During the 1970s, Balakrishnan and his wife had been arrested eight times for a variety of offences. He and his associates were also jailed. On one occasion in 1976, two “comrades”, a Malaysian engineering graduate and the other a Tube worker from Barbados, were sentenced to 12 months’ in Brixton jail for assaulting prison officers as they visited Balakrishnan in Brixton prison. Why he was there was not known, but their cause was not helped by their chants of “long live Chairman Mao” from the dock.