SUSAN’S STORY

I was released in the middle of lockdown. If it wasn’t for Shine I don’t know what I’d have done

Former prisoner Susan

Susan was mourning the death of her mother when she was jailed for breaching a drug treatment and testing order.

Now 44, she had been forced to escape a violent and abusive relationship in her 20s which led to her losing custody of her children.

The trauma was compounded by being jailed for driving without a licence as she fled with the children for her own safety. She suffered a mental breakdown and turned to heroin to cope, developing an addiction that eventually led to her being sentenced to five months in prison in March 2020.

Her mum had died in 2019 and, as she struggled with poor mental health and her addiction, she had missed appointments on her court-ordered Drug Treatment and Testing Order (DTTO), one because it clashed with the funeral.

Susan – not her real name – said: “I was gutted when I was sentenced. My jaw dropped. It was disbelief as it was only a DTTO thing and they could have given me another chance.

“My mum was my world. I was trying to arrange a funeral and

I had no money. It was really hard. I had no dad or anybody else to help me. The judge just wasn’t interested.

“When you were in prison during lockdown, you were in lockdown, you were only getting out for 15 minutes. I had to eat my meals in my cell. Being locked up constantly with my mental health, it didn’t help at all.

“A longer sentence you could get your head into it, but the shorter ones break your back.

Sitting there every day thinking that’s another day gone, another day gone, with no visitors or anything.”

When she was released last May, Susan was homeless and has spent the last year staying with a family member while she tries to get her life back on track.

One of the biggest challenges she faced was getting her benefits restored as they had been cut while she was in prison, leaving her destitute, and she did not even have a mobile phone. Her mentor at support service Shine provided her with a mobile phone on a contract, and helped her get access to the internet through another charity.

The service also helped her secure a grant to buy clothes and money from the charity Crisis to pay the deposit on a privately rented flat.

Susan, who is on a methadone programme, added: “When I got out it was in the peak of lockdown, and if it wasn’t for Shine then I don’t know what I would have done.

“Right now, we’re still trying to get my benefits in order and that’s a year down the line.

“If it wasn’t for working with Abi at Shine I think I would have been back in prison by now. It’s been one thing after another. If I hadn’t had Abi’s help, I would have been off my head.

“Things are falling into place now. If I’d been doing it myself then I’d have got nowhere. Once I get my own flat then I’m going to do a beauty course and take driving lesson. But most of all, I just want my own house.”