Behind the Crime

by Colin Ferguson

  It was a cold night when he came home and hit her again. When he had gone to bed she went to a nearby garage and bought a can of petrol.

  In court, she pleaded that all she meant to do was to douse him in the petrol and threaten to set it alight if he ever attacked her again.

  That is what she did. She said she had not known the electric fire was on next to the bed. She made no attempt to put the fire out. Her barrister said she was in shock when she walked out of the house and half a mile up the road to ring for the fire brigade and ambulance.

  The jury found her not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter and she received a seven-year prison sentence from the judge who, in giving her the benefit of doubt, commented on her apparently complete lack of remorse.

  Did she or didn’t she? It was lucky her fellow prisoners were not on the jury.

  Bad Dreams and Blue Blobs

  So many of those I saw were involved with drugs. Lesley was in prison for three months after attacking six police officers causing three of them to need medical attention. She was a slight five-footer and it did not seem possibly for her to have caused such carnage. Unusually, I had to ask her what she had done. She went quiet for a while. “I’m sorry but it’s quite embarrassing really and couldn’t tell them in court and you are going to think it’s very silly.”

  “Go on. I’m listening.”

  “Well the truth is, I was high on drugs and all I could see was big blue blobs trying to swallow me so I was lashing out at them to save myself, but I couldn’t say that to a magistrate, could I?”

  I had to agree with her.

  Helen

  Helen was an attractive and intelligent young woman who had such a low opinion of herself that she had effectively been sent to prison to save her life. She had been adopted as a baby but then rejected by the adoptive parent when she was three. A series of foster care placements did nothing to help her establish a relationship of any meaning. When she became a teenager she was a natural victim for those who target vulnerable children.

  Used and abused by short term and uncaring partnerships, she had drifted into addiction very easily.

  Forgetfulness was a welcome ally and when she could not forget or feel any sense of future she was prone to suicidal attempts. In prison, she was able to come off the physical addiction but she became a self-harmer and constantly at risk. We did however have a discharge plan for her with a hostel placement that could at least give her some security as she was physically clean of the drugs.

  She expressed a degree of keenness until the night before her discharge when she asked to see me.

  “I’m not going to be able to do it. I am sorry but I have been dreaming of needles all week and I know that I will have to inject when I get out.” It wasn’t the drugs that attracted her but the pain of the injection.

  She was no good, nobody loved her, she deserved to be punished. I was not going to be there when she was discharged and she would have to face the demons on her own.

  Sometimes, all I could was to weep at the terrible absence of hope in what otherwise could have been a good life.

  Kerry

  Kerry was a drug addict and intended to carry on being such when she was released. She left prison on a Friday, looking forward to her first fix. Three weeks later, she was dead, being found in a lift with a rusty needle in her groin as it was the only part of her body she could still use.

  Let Me In!

  Sybil or Sibbie, as she preferred, was a middle aged and poorly educated woman who had been married for twenty years to a man who totally dominated her life.

  Classic of their relationship was when they went shopping, he would buy everything and pay for it, leaving her to carry it all. She was not given any housekeeping money and she had no personal freedom at all. In her simplicity, she thought that was what life was. She worked in the house as he demanded. They had no children.

  Then tragedy struck, and in a rather bizarre manner, when her husband was found dead in the local cemetery stretched out on a gravestone. There was no suspicion of foul play, he had simply felt tired and lain down and died.

  Sibbie was now on her own, and carried on doing what she had always been told to do, except she had never handled money.

  She did the shopping and walked out without paying as she had always done. None of the agencies seemed able to help her as she was always someone else’s problem. Eventually, after her fourth or fifth court appearance in as many weeks, she was sent to Holloway for a short sentence.

  No doubt the court thought that this might shock her out of her behaviour as they would have already tried everything else.

  Once she found her feet there, she loved it. She had all the discipline of her husband and still had no responsibility. The older prisoners looked after her, recognising her vulnerability.

  She had a little job to do in the kitchens and she really did love being there. I was about to leave the prison and was very concerned about her future as because she had a home to go to, she was regarded as self-supporting. The most I could do was to alert Social Services.

  I discovered later that the meek little woman had fought with the prison officers who were trying to get her to leave and spent an hour banging on the door shouting, “Let me in, let me in!”

  We tend to look on the world as either good or bad but the truth is far more diverse than such simplicity. Right and wrong seem much more complex when you try standing in someone else’s shoes. Sibbie couldn’t go home because she did not know how to get there from the prison, so she did what she knew would work and went shopping.

  Keep the Door Open

  I interviewed people in a cell on the wing and for the sake of privacy, would close the door unless they wanted it to be open. I was safe because, as one of the warders said, “You’re like the community stairs, everyone uses you but nobody has you to themselves.”

