I’ve lived Sean Bean’s prison hell in Time

The messages started on Sunday evening. Jimmy McGovern’s devastating new prison drama, Time, had just been broadcast on BBC1 and friends immediately got in touch asking me the same question: “Was it really that bad?” The simple answer was yes, and as I watched it I was overwhelmed with painful memories of my time behind bars.

The only thing that really irked me about Time was that Mark Cobden (brilliantly played by Sean Bean) “only” got a four-year sentence for actually killing someone in a drink-driving incident, while I got five years for a highly convoluted tax fraud. I’d funded a film using a tax avoidance scheme that had crossed the line into outright evasion, and HMRC rightly prosecuted everyone involved.

That highly personal