The news of the screws, so called because of its high level of readership in the prison demographic, may have shut down but that is not the end of the story.
Sordid
Amid the investigations of the phone-hacking scandal sanctioned by the sensationalist and morally askewed tabloid paper, where as many as hundreds of mobile phone voice mail systems were illegally listened to by Screws journalists who would then quote any sordid, life ruining, details heard in a few forgettable column inches attributing them to “a source close to the reality TV star” – revelations recently emerged that former policeman and now private eye, Deek Webb was employed by the paper to tail upwards of 90 people from Princess Catherine of The Sister With The Nice Bottomshire and Wills, to Harry Potter’s Mum and Dad.
Saucy
Following these people as they went about their personal lives, Deek and so the Screws, hoped to unearth some saucy bit of detail or two to keep the paper shifting in-between the prison bars. Watching an interview on the BBC with the private eye, I heard him explain that he would sit in his car, tailing and filming all sorts of MPs, actors, other journalists and Richard Madeley. When Richard, during the same interview, was shown footage filmed of him in 2006 standing outside his London home he was disgusted. Richard dim-wittingly nailed it when he verbalised: “What is the phrase where what is happening is not illegal but that everyone knows is wrong? ‘It’s creepy’ – that’s it” [also simultaneously rather adeptly describing his marriage to his elderly, frail aunt]
Costume
When the cockney accented Webb elaborated on his techniques I began to realise just how far these Private Investigators go to film members of celebrity. “I normally followed behind at a distance in my car” he said, reasonably, “Boris Johnson thought that cycling would prevent the Screws following him, but when I turned up to the press offices I was handed over a bicycle and I would cycle behind him”, he went on, slightly more oddly. By the time he brought up the name of MP Blunkett I was over half convinced Deek was going to explain: “I turned up to the Screws offices and was handed a hired dog fancy-dress outfit and a hi-vis vest. Blunkett was unique in that regard as I had him following on my tail. It meant I could go where I wanted to go and get me messages and stuff while keeping an eye on him. And I could sh*t anywhere. Once, the hire shop didn’t have the dog costume, so I was just given a gorilla one instead. Blunkett didn’t have a fu**ing clue.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t say any of that. But the damage had already been done and it has heaped even more trouble onto Screws International.
Tongues
It was always going to end like this for the Screws. Over the years, their methods of reporting and journalism to keep convicts’ tongues hanging out their filthy criminal mouths were plumbing new depths. From publishing solitary photos of young, beautiful people with other young beautiful people on holidays using massive camera lenses, through to the ridiculous sub-editor means of grabbing attention to a story by pull quoting slightly ambiguously titillating words or phrases out of context from the subsequent paragraph of a story, the Screws of course went the extra distance in the name of the “public interest".
Two women… at the same time
Many of these “public interest” stories were not really, to my mind, all that interesting to the public. Grotty little video-phone images do not need to be printed for the public at large to inform us that people with money and a lot of time on their hands who have obscene egos can get into a vice or three when they think no one is looking. Two women on a bus may make a brief comment about the news that a former children’s TV presenter might like to do more adult activities when not talking to a glove puppet about a homemade birthday card, but the news will hardly cause other passengers to partake in mob-handed condemnation along with them. At the same time, the Screws were deciding developing “public interest” stories of their own would take out the middle man.
Once again whether these stories actually told us public anything is debatable. In the early days of this, the reporter would basically go to an actual brothel in all but name and report with surprise that women there offered private services for payment. The reporter would always decline with the get out sub-line “made my excuses and left”. It was not long before reporters made the step to dressing as wealthy sheiks and Russian mafia to offer someone an awful lot of money to do something either never before thought of or seemingly too good to be true – selling an audience with your ex-husband, missing the 5th red in a frame of snooker or throwing a no-ball. Perhaps no one should be surprised to find some people mistakenly accepted.
Besides entrapment, the Screws specialised in “public interest” security stories. A reporter would work as an attendant maid in Buckingham Palace for 4 months before revealing the awful truth that he was able to lie on the Queen’s bed during a shift. Perhaps this is of interest to people – but I can only think of the Milk Tray Ad Man who would find any bedroom security lapse worth noting.
The best example I can think of in the debate about if they really were reporting for the sake of “public interest”, was the occasion when a reporter, dressed as an airline pilot, infiltrated a long haul passenger aircraft cockpit shortly before take-off. Should the authorities have spotted him and shot his face clean off (which they would have been well within their rights to do) would the Screws have run the headline: AIRPORT SECURITY: SOUND AS A POUND or INNOCENT UNDERCOVER REPORTER GUNNED DOWN TRYING TO PROTECT UK PUBLIC INTEREST.
And I think we all know the answer to that.
Ultimately it appears that the screwspaper staff lost their perspective on reality. They began believing themselves to be movie secret agents for the forces of good when in fact they were working for Elliot Carver all along.
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