  Most of the prostitutes in the prison had depressive conditions that made them easy victims to domination by the ‘ponce’. Most of them covered this up by social drug use but there was one young woman who was quite different. She enjoyed chatting to me but even her friends said, “Keep the door open.” Her promiscuity was open and she admitted she enjoyed her work.

  “Just ask my friends,” she had said and I did.

  “Oh!” said her friend, “She is awful. I mean, we were at a party last month when she comes up to me and says ‘hang on to my drink, luv, I’m just popping out to do a couple.’ I mean to say, she’s not normal.”

  One day, just before she was due to go home she asked to see me. As advised, I left the door open. Not that I would have done anything but allegations were difficult to disprove.

  “Why don’t you close the door?” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I could do with a bit of practise before I get out,” I kept the door wide open. That was definitely not in my job description.

  Not Good Enough

  Of all the young women that I worked with in Holloway, there is one in particular that I still think of. Chloe was twenty and a bright woman who had a good school record and achievement in spite of having been introduced to prostitution when she was only fourteen, by her mother. Mother was a long-time sex worker and did not even think that her daughter was being abused.

  Chloe could really do well if only she could break away from her mother’s influence. We found a chance for her. A new start in a job that would train her and provide accommodation. She was delighted. The plans went well and everything was in place until the night before she was to be discharged. She came to see me and I knew something was wrong straight away as she had obviously been crying.

  “I’m so sorry Mr Ferguson, I can’t do it. I have to go back to my mum, she needs me. I’m not good enough. Give it to someone who deserves it.”

  She wouldn’t stay to talk but ran back to her cell. How could I tell her she did deserve it? How could I break the bond between mother and daughter even though it was corrupt? After nearly fifty
years, I still don’t know. I could only hope that I had planted a seed of hope that one day would enable her to make the break. You can never live anyone’s life for them, however bad it might be, but I can still see her there weeping; I still feel the sadness and the grief.

  Hitting the Wall

  Carol was a problem for the prison because she never accepted their control. Originally sentenced to eighteen months in prison, she had been given an additional six months for assaulting on of the prison officers in an escape attempt. Normally, she would have one-third remission on her sentence if she had met the conditions. When I met her she had been in the prison for 23 months. She only had one month left of her remission.

  Although, I could not condone her behaviour, I did have a touch of admiration for her spirit. I think she recognised that for she did begin talking to me. It began when I arranged to take her out of the prison to a local hostel where she could see her son who was three that day. I was advised by more than one person to keep an eye on her at all times.

  As we were on the way, she asked, “What would you do if just ran away?”

  I smiled and replied “I would just stand here and shout ‘stop, thief’ at the top of my voice.”

  She looked at me for a while and then said, “You would, wouldn’t you! So I suppose I’d better not do it.”

  We had a very good meeting with her sister and the little boy but she still tried to smuggle a packet of cigarettes back under her wig. (“Sorry Mr Ferguson, but you do have to try, don’t you?”)

  Her anger still erupted too quickly and she was down to three weeks of remission. I encouraged her to think of different ways of expressing her anger other than hitting the prison staff. In particular, I suggested she hit the wall instead.

  A week later, she was in front of the governor again and was obviously getting irate. Suddenly, she went over to the wall and began to pound on it. The governor shouted, “Stop that Carol. Stop being so childish.”

  Carol stopped and then told the governor. “I’m only doing what Mr Ferguson told me. It was you I really wanted to hit.”

  Two weeks left of her emission but she was given permission to go home for a week in order to prepare for discharge. I had supported her application even though, I agreed with those who said she would never come back. Sure enough she did not come back as planned but two days later she came of her own volition.

  One week left, “Sorry to let you down Mr Ferguson but I had to sort something else out.”

  I tried not to smile, “You did just what I expected Carol, but did you get everything sorted for your release, and do you think you will be all right when you get home.”

  “Yes!” she said, “And I really do not want to come back here again.” Three days left and she left. I am glad to say that I did not hear anything of her again.

  Valentines

  As I have already said, F wing in the old Holloway was for short-term prisoners and was tough. There was no real recreation time apart from one hour at teatime.

  Things though, were ready to change and a more experienced governor was appointed to the wing. She shared a lot of my thinking and soon introduced a more relaxed attitude and more association time. The group work was not a good idea as most of the women were there for very short periods of time. When my senior suggested we might try a group of volunteers, I was quick to take up the offer and soon arranged a monthly visit of volunteers.

  A group of six was carefully selected and made aware of the type of prisoner they would be meeting before starting. Their role was simple – to be there and to listen. They began officially on the 14th February so instantly became known as the Valentines. They became a great success especially when one of them brought Alvin Stardust (the singer and as he was called then) for one evening.

