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THE INNOCENT BABIES IN PRISON WITH THEIR MUMS
Dec 22 2001
By Sally Brook
THE green gate creaks open and a laughing Santa pulls up in his
brightly decorated sleigh.
Eight tiny children, wrapped up warm against the cold in their
mothers' arms, gurgle with delight at the fat man in red.
It could be a scene at any nursery anywhere in the country... but
these children are about to spend their first Christmas behind bars.
They are the innocent victims of a modern Britain in which more women
than ever before are committing violent crimes and getting prison
sentences for them.
Here, at the mother and baby unit at New Hall women's prison near
Wakefield, West Yorks, inmates are allowed to keep their babies with
them until they are nine months old.
Annmarie Sowerby, cradling her three-month-old son - one of 44
children kept in custody with their mothers - says: "The only good
thing about this Christmas is that Dylan will be too young to
remember it.
"I can't even afford any presents for him."
The female prison population has shot up by 24 per cent this year
alone.
A record 4,045 women are now in jail, most of them for drug-related
offences. The number has soared by a shocking 145 per cent since
1993.
As more and more women spend Christmas behind bars, The Mirror
visited three young mums and their young children to see what life on
the inside is really like for jail babies.
Annmarie, 25, from Middlesbrough, Teesside, deserves little sympathy
herself. She is nine months into a two-and- a-half-year sentence for
conspiracy to supply heroin.
Landing herself in jail has left her three older children to be
brought up by relatives and her only daughter, aged six, to be
adopted.
She says: "I am dreading Christmas Day, as I have never been away
from my other children before and this is a very special time.
"I haven't seen my children since being sent here three months ago
and am scared they will forget me."
Annmarie claims she prefers her family to spend money on clothes and
presents for the children rather than on travel for them to visit
her.
It is difficult to know which of her children will have a better
Christmas - Dylan, behind bars, or the others, at home without their
mum.
At New Hall, the mothers and babies will attend a morning carol
service, followed by a special Christmas lunch. In the afternoon
there will be games.
But there will be no long walks with the pram and no visits from
family members. Looking after a child away from his family is one of
the biggest problems facing Annmarie.
SHE says: "It is difficult bringing up a baby inside because you have
to fit in with the prison timetable - you don't have choice any more.
"I worry Dylan is missing out. He doesn't get exposed to all
experiences other babies do and I worry about the long-term effect of
that.
"Instead of having my family around to help, the nursery nurses take
care of Dylan when I can't.
"I know I deserve to be punished but I feel Dylan is paying for my
crime.
"When we get released he might get scared of traffic noise and won't
be used to seeing his brothers and sisters."
Yet Annmarie is grateful that she can at least keep Dylan with her.
She says: "I wouldn't have it any other way. I love being with him."
She used to have a �100-a-day heroin habit, but has learnt from her
time inside. She says: "I was stupid. I thought I could try heroin
just once. Of course, I became addicted. After that, everything else
crumbled.
"I was addicted to heroin for about three years, and, because I was
so busy with the other children I never had a chance to sort myself
out.
"Now I have done a drugs and alcohol awareness course and feel more
sorted. When I get outside I will concentrate on getting my family
back together."
The children play in the bright prison nursery, where the yellow
walls are splashed with cartoon characters.
Grinning Pluto and waddling Donald Duck look on during Santa's visit
as he pulls each baby on to his knee and gives them a Christmas
present donated by the charity Babies in Prison.
Because of their mothers' crimes, the first experiences of these
innocent babies are of prison life. They will take their first steps
in custody. They will not be able to play with their cousins or go
for a ride in the park.
New Hall takes children up to nine months, as does Holloway in North
London. Styal, near Manchester, and Askham Grange, near York, take
babies up to 18 months.
Although the unit's doors are always open, it is surrounded by a
locked fence within the main prison boundaries.
At the entrance visitors are greeted by a large common room, nursery,
kitchen and officers' room. Beyond, a long corridor separates the
prisoners' bedrooms, where mum and baby sleep together. All the mums
go to work or education between 8.30am and 11.45am and are then
allowed back to the unit until 1.30pm.
They go back to work or education until 4.45pm. Then they are free to
take care of their children, as they do at weekends.
Although there are nursery nurses on hand, the inmates are
responsible for all "mums' jobs", including changing nappies and
feeding, when they are in the unit.
Carla Smith is one of the few inmates actually looking forward to
Christmas with her six-month-old son, Oskar. She was sentenced to
seven years for wounding with intent and grievous bodily harm, an
offence committed when she was 15. When the 20-year-old from Coventry
had served two years, she was released to a bail hostel to attend
college.
But after being caught on an out-of-bounds landing, asking other
residents to turn down their music, she was sent back to closed
prison.
During her stint at the hostel Carla became pregnant by a boyfriend
she met there and gave birth to Oskar six months ago.
She has no family apart from her grandmother and most of her
childhood was spent in children's homes. Pulling back her dark curly
hair, she says: "This is going to be my best Christmas because Oskar
is here. I have spent every Christmas in care or prison since the age
of eight. This year I feel there is something to look forward to.
Being here has definitely helped me.
WITHOUT Oskar I would have nothing. I often wake up frightened at
night after having nightmares.
