There had been a spate of road accidents involving excessive speed in Britain. The worst one was when a speeding motorist, just doing 40 in a 30 mph limit had failed to stop in time at a pedestrian crossing and hit a number of primary school children who were being led across by a teacher to reach the school playing field which, unfortunately, was on the other side of the road from the ancient Victorian school. Apart from the deaths, children lost limbs and were very seriously injured. Public outrage demanded solutions, so the government rushed a new bill through Parliament setting new punishments, which were described in rather vague terms. The rhetoric talked about 'short, sharp shock' treatment to those caught speeding, with a sliding scale of sentences depending on how much over the speed limit the person was. The public in general, who had complained bitterly in the past that traffic police would be better sent to catch 'real' criminals like burglars and drug dealers, cried out for strong enforcement of the new laws and swift justice for those caught. Yellow speed cameras, painted that colour to give motorists a chance to see them, were painted appropriate colours to blend in with the surroundings – people were demanding retribution, not fair play. Public opinion is a fickle thing.

Chris was driving his car along a road he'd traveled many times before. The road had a downhill gradient so it was very easy to pick up speed accidentally if one was not watching the speedometer the whole time. The car's radio was on and Chris's attention was drawn to an item that the new penalties for speeding had measurably reduced speeding nationwide. "Good," he thought, "too many motorists drive too fast. Looking down, he suddenly realised that, because of the gradient and his momentary lapse of attention, he was now doing 35 mph in a 30 mph limit. He swiftly applied the brake, only to be brought to a halt by a traffic policeman who stepped out into the road and flagged him to stop.

"Get out of the car, sir."

Chris obliged and stood there as the officer looked him up and down. "Do you realise that you were doing 35 mph in a 30 mph speed limit?" the officer asked him.

"Yes, I'm sorry, officer. I spotted that I was going too fast and had slowed down to less than 30 when you stopped me. I do apologise. It was a momentary lapse of attention and I won't let it happen again."

"Too right, sir! I'm arresting you under the Dangerous Speeding Act. I'm not going to caution you for this offence as there is no defence required in the court. Please give me your car keys after you've locked your car and it'll be secured for you." The officer noted down Chris's name and address for his records as Chris was locking his car.

Chris numbly locked the car and handed the keys to the officer. As he did so, the officer clapped a pair of handcuffs on him. The officer spoke over his radio and a few minutes later, during which time Chris stood at the side of the road on the pavement with his head bowed in shame at his predicament, a 'lack maria' police van came to take him away. There were two other people in the van, one male, one female. The lady had obviously been crying as her mascara had run down her face which was swollen from her crying. The other man turned to Chris and asked, "Speeding too?" Chris admitted that he had been, although, in mitigation, he repeated what he had said to the officer. "That'll cut no ice with the court," said the other man. "Didn't you realise that we don't get a defence? The signed statement from the arresting officer is read out and the photograph from the speed camera produced and then sentence is passed. All we'll get to do is confirm our names and addresses."

"Can't we speak in our defence at all?" Chris asked.

"Sorry! Haven't you been following the newspapers? It's an absolute offence. If you're caught, you're guilty, no matter what." With this news, the lady burst into floods of tears again. The journey to wherever they were going was thankfully short. Chris was helped out of the van by a police officer and led into a room. Three magistrates were sitting at the end of the room behind a table. Above the table was the Royal coat of arms and, just below that, a photograph of the Queen, obviously taken in her younger days. The three were led into the centre of the room and one of the police officers handed a pile of documents over to the magistrates' clerk. She stood up and asked each of the prisoners to confirm his or her name and address. She then read out the charge against each. The other man had been speeding at 40 mph in a 30 limit and the lady, like Chris, had just been over the limit. In her case she'd been travelling at 46 mph in a 40 mph limit. The clerk handed the magistrates the photographs from the speed cameras showing the car and the speed it had been travelling at the bottom of the photograph. The middle magistrate spoke. "You are all found guilty of travelling in excess of the speed limit. There is no defence against your crimes so you will not be asked to speak in your defence. You are to remain silent or your sentence will be doubled. For every five mph over the limit, the mandatory sentence is one month rehabilitation. Take them away!" Chris thought to himself that one month wasn't perhaps so bad and that it would be 'rehabilitation', whatever that was, instead of prison.

