When I saw in the news that Linda De Sousa Abreu, a female prison officer, had pleaded guilty to having sex with a male inmate, I probably wasn’t as shocked as the rest of the country. I wasn’t even surprised. Having served time myself, for four months in 2022, I understood exactly why these things might happen. In fact, I even had a very quick “bonk” myself – albeit with a fellow inmate and not a prison officer.
My brief, 48-hour “relationship” with her now seems totally surreal and completely at odds with the person I am. But I want to open up about it because most people have no understanding of what goes on in prisons. I certainly didn’t. And it was a brutal eye-opener that changed me forever.
I don’t think I am remotely special or in any way superior. I am not. I committed a crime and was rightly punished for it. But as an “atypical” prisoner – who was fortunate (unlike the vast majority) to have come from a loving family and with a private school education – I see it as my duty to try and increase understanding.
I’m not a lesbian and never have been. Yet prison is such a bizarre experience that after a while you simply stop being the person you’ve always thought you were. Instead, you become the seven digit number you are given on arrival. Devoid of regular contact with family and friends along with the outside world you become desperate to do something, anything, that makes you feel human. And is there anything that more epitomises being human than sex?
Inside there are cameras everywhere; you are under 24-hour surveillance. You aren’t allowed to hug or even comfort someone when they’re upset. Going weeks without human touch is horribly isolating. You begin to crave it, in whatever form it takes. Someone else’s smell and feeling another person next to you. You are starved of anything sensory there – under the harsh striplights there’s no tastes or smells other than the loo or bleach.
In my normal life, the type of men I’ve dated are high-flying, attractive and charming. The very opposite of Adele*, who was butch and had piercings and tattoos. She’d been in and out of prison several times so had a confidence about her, which was attractive. She had a certain “street” style (as much as that’s possible inside) with the way she carried herself. Without wishing to come across as a terrible snob, in my regular life back then – as a 37-year-old Pilates teacher and exercise physiologist – our paths would never have crossed.
Then, after three months inside, I was suddenly lusting after her in a novel, primal sort of way. Normally I let the man make the first move. But, instead, I was the one to pass her a note, just an in-joke I knew would make her laugh. The build-up to that note had been nothing more than merely a lot of eye contact, intense staring, a knowing smile or the tiniest exchange. It sounds ridiculously childish but you are infantilised in prison, and behaviours revert to those of school children.
You are also incredibly bored, so even these miniscule events become enough to sustain you, to give you something to think about for long hours in your cell: “Does she fancy me?”
In response to my note she scribbled one in return. She was fairly illiterate (the average literacy age of inmates is just 11 after all) so it was hardly Shakespeare, and yet, pathetically, it brightened my week. Somehow, emboldened by raging hormones, we were brave enough to grab a rare chance to slip into her cell a few days later and close the door before anyone checked. It was risky, and it was over in minutes. But, my God, it was thrilling. In the grey bubble of prison life I fleetingly felt something resembling being alive. It wasn’t a love affair, within two days it all stopped after I was jolted on hearing her refer to me as “her missus”. I thought, what the hell am I doing?
I’d ended up in prison because, in 2019, I had received two speeding fines and had lied about who was driving. I was charged with perverting the course of justice, and in March 2022, I stood in the dock, wearing my smartest black dress, and pleaded guilty.
I was sentenced to 16 months in prison and ended up serving four. I am not proud of myself and, at that time, life was chaotic. I seemed to lurch from one drama to another, letting myself down as well as those around me.
I had no idea what to expect or which prison I would be taken to. Still in all my smart court clothes, I was transported in a “sweat box”, a sort of transportable cell, in a high-security van. Seeing unidentifiable countryside flash by felt utterly terrifying.
Once I arrived, I was offered XL tracksuit bottoms which wouldn’t stay up, and some knickers that were also too big. The mortification of asking a male officer for sanitary ware, then having to explain I didn’t have any suitable underwear to stick them onto, was the first blow to my dignity, but far from the last.
