I bowed my head as the judge stared down from his chair to me.
"I cannot believe that somebody without any previous convictions could have snapped the way you did over one small comment," he began.
"But sir..." I started to reply.
"Silence!!" The judge roared. "No matter what he said, or did, you had no right to leave him fighting for his life in hospital."
"So you're saying it was okay for him and his friends to try doing what they had planned?" I asked my rage starting to boil over.
"You and your friend should have walked away and gone for help," The judge continued. "Instead you used excessive violence and for that I have no choice but to hand you the severest sentence that this court will allow."
I stared at the judge, the veins in my neck throbbing with rage, as I waited to hear what his sentence would be. I just hoped that he took my previous flawless record into account.
"The only thing that has managed to reduce the sentence I am handing you," the judge began. "Is the fact that you admitted your guilt at the earliest opportunity."
I held my breath as I waited for his next sentence.
"So taking everything into account I sentence you to three year's hard labour at The Quarry."
Quickly raising my head I stared at the judge.
"You have got to be joking," I said my body trembling with rage.
"I can double it if you would like me to," the judge roared down at me.
"Three years, no parole, and maybe in the future you will think before you do anything like this again."
As soon as he had finished speaking two large, tattooed, security guards appeared, from out of nowhere, either side of me.
"Take him down."
Suddenly my arms were clamped in the vice like
grip of the guards and I was dragged from the dock, out to a waiting van and bundled into the back. There were two other people, one man and one woman, already in the van and as the guard handcuffed me to the restraining bar I noticed them both staring at me, silently.
It wasn't until I was fully restrained, and the guards had claimed into the front of the van, that either of them spoke, and then it was the woman.
"What did you get?" She asked.
"Three years at The Quarry," I replied.
"Fucking hell man," the male prisoner said. "What the fuck did you do to get that?"
I stared at him, sizing him up before deciding whether to tell him. He was a scrawny looking man with long straggly hair and he was skinny as hell.
"Put someone in hospital," was all I said.
"Must have been bad," the man responded. "Normally The Quarry is eighteen months maximum."
"So what about you?" I asked him.
"Drugs."
Turning away from him as he put his head down I looked back at the woman. She was muscular, had long golden hair, immense breasts and tattoos down both arms and on her legs.
"What did you do?" I asked her. "The name's Julez by the way."
"I'm Sabrina," she replied. "And I you must know I murdered a man that was trying to rape me.
"So where are you being sent?"
"Same as you, only the woman's side, but he's right I only got eighteen months there then I'm getting transferred to a regular woman's prison."
As she spoke I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The thug I had battered was still alive yet I got double the length o time that she had, it didn't seem right.
"Where are you going?" I asked the man looking back at him.
"Rehabilitation for six months," he replied. "At the new drug rehab place this government have had built."
During the rest of the journey the three of us sat in silence, my mind racing as to why I had been punished as severely as I had, until we came to a screeching halt and the back door opened.
Two men dressed in hospital whites climbed into the van, took the man out roughly and slammed the door shut again before the van started up again. The rest of the journey took about an hour and when we finally pulled up I stared out of the window, at the imposing stone walls that I saw before me.
The doors were thrown open and the two guards that bundled me in stood there, an evil smirk on their face, and then climbed in to unshackle Sabrina and me, before pushing us out into the blazing sunlight.
As we walked towards the entrance the large wooden door swung open and two more guards, this time female, came out and took Sabrina in one direction while I was led the opposite way.
"Make the most of her," one of the guards said. "That's the last woman you'll see for three fucking years."
I smiled to myself at the thought of the guard thinking not seeing a woman for three years was going to bother me, they had no idea that being locked up for three years with men would normally be my idea of heaven.
The thing was the reason I had been sent to The Quarry was because some homophobic thugs thought it would be funny to try and get me and a straight friend to fuck each other in the streets, getting nasty when we refused, and I had given the ringleader the pasting that had left him lying in a hospital bed.
Trudging along white corridors I was led to what was named the welcome suite and told to sit and wait to be formally signed in. The guards then walked away, muttering to each other, leaving me alone in the room.
Looking around I was impressed with how clean and tidy everywhere was. The things I had heard about this place gave me images of a dark medieval style prison, run by violent thugs that either broke the inmates or killed them.
Eventually a well dressed, cleanly shaven, man walked into the room and over to me. He looked me up and down without saying a word before he finally spoke.