Anal inspections and mafia friends: Black’s jail days

Enjoying temporary respite from prison (he was released last year on appeal, but a Florida court has decided he must serve another 13 months, from September), fallen media baron Conrad Black has spoken about his days cleaning the showers and enduring anal inspections.

"[I] was slightly mystified at the extent of official curiosity about that generally unremitting aperture," the former Daily Telegraph owner told Vanity Fair magazine.

Known for his bumptiousness, Black is bullish about his time in the can: "I'm not embarrassed in the least bit I was in prison – not the slightest. There's nothing to be embarrassed about."

Black claims he knew no fear at the prospect of being banged up: "I realised, well, it would be a little tedious, but it wouldn't be difficult to endure."

Inside, he says, he was an immediate social success: "I quickly developed alliances with the Mafia people, then the Cubans. I was friendly with the 'good ol' boys' and the African-Americans.

"They all understood I had fought the system, and I do believe I earned their respect for that. Everyone got along except with the child-molesters. There was the occasional scuffle there, I heard."

Black tells the magazine that a Mafia don, a member of the Genovese clan, said to him: "No one will bother you here. If you catch a cold, we will find out who you got it from. You know, we have much in common … We are industrialists."

Lord Black of Crossharbour, who renounced his Canadian citizenship to be ennobled, was an object of curiosity in the clink. He recalls prison guards coming from "all over" to watch him clean the showers: "It wasn't terribly exciting work…You just put soap on the wall and focus a hose on it."

Black remains unrepentant, saying: "I have tried to make the most of an unjust charge."

Nevertheless, Black believes the experience has made him "a humbler, more sensitive person".

"I've worked hard to find something meaningful," he says. "You have to believe, whether you are cleaning latrines or tutoring inmates, that it served some purpose." ·