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We need a new wave of trust in communities

Our scholar Andrew Morris grew up wanting to be a policeman but, he writes, his life took a very different course.  After the recent riots, he reflects on his own experience and how it has lead him to found New Wave Trust dedicated to rebuilding trust between communities and between communities and the police.

I have a catalogue of memories in my mind from growing up on the Angell Town estate in Brixton. It was the place I proudly called home, where my core beliefs took shape. It was also usually associated with deprivation and criminality (although it has long since been gentrified).

I can’t quite remember how old I was at the time, but I was taken to the West End as a young boy. I saw sweets, lights, people and in a souvenir shop a child-sized version of a police hat. For some reason I was obsessed by it. I immediately decided that I wanted to join the police.

Members of my family, usually Mum, my grandmother or my aunt, would tell me that, if I was naughty, ‘the policeman will take you away’. I knew that there could be nothing good about that and surmised in my own childlike way that wanting to be a policeman could not be all bad.  I was not yet of an age when I could possibly know the ramifications of three major factors on my future life: being black; coming from Angell Town; and wanting to join the police.

As time went on, I saw some of the injustices that coated the area where I grew up. Very often I would hear that something or other had happened, and it usually involved the police. I clearly recall listening to my grandparents talking about the Mangrove Nine, a group of activists tried and ultimately acquitted of inciting a riot in 1970 after protesting about police targeting a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill. Their trial, though, had happened five years before I was even born so, as I listened in to the family talk, I had no real concept then of what it all meant. But what I knew was that it was not good, and that it related to something called ‘racism’.

A window on the world

Growing up on Angell Town, our kitchen window looked on to a grassy area. What unravelled there is one of my most vivid memories of childhood. I was barely eight-years-old when, on 28 September 1985, I heard the word ‘riot’. My grandmother told me that a lady called Cherry Groce, who lived around the corner from us, had been shot by the police (leaving her paralysed for the rest of her life). That evening, as I was looking out of our kitchen window with my gran, I saw the 1985 Brixton riots spreading onto a pathway running between our kitchen and the grassy area.

I am not ashamed to admit that I was afraid. The most terrifying moment came when, for reasons that were unclear, the police entered our block and smashed the rectangular window in our front door with their truncheons. They did the same to our neighbours. Mercifully they did not then enter our homes, although I never did get my head around why the police would do what they did.

The fear that engulfed me that night was not because people were rioting. It was a fear of the police. Yet, despite this, I still had that desire to join the police.

‘My peers beat me for wanting to join the police’

Then came my juxtaposition. One day as a teenager I was bundled into the back of a police van with a friend from the estate. He had been arrested on several occasions. I, on the other hand, had not. Still, I was cuffed and beaten up by two officers who told me to ‘scream for your mum’. I didn’t scream for Mum, although I did cry out from the pain of the unjust and vitriolic assault.

I had already been given a beating from my peers because I had dared to tell them I wanted to join the police. Now it was the police being violent towards me.  The combination of the two certainly disabused me of the idea of joining the police.

Instead, my bad encounter that day with the police led me to campaign about police transgressions. I was mentored for four years in this period by Rudy Narayan, the well-known barrister and civil rights campaigner.

‘I never imagined I’d be offered a job in government service’

In 1998, when I was 21, I experienced in a single year the deaths of first my grandmother, then Rudy, and finally a lady called Arlene, who took a keen interest in my development. My way of dealing with it was to drink like an alcoholic. There followed a period of remand for a crime I had not committed, but I emerged from HMP Brixton with a taste for cocaine. A turbulent lifestyle of crime, drugs and debauchery ensued.

I somehow found the determination to leave London in an effort to kick my bad habits, but in 2007, after I had been clean for almost a year, my demons came back to haunt me. I was still displaying ‘using behaviour’. I was quick-tempered and aggressive, and that got me into trouble and led to me being handed an indeterminate prison sentence, also known as IPP.

Nearing the end of my sentence, something surprising happened. It had never crossed my mind that I’d be offered a job in government service before even walking out through the prison gates to restart my life. But I was. Towards the end of long-term sentences, there is an unwritten rule that, for the most part, you get a chance to prove yourself by being tested in an open prison, which is pretty much what it says on the tin. You aren’t locked in and could run off at any time. Therein lies the test!

I remember one day, while in an open prison, when we were invited to an employability talk in the visitors’ hall. I had nothing else to do, so went along with no expectations. Our visitor began talking about something called ‘Going Forward into Employment’. It was a government scheme. He referred to some job adverts scattered around the room and invited us to look at them.

I read one or two and I remember thinking, ‘this a pipe-dream’. But in the same moment I had a euphoric sensation. I had started to imagine myself doing one of the jobs that I had just read about. Then came the blow. ‘This scheme,’ it read, ‘is not open to life-sentenced prisoners, or this and that blah blah blah…’ My elation ebbed away.

‘The governor encouraged me to apply’

When the talk came to an end, I decided to speak to our visitor. ‘How can you come and tell me what I could have won,’ I challenged him, showing him the job advert. He shifted and smiled uneasily. As I walked away, I spoke to the governor who was there. He agreed with me and encouraged me to apply anyway. So, I did, and cast my cares into the sea of forgetfulness.

Then some time later something bizarre happened. A fellow prisoner came up to me and said, ‘you’ve got an interview’. I had forgotten about the application. I thought it must be a cruel joke. How could he know before me? But prison can be like that sometimes.

Sure enough I got a movement slip instructing me that I should be at the Working Out Scheme office (WOS) at an appointed date and time. Around 10 people were interviewed for the role. I walked into a room and met two representatives. Around half-an-hour later, they were done. I was left somersaulting in my mind about what else I could have said. They gave no indication either way of how the interview had gone.

