Authors: Vicky Pryce
A lovely Indian girl of just twenty-two, who was convicted during her first job since finishing her
studies
for allegedly helping her boss profit from false insurance claims, has secured a position through the charity in the HR department of one such company, with help from Working Chance. At first she’ll be employed on a voluntary basis but then she’ll move to a paid job. To me she was the girl from the kitchens who gave me second helpings whenever she could, and I was very proud of her.
Each evening while in ESP I used to don walking shoes, hat and gloves, and go for a brisk walk (I called it my power walk though it was anything but) just round the garden at the back of the building to get some fresh air, however cold, and a bit of exercise after an enormous supper. The walk always had to be completed before 8 p.m., which was when the back door to the garden was locked closed and one was no longer able to smoke out the back (I don’t smoke)
but had to use the side exit into the courtyard by the kitchen. It was usually a bit of a rush to get out before the door shut as I used to spend the time after supper writing letters to catch the collection time of 9 p.m.; I’d often have to interrupt the letter writing for my evening walk. I would occasionally walk with another resident if
Coronation Street
did not intervene but more often than not I ventured out on my own just after 7.30 for half an hour. Everyone thought I was mad going out in that weather, which indeed was freezing for much of the time I was there. But it did me a lot of good; walking round and round, avoiding the out of bounds areas which were clearly though discreetly marked, but still having enough ground to cover and absorb the beauty of the Kent countryside rolling out in the valleys below.
That evening I started a bit earlier but still had to hurry as I wanted to spend some time as I always did on a Sunday in the library returning books and borrowing others. Even when no one is in charge, the library opens from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m. over the weekend, which is great, and there is a system where one can record on a piece of paper books returned and those taken out. You can take out a maximum of eight books at any one time but the librarian is very lax about this as long as we record what we’ve borrowed. At times there are also ‘free books’ donated by authors and a book club which meets every few weeks to discuss a single book. The club also sets a ‘six book challenge’, which rewards residents who can demonstrate they have read six books over a given period with an award and free books for them to take home, often donated and signed by an author. If lucky, the library is also visited by a renowned writer,
such as Martina Cole, who came to Holloway while I was there.
The resident librarian, who had some difficulty walking, had left a big notice asking that if anyone came in could they please take the pile of the main prison newspapers, which after being delivered had remained in the library, back into the big house and into the drawing room so that everyone could read them. So I did – it took me a few goes, running against the clock, as the witching hour of 8 p.m. approached. There are two main papers:
Converse
, edited by Mark Leech, and
Inside Time
. They are very well presented with many articles, comments and letters from inmates from prisons all around the country, and provide prisoners with a lot of the information they need about legal developments that might affect them, given the lack of internet access. I noticed that the issue they were majoring on was indeed the proposed cut in legal aid for prisoners, which had already become a major discussion point at ESP. Of course the legal aid budget may indeed be too big and needs rationalising but prisoners were singled out as the group likely to lose this ‘privilege’ of free advice from lawyers. With no one to explain what it all meant in practice within ESP, people had started using their precious phone money to ring their lawyers and try to understand its implications. Many expressed the view that it was already very hard to get any solicitor interested in helping them with legal aid and a number who spoke to me at length were concerned about the ability to pursue their appeals against sentences or lodge complaints against the prison service. Others worried about how to defend themselves in confiscation orders and
also in residency hearings by their ex-partners, who they held responsible for being there in prison in the first place, and others.
Becky, a forty-year-old with a beautiful family that always came to visit, panicked about the implications of the cut in legal aid for her as she was instigating divorce proceedings against her husband. She blamed him for her being sent to prison in the first place and feared that with no proper representation she would lose her house, which was so important if she needed to find a job and look properly after her son, who was having serious difficulties coping with her being away and was being looked after by her father, who himself wasn’t well. She had not been allowed to visit her son as she wasn’t on her Facility Licence Eligibility Date yet for Release on Temporary Licence to kick in and couldn’t get a Childcare Resettlement Licence as her son was seventeen – just above the cut-off age of sixteen. So she tried and tried to get some leave to visit him; the boy was in a bad way and the school was writing to her to encourage her to visit. She was constantly refused leave by the governor and didn’t know who to turn to. The anxiety and concern caused was immense. I hadn’t seen her smile in ages and yet she had often in the past been the soul of the party. We had long discussions about what could be done and her misery was increasing with every rejection she received to make the visit. I wondered whether perhaps she just wasn’t expressing herself properly when making her case. And then I saw her chatting in the drawing room with a lady from the Independent Monitoring Board who then took up her case. Three weeks before I left, Becky was finally able to visit her son and she returned much happier. The visit had been so
important for him. He then came to see his mother a week later on visitors’ day with some other members of the family – something he had refused to do before – and we all commented on how handsome and how well he looked, smiling and confident. It was
extraordinary
to see how important keeping the connection with the family was for all concerned and it confirmed all that the literature says about the therapeutic effect that keeping families in contact as much as possible has.
Once Becky got over that problem the worries about being able to prevent her husband from
walking
off with her assets continued as she was not at all clear whether she was allowed any legal aid. I couldn’t help her but the confusion and heartache it has created for people who feel that they have once again been singled out as villains who don’t deserve legal representation is incalculable. Since my release this portrayal of prisoners as undeserving of any representation has been reinforced by the fuss over the legal costs associated with the failed attempt of Ian Brady to be moved from a mental hospital to a normal prison. In a written parliamentary question the Ministry of Justice gave the figure of 43,780 inmates who used legal aid to the tune of £23m in 2011/12 to complain about sentences, disciplinary matters, their treatment and issues to do with the parole board.
