It's criminal

This morning, I sat at my desk, in my office at home printing like a wild woman. Pages of inspiration for today's Coming Home session. Excited. Anxious.

I'm always anxious when I teach. Even when I was working 9-5 in apprenticeships, I was filled with dread and excitement all the same when facing a room full of students. Imposter syndrome paralyses me on a daily basis but never more so since I came home from prison.

Despite knowing and trusting in all that I know, all that I do and the work I deliver, I'm still plagued with self-doubt. Can I do this? Should I do this? Will anyone want it? Need it? Take something from it? Is all my well scoped, planned and curated idealism just that - idealistic.

And then I remind myself of every session, lesson, workshop I've delivered over the past 6 years in my time as an educator, facilitator and public speaker - I'm good at this. I care about this. This is my passion and my purpose. 

When I designed the Coming Home project course content, I did so in an academic remit, Ofsted stylised lesson plans, neurodivergent adjustment plans, teach, ask, activity, recap. A beautiful combination of all that my TAQA, PTLLS and cert ed taught me - summative and formative assessment. It's the foundations of all good learning, but being passion about what you teach and being a reflective learning role model is just as important; if not more so.

For those of us who have been involved in the criminal justice system, a lack of strong role models is a significant and reoccurring factor of low self-esteem, confidence, purpose, direction and it can perpetuate offending behaviour traits. Negative experiences of school systems, lack of education, too much education, the pressure of the systems; it all ties into what I'm trying to address : engagement with someone who's been there, understands and can help you find your way out of the darkness.

At least, that's what I'd hoped for Coming Home and that's what it has shown to do thus far in it's short lifetime.

Today's session is about all about the digital you, professional vs personal online persona and presence, digital footprint and how to get out from under the media listings on google that cite your crime and not who you are now. Free, trying to be better, do better and rebuild.

Today's session activity - a variety of press print outs of newspaper articles written about female offenders - we were to examine the use of language and how the press dehumanise and demonise women who commit crime or live lives outside of the society norm and that "pressure" I refer to.

"Caged," "Sex-worker," "Addict," 

When referring to women who have been brutally murdered - "Ex-murderer found dead," "Ex-heroin addict,"

Fascinating. Saddening. And all the more reason we use our power within these walls to change it. To be the living, breathing examples of what change can be.

Alas, there is no-one in my classroom today.

The session began at 10am. No-one is here.

Odd. As the event was fully booked online, as a first foray into the world of non-referred work, I let fate decide what women wanted to sign up and attend without the suggestion from their probation officers, offender managers, mental health practitioners, I wanted to test free will.

So imagine my horror upon receiving this text message en-route to my classroom today

I felt sick. Because whilst this is a surprise. It's not.

I've been dealing with shit like this before I went to prison, and after I came home.

Some of the people involved in my court case, rightly, in the moment, felt betrayed by my actions, my dishonesty. But, many years after the fact, they got their day in court, and they got to see me lead down below the crown court and put into a prison van. I was sent to prison. I received a proceeds of crime order. And more than that, I was publicly, nationally, internationally humiliated and maligned in the press far and wide.

Ironically, those words I was due to discuss in today's session; some of them were littered in the articles written about me.

The press reporting of my crime, was a click bait hyperbole of something quite black and white : woman had business, woman got investment, woman lied to investors, woman business went bankrupt, woman lied to investors, investors lost money. 

Imagine then, something from 2016, convicted 2020, released end of 2021, remains so prevalent for the people involved that they feel the incessant need to fuck with my life.

Continually, but sporadically, like some twisted game of cat and mouse, always in the background, lurking, and waiting at the most vulnerable moments in time, to appear in the most hideous of ways.

It could be text messages of hate; when I came home, it was barrages of Facebook messages from various accounts wishing me dead, and disappointed I hadn't hung myself in prison.

It was hounding money, telling me a prison sentence didn't get me off the hook and there was still a debt to pay "one way or another,"

It's been like this for years. And I've had enough.

So now, as I sit in my empty classroom surrounded by Coming Home project workbooks and newspaper examples of what women who commit crime are. Let me tell you.

We are human. We are vulnerable. We are broken and recovering.

We are honest. We are working hard. We are changing. We are a constant state of evolution and hope.

I had a waiting list for today's session; I don't know if it was genuine or not or part of this elaborate scam - the irony - a fraudulent act to spam my eventbrite with non-existent people and faux email addresses. The police may not find it as ironic with yet another harassment complain I have filed this morning.

That makes 5 formal complaints of harassment.

The first I placed in 2018. They police told me it was a civil matter. They then came knocking on MY door in 2020 as it was then decided it was a criminal matter - not the harassment; the money. I had committed a crime and these people were acting in frustration.