"But when I look over at Oskar and stroke his face I feel at peace."
Carla has neatly arranged her baby products around her en-suite
bathroom. She sends her �15.15 weekly child benefit to her gran, who
buys her baby clothes and toiletries. She admits: "Of course I feel
awful for bringing Oskar into a prison environ-ment, but we make the
most of it."
She is hoping to get together with Oskar's father on her release but
says their relationship has been rocky since she was returned to
prison.
She adds: "I am getting a job as soon as I get out. I've already got
my National Diploma in Horse Studies and would love to work with
horses.
"I want a good life for Oskar. He is everything now."
Jane Robinson, 18, who has a 13-week-old daughter, Madison, is
serving three years for a street robbery she was too high on drugs to
remember. Jane, from Newcastle upon Tyne, was a first-time offender.
She was four months pregnant when she was sent to jail. She had been
on heroin and Valium for more than a year, spending �100 a day on her
habit.
Now she hopes to be released by July, when she will start a
hairdressing and beauty course.
She says: "I thank my lucky stars I have got Madison in here with me.
Without this time, it would be impossible for us to bond.
"I want her to know who her mum is. I love it when we all go to our
rooms at 8pm. It's just Madison and me. I play with her, read her
stories - those are the best moments.
"The idea of spending Christmas inside scares me. But I am lucky
because my family brought lots of presents and new clothes for
Madison. My cupboard is full of them.
"I'm determined to make the most of Christmas for her sake. I often
look at her and feel guilty she is spending her early months in a
prison.
"But I console myself with the fact that she won't remember anything.
I am also a better mum. I've done a NVQ in child care and I've got
myself totally off drugs.
"I really want to be a hairdresser when I get out. I want to start
again."
End<{{{1
2}}}>Begin
WORTHLESS
Dec 22 2001
By Kanchan Dutt
THE husband of a BBC costume designer, murdered trying to stop her bag being stolen,
yesterday condemned her heroin addict killer as he was jailed for life.
Peter Sherlock said his wife Liz's death meant nothing to Mark Woolley, who mowed her
down, and his handbag thief lover Jackie Moorehouse.
Mr Sherlock said: "What he did to Liz was to him a mere blip in his existence.
"They stole a bag, he drove over some 'obstructions' in the road and used what they
found in that bag to get drugs."
But he added: "Somewhere in the middle of all this a human life was extinguished."
The Recorder of London Judge Michael Hyam, yesterday blasted Woolley, telling him his
life was a "worthless existence, thieving to raise money to buy your next heroin fix".
Moorehouse, 24, snatched Mrs Sherlock's bag as she had a coffee at Euston station,
London, with her husband.
Mrs Sherlock chased her but Moorehouse jumped into Woolley's Ford Fiesta.
Mrs Sherlock clung on to the wiper blades as Woolley drove off. She was thrown off the
bonnet and Woolley drove over her. Hours later they used the money to buy another
heroin fix.
Moorehouse, a drug addict since she was 15, was found not guilty of murder and
manslaughter but jailed for three years for theft.
Devastated Mr Sherlock, 48, said after the Old Bailey trial yesterday that defence
lawyers had suggested his wife had been foolish to chase her attackers.
He added: "The suggestion made by counsel that she should somehow have cut her losses
is appalling - it just suggests that we should all have the word victim tattooed on
our foreheads.
"The impression one gets is that what took place was somehow Liz's fault - but people
who are dependent on drugs do not have to resort to crime to feed their dependency.
"It seems outrageous that society in general appears to accept this - it wrings its
hands but does no more."
He added: "What happened shocked those bystanders and would, I hope, shock all
right-minded people."
Mrs Sherlock's sisters Janet and Susan said: "We are proud of our brave sister and
defy anyone to claim that what she did was foolhardy."
They said Moorehouse and Woolley, 36, in their "arrogant contempt" had imagined Mrs
Sherlock would give up her handbag easily.
They added: "Drugs stopped them from recognising that people existed as anything other
than objects from which to scavenge.
"It seems that the widespread use of drugs destroys the very basis of humanity - the
capacity to care."
Woolley was also sentenced to 18 months for theft. Judge Hyam told him Mrs Sherlock's
murder was "a wicked act without any pity and without remorse and you were seen to
smile after you had done it."
The jury heard he had written to his lawyers expressing regret. His letter read: "The
day will always be engraved in my mind as a day of sorrow. I have shed tears for Mrs
Sherlock every night, knowing it need not have hap
pened."
Moorehouse's counsel Baroness Mallalieu QC said her client had starting drinking at
10, sniffed glue at 12 and was expelled from school for taking drugs.
She went to prison when she was 16 and started taking heroin after seeing other
prisoners doing it. She met Woolley after her release and they smoked heroin every
day. The pair worked as petty thieves for nine years to fu
nd their �300 a day habit.
Moorehouse had a baby by Woolley in September 2000 but he was born
addicted to heroin and taken into care.
A month before Mrs Sherlock's death, Moorehouse had been arrested for
a copycat handbag snatch in a bar.
Her mother Elizabeth McGordrick said: "She just changed from this
beautiful girl, fading away to nothing."
Moorehouse, who admitted theft has already spent eight months in
custody and will be out within 10 months.
End<{{{2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
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In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
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"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
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