‘I nicked a laptop from Currys. Thought I could sell it to my mate, Mike – he’s always got cash.’
‘How long are you here for?’
‘Just twenty-eight days. I was only out two weeks ago.’
Women often serve far shorter sentences for minor crimes like theft and shoplifting and are locked up for a matter of weeks, before leaving to go back onto the streets, only to reoffend and come back in – hence the frequent flyer moniker. The longest sentence Shannon had received was two years when she was in her late teens.
She was now 26 and had been using drugs for over a decade.
‘How much heroin are using at the moment, Shannon?’ I asked. ‘Are you still buying benzos and pregabs as well?’
‘I usually spend about 100 quid on crack and a 100 quid on heroin every day,’ she told me. ‘I’m also taking about 40mg of diazepam and as many pregabs as I can get my hands on. The drugs and booze just get me through. Some days I feel like I’m drowning. It all just helps me to forget the evil shit I’ve been through.’
‘How much are you drinking now?’ I asked.
‘A bottle of vodka a day, if I can get it,’ she replied staring at her feet.
Shannon sat forward, grasping her stomach and wincing in pain because she had really bad abdominal cramps due to withdrawal.
‘I think I’m gonna be sick,’ she said, clutching her hand to her mouth.
I looked around the room for a disposable bowl and fortunately found one in the corner, which I quickly handed to her.
‘Here you go, Shannon,’ I said.
I sat and waited in silence until she felt able to continue talking.
‘I live from one hit to the next. I owe my dealers money and I spend my life in fear. They keep coming after me. Say I owe them more and more. I’ve lost track of it all now, and I don’t know how I’m going to pay them back.’ She sounded terrified. Women were not simply scared of violent partners. Men dominating these women came in all guises. Many women turn to sex work to keep their dealers happy.
She had also been sleeping rough for the majority of her adult life, heading to the streets with a measly bag of possessions and a sleeping bag to find somewhere she could call her own – even if this was a shop door, in a stairwell or under a bridge. Solving housing issues for this section of society is hugely challenging. Many organisations use online systems to process requests and details, but women without their own phone or access to the internet cannot get near them. Shannon always sold the cheap phones she got her hands on for drugs, and aside from the odd night in a hostel, she was on her own. She had no bank account. She had fallen through all the nets.
Over the many hours I had spent before then with Shannon trying to tackle her drug and alcohol dependency, I had heard her story in full.
‘My dad beat up my mum so badly when she was expecting me, it’s a miracle I’m here at all,’ she said. ‘Even after all that, she stayed with him. He was locked up when I was two and I never saw him again.’
Her mum worked three jobs to put food on the table and became involved with another man. Her new stepfather soon moved into the house.
‘He was a bastard. Mum had two more kids with him. He would play us all off against each other. It was like some sort of weird power game of cat and mouse.’
Her face looked pale and impassive.
‘We would all be beaten in turn. I was always the last because I’m the eldest. Listening to my sisters cry and scream before me was unbearable.’ Her voice started to crack.
‘I would hide under my duvet and put my pillow over my head, but nothing would drown out the noise.’
The tears started to fall as she relived the memory. I gently placed my hand on her arm, a little comfort as she talked.
‘My stepdad would beat and rape my mum in front of us, and he would come into our rooms after Mum left at night. She worked as a cleaner at the local leisure centre.’
‘He sounds like a really evil man,’ I said, deeply sickened by her awful tale.
‘First, it was just weird touching, but when I was eight, he started raping me. I could never scream, as he was so heavy. I felt I couldn’t breathe. I would just look at the tree outside my window and pray it would be over,’ she told me. ‘I never told my mum. I didn’t want her to be upset.’ The lengths people would go to protect the people they loved never ceased to amaze me, and often left me speechless. I frequently met people who took the blame for crimes they did not commit; from mothers who claimed the drugs in the house were theirs and not their kid’s, to girlfriends who provided an alibi or who covered up for their partners in other ways.
‘Me and my sisters were always hungry, and I sometimes passed out at school. I was terrified about my mum getting into trouble, so I would lie and say that I’d had some toast or cereal for breakfast.’
Thankfully, Shannon’s mum met someone new and their lives changed for a few years. The abuse stopped and there was more money for food, and birthday and Christmas presents.
When Shannon met her first boyfriend at 14, sadly the cycle of abuse started again. She became dependent on drugs and alcohol and started bunking off school. Her grades had never been good, and she was struggling to keep up. Eventually, her mum threw her out, because she didn’t want her drug use to influence her sisters. She ended up on the streets. She had no qualifications, and having lost contact with her mum and sisters a long time ago, she also had no support network on the outside.
‘I’ve got no one and nothing. Not even my own teeth,’ she said, showing me a gappy mouth with a few rotten, brown teeth, worn down to stumps from the years of drug use and neglect.
Those words seemed to sum up the story of so many women I had come to know during my time working at Bronzefield.
I knew Shannon’s history and needed to help her manage the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, and to stabilise her on methadone whilst she was in prison. Realistically there was not enough time for her to detox from methadone, and there was also a risk of her overdosing on heroin after release if she was on too low a dose. It was not going to be easy for her; it never was.
I had learnt early on in my time at Bronzefield that the women themselves had to want to stop using drugs and conquer their addictions. No matter what I or anybody else did or said, it was up to them to make that choice and see it through.
‘I haven’t got any drugs in my lady pocket, Doctor Brown. Honest,’ she said. I knew that she had smuggled drugs into prison in her vagina before – it was an obvious way for many prisoners, as internal searches are not permitted.
She looked up and gave me a smile, so I would know. If she told me she had drugs on her I would have to report her, so I swiftly moved on to sorting out her medication. As we chatted away, the upset of the judge’s comments seemed to fade, and I started to see the old smiley Shannon emerge.
‘To be honest, in some ways I’m happy to be back and have a warm place to sleep. It’s getting proper cold out there now. My sleeping bag got soaked in the rain the other night and it just won’t dry. And I’m starving,’ she rattled on. ‘I can’t just sit there all day. Shoplifting gives me something to do. That, and riding round the Circle Line. It’s warm, and much more comfortable than just sitting on the street. I also feel safer when I’m not sitting on the street. I’m so scared the dealers will find me and beat me up again.
‘It’ll be nice to be with some of my mates again. We understand each other. I’ll keep busy in here, maybe try and learn something; get back on the education programme. It’s good to know I’ll feel safe at night again, for a while.’
This was something I heard again and again from the prisoners. Being in prison for many