In conversation the words shocking and shocked spill frequently and easily from the mouths of Susan May and Michelle Nicholson. Between them these two women have served a total of twenty-five years in some of Britain’s harshest prisons for crimes they say they did not commit.
They talk of a sheer incomprehension, of an inability to grasp a reality that materialised around them as they were convicted of crimes they believe they should never have been charged with in the first instance.
"Shocked" walking into a prison, where Michelle describes her first experience as a "newbie" at New Hall where the only option is to be "frightened". Where "the prison is shouting", with "the girls in their cells calling to each other" taunting the new intakes. Being "banged in rooms that look horrible… left there till the next morning" with only the echoes of catcalls for company throughout the night. The next day the solitude continues. "Nobody comes to tell you how the routine goes" or to ask "are you alright?" For Michelle the fear this fiery baptism conjures is the reason "why so many people commit suicide in the first couple of days when they reach New Hall". A prison according to The Howard League for Penal Reform, which since 1998 has had the highest number of self-inflicted deaths.
In 1995, just as Michelle was beginning her life sentence for her supposed role in the murder of her father, and Susan already two years into her term was becoming accustomed to life on the "infamous H wing at Durham", the total number of women serving life sentences stood at 186, out of a total of 5,792 life prisoners. Today, according to Judge Anthony Thornton, serving high court judge with 13 years experience at the bench, that number is now "approaching 10,000". A figure greater than Germany, France, Italy and Turkey combined. During that time the number of women convicted of murder, a serious offence such as manslaughter, attempted murder, or imprisoned under the more recent "controversial" Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP), has risen by at least 44%. However, women still only represent a mere 3% of the total lifer population.
For Susan May, a mother of three when she went to prison but now a Grandmother of five, as she sits in the large double-fronted end-of-terrace family home in a suburb of Oldham, she remains to date the only Lifer who has consistently maintained their innocence that has been released on "tariff". The minimum number of years served in prison before a prisoner can be considered ready for release. Although Susan is able to recount her story with great depth and humour on occasions, the lilt in her voice, the comforting way in which she holds her hands, and more obviously the permanent frowns carved in her face tell a story of a woman who still remains utterly in shock about the events that unfolded around her.
People you meet
However her presence in front of me in her own comfortable surroundings is testament to her own strength of character, as well as the encounters she has had during her time as a Lifer which she describes as being "absolute madness". She talks of her first Governor at Risely, a Category C prison in Cheshire, who she met recently and recounted to Susan her view of how she spent her first night within that prison. Off how they were struck of Susan’s absolute certainty that "I won’t be stopping, because somebody will be coming along soon … to tell you it’s been a big mistake." Where every night for the first few months, Susan expected to spot among the new intakes her children or her solicitor to come through the gates ready to take her home from this conscious nightmare.
She talks of the seven years spent at Durham, four years longer than the average Lifer is expected to spend at one of only two first-stage female Lifer prisons in the country. A prison described by a 2004 report by HM Chief Inspectorate of Prisons as having a "constricted and forbidding physical environment" and a "place scarcely likely to enhance the mental state" of the women kept there. As Susan describes it on this "small narrow wing… there was no segregation at all, you mix with [everybody], you rub shoulders with the worst of the worst", the likes of female paedophiles, terrorists, Mafiosi, and those more infamous such as Rose West and Myra Hyndley. But it was here that Susan encountered Martina Anderson, one of the Brighton Bombers, who helped her "set the standards for how I was going to do my jail." This "brilliant" influence on Susan’s time there got her into a gym routine, studying, which has led to an Open University degree, fighting her case and creating a prison magazine. Set-up with Sandra Gregory a trafficker of drugs in Thailand, the publication "Time on Your Hands", provided an avenue, along with proving her innocence, which Susan could dedicate her hopes and energies on.
