ANDREW TESTA FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
From left: a landing at HMP Full Sutton, home to some of the country’s most high-risk prisoners; social distancing in place in the visitors’ roomThe prisoners’ garden in the close supervision centre, Full Sutton’s prison within a prisonViolent incidents halved
during lockdown, but
as the restrictions
eased, one prisoner was
stabbed in the eye
As she explains what she calls her “journey
of life”, the virus seems the least of her
problems. She tells me she suffered
regular sexual abuse by family members
and others from childhood to adolescence.
She was mistreated by her partner, gave
birth to two children and had them
removed from her care. She keeps in touch
with them once a year, she says. She was a
long-term heroin user, but has been clean
now for over a year.
Including recalls, Charmaine has been
in prison for most of the past 11 years for
crimes including an aggravated burglary
offence. She is medicated with
antipsychotic drugs and reels off her
diagnoses like you might your GCSEs:
“I’ve got signs of schizophrenia, bipolar,
emotionally unstable personality disorder,post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative
disorder. I’ve got complex needs.”
The virus makes her already complicated
life more difficult. But with some
adaptations for social distancing the Pipe
unit continued to play its vital role during
lockdown in managing the needs of
Charmaine and others like her. She played
her part too, working as a cleaner, helping
to keep the unit virus-free.HMP FULL SUTTON York
Men’s high-security prison.
Population: 578HMP Full Sutton is one of eight high-
security prisons in England and Wales,
and a large number of its prisoners posea serious risk to the public. It has a close
supervision centre — a prison within a
prison — which holds a handful of the
country’s most high-risk individuals. Some
among Full Sutton’s population will never
be released. In 2018 the serial killer Dennis
Nilsen, subject of the recent television
drama Des, died of natural causes after
being found collapsed at the prison in the
34th year of his life sentence.
The number of violent incidents in the
prison halved during lockdown, but in
August, as the restrictions began to ease,
one prisoner — reportedly the Finsbury
Park Mosque attacker, Darren Osborne
— was stabbed in the eye by another
prisoner on D wing. The governor, Gareth
Sands, says the incident was dealt with
quickly and the wing soon settled. He
reminds me that there have been only three
homicides at Full Sutton in three decades,
but clearly the risk of extreme violence is
always present.
I attend a prisoner council meeting
hosted by Sands. Present are six wing reps,
who have been elected by their fellow
prisoners. Sometimes, says Sands, there are
attempts to strong-arm or intimidate the
voters. Half the wing reps in the room,
I later discover, are lifers who have killed
someone, and the other half are serving
sentences of more than 14 years. One is
wearing a Listener shirt (meaning he has
been trained by Samaritans to offer support
to fellow prisoners) and a pair of Crocs.The Sunday Times Magazine • 13