The woman with bowel problems kept telling the prisoner officers her
colostomy bag needed emptying, but they ignored her. The bag was so full it
burst. "Molly was covered in shit. It went all over her and all over her
cell. The smell was over-powering. It lingered for days," says Margaret
Rutherford, a former inmate of Northern Ireland's female prison.
Molly also tried to strangle herself with her colostomy bag. Rutherford
walked free from Hydebank Wood six months ago. "No words can describe it,"
she says. "I was delighted to be released but I cried bitterly for the girls
left behind. If there aren't changes quickly, women will die in there."
She speaks of sexual harassment by neighbouring male inmates; inadequate
healthcare, toilet, exercise, and educational facilities; and horrendous
punishment cells.
Sipping tea in downtown Belfast, no-one would guess Rutherford (43) is a
former prisoner. A tall, well-spoken businesswoman in the construction
industry, she has careful make-up and a confident manner. But she still
shakes as she reads an excerpt from her prison diary.
It's about Molly who had epilepsy and serious mental problems: "I can't
believe what I am hearing outside this door. The staff are leaving her in
her cell and that's the fourth fit she's had in less than three hours and
they are going to lock her in. God almighty this is gross incompetence. I
doubt I'll get much sleep. How can I sleep when a woman could be choking to
death feet away form me?"
Today (Sunday), Rutherford will address a major conference on women's imprisonment
organised by the Northern Ireland Human Rights' Commission. Robin
Masefield, director general of the North's prison service, is also a
speaker. "I can't wait to meet him," says Rutherford. "I want to tell him
the story of women in Hydebank and see if he condones it."
There are currently 30 women in Hydebank. The Human Rights' Commission's
access to the prison has so far been restricted to the legal visiting area.
But researchers are soon to gain access to the entire women's unit.
The Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales, Anne Owers, carried
out an unannounced inspection. Her report, published in May, contained
highly critical sections. Owers will also address the conference.
Hydebank was meant to be a new start. Female inmates were moved there 16
months ago from Maghaberry prison, where three women had committed suicide.
But Hydebank, according to the experts, is even more unsuitable. It already
held young male offenders, aged from 15-21. "The men are held in Beech,
Cedar and Willow Houses; the women in Ash House. Lovely names, awful
places," says Rutherford. Housing women beside testosterone-fuelled young
men devoid of female company is crazy, she says.
Women often travelled to and from court with male prisoners: "It's a big van
with up to 14 cubicles inside. We called it the horse box. The journey could
be hell. One day the driver warned me it would be particularly 'noisy'.
"A male prisoner shouted 'Hey big girl, show us your tits!' Another said he
was wanking as we drove along. 'I know you, you're **** ***** (a very
attractive female prisoner), I'm going to get hold of you and sort you out,'
another guy yelled.
"When I got to court, I complained to my solicitor so I was driven back to
Hydebank alone. Imagine what it's like for young girls, just sentenced,
listening to that talk driving to jail for the first time?"
Rutherford says the abuse was constant: "Working in the prison garden was
great but the men took every opportunity to flash at you. One of them threw
a porn magazine covered in semen out the window at us.
"Some of the men were convicted sex offenders. Anytime we stepped outside
Ash House the abuse started. I remember going to church for a Christmas
carol service and all the young bucks yelling filth at us. It was surreal."
Rutherford, a mother of three from a middle-class background, was sentenced
to a year's imprisonment for arson. "I got drunk and set fire to a room in
the La Mon house hotel where I was staying. I don't know why I did it. I'm
a recovering alcoholic but I'd never broken the law before, I didn't even
have penalty points. I'd drunk two litres of bacardi that night.
"I accept my sentence. But the attitude to women prisoners was 'you're the
scum of the earth, you have no rights', and I won't accept that."
The ages of women in Hydebank has varied from 17 to 70; around half have
children. "Some have serious mental problems. There are women who hear
voices, women who eat with their hands," says Rutherford. "My family would
ask me 'how do you cope with those women?' I'd reply that 70% were just like
me - women who had made one mistake in their lives."