‘I am proud of you. You got the job, well done’

About two months later I had left the prison on a planned overnight stay as part of my preparation for release. When I returned on 4 July, 2019, I was met by yet another prisoner who came up to me and said, ‘congratulations’. I was in a good mood having come back from time with family and friends, so I asked cheerfully, ‘what’s happened’? Simultaneously the governor came striding up to me with his hand outstretched! He shook my hand and said something I didn’t hear too often. ‘I am proud of you. You got the job, well done’.

I had been offered a role as an Assessment Officer at the Prisons’ and Probation Ombudsman, part of the Ministry of Justice. (The PPO investigates complaints from prisoners and those detained in secure environments.) I just couldn’t believe it. I mean how often does a convict get offered a job by the same government department that had the responsibility for locking them up in the first place?

‘Sometimes good things happen’

I kept thinking that it was not going to happen, just like the countless times that I thought I’d get parole and didn’t. But sometimes good things do happen. Four months later I had a parole hearing and told them that I had been offered a job at the PPO. I got the impression that they did not believe me. Once it was confirmed by my probation officer, the panel moved on as if they hadn’t just unnecessarily impugned the little bit of integrity I had left.

But, in the end, they directed my release and I left prison on 13 December 2019 and started work at the PPO the next month. In March 2020 the country went into national Covid lockdown. I was troubled in my work. I started harbouring fears that if I did or said anything deemed to be above my station, I’d be returned to prison.  I was treading very carefully. I felt like I wasn’t really free. I suspected I was experiencing a subtle form of bullying. Psychologically I was not in a good place, but I had no one to turn to.

‘A question of trust’

Several events eventually lead me to the conclusion that, at best, unconscious racial bias was present. I spoke to my union to get advice and guidance but they didn’t do anything. What I really wanted was for a tribunal to establish the truth, but without union support, my case couldn’t be heard.

Sometimes it can feel that all I have ever known is struggle – from growing up on Angell Town to fighting the injustice of a sentence with no end. Right now, like thousands of others, I eagerly await the termination of my IPP licence. It all comes down to trust – from losing trust in the police as a young man, to losing trust in the organisation where I worked. These experiences have never properly gone away because they haven’t been remedied.

And that is what has put me on the path to studying law at university. With the support of the Longford Trust, I have recently achieved my Diploma of Higher Education. Despite some of my uncertainties, I have not given into the temptation of adopting an anti-authority sentiment. Quite the opposite. I have founded New Wave Trust, which works to build brighter futures, break down barriers and tackle issues such as the ‘school-to-prison pipeline’, and to infuse what we do with lived experience wherever we have the capacity to do so. New Wave’s patron, Jackie Malton, is a former senior police officer. We became friends while she was volunteering in one of the prisons I was housed in.

The recent events in Southport, which then gave way to a climate of fear, violence and hate-fuelled rioting, have once again brought into sharp focus the vital work that needs to be done to rebuild trust. When I was growing up the tensions were often between the police and the community, irrespective of race, culture or creed. Today we appear to be finding ourselves with pressures between communities as well as with the police. My path going forward is to tackle this by fostering a mindset of renewed hope and determination. I hope as you read this you will be inspired to do the same.

My journey back from gambling addiction

Our 2024 graduate Sian McLear was 26 and had a successful career in finance when a night out at the bingo catapulted her into gambling addiction so strong that it ultimately saw her jailed. As she starts her post-graduate career with the Beacon Charitable Trust, the charity she credits with saving her life, she reflects on how she embraced her second chance though higher education with our help.

I can’t really pin point how or why my gambling turned harmful. I just remember going to the bingo with colleagues and having to open an online account to be able to attend. That’s when the promotions / hounding started. I had a significant win and an offer of a free bet or a stake of no more than £1. I remember thinking, ‘I’m going to win big again I will, I will’.

Before I knew it, I was secretly staying up all night playing slots on my phone while my husband was in bed asleep. I was physically incapable of stopping until every last penny in my bank account had been spent. I would then lie awake worried sick about how I was going to get all the money back.

Secrets and lies

I couldn’t tell anyone what I was doing. Just the thought of it made me physically sick. I started getting pay-day-loans and credit cards, but instead of covering the money I’d lost, I believed I’d be able to make more. So, the cycle continued. I’d got myself in that much of a mess I couldn’t see a way out of the debt which is when I turned to what I believed was the only way out: I stole money from work.

To me, though, it wasn’t stealing. I was just borrowing it and had every intention of paying it back. But when I ‘won big’ this carried on for three years on a daily basis with my mental health drastically declining. I was living a lie and nobody knew. I was having to hide my gambling and the state of my mental health from everyone around me.

‘My world fell apart’

I didn’t even want to gamble anymore. I enjoyed nothing about it, but yet I couldn’t stop. I thought about getting a new job, hoping it might help stop the stealing. I did not want to be doing what I was doing any more. It was causing me to self-harm. I hated myself and everything about me. Something had to give: on the day I found out I was pregnant with my son, I was sacked from my job and my world fell apart.

The scariest time of my life was waiting to find out when I would be going to court/prison. By this time my beautiful son George had been born. The fear of being taken away from him was terrifying. There were a couple of times I contemplated suicide. One specific time I drank half a bottle of my dad’s liquid morphine, not because I wanted to die, but because I wanted to be able to sleep and make everything go away.

I needed help but the doctor prescribed antidepressants for my addiction. As (at the time) I was pregnant, I didn’t want to take them. Thankfully, through my own efforts, I came across the Beacon Counselling Trust, a charity offering free support to those suffering with gambling-related harm. The support I received greatly helped to quell my fears and prepare for prison.

