There are no easy comforts in Hill's world. When he travels from jail to jail, spreading the word, he tells prisoners that the transition to life outside is brutal. He presents himself both as a survivor and the personification of a post-prison wreckage. "It's only about a year or so after you get out, if you've got the intelligence, and, most importantly, if you've got the balls to admit to yourself, that you realise, I'm in shit here, I'm in trouble. But a lot of people turn to drink or drugs because they can't face reality."

Hill's chest sounds raw with infection. He swigs from a medicine bottle, then relights a kingsize rollup. "Once you go into a prison and you're innocent, every fucking part of your relationship is based on fucking lies. Families come to see you and you're given the biggest load of bollocks, everything is all right, blah blah. And you're doing exactly the same thing, telling your family, 'Everything is all right, yes, yes, don't worry'. How can everything be all right when you're serving fucking 21 life sentences for nothing?" As his voice rises, the veins bulge in his neck.

"You don't tell them the truth, for the simple reason is they've got enough on their plate outside and you've got enough on your plate inside. You're lying for the best of reasons: to protect your family." He says even now he has never been able to talk about prison to his family. "It's like a mental block. You find your family has all grown up without you. You feel like an intruder, you're completely isolated. They talk about things they can relate to, and the only fucking thing you can relate to is four walls, a door, and a fucking barred fucking window. So it's like two strangers from different countries, one speaking in his language, and you're speaking in yours, and you don't understand each other."

Had he thought he could come out after 16 years and pick up the pieces, just like that? Oh no, he says, his wife had divorced him and his six children had grown up. After a while he was forced to confront another terrible truth. "I didn't feel nothing for my kids. I feel empty. My kids are like strangers to me." He points outside. "My son's a chef across the road, and he just came over to see me, and I don't feel nothing."

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