Chris was taken to a cell behind the court which, he suddenly realised, was actually inside the local police station. He didn't have to wait long for after half an hour, just long enough to process the two who were caught before him, the cell door opened and Chris received the brusque command, "Come with me." The police officer led him to the Medical Room, which rather surprised Chris. Once inside, he was further surprised to see a nurse there. The police officer locked the door and removed Chris's handcuffs. Despite their only having been on about an hour or so, Chris rubbed his wrists to help to restore the circulation as the cuffs had been put on tightly. The nurse spoke. "Remove all of your clothes, including underwear and shoes. Place them in this bag." Chris was beginning to feel more concerned about the month to which he'd been sentenced. He didn't know that this sort of thing would happen. He did as he was old as a glance at the police officer had showed him that the officer was quite eager to intervene if Chris didn't obey smartly.

The nurse held out a short canvas garment to Chris. "Put your arms through the sleeves of the garment." It was an order, not a request. Chris did as he was bidden. He discovered that the sleeves did not have an opening for his hands to emerge from. The nurse went behind him and pulled the straps which closed the garment around behind him and buckled the garment closed firmly around him. She took each of the sleeves and, using the straps attached to the ends of the sleeves, pulled his arms under his armpits and buckled the sleeves in place. Chris suddenly realised that he was wearing a straight jacket of the sort used to deal with mental patients. He was beginning to panic now as to what the next month might bring.

"Sit down," the nurse told him, indicating a chair whose seat was covered by an incontinence pad, presumably, thought Chris, to keep the chair clean. He sat down, very conscious of the restrictions cause by the tight strait jacket. The nurse was behind him and had picked up something. "Open your mouth as wide as possible." Chris was imagining a DNA swab or the like. What he didn't expect was the rubber gag forced between his teeth. This was held in place by straps passing behind his head so that he couldn't open or close his mouth at all – it was firmly wedges wide open. He noticed that a tube was attached to the gag and that he could breath through that tube as well as his nose. Suddenly his head was held by the police officer as the nurse swiftly inserted earplugs in Chris's ear, taping them in place. That was followed by a hood which did up over his head from the back. He could feel the air on his lips and nose, but his ears and eyes were covered and he could neither hear nor see.

He was lifted to his feet by the strong arms of the nurse on one side and the police officer on the other. He was manoeuvred against the examination couch and pushed back so that he was lying on the paper sheet covering the surface of the couch. His legs were grabbed and put into stirrups so that his buttocks were exposed and lifted from the couch. By now he was terrified. Questions like 'what are they going to do to me?' and 'whatever next?' thrust themselves to the front of his mind. He'd never been in such a panic before. He couldn't see, he couldn't hear and he couldn't move his arms at all. Suddenly he felt something pushing against his anal sphincter. It violated him and penetrated. There was a cold sensation of something being injected into his rectum. He didn't know it, but he'd just had 128 ml of Fleet phosphate enema injected into him and its effect would soon become evident. Something was thrust under his buttocks and he thought that it felt like towelling. As it was pulled up around his buttocks, he realised that the nurse was putting a nappy, or rather a very thick layer of terry towelling nappies (diapers) on him. He could feel the nurse pulling the ends of the nappies tightly and felt her fastening the nappies with large nappy pins. His feet were lowered from the stirrups and a pair of very large plastic pants was manoeuvred into the pants which, although large, were tight around his thighs and waist. The nurse checked to make sure that all of the nappies were tucked safely inside the pants to prevent leaks. Chris was pulled into a sitting position and manhandled into a wheelchair. He was taken out to the police van and placed in a seat in the back and strapped in. Unbeknown to him, the other two 'victims' were also in the van, similarly attired and both having had a Fleet enema. As they'd been there longer, the man, who had been processed first, was struggling very hard not to empty the contents of his bowels into his nappies. The nurse and police officer laughed at his contortions, although none of the three prisoners could hear their mocking laughter. Chris began to realise what had been injected into his rectum. He had started to feel the cramping that signalled all too soon that, despite any efforts from him to the contrary, he'd be having to empty his bowels in a spectacular fashion into his diaper.

The van started up – Chris could tell by the vibrations – and moved out. At various points on the journey, all three prisoners lost their battle against the effects of the Fleet enema and voided the contents of their bowels into their nappies so that they were all sitting in great discomfort at the warm mess squeezed under their buttocks. Each had also passed urine involuntarily are well as the powerful laxative enema did its worst. By the time they had arrived at their destination which, unbeknown to them, was the old Victorian mental hospital part of which had been opened for this very purpose, they were both wet and very messy.