One bad choice away from disaster

I made a promise to myself that I would turn my situation into a positive one. I realised that we are all only one bad choice/mistake away from turning our lives upside down, and that it’s not the end. It does not mean this has to be our path going forward. It can be a new the start of a new beginning.

Whilst in prison, there were certainly days I felt like giving up but I knew that, if not for me but for my son, I was going to make something out of it. I decided I wanted to study, to help other people like myself and be able to make a difference.  I decided on a university degree. I was put in touch with The Longford Trust who were invaluable in guiding me through the university application process whilst I was in prison.

In fact, throughout my studies the trust has not only provided me with financial help but peer support which, to be honest, was way more valuable than the money. Having one-to-one support with someone who knew and understood my situation gave me the courage to fight my anxieties and worries.

Second chances

Four years on, I have just graduated with a BA in criminology and psychology from Liverpool John Moores University and have successfully obtained a job as an Education and Brief Intervention Lead in none other than the charity that effectively saved my life, Beacon Counselling Trust. I am now helping those experiencing what I have been through, as well as fighting to prevent it happening.

Writing this is not about wishing to share my story. What I am hoping to do is inspire others to believe in themselves. A prison sentence is not the end. It can be used to learn and grow. With the help of organisations such as The Longford Trust, there’s no stopping us.

If you or anyone else you know might be suffering as a result of the issues raised in this article, do get in touch with Gambling Aware, a national network of organisations working together to provide free and confidential support for anyone impacted by gambling.

 

Meet Our Three New Trustees

One of the joys of the Longford Trust, writes our Director, Peter Stanford, is seeing our award-winners go forward from graduation, the careers they build, and the lives they lead in wider society. So, it is with great pleasure that we are announcing that three recent scholar graduates have joined the Longford Trust’s trustee board.

Each of them brings to the trustee table first-hand experience of the criminal justice system, of  universities, and of the challenges that come when navigating degree-level learning during and after time in prison.   But that is just one part of it.  Because they have all gone on to achieve so much in their professional lives, they will also be sharing with us their particular expertise in the field where they are excelling. That will strengthen the mix of knowledge on the trustee board, and make the Longford Trust ever more effective in its work with our present and future scholars.

Tim Kerr

Tim, 34, is a doctoral student in Psychiatry at King’s College, London, where his research focuses on anxiety disorders. Alongside that he works at the Howard League for Penal Reform, our partner organisation, as Membership Officer. Both roles, he says, “directly arose” from being a Longford Scholar.

“My life is now a far cry from the one I had when I first encountered the trust. Relatively settled, in career and life, I am becoming a trustee in the hope of putting my still recent experiences to good use, to improve processes that I once went through, and prevent mistakes being repeated.”

Kyle McIntosh

Kyle, 27, graduated in mathematics and is a software developer at Arahi, a London-based company specialising in portfolio reporting, board-pack reporting and value creation. Some of you may remember that Kyle came up on stage at our 2022 Longford Lecture to talk about how our employability project had helped him find the perfect job post-graduation.

“With my lived experience and deep appreciation for the Trust’s mission, I hope to bring a unique perspective to the table. I am committed to leveraging my insights to contribute meaningfully to the board of trustees, ensuring that the voices of those with first-hand experience are heard in strategic decision-making processes.”

Elliot Tyler

Elliot, 26, graduated from Portsmouth University supported by one of our Nat Billington scholarships. He has gone on work as a criminal justice professional in an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice.  He is also nearing the end of a post-graduate qualification at Birkbeck, University of London.

“I believe that my own journey – as a sentenced prisoner turned civil servant – is an asset that can assist me in making a positive contribution to the charity. It is a privilege to contribute to what I interpret as the Longford Trust’s principles of second chances, shared humanity, and practical solutions.”

 

 

Hindsight is a Wonderful Thing

As he nears release, our Longford scholar Isaac Rasmussen is reflecting on the past decisions that led him from Royal Marine to prisoner. He describes how going to university is the first step on what he plans will be a career in journalism

As a serving prisoner I have done my fair share of fixating on one point in my life and asking myself where did it all go wrong? And, if I could change or take back that decision, would everything would be different. For me, the decision in question was to leave the Royal Marines.

In itself, it might not have been fatal. The problem was that no preparation was put in place to secure a seamless transition into civilian life. I fell back on the old Bootneck (Royal Marine) mantra “no cuff too tuff’’, meaning we’re always up for taking on the biggest challenges. We improvise, adapt and overcome – and approach it all with a sense of humour.

It was not long before it became apparent that this cuff was a little tougher than usual. I bounced from pointless job to no job to pointless job again. I moved up north as it had more affordable housing, and I still had friends there from the Corps (Royal Marines). But nothing filled the void the Corps had left. It was not long before I was ready to fill that gap with whatever would give me any kind of purpose and excitement, something that could happen to anyone in these circumstances, although some might be more vulnerable than others.

Preparation, preparation, preparation

I now realise, regardless of whether I decided to leave the Royal Marines or not, that if I had altered my mindset towards even the loosest of plans, I probably would not have found myself in trouble (within reason). Structure and focus in any positive direction would have prevented me from having a knee-jerk reaction to events and situations that life threw at me.  The military phrase I should have been focusing on is, “fail to prepare, prepare to fail”. It suits long-term goals infinitely better than “no cuff too tuff” which only works with short-term goals needing swift action.

