I scrolled up the screen to read the nurse’s entry.
Rebecca was 27 years old and it was her first time in prison. That in itself was a surprise. I have seen so many prisoners return time and time again, that when I meet someone who has never been inside before, it’s unusual.
Many of the residents’ lives are so chaotic, complex and traumatic, that for some of them prison is a refuge. A shelter for the homeless and often a place to get help with addictions. The women return for a variety of crimes, such as shoplifting, theft, robbery, burglary, fraud, arson, kidnap, GBH or ABH.
Rarely murder.
When I reached the holding cell, I saw the door was open and there were five women in there. Two were lying down on the stark blue plastic bench seating, looking extremely unwell, most probably because they were withdrawing from drugs. One was pale and sweaty, her hair sticking to her forehead and her eyes shut, as she tried to ride it out. The other was clutching her stomach, groaning miserably – not an unfamiliar sound to me. An overweight woman in a wheelchair stared blankly ahead of her. The other two sat quietly, and appeared to be shaken and fearful.
‘Rebecca?’ I asked as I looked around the room.
A girl’s eyes peered out from her curtain of long, deep brown hair like a cornered animal. She looked much younger than her age, with delicate features, a spray of freckles and intense eyes. She was wearing a knee-length skirt with tights and pale pink pumps, which were splattered with something dark, as was her pale grey top. I tried not to show the shock and surprise I felt, as I realised it was blood. She must have come straight to prison from the scene of the crime.
I led her back along the mottled-blue lino floor of the corridor to my room.
‘Hi, Rebecca. I’m Doctor Brown. Come and have a seat.’ I gestured to the hard and battered plastic chair. ‘I just have to go through some routine questions to make sure you are okay and see if you need any medication,’ I told her. ‘Alright?’
She didn’t reply.
I started to go through her notes. She looked shocked to her core. Her hands were trembling, and she fiddled with her cuffs, pulling them over her hands. I noticed that they were also stained dark and dirty with dried blood. I could smell it.
Metallic. Slightly sweet.
Rebecca’s eyes looked glazed and vacant; the look of someone who could not believe where she was or what was happening to her.
‘I can see here that you are charged with murder,’ I said. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’
‘I killed my partner.’ Her voice was clear but started to crack as she said the word ‘partner’.
I could see she was trying hard to stop the tears, which were pricking the corners of her eyes, from falling. She swallowed hard.
‘I stabbed him.’ She looked up at me through her fringe. ‘I just couldn’t take it any more. I couldn’t see a way out. The years of being controlled.’ She grimaced, and her voice became more defiant. ‘I was his punch bag. I just couldn’t do it any more.’
I was already fairly sure what she was going to say, having heard it so many times in Bronzefield before.
She rolled into her story, the floodgates opening. Sitting in front of me was a criminal, charged with the most serious of crimes, but she was just a normal person. She was well spoken, intelligent and articulate. She reminded me a little of the girl who cuts my hair.
Rebecca met her partner when she was 15 and he was 21. For a while, she said, they were just friends. When she was 17, he persuaded her that they would be better as a couple than as friends.
‘It sounds like such a cliché now, but he did everything for me,’ she said, her eyes downcast. ‘He treated me like a queen. He drove me to college, helped with my work, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for me. Everyone thought he was great; me, my parents, my friends. He was literally the golden guy. My mates really thought I’d lucked out.’
I nodded. ‘When did things change?’
‘It went wrong the first time we went away together. We went on holiday to Spain after I finished my A levels,’ she said. ‘He planned and paid for everything, said it was his way of celebrating the end of my exams. While we were there, he saw me talking to a man. I can’t even remember who he was now; a waiter, I think. We were just talking and laughing; it was completely innocent.
‘That was the first time he hit me.
‘He accused me of flirting. I had nowhere to go, so I stayed in the hotel room, cowering in the bathroom.’
I could see a flash of fear in her eyes as she recalled what had happened.
‘The next day, he was so apologetic. He was sobbing. He said he would kill himself if I left him. I’d never seen him cry like that. It was impossible not to forgive him. I covered up the bruises on my face with make-up and wore a sarong all holiday. I didn’t even go swimming in the hotel pool. I just sat on a sunbed, hugging my bruised ribs. God, it hurt so much that time.
‘That was just the start.’
It was a story that I had heard countless times before. The details and cast were different, of course, but the story of domestic abuse and violence is all too familiar. Men trying to control women and, so often, going too far.
Rebecca’s partner dominated her.
‘Then, of course, he persuaded me to not take the place I got at university – it was over two hours away from where we lived. He made me move in with him. He cut me off from my friends and family and monitored my every move.
‘He made me think I was in the wrong. Always. My attitude was wrong, my clothes were wrong, I looked like a slut,’ she explained.
I could hear the hurt and anger in her voice as she spoke. I knew that women like Rebecca often became increasingly intimidated, and frenzied with fear about when the next blow was coming, so they did everything they could to keep the peace.
‘When one of my colleagues at my office job told me I’d had “one bruise too many”, and asked me if I needed to talk, I felt I had no choice but to resign. I never went back to work. I even stopped going to see my GP in case they suspected him. He called home throughout the day to check up on me. I felt suffocated.’
Rebecca’s partner worked as an accountant and they lived in a nice part of Surrey, not that far away from the prison, with their five-year-old son.
‘So, what happened today?’ I asked gently.
‘I was in the kitchen. I was making his lunch. He always has it at 1 p.m. on the dot – he leaves the office to come home to check on me. I could see he was in one of his moods. He gets kind of twitchy, you know?’
I didn’t correct her tense.
‘He mentioned Jack. He’s not long been at school, and he’s had a few scuffles already in the playground. Just typical five-year-old boy stuff – a bit of pushing and shoving, nothing really. He said he wants him to be a man, like him. We started to row – about Jack, about everything. I hate the fact I’m stuck at home all day. All I do is clean the house. He won’t let me go anywhere or do anything. I even have to ask his permission to go to the shop to buy a pint of milk. I feel so lonely. So alone. All the time. Apart from Jack – he means everything to me. He gives me purpose…’ She tailed off, deep in thought, her face slightly brighter as she spoke about her son.
‘I can tell Jack knows