On arrival, Chris felt the cold air as the rear door of the van was opened. His seat belt was unbuckled and he was pulled out. As he'd removed all his clothes in the medical room, he was surprised to feel a vinyl flooring under his feet. He'd expected to be taken out of the van outside. Two people whom he presumed must be warders (he was finding the lack of sound and vision to be extremely disorientating, which, when he thought about it, was probably the idea.) grabbed an arm each an frog marched him through the building, up in a lift and then along a corridor to the ward which was to be Chris's home for the next month. He was sat down hard, squashing the stool coating the inside of his nappies further up both the front of his abdomen and around his buttocks, making him even more uncomfortable. He was then forced back against a mattress and was fastened into place by straps. Some of this he only found out on the day when he was discharged and he was shown what had been happening to him. The tubing connecting to the gag in his mouth was connected to a bag hanging from a drip stand at the side of the large silver painted metal cot. The tap was opened and Chris felt the thick liquid flowing into his mouth. He had no choice – drink it or choke. The liquid contained large quantities of soluble fibre as well as diuretics and powerful stimulant laxative to ensure that Chris would be continually wetting and soiling himself to break down his self confidence and his dignity.

Chris laid there and tried rolling from side to side. His failures led him to reason that he had been strapped down. After the container of fibre had been emptied, it was replaced with salty tasting water. Little did Chris know that this was laced with Fleet Phospho- soda osmotic laxative and would soon be flooding through him, making his soiling even worse. He suddenly realised that he needed to pass urine. He knewn that he must do this in his already wet nappy and started to struggle to force it out, trying to overcome his childhood conditioning 'thou shalt not wet the bed' and 'thou shalt learn to keep your nappy dry'. As he struggled, his bowels heaved again, adding more stool to the urine which escaped from him. The laxative laced drink was replaced with plain water. His tormentors obviously intended him to keep wetting himself, Chris realised.

Some time later, he was wet, messy and thoroughly uncomfortable. He had started sweating as it had been a warm summer morning when he'd been caught and the strait jacket was not the most comfortable of garments. Suddenly he felt the plastic pants being stripped from him and his nappies unpinned. His legs were lifted by being grasped at the ankles and someone wiped him clean. After he'd been washed clean and dried, cream was rubbed onto his buttocks and his anal cleft. His 'tormentors' wanted him stripped of his dignity: they didn't want him suffering from bed sores caused by his forced incontinence. Thick clean nappies were pinned in place and the plastic pants, or a clean pair – Chris had no idea which, pulled back around them.

Over the next few hours, he began to become more and more disorientated. He didn't know that the feeding and changing were done randomly during the day and night with the intention that he wouldn't be able to build up any sense of time, increasing his disorientation produced by his sensory deprivation. He'd wet himself several times, felt his bowels convulse and empty themselves uncontrollably into his nappies because of the effects of the stimulant and osmotic laxatives. He was, by now, thoroughly miserable. He'd slept at several points, but whether it was day or night he had no idea.

After what was actually a week of this, although for Chris it felt much longer (or was it shorter – he really had no idea how much time had passed) he felt someone unstrapping him. He was lifted out of bed and marched again to another room. His nappies were removed from him and the strait jacket also. As this was done, restraints were placed on his wrists so that he had to stand with his arms outstretched as if being crucified. The hood was left on him and he was still disorientated and confused. Suddenly a jet of cold water hit him as he was hosed down and cleaned up with what felt like two scrubbing brushes wielded none too gently. He was dried with the same lack of gentleness and then was lowered onto what felt at first like a toilet. His ankles were fastened with straps, as was his upper body and wrists. When he was pushed from the room, he guessed, correctly as it happened, that he had been strapped to a commode chair. He was wheeled some distance to another room where, to his horror, he felt his penis being grasped and something squirted into his urethra. This was followed by something being pushed up through his urethra and a sudden pain as it passed his prostate. He guessed, correctly, that he'd had a catheter put into his bladder. He was correct, but this was a far from normal catheter: this one had a conductive insert in the section where it went through his prostate and a connecting wire attached. The nurse who was doing this inflated the catheter balloon and pulled it back against the floor of Chris's bladder so that the insert was in his prostate. She then connected a 2 litre drainage bag to the catheter and hung it from the side of the commode chair once she'd checked that urine was following from the catheter.

She then left as the nursing job was done and she had others to attend to. Electrodes with wires attached were placed on Chris's scrotum over each testis and secured in place with adhesive tape to prevent Chris's jerking causing them to fall off. As this was done, Chris fought against the straps, but it was useless. A lubricated finger violated his back passage, followed by a special electrode which was in the form of a hook. This was passed through his anal sphincter and then pulled back so the end of the hook was embedded in his anal sphincter. Another was firmly taped to the tip if his penis. Chris was, by now, terrified. What were they doing to him?