I am learning, with the help of family, friends and now the Longford Trust, to balance taking risks with preparing properly.  Knowing that I will have a constant in Longford Trust from my first day of university to my release from prison and on to my first job and beyond helps to keep me grounded and concentrate on preparing for every eventuality. Through my mentor, or by engaging in the workshops and events, I can see that the Longford Trust understands where I have come from. It is a non-judgmental group of people I can count on for advice in a world that still does not quite understand the prisoner and the issues they face.

Turning Point

I now accept the decision to leave the Royal Marines had nothing to do with my subsequent failures and bad decisions. It is about how I went about things going forward. The real moral of my story is to not fixate on that single moment when you think it all went wrong. It is more likely that a pattern of events, fuelled by a pattern of behaviour, is what truly led to the negativity in your life. And the beauty of that truth is that it takes exactly same mechanism to improve things.

That means to improve your behaviour gradually over time, in regard of small events, and eventually you will see a change in your life for the better. The success can still feel as if it all happened by chance, but, if my experience is anything to go by, it didn’t. You effect the change habitually and you reap the rewards.

Education

Education is all around us. There is no such thing as useless knowledge. However, academia was never my strong suit. I always struggled in school. It was not because I didn’t understand what was being taught. I just did not really get on with the school system and so ultimately did not thrive.

Joining the Royal Marines meant that no more academia, for a while at least. But, of course, there were still things to be learnt at great pace and under great physical and mental pressure. I suffered, struggled, improved and struggled some more until I found a groove. The suffering never ended, it was me who got used to it. I even found a way to enjoy it. I have hung on to these tools.

I chose to study media, journalism and publishing because of my interest in becoming a journalist. During my time at my previous category C prison, I had ideas on studying history, but as time went on, I swayed more into the direction of studying journalism. From a logical point of view journalism offers more opportunities and different job types. Especially, with a course like the one I am on at Oxford Brookes University where journalism is grouped alongside media and publishing.  When I leave prison, that will help with as seamless a transition as possible into the job market doing something that will challenge me and keep me engaged. That is crucial to my rehabilitation.

On a personal level, I always dreamt from early childhood of somehow leaving my mark on the world. I didn’t know how, and to this day still don’t. Becoming a journalist is my way finally of finding the answer. So, here I am embarking on yet another journey in to the unknown. Studying will be a struggle, but no matter how hard it gets I know I have been here before and I am supported and equipped to get there in the end.

If you are a past or present scholar, or one of our mentors, and have a blog you want to contribute, contact Clare Lewis.

The trick is to realise that it is for you

Longford Scholar, Darren Robert, has just graduated in scriptwriting from the National Film and Television School. Today he is in the running for a dream job at the BBC.  Here, he traces it all back to prison and daring to believe that higher education could be for someone like him – and someone like you.

There are a few things in my life that have been consistent; my mom, brother and sisters (except when my mother kicked me out), the neighbourhood I grew up in, the friends I had from that neighbourhood, being broke, and the feeling that somehow, I was going to make it out and everything would be okay. For a long time, I thought music would be that way out, but after getting locked up again at 25, after just being released at 25, whilst in the midst of working on my mixtape, I thought this music thing might not work out.

Crime was never really something I wanted to do; it was just something I fell into. Even while I was making money serving the local addicts, I didn’t really care for it. Knowing I wouldn’t be let back into the free world until the age of 28, I felt like that would be too old start all over again. Whilst lying on the top bunk letting my mind wonder, something that had been pushed to the back of my mind for some years came to the forefront. I watched my early life play out like the opening to a TV show; the journey back home from church late on a Sunday night, driving through the bleak run-down street known for prostitution that leads into my neighbourhood right next to the vicarage with the wall spray painted ‘Give me life, give me a job pop’. I always wondered who pop was, and what kind of jobs he had to offer. The whole thing became so clear to me.

At that moment I decided that I was going to write TV. But I had no idea what I was doing. I just got a sheet of A4 lined paper, wrote names in the margin and wrote dialogue. I didn’t realise I had to set the scene, or how I was supposed to lay it out. After refusing to go to education in the prison for a few weeks, as I knew I could get an extra gym session instead, the officers told me I’d be going on basic if I didn’t get down there.

‘You shouldn’t be here, you should be in university.’

So, I went down, not wanting to lose my TV, and was put into an English class. English was pretty much the only thing I was good at in school academically, though my grades didn’t prove that. When I was young my mom would make me stand in front of the heater and do my spellings while she grilled me from the settee. So, I guess I owe my reading and writing skills to her.

In this English class on this one day that I went down to education, there was a substitute teacher from the Open prison across the road. Real nice lady, very smartly dressed, I even noticed the classy Rolex she had on. She gave me a piece of work to do, which was to read a paragraph, and then write a paragraph about it. I don’t remember what it was I read or wrote but I remember her reaction to it. ‘Ughh, with writing like this you shouldn’t be here, you should be in university!’

It was strange to hear knowing that my schoolteachers most likely felt I was exactly where I belonged. I felt very encouraged by her response, and in my head, I was thinking,‘funny you say that, I was just thinking about being a writer.’

I never saw her again after that day, but I consider her a guardian angel who came to point me in the right direction. I was shipped out a few days later to a Cat C prison. When the education people came to see me about what I’d like to do whilst at their establishment, I said, ‘I want to get into screenwriting’. I didn’t think that would be something the prison would offer but I had heard about Open University and hoped there may be something I could do through them.

Plus, I thought if I could do something like that, it would keep officers off my back about going to work. The lady found me a course with Stonebridge Associated Colleges in Scriptwriting for Film, TV, Stage and Radio. I also found in the prison library two sheer assets for what I wanted to do; Teach Yourself Screenwriting, and the script in book form to Reservoir Dogs, one of my favourite films. I’ll be honest, I took the books from there and kept them for myself until I was released, because I just knew that I needed them more than anyone.