When I had Covid, I wasn’t allowed out of my cell for a week. They wouldn’t give me enough paracetamol for that night’s fever in case I overdosed. Frequently, the facilities ran out of loo paper. Technically you’re allowed to use the gym three times a week, which sounds fine, but then you soon realise that it’s a choice between that, a shower, or feeling sunlight on your face briefly – and the gym soon goes out the (barred) window. You have to handwrite any emails on paper for someone else to send. The food allowance per prisoner is just £1.87 a day, split between three meals. You realise that prison “slop” is quite literal.
I was allocated a cell and a quaint-sounding “pad mate” to share it with. Luckily she was great, and became a much needed ally during my time inside. Unlike men’s prisons which are classified by the severity of the crime, female prisons are all lumped together – whether we’re murderers, armed robbers or fraudsters.
And because prisons are so short-staffed, if a high-profile case comes in, as happened while I was there, all the resources are diverted accordingly. We remained locked up for that entire day. Pushed our meals though the hatch like animals.
But I was never scared of the other prisoners. Instead, I found the staff the most threatening people there. They liked to be called “Sir” or “Miss”, but I couldn’t bear to: I wasn’t aged four and they weren’t God, so I stuck with a respectable “officer”. I saw a young woman beaten once by the staff, and when I reported it anonymously, I was told it wouldn’t be processed unless I put a name to it. I was too scared that if I did, the same fate would await me.
Many inmates have Subutex (an opioid substitute) addictions and crippling mental health issues – and is it any wonder? While I was in custody, two women in the space of one week took their own lives.
But, amongst the fear, there is a lot of sheer boredom and complete frustration. So can you blame anyone for wanting the light relief of some affection and warmth in any kind of micro relationship you can manage to have? Brief moments of lesbianism like mine even have a prison name: “Going gay for the stay.” So if you think people don’t have sex in prison, think again. We all do.
Unlike many female prisoners, who were raised in care or, as 53 per cent are, sexually abused, I did not have this excuse. I was raised in Sheffield by loving, socially mobile parents, a hairdresser mum and businessman dad. After my private school education, I went to a prestigious London ballet school at the age of 16.
People think ballet is all fluffy tutus. It’s not. You need grit to survive the 12 hours of training, six days a week. I was too young to be living independently. By my 20s I’d re-trained as a Pilates teacher, was living with anorexia and had fallen into a toxic relationship with an older man. I’d begun self medicating with cocaine, pathological lying about where I was getting cash and my lifestyle. Once that addiction had taken its grip, I made terrible choices while feeding my habit. Thankfully, a stint in a drug rehabilitation centre for nine months sorted my addiction out. But admittedly, my life was chaotic in the build-up to my imprisonment. To my mind, I got what I deserved.
My four months inside were utter hell, and changed me forever. The sound of lorries reversing on the street still makes me jolt upright in bed sweating as it sounds exactly like the beep-beep-beep of the security van I was transported in.
The fact that so many prisoners re-offend doesn’t surprise me. You wouldn’t expect an abused puppy to be locked up and emerge a well behaved dog, so why would you think a human would be any different?
My experience left me so horrified by how inhumanely women are treated I became determined to do something about it. I realised I had so much privilege compared to others and knew I had to put it to good use and make a difference. I wondered about working with prisoners initially, but then decided it would be better for me to use my background in movement and physical rehabilitation to improve mental health in adolescents, and ensure they never enter our prison system in the first place.
It’s been nearly two years since I was released and I’ve had to pick up my life and work from scratch, but I’ve found my calling. After coming out, I researched the pipeline from schools to prisons. My first cohort study was a group of adolescents identified by their GP as at high risk of self-harm. Treatments currently offered – pharmaceutical drugs and therapy – are expensive, inefficient and come with long waiting lists. Exercise, which I teach them, improves both physical and mental health with no side effects. And it’s free. The results from this study was picked up by the NHS and they’re piloting the movement for adolescent mental health scheme from September.
I was awarded membership of the Churchill Fellowship, a UK charity of which the King is a patron. On July 3, I was officially made a fellow and it was the proudest moment of my life. It means I will travel to other countries learning from the world and bring that knowledge back to the UK. It’s finally given me the purpose in life that I’ve lacked.
I turned 40 recently. While I cannot undo my past, I want to do everything I can to improve other women’s futures.
As told to Susanna Galton
*Name has been changed to protect identity
For more information about Scarlett Roberts’s work for the Churchill Fellowship see churchillfellowship.org
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