The hood was removed from him and, before he could see much of his surroundings, a pair of goggles was put over his eyes so he was effectively blinded again. The earplugs were removed and replaced with a tight-fitting, sound insulating set of headphones. The gag was left in place and a larger hood put over his head to hold the new additions in place. The nurse came back to insert a cannula in one of Chris's veins in his arm and this was well taped down and then bandaged to prevent it coming out. She injected some stimulant to keep him awake as well as a drug to make him more susceptible to the conditioning he was to receive. She then set up the i.v. To keep him hydrated and to continue to add top-up doses of the same drugs to ensure his compliance with the conditioning he would receive.

Chris had no idea what he was being given, but suddenly his ears were filled with the sound of a car being driven and the goggles flickered into life before his eyes, showing a street scene from inside a car with a clear view as well of the speedometer. The video showed the car passing a 20 mph speed limit sign and the speedometer said the car was doing 25 mph. Suddenly electric shocks were passed through the electrodes causing him to jerk against the straps holding him down. He had never known pain like it. The pain continued until the speedometer showed less than 20 mph. The 'car' passed a 30 mph sign and speeded up to above 30 mph and, again, the electric shocks hit him until the 'speed ' was below the speed limit. Hour after hour the simulated journey went over all types of road and each time the speed limit was exceeded, Chris got the shock treatment. He was in agonies from the shock treatment and was exhausted, longing for sleep and escape, but denied this by the stimulants which he was being given. After was was in fact several days of this, during which time his exhausted body had overcome the drugs and snatched moments of sleep, the drugs were stopped, the screen went blank and, as Chris lapsed into the sleep of utter exhaustion, all the electrodes were removed.

When he next woke, he was in the strait jacket again and wearing nappies. The special goggles had been removed, but the earphones were still in place. A voice was whispering repeatedly to him, "If you exceed the speed limit, you'll wet and soil yourself." This was alternated with, "You'll wet and soil yourself uncontrollably at night. You'll be just like a baby. Every morning, you'll wake up with a wet and dirty nappy." Chris was being given drugs to break down his resistance to this conditioning and was being fed and given water through the mouth gag. He was aware that at different times his nappies would be changed, he'd be washed and dried, and fresh annpies and plastic pants put on him.

Three days before his month's punishment was over, he was transferred to the recovery unit. This had a lounge with a dormitory attached. He had the earphones, gag, strait jacket and hood removed, but remained in nappies. He was helped to walk between two people in white coats whom he took for nurses. His muscles were so weak that he could only take a few steps before needing to sit down. "You're lucky," said one of the nurses, " we're in here for three months for breaking the speed limits by quite a large amount. We have a month of conditioning like you, then a month of changing your nappies and washing you, then a final month of conditioning. We've still got that last month to come and we're dreading it." Chris was heartily glad he'd only just broke the speed limit.

He was fed normal food and was helped to change his own nappies and plastic pants. Now that he was up, along with the other men in the unit, they were expected to wash their own nappies. Each night, Chris went to sleep, whimpering and sucking his thumb – just like the other men in the ward. They all had nightmares from the conditioning and would twitch and jerk in their beds as if they were still receiving the electric shocks. In the morning, they'd all be wet and dirty and would join the queue to shower themselves clean.

Finally the day of discharge came. Chris was given his clothes to put on over his nappies and plastic pants, a parcel containing a further supply of nappies and plastic pants, and told very firmly that he wasn't to pass any more stool until he arrived home, or he'd be spending even longer there. Two policemen came to drive him home. To his surprise, he was put in the front seat and strapped in with the seat belt. The passenger seat had a plastic cover over it and an incontinence pad on the seat. There was a speedometer in front of him as well as the driver. He was taken home a long way round so that he was driven past a speed restriction sign which said 40 mph. The driver had looked to see whether Chris had noticed the sign and, realising that he had, started to accelerate to 50 mph. Chris started twitching and crying uncontrollably and he both soaked his nappy and soiled himself so much that it soaked through his trousers. When the police officer slowed below the speed limit, Chris realised what had happened to him. The officer in the back said, "Phew! Judging from the smell, his conditioning has worked well!"

They dropped him outside his house to waddle up the drive to his front door, eager to wash and change. One thing was certain: he'd never, never break the speed limit again!