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The tabloids used this as background to the Brady story and majored on the £250,000 cost to the taxpayer of his case being brought to court. Interestingly the Ian Brady costs are not part of what the government intends to cut as his legal aid was, as I understand it, part of anyone’s entitlement under the Mental Health Act, which allows a periodic review,
paid for centrally, of whether people need to remain in mental institutions.
There have been comments from lawyers that in no other area are the basic human rights that allow people to complain about the way they are being treated taken away so easily without an outcry. For women, in particular, these types of complaints may result in better treatment, parole and early release or better access to their children, and can only help them to reintegrate with the community and their families. Without them, these women lose all self-confidence and the ability to have some control over their life because they cannot afford to hire someone to advise them. To me, this is a dangerous move. Mark Leech, ex-offender and now editor of
Converse
, one of the main prison newspapers, has been reported as saying that the government should stop focusing on vulnerable prisoners, who are a soft political target, and warned that if ‘you remove a prisoner’s right to challenge their treatment legitimately … you’ll have them parading complaints on prison roofs’.
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Lord Ramsbotham says that although men do protest and occasionally get results in this way if all else fails, women just get depressed. And one ex-prison
governor
said: ‘When did you ever hear or see pictures of women throwing tiles from prison rooftops? Never – they just internalise it and self-harm.’
In the media frenzy that accompanied the Ian Brady judgement, Chris Grayling said: ‘It’s unacceptable for taxpayers to fork out millions for prisoners to bring legal cases that just shouldn’t be going to court.’
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It is easy to attack a part of society that cannot easily defend itself. Robert Brown of solicitors Corker Binning says that most costs in cases like this are incurred when they
do go to court as the solicitor advising a prisoner on legal aid will not want to spend a lot of time and effort on a worthless case. And he argues that there shouldn’t be a presumption by the CPS, which makes the ultimate decision, that those cases shouldn’t go to court even before the decision is made. The cost to the taxpayer of just giving advice on complaints is in fact very small, as Chris Grayling has himself acknowledged. Interestingly,
The Observer
on 28 July 2013 pointed out that some ‘1,210 crown court trials collapsed because of problems with court administration’ and that in 2012, ‘the CPS was forced to pay compensation for costs in nearly 400 criminal trials’. Whatever the rights or wrongs and the reasons for it, which
The Observer
attributed to the 27 per cent cuts in the CPS budget, the sad fact remains that the costs of wasted cases are substantial and the prisoners’ figure pales into insignificance by comparison. Providing yet another comparison, the same article, quoting figures provided from Freedom of Information requests carried out by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for
The Observer
, suggested that between 2011 and 2013 the ministry spent some £230m on making people redundant.
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Today was Liz’s birthday. We made her birthday cards and her sister-in-law sent her some jewellery, which Liz managed to get through reception without a problem, and her husband bought her a nice shirt and a suit for the jobs fair that was due to be held shortly. She also managed to get through security some high heels and a box of perfume from her sister. I gave her two Kit Kats from the canteen, her favourites. She worked all day in the farm shop and when we met for
a celebratory tea in the drawing room after roll call, most of the girls sat in their pyjamas and bathrobes. I hadn’t thought to bring my own bathrobe and had been given a spare one from the laundry room, but it wasn’t one to parade around in and I resolutely stuck to my trousers and tops.
Liz was on good form. She recounted how since we got to ESP we were constantly confused for each other. We are both tall with short brownish hair and both of us wear black-rimmed glasses. Apparently the last time she was in the farm shop a woman had come in, smiled at Liz and said: ‘Did you make these sausages yourself, Mrs Huhne?’ Liz, quick as a flash, answered: ‘First of all it is Mrs Pryce, not Mrs Huhne. And second, I am neither of those women.’
It did happen to us a lot. Just two evenings before I was due to leave ESP a relatively new male officer sidled up to Liz and told her that as he would be on night duty for the next two weeks he might not see her before she went, so he just wanted to wish her all the best, adding, ‘Do be kind to us in your book!’ Liz was too shocked to correct him before he shook her hand and left the room.
I had a big task to do today. A friend had recorded a reading for a ‘story book’ for her daughter with the aid of the library; you read a story aloud into a tape and then a service adds the noise of the forest, birds, cars or whatever works for what you have decided to read. It is then assembled and sent off as a CD to your child at the address you give them. And you could read more than one book if you asked nicely. I saw it as a wonderful way of encouraging the links between
children and their mothers, and was so impressed that the facility was available.
Soon I was told that I too could make a recording for my grandchildren. I had to wait a few weeks as the post of librarian changed hands and then for the new librarian to practise the recording process. I must admit I hadn’t thought very hard about it but knew that tastes had changed since my children were small. My two-year-old grandson seemed to be rather keen on
The Gruffalo
; my eldest daughter had recently sent me a picture of him in a gruffalo suit and I had seen him watching the television films of the books. I still wasn’t sure what a gruffalo was but I thought maybe choosing
The Gruffalo’s Child
to read was the way to find out. And I was hooked.
I dedicated it to my grandson and read as well as I could; I was really chuffed that I had been able to do it. I even stayed behind to read the first book to understand its origins. I gave the librarian the address to send the CD and was told it would take a couple of weeks. It really filled me with great pleasure doing it. I had visions of little Alfred listening to the CD and marvelling about his
Yaya
, as grandmothers are called in Greece, reading the
Gruffalo
story to him.
Alas, two months later and at home, now rather keen on gruffalos, nothing had arrived. Then the day before my tag was removed, a packet was delivered accompanied by a letter from the librarian saying that due to an administrative error, for which she
apologised
profusely, the company had sent four copies rather than one but that she hoped the grandchildren would like them. I wrote back thanking her and said that I hoped these types of administrative errors are not corrected. I was a very happy grandmother.