  I remember that the big song at that time was Roberta Flack singing, ‘Killing me softly with his song’. It seemed to speak to so many of them. With the coming of the Valentines, the whole atmosphere of the wing seemed to change. The prisoners were no longer just people who had been dumped but they could talk to real people and be thought of as real people themselves.

  Even though it was only once a month, the Valentines were very precious.

  The value of their coming was expressed one evening when I returned to the wing after seeing them out of the prison. A lot of screaming and splashing was followed by a fairly new inmate running down the landing soaking wet and going to hide in her cell.

  A lot of the discipline on the wing was due to the work of the trustees, usually given the job of wing cleaner. In this case, two of the ‘trustees’ had ‘disciplined’ the new girl.

  I sat in on the interview that the governor had with the two women. When she asked what their behaviour was all about their answer showed how truly valued the Valentines were.

  “Well Miss, she was cadging cigarettes from the Valentines and we don’t do that with them because they are our friends. They give their time to us and never ask for anything in return so we respect them and we don’t ask them for cigarettes. She did and now she knows better.”

  Cigarettes are like ‘gold dust’ in the prison. The Valentines were even more precious. They continued long after I had gone and their introduction was one of the most rewarding bits of work I did in the two and a half years I was there.

  The Campaign

  While I was there, I became more involved with the National Association of Probation Officers and actually served on the National Professional Committee. In relation to my work, I had become very concerned by the fact that children of fourteen were being remanded to the prison, even though they were too young for any sentence to take them there. The hospital wing which is where they were held was fraught with dangers for vulnerable youngsters.

  My resolution at our National conference about this was seized upon by the press and ultimately resulted in an all-party agreement in Parliament, banning the practise of under sixteen year olds being remanded to an adult prison.

  A further opportunity came as I was a member of the Howard League and was invited to join a working party looking at the ‘Street Offences Act.’

  Our proposal for the Act to be repealed and replaced with an Act relating to nuisance, which for prostitution would apply equally to men, sadly never saw the light of day.

  But it was time to move again and this time it was to my home patch, Battersea.

  Battersea

  It was time for me to move on and I joined the team working in Battersea, my own home patch. It had many of the same problems as Brixton but the pressure was less intense. Poverty and poor housing especially in the tower blocks were the most depressing elements of the work. I became more involved in local issues such as the Housing Association and the legal aid centre at the time when national concern had been aroused by the television programme ‘Cathy come home.’

  My office was just off Lavender hill, next to the courts and the police station. Clapham Junction was at the bottom of the hill. The area was, as in Brixton, gang oriented and one of my probationers was quite scared to come and see me because he had to cross a border controlled by a rival group. He was happy enough for me to visit which was easy as I walked past his house each day.

  Being next to the police station was also a bit unnerving for some of the lads but I knew the area well. There was a good probation team there, similar in size to Streatham but also quite young. After six years, I was now the most experienced officer which also meant I was allocated some of the more difficult cases.

  It was also when I had recently completed a course in Human Social Functioning, a psychologically based method of working which I found remarkably useful in some cases, some of which I have commented on in my case studies.

  The Chairs

  In my office, there was a fairly large desk, my chair and three other chairs. My desk was away from the door and filling the opposite corner. Most people came and sat in the chair which was at the corner of my desk so I only needed to move across to talk to them. One was
at the open end and so directly facing me. One of them was across my desk by the window. This was my ‘I-have-done-something-wrong chair’. The vast majority sat in the first two chairs.

  Eddie usually sat there as well but this day he walked straight in and sat in the third chair. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He glowered at me, “What have you heard?”

  “Nothing,” I replied, “But you are sitting in the wrong chair and that makes me think that something has happened to upset you.”

  Eddie was a big black young man from Jamaica. Like so many of his fellows, he had been left at home in Jamaica when his parents came to this country in the late 1950s.

  He had been raised by his grandmother and then been sent to join his parents before he was old enough to have to pay full fare. The story was only too common at this time. He had been in trouble several times for violence and was currently on a borstal licence which meant he had to report to a probation officer.

  He had actually been doing very well, was working and had a steady girlfriend. But now something was wrong. He bowed his head as he spoke, clearly ashamed and worried at what he had to tell me.

  He told me that his girlfriend was pregnant and wanted to have an abortion but they couldn’t afford to pay for one so he had tried to forge his post office savings book and been caught. He was due in court next week.

  After telling me, he sat in silence for some time looking past me and far away. I gently said to him, “Sometimes Eddie, I think you would love to be back home with your Gran, so she can hug you to try and make you feel better.”