‘Me of all people, an A+, I couldn’t believe it’

When the work started coming through, I got straight to it. I put up pictures of Bafta and Oscar awards in my cell for motivation (and also manifestation) and knuckled down, although it took me a lot longer to get work done as I was writing scripts by hand and learning as I went along. The tutor was very forgiving with the time I was taking, and as there were no deadlines. I didn’t feel pressured. He also seemed to like my work. I sent the last piece of work off after my release in 2016 and was ecstatic when they sent me back a diploma with an A+ grade. Me of all people, an A+, I couldn’t believe it. But I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted to continue learning. I just knew for certain I was on the right path this time. I looked up local university courses and finally settled on Creative Writing and Film and TV Studies at Wolverhampton University, where I started in September that year.

I had never written essays before and struggled with the academic side of things, but creatively I was doing well. I was learning the craft quickly and got praise for it by my tutors. But this was mostly in the form of short stories. There wasn’t much actual screenwriting going on. Having had to repeat a year as I lacked in some work, my final year was from 2019-2020. By this time, I had grown slightly bored of the course, as it wasn’t specific to what I wanted to do. A friend and mentor of mine that I had met on a media course whilst inside had told me about the National Film and Television School and said that’s where I needed to be. He said that’s the cream of the crop. It’s where shows like Eastenders come and cherry pick their writers. He said you go there, and you complete the course, and they give you an agent. I thought I should check it out.

‘I feel like I know who I am again, and where I’m going’

I had some mental pushback, believing that a school like that probably wouldn’t want someone like me, but when I went down for the Open Day, I saw an actual Bafta and an actual Oscar award in the flesh, and I was immediately sold! I knew I had to be here. I completely forgot about the undergrad and focused on the NFTS. It was risky, as the course only accepts 10 people per year, but I didn’t care. I filled in the long application form and attached a pilot script I had written and sent it off. On my birthday that year in July, I got the email saying I was accepted, and I was over the moon. But in December I was arrested again, and in January I was sent to prison for 6 months. I was due to start in February. I was gutted. I thought it was over. But the school stood by me and allowed me to defer. I started in 2022, made the move to Buckinghamshire and got to work. I had no idea how I was going to pay for the course, or my living, but luckily landed a scholarship from the BBC which covered it.

Two years and some change later, I am now a Master of Arts, Film and Television, I have an agent and I am in the running to work on a high-level TV show. None of this could have been done without all the help along the way from tutors who work to see people making use of their talents. Ever since I made that decision to start writing, I’ve felt like I know who I am again, and where I’m going. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s definitely been worth it, and now I can look forward to the future.

I truly believe that education is the key. The trick is to realise within yourself that it is for you too. Don’t believe what you’ve been made to believe your entire life, that you belong in a box, mentally or physically. Education can and will open your mind and your life to new realities, and you can bring forth the positive lifestyle change that you desire.

Don’t be afraid, make the decision.

If you believe you could do a university degree, too, contact Clare Lewis, the Longford Trust’s scholarship manager to find out how.

I haven’t got a clue what I’d be doing now otherwise

Current scholar David Shipley was 38 and half way through a sentence for fraud. More and more, his thoughts were turning to life after release. His offence meant his previous career was closed to him forever. Here he explains how overcoming his fears and embracing education in prison opened the door to a new future.

The Covid lockdown made prison life even more dull than usual. I ran laps, lifted weights and tried to pass the time by writing. I knew I enjoyed writing, but I’d always thought formal study was a waste of time. Writing was just something you could do or couldn’t, but I had all the time in the world.

And so, I researched courses and carefully wrote out an application for a prestigious Creative Writing degree. People who graduated had a good chance of going on to decent, paid work as writers. I didn’t meet the academic requirements, but they assured me all applications would be considered, so I diligently filled in all the forms.

Two weeks later I received a standard rejection letter, telling me that I didn’t meet the academic requirements of the course’. I felt terrible. I’d set my heart on this degree. It was going to give me a new future. And now it wasn’t. I was dejected and defeated, wondering why everything was against me.

It’s not only about having the right qualifications

My mum helped. She told me, ‘it’s their loss. Just apply somewhere else’. She was right. I decided not to give up and found a degree offered entirely online by the University of Hull. In most of the prison system, online study is not allowed, but I was in an Open prison at the time and, with Covid lockdown happening, there was more flexibility than usual about allowing some internet access for education.

Hull made it clear that they were more interested in each person’s life story and reasons for studying rather than qualifications or experience. They asked for an application letter and examples of my writing. I sent them an explanation of my crime, told them I was a prisoner, and how important writing was to me. Within days I got an acceptance.

 The course started in a week. Suddenly the reality hit me. I hadn’t written an essay in 20 years. Would I be able to keep up? Would they treat me differently for being a criminal? Would they all be kids? I considered withdrawing from the course before it started, but I didn’t, and from day one they could not have been more welcoming.

Staff and fellow students were curious. I was the only prisoner on the course (alongside a retired prison officer from New Zealand) but we were a pretty varied group. Ages ranged from early 20s to mid-70s, and students ‘attended’ from every part of the world.

I almost forgot I was in prison

I loved that course. Each day I’d leave my house block to ‘go to university’, and spend the day learning, reading and writing. I’d almost forget I was in prison. On the course we got brilliant feedback, and I came to realise that writing is as technical and teachable as mechanics, carpentry or computer programming. I learnt how to write fast and to a publishable standard and found myself getting better marks than I expected. As the course went on, they went up.

