Muslim gangs in prisons: The Origins of a Story

Ushma Mistry was the reporter behind 5 live's investigation of Muslim gangs in British prisons. Here she explains how she sourced the story - SB

Great contacts are the key when it comes to making an ordinary story into a fantastic one and my special report into Muslim Gangs in prison for 5 live's Donal Macintyre programme was most definitely the product of a well-maintained address book.

This story has briefly hit the headlines over the last couple of years.

During my time as a journalist, I have built up a strong contacts book full of serving and former inmates in various prisons around the UK; as well as figures operating within the criminal underworld. Most importantly I've earned their mutual trust and respect which has given me far deeper access to crime stories than most journalists could hope for.

More recently, as I've called up my contacts for a chat, and see what's happening in prison life, one topic kept coming up time and time again: the high number of inmates converting to Islam, and so I finally thought to do something about it.

It started off with an informal email to the producers of the Donal Macintyre show just sounding out my idea and gauging whether it had enough weight to turn it into a full 30 minute report.

I pitched the story on the hunch that my contacts could deliver - I hadn't actually fixed any interviews before contacting 5 live - but the production team practically bit my hand off, knowing it had the potential to be a real cracker of a story.

Fortunately for me, my faith in my contacts paid off and I was given names and numbers of people who may be able to help.

Initially, I was simply searching for the story of one or two inmates' conversion to Islam in prison, but it soon dawned on me that the story had a much darker edge.

Many of those prisoners I spoke to spoke of the 'Muslim Gangs' - especially within some of Britain's high security prisons where the Muslim population can be as high as 30 per cent of all inmates. They claimed some of the more radical Muslims in jail were forming gangs, exerting control in some jails with the use of violence and intimidation, leading to some non-Muslim inmates to convert to Islam for their own protection from these so-called gangs.

But my sources were criminals, never the most reliable of sources - although I trusted them, and what they had to say was definitely in the public interest. But I wanted more evidence. So I went to the other side - the prison officers working the high security jails. They have to deal daily with the problem of prison gangs ... could it be true that the Muslim Gangs were now the number one fraternity in some of Britain's prisons?

I knew this source wouldn't be easy to get and convincing them to speak to me was a lot tougher than the criminals. After all, they had a lot more to lose if it ever came out that they had spoken to me.

I equally knew that without this source my story would not have the same impact or credibility I needed it to have. So I trawled through my contacts once more.

I tracked down one woman, a former guard at one of Britain's high security prisons, which had a very high Muslim population. The source agreed to be interviewed on the condition she would be offered complete anonymity and her answers would be voiced by an actress - something we often agree to with sensitive interviews.

This allowed her to be much more candid, and she went on to tell me first-hand accounts of violence, intimidation, forced conversions, power shifts within the prison and how she felt staff were helpless against the situation.

She backed up everything my former prison sources had already told me and I knew I was onto a winner. Her account was credible enough to be true and she had no motive to speak out other than to stop what she called an injustice within prisons.

Meanwhile the Multiplatform producers, whose responsibility is to take a story from its original medium and spread it across the BBC were doing their thing, and BBC Home Affairs correspondent, Daniel Sandford jumped on board.

Within a few weeks of me pitching the programme idea, the story had made it not only onto 5 live, but BBC 1's Six and Ten news bulletins, Radio 4, the Asian Network, and BBC News Online. The story also hit the papers, notably the Daily Telegraph, as well as blogs, and prison officer forums.

The feedback from listeners was also revelatory - former prisoners, prison lawyers, prisoner officers, and even a former prison chaplain got in touch with us and confirmed everything we had reported.

Of course, none of this would have happened if it wasn't for a sound relationship with my contacts. So if you have aspirations to be a journalist, never throw away a number, never ignore a call and be nice... always!

Ushma Mistry is a broadcast journalist

• Listen to Ushma's report on the Donal MacIntyre programme.
• The picture is from video shot in the making of the programme