Second complaint - whilst I was prison. They were harassing my wife, taunting her knowing she was suffering, home alone, with me in jail. They hacked my accounts, they trolled her with false take away orders sent to our apartment, to make sure I knew, and she knew, they knew where we lived.

The third, on the day I came home from prison. On my way home from prison, to probation office, to my apartment, an online complaint - the barrage was incessant. The police took no action; they felt these people were again; frustrated.

I HAD BEEN TO PRISON FOR 10 MONTHS. I HAD PAID MY PROCEEDS OF CRIME. I had lost my liberty, my marriage, my job, my income, my future.

What more did they want from me?

The fourth, a year after coming home from prison, message after message, toxic, hurtful, wishing me dead, reminding me why I wasn't fit to be a mother, hounding me for money.

Re-issuing a county court judgement from 2018 so that my now 2022 salary was deducted with an attachment of earnings order for £350 per month. My first full time job post-prison, having had the conversation with my employer about my conviction, done the DBS check and chat, worked hard to show I'm more than my conviction and got back into education only for the HR department to receive a notification that my salary was to be deducted every month until the debt was paid - it would have taken nearly a decade.

I contested it, wrote to the court, I had been paying the CCJ pre-prison, been sent to prison, instead paid of proceeds of crime order for my fraud, and been released.

The county court said it was a civil debt, it had to be paid, if I wanted to appeal it would cost 10% of the debt to intiate. As if I had that kind of money or strength to fight something that had taken everything from me.

For the people in my case, I know, it was never just money. Yes, a financial loss. But a betrayal.

That's hard to overcome.

But never a slight enough to condone this life sentence.

It's 2024. 

I've just won an award for highly commended inspirational woman for my work with Coming Home. A moment of glory and pride. And redemption for me if I"m honest. Setting right some wrongs and rewriting a history that should never have come to pass.

So to have it thrown in my face with yet another anonymous text, another torpedo to my life, my work, my ability to cope and overcome. It makes me sick.

I'm branded, for life, but I unpick that publicly and privately with positive changes to myself, my life, my relationships and my work. It's a lifetime in the making and it will be forever. It's an exhausting task to self-check, self-monitor, overcome the fear, the judgement, the imposter syndrome. It's a wonder I get out of bed on some days, let alone give enough of shit to do what I do, which is go back into the fire and pull other women out. Because if I don't who will?

The system won't. The press won't. The victims won't.

They let us burn.

So who's the victim and who's the perpetrator anymore?

I'm a free woman, I have been since the end of 2021. I've done nothing but claw my way back to stability and hope since then. Overcoming the trauma of prison.

Is it right that I sit in an empty classroom wasting my time and the opportunity for women who need this course, who need this time, who need this hope too?

For what? Some sad little man's games so many years after the fact.

I don't believe in women being sent to prison, but I do believe in justice.

And it's coming for you. As it did for me.

Fairs fair and I'm done being the bad guy.

3 years home on 13/09/24, then why did I go back to prison today?

Presenting my passport at reception to verify who I was, the lady on the desk waxed lyrical about her holiday plans - she's off on her jollies next month.

She tells me as she holds my passport up and looks at me, looks at the passport, looks at her screen that she had her blue post-brexit passport out last night whilst booking flights. She's giddy. Excited.

As we all are when we book a little holiday, to break the dreary rat race of work, sleep, eat, repeat. I imagine her job can be a thankless one at times, manning the gate, the entry, the exit, of this prison. The comings and goings of staff, prisoners, outsiders, couriers, deliveries and the never ending verification of who's who and why.

She doesn't show a glimmer of recognition, why would she? I was here in 2021, for 6 months at best in the second part of my prison journey and we rarely crossed paths unless she tannoyed my name through the prison compound - "Barker-Mills to centre," "Barker-Mills to employment hub,"

Still... Barker-Mills, a bougie double-barrel name is not as forgetful as some, a Smith? A Jones? Perhaps.

And so, I meander through the prison hallways once again, lead by the lady I'm meeting, who leads the way as if I've never been here before, it's an assumption many make when I set foot inside the prison walls now free, that I'm "one of them," and not "one of the other," 

Even whilst incarcerated I was mistaken for a member of staff in a meeting, whereby someone addressed me as a regular human being and asked when I might be available for a meeting; I laughed and looked perplexed at the question and responded "always? I live here?"

Cue red faces all round and an air of horror at the mistaken identity of prisoner, masquerading as professional.

I suppose you could say the same now as I walk side by side with those who have keys, and those who do not.

As I sat waiting in reception for this meeting to take place, I could hear the keys jangle down the corridor and whilst it tingled the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck, it less so instilled fear. Time and distance from this place and who I was here has quieted that trauma response. And a lot of work.