It wasn’t all easy, though. Even in an open prison, there’s a lot of nonsense. Fewer internet connections than prisoners studying online at that Covid moment in time meant time to work was strictly rationed. I often felt at a disadvantage compared to the other students who could pop online whenever they needed to check a source, order a new book, or just chat with the other students. One thing I did have, though, was time. In the evenings I read course texts, made notes, and thought about the next assignment.

 Studying gets harder post release

 After release, in some ways it got harder. I had an assignment due two weeks after I left prison. I just couldn’t face it. My life felt unstable, unmoored. When I emailed the university to explain, they couldn’t have been more supportive. They didn’t ask for documents or proof. They just said ‘have another month’.

Even with the distractions of a new life outside, social media and friends to catch up with, I finished my degree, securing a merit. Then began the slow grind of pitching for writing work. I now knew I could write. I just had to persuade other people. Inside Time was the first place to publish me. Then I began to pick up more commissions: at the Spectator; with CapX; and even some American publications. Being able to write fast, and to deadlines, helped a lot.

Where I have got to so far

 To my surprise, I realised that I wanted to keep studying. So in September of 2023, I started a PhD at the University of Southampton. I am researching the impact on children of having a parent in prison. Combining my writing career (@ShipleyWrites) and the PhD means I’m pretty busy, but I get to do interesting, enjoyable work most days. I feel so grateful.

 I haven’t got a clue what I’d be doing now if I hadn’t started that Creative Writing degree in prison. And it would have been so easy to give up when I got that rejection letter, or to succumb to my fears just before starting at Hull. I’m so happy I didn’t.

My degree has given me a career after prison, a sense of purpose, and a path for the second half of my life. We’re all capable of more than we realise. A degree could really change your future, as my experience shows. Why not give it a try?

The Longford Trust offers around 30 new scholarships each year for the duration of a degree course. To find out more, go to our website or contact Clare Lewis, our scholarship manager.

Dr Gareth Griffiths RIP

With his Longford Scholarship, says his sister Lorna, her brother went ‘from drugs, crime and prison to being a respected professional, a Doctor of Physics, and contributing member of society’.

We are all saddened to hear of the death of former Longford Scholar, Dr Gareth Griffiths, in January, writes the Longford Trust’s director Peter Stanford.  Originally from Leominster, Gareth was awarded a Longford Scholarship in 2011, having completed an access course at City of Bristol College. He had gained a place to study physics at Bristol and, working closely with his Longford Trust mentor, Matthew Hickman, thrived there. In 2012 he was promoted onto the integrated Masters course and in 2014 switched to physics and astrophysics. In September 2014, he wrote to us in an email that he was, ‘thinking of a career in nuclear fusion, creating clean, nuclear energy’.  And that is what he achieved.

He got his BSc in 2016, moved on to a Masters with us – plus support from the Michael Varah Memorial Fund – and had completed his PhD shortly before his death at 44. His professional career blossomed, latterly with Kyoto Fusioneering as a Senior Nuclear Fusion Engineering Consultant, working to establish a UK base for them. He spoke at academic conferences as far apart as Oxford and Russia, spent time at CERN – the European Organization for Nuclear Research – home of the Large Hadron Collider and kept his goal of providing the planet with clean, nuclear energy was always in his sight.

It gave him back his faith in society

His sister, Lorna, tells us that she and Gareth’s mother, Pam, attended his PhD graduation ceremony that took place after his death. It was, ‘a beautiful reminder of what he achieved’. They also visited the labs and office where he worked on it at Bristol University and met his colleagues. ‘At a time when society had given up on him,’ she recalls of her brother receiving a scholarship from the Longford Trust, ‘it was ground-breaking for him to find people who not only believed in him but wanted to help. It gave him back faith in society and motivation to prove himself, and be the best version of himself that he could be. He just needed someone other than those who loved him to believe in him. Thank you for doing that. He went from drugs, crime and prison to being a respected professional, a Doctor of Physics, and contributing member of society.’

At the request of his family, all donations in Gareth’s memory at his funeral have been directed to the Longford Trust. We have placed £1500 in our endowment fund so that others in the future will have the opportunity to walk in Gareth’s footsteps in rebuilding their life. In his application form submitted in the summer of 2011, he wrote: ‘I want to find a vocation in which I can contribute constructively to society.’  With hard work, perseverance and passion, he did just that.  He will be much missed.

Five stories that changed my life

While serving a long sentence, Longford scholar Kieron devoted his energies to reading and studying. He wanted to be in a better position on release and have more opportunities than before. He is now studying at university for a MA and here he shares some thoughts and book recommendations on how to turn your life around.

In prison one of the things that motivated me most was learning about the stories of people in the same situation as I was back then, people who had started from even more adverse and or impoverished positions than I had, and yet were still able to achieve seemingly impossible successes. That is one of the key insights I’d like to share here because I found these stories empowering. They allowed me to think big and to nullify any self-imposed barriers, excuses or a lack of self-confidence.

I also found reading about black history (pre-the transatlantic slave trade) incredibly beneficial to my transformation. Learning about the inspiring cultures, inventions, great kingdoms and empires across Africa helped shift any inferiority complex I had allowed to flourish by not taking on board this history in my pre-prison education.

Thinking Skills

Reading and studying enabled me to understand the different way things are framed, and what effect this can have on you. It meant I could then identify the root causes of my previous mentality and recognise actions and behaviours in myself that were counterproductive to my newly formed long-term goals.

Such clarity of thinking has led me to formulate strategies to make fundamental and positive changes to who I am, and to overcome the circumstances that led me to committing the offence for which I was jailed. That doesn’t mean, though, I am making excuses for my behaviour. I still take full responsibility for my actions.

