Aitken gives Coulson advice on how to serve a jail sentence

Former cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken has given disgraced No 10 spin doctor Andy Coulson advice on how to cope with life behind bars.

Like Coulson, Aitken suffered a humiliating downfall, taking him from the Whitehall corridors of power to a prison cell after being jailed for perjury and perverting the course of justice.

In an open letter published yesterday and signed “yours fraternally”, Aitken reveals that he spoke to Coulson just before he was sentenced. The former editor was jailed for 18 months for his involvement in the phone-hacking plot at the News of the World.

Aitken, a former Conservative MP, writes: “As for doing good while you are inside, I hope you won’t mind me revealing that in our telephone conversation a few hours before your sentencing, you told me that you were ‘determined to make the best of prison’. Then we discussed your options for being of service to your fellow inmates.

“You were immediately interested in becoming a ‘listener’(prison Samaritans); or working for the Shannon Trust’s Toe by Toe programme, which enables young illiterate offenders to be taught reading and writing skills by other prisoners (just the job for an ex-editor).”

Aitken started his prison sentence in 1999 at the high-security Belmarsh Prison in south-east London before being transferred elsewhere. Coulson will begin his sentence at the same prison.

In the world of convicts, 18 months is seen as “easy gravy” but as a high-profile prisoner he is likely to be seen as an object of curiosity rather than hostility. Aitken advises Coulson that “all men are equal in a prison uniform”.

Despite his previously powerful posts as Prime Minister David Cameron’s director of communications and News of the World editor, he needs to humble himself, said Aitken. He said: “You would be extraordinarily unlucky if anything truly unpleasant happened to you. One or two rough verbals maybe, but nothing worse. So you should have little to fear.”

Aitken predicts that for Coulson being locked up “will be an experience you will surely have been dreading, but I will bet heavily that you will come out of it well”.

The former minister was jailed for 18 months in June 1999 for perjury and perverting the course of justice after admitting both charges following the collapse of his libel case against The Guardian and World in Action.