Prisoner's 'gentle' painting terrifies staff when dead body detail is uncovered

dailystar.co.uk:

Steven Tafka had only been working as a prison art tutor for two days when one stomach-churning moment left him with chills.

His challenging role was teaching watercolours to violent criminals in the hopes they could gain a qualification behind bars.And in his new book, The Art of Crime, he explained why he took the unique job in the first place.He wrote: “There was something in me that thought this might be where I could make a difference and use my knowledge and experience as an artist to do something new.”But Steven added: “Ideals aside, we had kids and a mortgage to pay.

Jobs were hard to come by and we needed the money.”And the prison rookie had his nerve truly tested on the morning of day three when the sick truth behind a “gentle” painting was uncovered.

He was stationed at a B category jail and he recalled meeting the art tutor, Greg, who showed him into a room full of dangerous inmates.In his book, Steven said: “The class was in full swing and I was dumped into the overstretched hands of Greg.“Before he had the chance to do little more than introduce himself, Greg was called over by one of the offenders who was getting pissed off with his drawing.“Rather than standing there like a lemon, I thought I should jump in at the deep end and help out by talking to one of the prisoners.“There was a small man standing awkwardly in front of an easel on which was a particularly inept painting of a tennis court.”Introducing himself, the prisoner proceeded to tell Steven that he couldn’t get his drawing of the tennis player right.Steven recalled: “The proportions were all wrong, the racket impossibly big and, because he could only do a cartoon-like man in profile, this particular tennis player was facing the wrong.