Learning Curve

Aside from reading a lot of books, I used my time in prison to complete over 30 educational and vocational courses, from restorative justice through Shannon Trust and construction skills to book-keeping. And everything in between. During the process, I learnt the satisfaction to be found on such a journey and how to celebrate small wins, like completing an assignment or finishing a book. I have experienced the positive feelings you get from achieving something on your own merit rather than seeking short-term, quick fixes.

Helping hands

Since being released all that hard work has been paying off in abundance and I am able to enjoy the little things in life I have missed. I am no longer afraid, or too proud, to ask for help to take advantage of opportunities whilst creating even more. Having completed a university degree whilst serving my sentence, I have now started with Longford Trust support a Masters in innovation management and entrepreneurship at Middlesex University. I am networking and seeking guidance and support for all the projects I am working on and will see through to fruition.

 

If like Kieron you too are hungry for relevant and reusable information on changing the course of your life, here he shares his top five life-changing reads.

(1) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey (Simon & Schuster, £11.95)

This book helped me to have a fundamental and rapid change in mentality, which then allowed me to rearrange my priorities.  My favourite line in it reads: ‘Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.’ Paradigm, prism, or lens describe the perspective though which we view the everyday events in our lives. Awareness of how our minds process input information enables us to create positive and productive output or actions.

(2) Opening Doors: How Daring to Ask For Help Changed My Life (And Will Change Yours Too) by Reggie Nelson (Blink, £12.79)

Pride and ego often got in my way and stopped me asking for help, even when I knew it was available. Wanting to feel independent and to receive full credit for achievements are natural feelings, but we need to understand that everyone one who achieved the things we aspire to achieve received help in some way, shape or form. Asking for help is a necessity not a weakness.

(3) Grit: Why Passion and Resilience Are The Secrets of Success by Angela Duckworth (Vermilion, £9.99)

This book gave me insight into the determining factors for success. Surprisingly they come down to grit and determination. Your drive and commitment outweigh your natural talent, resources, environment or support when it comes to predicting your success.  Best line: ‘The most dazzling human achievements are, in fact, the aggregate of countless individual elements, each of which is, in a sense, ordinary’.

(4) Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill (Vermilion, £10.95)

‘Poverty,’, Napoleon Hill writes, ‘is attracted to the one whose mind is favourable to it, just as money is attracted to the one whose mind has been deliberately prepared to attract it.’  This book provides insights into how do people with money think about money that allows them to accumulate it whilst others don’t.

(5) Awaken the Giant Within: How To Take Immediate Control of Your Mental, Emotional, Physical and Financial Life by Anthony Robbins (Simon & Schuster, £6.99)

Consider a scenario where you’re heading to a job interview, and your car’s tyre bursts on the way. If you vent to a friend using words like ‘angry’, ‘devastated’, ‘frustrated’ or ‘stressed out’, they will trigger negative emotions, putting you in a bad mood.  In Anthony Robbins’ chapter on ‘The Vocabulary of Ultimate Success’, he encourages us instead to choose our words carefully and tailor them to the situation. For example, in the same scenario, you can use words like ‘disenchanted’, ‘delayed’, or view it as a ‘minor hurdle’ and an opportunity to look after your car better. This perspective shift is essential because the situation could have been much worse. ‘Words,’ he writes, ‘cannot only create emotions, they create actions. And from our actions flow the results of our lives’.

Putting your money where your mouth is

The Ministry of Justice is promising a new Prisoner Education Service, with more resources, more apprenticeship opportunities, and even a focus on helping neurodivergent prisoners.

Longford Scholar David Shipley draws on his lived experience to ask if this pledge could help more serving prisoners turn sentences into a degrees

 

Here is the good news. In announcing the new Prisoner Education Service the Prisons’ Minister Damian Hinds (pictured) publicly acknowledged that “a forward-thinking prison system must give prisoners an alternative to the cycle of reoffending, and one of the best ways to do this is through education”. He’s right. Too many prisoners spend too many years staring at the walls of their cells. When 57 per cent of prisoners have a reading age below that expected of an 11-year old, it is little surprise that on release many are unable to find work and so turn back to crime.

But education for prisoners shouldn’t be just about reducing the £18 billion cost of reoffending. Getting time out of your cell to do something purposeful improves mental health and reduces the chances of suicide. When I was in prison, I studied Creative Writing. It not only meant I had something good to do with my time each day, but also gave me hope of a new path and career after prison.

The new Prisoner Education Service aims to make a real difference. They will be recruiting senior teachers as Heads of Education, Skills and Work, reporting to the prison governor. This is a positive decision; prison governors rarely have education expertise, so senior teachers could make a real difference.

Neurodiversity Support Managers welcome

The focus on neurodivergent prisoners is also very welcome. There’s little data, and no systematic studies have been done, but some research suggests that prisoners are 10 times more likely to have Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) than the average person.

The same research suggests that a quarter of inmates have ADHD. In this context the recruitment of Neurodiversity Support Managers should be welcomed. When I spoke to the Ministry of Justice, they also confirmed that they will be procuring a new neurodiversity screening tool. This is crucial. Under the current system autism assessments are only conducted at the direction of the Parole Board and, as such, are limited to lifers and those serving Extended Determinate Sentences.

The government should move to systematically test all prisoners for ASDs and ADHD, just as we already assess literacy and numeracy. Of course, this will carry a substantial cost, but there’s no indication that the MoJ has budgeted for this.

‘There seems to be little new money available’

The final big question is how the Prison Service will deliver on these goals. The tendering process for new education providers has just begun, but there seems to be little new money available. This shortage of money is reported to have caused Serco to pull out of putting themselves forward for the new contacts.