Rutherford becomes emotional describing the punishment cells where suicidal
women can be sent: "The worst ones have no bed, mattress or pillow. There's
just a concrete plinth to sleep on, a cardboard potty, and a bible. You're
given an indestructible blanket.
"You're stripped naked, put into a gown, and not allowed under-wear. If you
have your period and use a sanitary pad, there's nothing to keep it in
place. You have to grip it between your legs the best you can. Women who are
slashing their bodies and trying to hang themselves need therapy, not
punishment."
Another diary entry says: "Rachel tried to commit suicide on Thursday night.
We thought she was being sick but she was actually choking. So, inside about
10 days, that's four suicide attempts."
On her visit, Anne Owers found two young women - one a juvenile - in
"unfurnished and cold cells". Punishments at Hydebank were "very severe"
and "excessive", her report stated.
Women and children "were being subjected to virtual sensory deprivation,
held in bare cells for long periods". Owers noted one woman was confined to
her cell for 17 days for simply swearing at a prison officer. She added:
"Procedures for managing suicidal or self-harming women were inadequate and
sometimes unacceptable and may have increased risk."
Her report criticised the lack of toilets in cells which meant that, during
lock-up, pregnant women sometimes had to use potties. "At night, there's a
buzzer system if you needed the toilet. Sometimes it doesn't work; other
times you can be waiting an hour to go," says Rutherford. "One night I had
diarrhea and was buzzing every five minutes. It was humiliating."
Owers found security at the jail "unnecessarily tight". Rutherford says: "If
you saw your solicitor, probation officer, and a relative all in one day, it
meant you were strip-searched three times that day.
"It came to the stage you didn't want visits. It didn't matter if women
were pregnant or had their period - no mercy was shown. The decent screws
were uncomfortable doing it. We got to know the lesbian ones who were
getting off on it."
Rutherford has no problem with a mixed gender prison staff: "It's
embarrassing asking men for sanitary pads. A bad male officer is a bastard
but a good one is the best in the world. Many of the women staff were
bitchy."
Rutherford says women are locked in their cells on average 16 hours a day.
Only 10% said they had access to the library once a week, according to Anne
Owers' report. It also found "access to exercise in the fresh air was not
regularly available".
Rutherford says: "We'd fight to take out the bins because that guaranteed
you a few minutes outside." Health-care was also poor, she claims, with
some staff not calling doctors when needed.
The Human Rights Commission researchers who will visit Hydebank are Phil
Scraton, professor of criminology at Queen's University Belfast, and Dr
Linda Moore. Last year, they wrote a highly critical report on the
conditions in Maghaberry prison where women were then held.
"Visiting Maghaberry was upsetting," Moore says. "We warned the prison
service that moving women to Hydebank wasn't the answer and Anne Owers'
report has raised serious concerns."
Scraton says: "I've visited many prisons in Britain but I never saw anything
like Maghaberry. I've worked with the bereaved of the Dunblane and
Hillsborough tragedies but I've never been as emotionally overwhelmed as I
was observing the treatment of those women prisoners.
"In Maghaberry, we met a 17-year-old lying in a foetal position in a
punishment cell. From her wrists to her shoulders, from her ankles to her
hips, no part of her wasn't cut. She self-harmed because it was the only way
she could feel anything.
"They'd removed the Velcro from her gown because she'd used it to rub her
skin away. She was locked in a cell, 23 hours a day, with no mattress or
pillow. This was happening all around us, and nobody batted an eyelid. The
inhumanity had been institutionalised. It went all the way up from the
bottom of the chain to the prison management."
Moore says: "There must be a purpose built jail for women which addresses
their needs, not one which is an adjunct to a male prison. The prison
service accepts Ash House can only be temporary. We welcome our forthcoming
visit and hope our findings will help shape the future of women's
imprisonment."
For years, the treatment of paramilitary prisoners dominated the North's
agenda. But Hydebank's female inmates have no political groups campaigning
for them. The authorities needn't fear street riots. Until now, the women
themselves have been silent, Rutherford admits: "Women don't speak out when
they're released because they're ashamed to have been in jail. But it's not
us who have reason for shame."
(Some of the names in this article have been changed to protect the privacy
of the women prisoners.)
