Doors that are ajar to pros who are cons: A certain class of criminal seems to gravitate towards Ford Open Prison. It is easy to see why, says Richard Hornsby

FORD Open Prison, near Arundel in Sussex, is the largest open prison in Europe. Over the years it has played host to some very distinguished names in business - those who have crossed the line of commercial zeal into naked greed and deceit.

The Guinness trio - Gerald Ronson of Heron International, Larry Parnes, the stockbroker, and Ernest Saunders of Guinness - were high-profile inmates. Robert Miller, former managing director of Dunsdale Securities, found himself there at the same time as Nicholas Young, the fraudster and former executive director of Clark Kenneth Leventhal.

Young spent a not unpleasant 19-month stretch chez Ford. The new upper-class incumbent is Darius Guppy, Earl Spencer's chum, who made a pig's ear trying to defraud Lloyd's insurance market of pounds 1.8m.

As one of those whom Nicholas Young defrauded, I am more than aware that a couple of years served for stealing pounds 7.5m is something of a pathetic joke. Not only is it a slap in the face for his victims, it is also an insult to other prisoners who have had to serve similar sentences in worse conditions for stealing less than a 1000th of that sum.

Young was reportedly pleased to have lost a stone in weight and to be enjoying learning French and cooking: it seems that Ford was offering him a better quality of life than he would have had on the outside, and was also protecting him from the anger and despair of his victims.

When Ford opened in the early Sixties it was a model for a more constructive prison, its primary purpose being to provide a half-way house between the tightly structured high-security prison and the outside world. Lifers and long-term criminals were sent to Ford as a staging post - a valid and necessary function of rehabilitation.

It seems inevitable nowadays, however, that fraudsters and white-collar criminals get to pass their time in relative comfort and freedom, while other prisoners whose offences are in many ways less serious (though on the surface appear perhaps more violent) will never be afforded the same opportunity. The petty criminal who has robbed the local supermarket of pounds 200 has to contend with the filth and overcrowding of some Victorian dumping ground, while others who have stolen several times more than the Great Train Robbers did are able to spend their time in pastoral pursuits in modern and well furnished surroundings.

Ford is like an upper-class mirror of English society: easy street for the well-appointed. Why should those who have come from a position of privilege have the fruits of this extended into their prison sentences?

Contrary to most public opinion, the stated role of prison is not to punish. The loss of liberty is the punishment. Yet there is a growing feeling that some offenders are able to use the system for their own advantage. The trouble is that prison environments in this country vary widely and are largely accepted as less than ideal. There are economic as well as philosophical constraints on what prison can provide. What it should aim to provide is an opportunity for all prisoners to go through a regime of rehabilitation in order to avoid becoming repeat offenders.

In reality this opportunity is offered only to a few - and those at the top of the pile are the white-collar criminals such as Young, Miller and Ronson. So it is not justice for all; it is better justice - and inadequate sentencing - for the better class of criminal.

If a man goes into a bank and steals a large amount of money, the bank is insured, the insurance pays up and no one is significantly hurt. This is regarded as a victimless crime. Fraud, on the other hand, is 'victim-rich'. Fraudsters prey largely on the defenceless and even seem to derive pleasure from ensnaring people, deliberately enacting their financial ruin. Fraud is a crime with damaging long- term consequences as traumatic as any violent crime.

Yet the law treats the two offences in exactly the same manner. For the victims in the latter case, this means being treated with disdain, as though completely extraneous to the administering of justice.

Young probably enjoyed Ford because it reminded him of public school, where the same definition of punishment could be said to apply - namely, absence of freedom. Guppy even said, when he was sentenced five months ago, that he supposed jail would be 'a bit like Eton'. He has already availed himself of several home visits, including an overnight hotel stay, to deal with 'legal issues'.

Young enjoyed an easy and friendly relationship with the 'screws', so much so that he still goes back to Ford to continue this happy acquaintance. At the open day last year, when thousands of visitors flocked to Ford in a bunfeast intended to raise money for charity, Young manned the tombola and captained the cricket team.

One cannot be blamed for asking how much of this is genuine rehabilitation and how much simply playing into the hands of those whose one major talent in life is persuading people to give them exactly what they want.

In recent years the law's stance on many social crimes has changed, the most obvious example being its attitude to sexual crimes. These are now regarded with a seriousness that makes our previous disregard appear callous. In the same way there must be an increased awareness among the public and judiciary that fraud is not just the occupation of the better classes gone wrong.

Until the prison system - which is made up of working-class 'screws' who all too often admire and look up to the likes of Ronson et al - changes, the role of the gentleman criminal will continue. I dare say the governor at Ford enjoys having a selection of 'educated' criminals. But unless the prison bosses realise that these people are using and abusing the very same skills that got them into prison in the first place, the old boys' network will continue and flourish.

Some new algorithm needs to be put into the prison computer system that will allocate prisoners more sensibly according to their degree of social responsibility as well as the severity of their crime.

As things stand, the gentleman cad, the rotter, the archetypal bounder of Bunteresque England can be found having a good time in Sussex, waiting for his next day out in the country. Tough times for the boys indeed.

(Photograph omitted)