Up to the governors corridor, into the meeting. Familiar faces. All familiar as figures of authority, now peers; although I'm not sure if they see it that way, but treat me as such whilst we converse.

We talk of Coming Home, its work in the community, data, impact, outcomes, women, names, places, faces, some who walked these halls, some who left as I did. A shadow, but stepping into the sunlight at their own pace - no thanks to the scarring the prisons left upon them.

I'm pleased to hear of changes taking place here, it already had a solid model for redemption and transparency, as best any HMP establishment could, failings of course, prisons are never without failings, but where there are failings; there are learnings and unlike other womens estates, the learnings have been put into place here but I'm always aware that the free woman walk around, is very different to the prisoner experience and I never let that stray from my mind when in meetings like this.

It smells the same.

The cleaning products that douse the floors, the polish that waxes the wooden staircase of grandeur, the air freshener that covers the chaos of 100 women sharing living spaces and bathrooms. However, less like cattle here, there's dignity in that.

And so plans are made, discussions had.

The beauty of the day is in meeting an officer who was in situ whilst I was incarcerated, most animals would not want to see their zookeeper or fraternise with the enemy, it's almost a betrayal amongst prisoners to do so - sit on the other side of the fence, now with the people who caged you. But this woman was different then, and remains different now.

I have written about her before "I come to work and hope I can make a difference, and I like to think that I do,"

I quoted it back to her today. Told her of the impact those words had on me. Sat on a picnic bench debating my mortality and decision to live until the following day.

If ever there was a ledge, she helped pull me back from it.

Sincerity can be found in the power dynamics which exist behind prison walls. Empathy. Understanding. Always treading the boards of professional privacy in a volatile and unknown environment. It was always fascinating to me, as an educator, understanding the need to engage and share tit bits of real life and lived experience, but know the limitations. In prison, that's amplified.

And I wonder, as we bring the program into the prison setting, how I will tighten that narrative and teaching style, to share, but not share in a way that allows for vulnerability and exploitation.

I'm an open book, I was before prison, even more so after. I share because I care. This blog is testament and reflection of that, but it's not something that can exist in a prison setting, which makes me wonder, if Coming Home can have the same level of authenticity and care behind bars as it does in the community - the answer is yes.

Anyone who knows me, has met me, read my work, attended my sessions, seen my public speaking, listened to my podcasts, knows. There's a way in the criminal justice arena to share in a way that inspires, without the occupational hazard of that being used against you.

And yet, the lady I set the meeting with, greeted me with a hug, a warm hello, asked about my wife by name, work, how the new house is, I don't doubt she cares, because I'm very much a product of this place (although that takes away from the work I put in to become this person, this version 2.0)

The next lady I meet, she too "remembers me," - for my writing. A sly smile. I wrote a piece you are now all accustomed to - "Fuck The Patriarchy" 

It won a competition, it was created for stage through Clean Break Theatre. A true piece of art. Still, the greatest piece I've ever written or will write.

Alas, there were those amongst the professional education team at this prison who happily shared "we googled every line, and we can't find it anywhere, where did you copy it from?"

They couldn't believe "a prisoner could write like that,"

That doubt continued as I wrote articles for the prison newsletter, on topics like LGBT pride and use of language, on neurodiversity, on equality. 

One claimed my piece of work on LGBT equality was originally written by Tony Blairs daughter in Grazia magazine.....

What a joy, to be tarred with the same brush in prison as I was in the press.

The baker who put bread on the radiator was also the writer who plagiarised politicians children's prose.

Alas, for anyone who has read this blog or my articles in publications, and equally, anyone who has eaten my bread; will know, neither are true. And both, to my credit, are my true joy and success in life.

My art.

So as I type and wonder - can I work with women and institutions that have the prepencity to cast such doubt over a woman's abilities and ambitions in such a way as they did me, the answer is yes. Because for every doubter, there's a Miss Jones, or there's a Fran.

This prison will be the better and the richer for my balls to the wall approach at education, employability, empowerment and ownership of who you are, what you did and what you can and will become if you work to overcome the trauma of prison and the trauma of who you were once upon a time.

I will be the one who reminds these women, these allies behind bars, we all succeed together. We are the change.

We are the girls who go back to prison in nice suits, with big smiles and say "I'm here,"

I type, sat in a first class carriage on my way home. To my wife. To my life.

It's not an ostentatious over-reaching of luxury, it's a pragmatic planned purchase that says "I can, so I will,"

For those who have travelled in the prison van to and from York or Cheshire or elsewhere, to travel HOME, like this. You should.

