my name on the TV or seeing my photo in newspapers.

Also, some new clothes were called for before I was ready to have my first night out back in Liverpool. My mates slaughtered the jeans I still had from 2005. They were too dark and not faded enough, apparently. Thank God I had the style experts to put me right.

The press conference went better than I thought it would. When it was my turn to read a statement, I stood up and tried to read it clearly and slowly.

I felt like I rushed it a bit but otherwise it was OK. Every time I smiled during the 45 minutes the cameras went mad. I must seem like a miserable bugger the rest of the time, I thought. Later that evening, I went to a hotel in Cheshire with my family and friends. My head had almost stopped spinning.

My dad handed me my first pint as a free man. It tasted pretty good. We ordered food and watched Steven Gerrard score twice for England as they qualified for the World Cup. He was on fire; I didn't even begrudge Wayne Rooney scoring. Now it's back to Anfield and the Kop. My dad kept my season ticket open for me. He never stopped believing this day would come. None of them did.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!