Few Oxford Mail readers will need reminding of David Blagdon's story: of how, in the depths of despair following the deaths of his foster-parents in Wantage, he entered a church at South Hinksey and set some curtains alight; of how he then put out the blaze himself and sat down outside and waited to be arrested; of how he was given a 'merciful life sentence' at Oxford Crown Court; and of how he was then imprisoned, gang-raped, beaten, abused, ignored and ultimately, forgotten. Certainly the 2,000-plus Oxford Mail readers who signed our petition demanding David Blagdon's release will remember his story. But to successive Home Secretaries and other figures of authority, Blagdon is the prisoner they seemingly would prefer to forget - the living indictment of a national disgrace.

He has now been in over 20 prisons in the course of his 22 years and nine months 'indeterminate' life sentence. He will be 49-years-old in May and the world is a very different place now that it was when he was first imprisoned. I first met David Blagdon in Bullingdon Prison, Oxfordshire, on a sunny July afternoon last year. The youngest of three illegitimate children, he was fostered by Mr and Mrs Blagdon, of Kingston Lisle, near Wantage, because his natural mother was a certified patient in a mental hospital. In his formative years, Blagdon had emotional and speech problems and committed a string of petty crimes, for which he received borstal and prison terms.

He made several suicide attempts and was diagnosed as having a longstanding and severe personality disturbance. The death of both his beloved foster parents within two days of each other was to tip Blagdon - never a secure person to start with - over the edge.

On July 7, 1978, he stole a bicycle from outside a shop in Oxford and rode to South Hinksey where the empty church stood waiting. The rest, as they say, is history.

Last week, I visited David Blagdon at Lindholme Prison, set on the outskirts of Doncaster amid the flat green fields of South Yorkshire.

The bus for Lindholme leaves Doncaster from bay A3 of the town's South Station. On visiting days, it is full of prisoners' wives, girlfriends and small children. The men do the crime, but their women also, in their own way, do the time. It is obvious they make a real effort to look at their best - lots of blonde highlights, leather and make-up are in evidence. The children are scrubbed and clean and strangely quiet.

At the prison's visiting centre, you are required to sign a form which you then hand over to the warder on duty along with your Vistors Order, or VO. A sign above his desk informs you that to date, 108 people have been arrested for attempting to smuggle drugs into Lindholme. Another warns that if the prisoner you are visiting is taking drugs and if you are the supplier: "Sooner or later we will get round to you."

Once through the main gate, you leave your belongings in a locker after feeding it a pound coin and have your hand stamped with an ultra-violet device. Then you wait until they call the name of the prisoner you have come to see.

David Blagdon sits alone just inside the door of the visiting area. All around him, his fellow prisoners and their visiting women exchange kisses and embraces fuelled by passion but crippled by awkwardness; at all times, their hands must be visible to the onlooking warders and to the ever-present security cameras, which are capable of zooming in close enough to read the small print on a banknote.

The restrictions imposed on love and affection reduce the prison couples to performing a clumsy, robotic sort of dance - a masque of frustrated emotions. Blagdon's emotional frustrations are excacerbated by the fact that his fiance, 34-year-old Melanie Lancashire, lives in Alfreton, Derbyshire - and doesn't drive. Neither is she keen on travelling, although her devotion to the lifer she 'met' via a sort of correspondence course in prison romance is constant.

The relationship, though, is just one of the things that prey on Blagdon's troubled mind. "Melanie is starting to get scared now, afraid that they'll never let me out," he says. "And I'm worried about that. I'm institutionalised now. I hear about laptop computers and mobile phones, but I wouldn't have a clue what to do with them. But although it would be difficult outside, I could cope with Mel's help. I love her.

******"David Blagdon spends his days making soft toys for charity, reading newspapers, and making phone calls. Sometimes, it can take a prisoner 25 minutes to get to the front of the phone queue, he says.

And he writes letters. Endless letters. "I wrote to the Queen and her staff passed it on to the Home Office. I wrote to the Prime Minister and he said he couldn't get involved and passed it on to Jack Straw, who passed it on to someone else," Blagdon claims. "I wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury - and still nothing gets done."

"When other prisoners here about my story, they're amazed - but if I try to talk to any of the staff about it, they don't want to know."

"I try to put a brave face on things, but..."

For a moment, he looks away and when he turns, his eyes are full of tears.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm often reduced to crying myself to sleep at nights. Many times. I could go on hunger strike or take to the prison roof, but what good would it do? Nobody official wants to know about my case and yet last Christmas, I received 200 cards from ordinary people. But I still have this spark of hope that one day, I will be free. I won't give up or give in. Someone said to me recently that my case was the greatest miscarriage of British justice ever."

Be that as it may, the main thrust of the argument over keeping David Blagdon inside is whether he remains a danger to himself or anyone else on the outside.

And there are those among his supporters who will tell you, frankly, that if he were released, it would surely only be a matter of months before he couldn't cope, reoffended - and ended up back in prison. He has also managed to alienate people who have worked and lobbied on his behalf. But then you find yourself wondering what your own social skills would be like, after 22 years and nine months inside - for combustible intent towards a pair of curtains.

David William Blagdon, lifer, was always an accident waiting to happen.

But he didn't deserve to be a tragedy destined to unfold.

Story date: Saturday 29 April

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.