Richard Madeley: Inside The World’s Mega Prison (Ch5)
Rating: Two out of five stars
Holy cow! That’s Richard Madeley’s favourite expletive – 50 per cent Batman, 50 per cent Scooby Doo, and zero per cent self-awareness.
He said it four times in the space of 90 minutes as he went Inside The World’s Mega Prison in El Salvador.
Whether he was gazing in alarm at the guards toting assault rifles outside the sheet-metal walls, trying to avoid the dead-eyed stares of tattooed prisoners crammed behind bars, or retching at videos of gang violence, this was his all-purpose reaction: ‘Holy cow!’
Richard would love to be a serious investigative reporter.
He can’t quite understand how he came to play sidekick to his wife, Judy Finnegan, covering celebrity froth and fashion on This Morning, and he tries plaintively to shed that image by lobbing indignant questions at politicians on Good Morning Britain.
But he has the instincts of a family-friendly, amiable chat show host.
Whenever he adopts his unsmiling pose, all empathy and reflection, we can be sure that five minutes later he’ll be announcing, ‘Now, in a lighter vein,’ and sharing a matey joke with the camera crew.
Arriving at the Terrorism Confinement Center [CECOT] super-jail, where up to 40,000 gang members are crushed together in steel warehouses like pilchards in a tin, he was quick to try and strike up a rapport with the prison director, Belarmino Garcia.
Richard Madeley’s prison documentary Inside The World’s Mega Prison missed the mark
Richard failed to charm the prison director, Belarmino Garcia, and did not think to ask pressing questions
The shaven-headed gangsters were packed cross-legged and silent on shelves of metal beds, like battery hens
‘Has anyone ever managed to smuggle a phone in? Or drugs?’ Richard asked, as he was frisked for contraband at the entrance. Mr Garcia shook his head.
‘Can he come to England please?’ Richard joshed. He continued to attempt to win Mr Garcia over with his charm throughout the tour, though it was chillingly obvious that the director was not a kindly man nor one susceptible to good humour and flattery.
Prisoners who have, against all odds, been released from CECOT report that Mr Garcia greets arrivals with the words, ‘Welcome to hell’ – and no hell is complete without its Satan.
Richard seemed oblivious to this, and unable to do much more than wander up and down the warehouse with his hands in his pockets. The shaven-headed gangsters were packed cross-legged and silent on shelves of metal beds, like battery hens.
Clearly, they had been told to make no sound or movement, on pain of savage punishment. All Richard could ask was why they had no books or newspapers.
He didn’t wonder what happens when they get sick or injured. Mr Garcia insisted fights were unknown, even though rival gangs are hemmed in together, which I’d suspect is a deliberate provocation to violence.
Richard didn’t challenge that, let alone ask if the inmates ever murder each other. He even tucked into a bowl of beans and rice, and declared it, ‘perfectly edible. There’s nothing wrong with this.’
He’s a cruise ship tourist who accidentally booked into a war zone. Holy cow!