Prison education is already desperately under-resourced. This round of tendering presents an opportunity to make a real difference to the quality, range and availability of education in prisons and unless there is substantial funding made available, it’s very hard to see how the laudable goals outlined for the new Prisoner Education Service will be achieved.

Do you feel inspired to share a viewpoint as a Longford Blog.  If so contact our scholarship manager, Clare Lewis.

 

Reduce Demand for Prisons, Not Meet It

Longford Scholar Chris Walters (currently working at the trust’s fundraising manager) shared some reflections on October 22 with readers of the Independent in a personal Comment article for the paper about the plans the government has announced to cope with the overcrowding crisis in prisons. Drawing on his own experiences, Chris questioned whether the proposals will actually ease the problem. We are sharing the article here, with thanks to the Independent.

 

With the government’s latest plans to address our prisons crisis – the jail population is at an all-time high, with as few as 550 spare places left in the system – justice secretary Alex Chalk asks us to believe the unbelievable. He cites Covid-19 and industrial action as the significant pressures filling up our prison estate. But even in 2015, 60 per cent of our jails were overcrowded.

Again, Mr Chalk lauds his government’s efforts to return offenders on parole who breach their licence conditions to prison, even if it contributes to overcrowded jails as if this didn’t happen before, and isn’t indicative of wider failures in the criminal justice system

Criminals are “dangerous” – except for the ones the government has earmarked under its proposals to free up capacity: those convicted of less serious offences who warrant early release, and those minor offenders being spared a jail term altogether. It is a plan that belies a wilful misunderstanding of the criminal justice system.

‘I’ve witnessed swarms of rats, tried to keep clean in filthy showers, and in 2018, during the freezing Beast from the East, I worried I wouldn’t survive the night as icy wind blew in through the broken window.’

I served two years in prison, from 2018 to 2019 – first at HMP Wandsworth, and then at HMP Ford. Despite what Mr Chalk may believe, there aren’t spacious single cells just waiting to be transformed into doubles. Shoving more prisoners into a cell is hardly a solution to an overcrowding issue. The bleached bones of the UK prison estate have long been picked clean by ambitious ministers just like him who demand that prison governors find more capacity.

And what are these non-essential maintenance works which Mr Chalk says have now been stopped, thereby opening up more cells for use? From all accounts, our prisons are run-down and unhygienic. I’ve witnessed swarms of rats, tried to keep clean in filthy showers, and in 2018, during the freezing Beast from the East, I worried I wouldn’t survive the night as icy wind blew in through the broken window.

All the while prisoners and staff are battling for survival, they don’t have the capacity to work on rehabilitation. And so, when prisoners are released, they often return – and so the prison population rises, and the government responds with a vow to get tougher on crime and builds more prisons.

Meanwhile, there is a growing number of prisoners on remand, not yet convicted of a crime, which is an indication of a wider problem in the criminal justice system. There is a severe backlog of criminal cases – some people are now waiting five years for a trial date – and the government’s insistence on locking people up for longer will not help.

Mr Chalk crassly described the proposed growth in the prison estate as meeting demand, but it’s more apt to say it is feeding a fire. Until there is ground-up radical reform, we will have this same conversation again and again and again.

People on remand are held in prison conditions so poor that two separate European nations have recently refused to extradite people to this country if they face imprisonment. The justice secretary has proposed to increase the sentence discount for people who plead guilty. He said this is to “[…] encourage people to plead guilty at the first opportunity”. Those on remand are presumed to be innocent, and when held in such poor conditions, it is especially unjust and immoral for him as the Lord Chancellor – upholder of our legal system – to coerce them into pleading guilty.

‘It doesn’t matter how good your education programme is if prisoners are confined to their cells for most of the day in overcrowded jails’

The government has given some ground, it seems, almost begrudgingly. Mr Chalk has described Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences as a “stain on our justice system”, and yet only pledges to implement one of the 22 recommendations found in the report by parliament’s Justice Committee, which examined IPP sentences. Further use of community orders and a reduction in short custodial sentences are welcome, but don’t “grasp the nettle”, as Mr Chalk puts it. Most prisoners are serving custodial sentences of over a year and won’t be affected. Moreover, these plans put further strain on services inextricably linked to the prison system such as probation, healthcare and housing. It will inevitably be charities who pick up the slack.

Actual long-term reform gets short shrift from Mr Chalk. He has pledged that prisons will be “geared to help offenders turn away from crime, to change their ways, and become contributing members of society”. But he says nothing about how that is to be achieved.

Prisons minister Damian Hinds has rightly recognised the importance of education in reducing reoffending, promising a brand new Prison Education Service. This is a great move, but meaningless unless the issue of offending is addressed holistically. It doesn’t matter how good your education programme is if prisoners are confined to their cells for most of the day in overcrowded jails.

‘We can reduce the demand for prisons by meeting the needs of our people’

The government is well aware that the most important factors in reducing reoffending are education, employment, housing and maintaining family ties. Yet it seems they are more concerned with increasing the quantity of their prisoners than the quality of their prisons. A quality prison should reduce the prison population, as we have seen in Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands.

The justice secretary should seek to reduce demand for prisons by lobbying in cabinet for wider reform. Prison staff and Legal Aid solicitors’ pay must reflect the important role they play in our society. Prisons must meet minimum basic standards to ensure prisoners re-enter society with dignity. The National Health Service must expand and receive more funding to better address mental health issues in the community. The government must do more to prevent homelessness and poverty.

Overcrowded prisons do not exist in a vacuum separated from the other pressures on society. They are the result of inadequately addressing those pressures. We can reduce the demand for prisons by meeting the needs of our people.