I'm the furthest away from the Fran of 2021 who came home from prison in the front seat of my wife's car, wanting to be anything else, anywhere else, not that person, not there.

3 years on.

I go home to our little house in the suburbs, where the rent is paid on time, but it's paid because we work our socks off to make it happen.

Where the fridge is full because prison starved me and I wasted away in body and mind and now we feed ourselves our of self care and self love and worth.

Where the bills are paid because I don't lead debt collectors to our door anymore or peep around curtains to see who's knocking and why.

It took forever to get here.

But if I can, anyone can.

I like to think I can play a part in that.

I can be that moment of inspiration or hope.

To know, life gets better.

It's not prison bags, prison pals, prisoner numbers for life.

And just when I think I'm adjusting to my place within the prison walls, I'm chatting, walking towards to exit, take my laptop and things from security, a hug farewell from the lady I've spent time with and she says to Mrs-going-on-holiday

"Do you remember Fran? She's one of ours, an Askham girl,"

My heart sinks a little - I'm not one of yours. I made me, but she says it with such pride, it's hard to be mad.

The other woman's body language changes instantly. Cold. Closed and horrified.

"Barker-Mills, I thought that name sounded familiar,"

Nobody has called me Barker-Mills in this establishment for some time and I don't like it.

I nod through the gap and give a wave 

She looks like I've hit her with a shovel.

And I'm reminded, just like the officers who tread the boards of professional / privacy - there are those within these walls who will always see a prisoner first and not an equal.

She's shared her holiday plans with an ex-con.

She's shared her excitement and humanity, with a prisoner.

Hunni, you enjoy that all-inclusive - nobody cares.

I'm sure you deserve the break, it must be hard existing in your world of judgement of "us," and "them,"

But I can promise you one thing - you'll be seeing a lot more of me, so practice those pleasantries.

Because I'll be back.

It's more than a cardigan

Sometimes a blog of mine will write itself.

My fingers will hit the keyboard, moments pass, and I've pressed publish.

I'll spend the next few minutes reading back the blur and correcting the typo's and bad grammar for fear of my lovely Erwin rising from his rest to critique my writing.

This one however, has taken some time.

Like a therapy session on paper, it's been ruminating. Being cultivated. So much to say, but how?

It starts with a cardigan.

A cardigan bought in peak pandemic, 2020, online from our little lockdown home. I had swerved the mass redundancies at work and duly been given a promotion, to celebrate this unknowing short lived success, I bought myself something I had been hankering after..... a Taylor Swift Folklore cardigan. And lo' a splurge, which came with all sorts of conflicted emotions. I bought this cardigan whilst facing down a court case that was due to upend my life and the lives of those around me. So many years after the fact, after the crime. No-one could have prepared me for what 2020 would look like. From Covid, to cell block. The cardigan by and large seems rather insignificant in the grand scheme of things and yet, for me. It was an anchor. A focus.

I probably wore that cardigan all of 5 times before I was ripped from life and banged up in HMP Styal. A short lived joy and something I obsessed about whilst incarcerated.

It was my little symbol of hope, of change, of growth, of success over failure, of change. It was my tie to Sarah. Our covid love story, our first wedding anniversary together in lockdown, not what we had imagined for our marriage, but it was a strange and wondrous joy to spend so much time together. Days, weeks, months together. We listened to Folklore together, the beauty of it achieved something wonderful - Sarah became a Swiftie. Her indignant and defiant indie coolness, eroded a little in the love of the co-creation of this incredible album, she justified her new found love in it's links to Frightened Rabbit, to acoustic talent, authenticity of art, of Taylor Swift's vulnerability. It was hard not to love.

And so, the cardigan became so much more to both of us.

So much so, the day Sarah came to pick me up from prison to come home, she brought said cardigan in the car, all the way to York. My best friend in the backseat, clutching my favourite possession and the Fran essentials that marked true freedom : wife, bestie, cardigan, an ice-cold can of Diet Coke and a little box of Tim Hortons Timbits (an ode to my favourite Canadian friend)

By the time I got to the prison gate, holding my black prison holdalls in each hand, my life for 10 months packed into two tiny black bags, I felt pain. Pain at leaving the prison estate and not knowing what I was coming home to. Not knowing who I was anymore.

All the things you think make you who you are, are bit by bit taken from you in prison. Fragments of identity are stripped through the isolation, humiliation and degradation of what prison is. Brutal, futile and without purpose, fuelled by violence, sadness, frustration, bad behaviour and loss.

The gates opened, as they did for my every day coming and going to work from the jail and back. 

They opened for the final time, and I was embraced by the loves of my lives, but I know they felt it just as much as I did.... it wasn't the same. It wasn't the hype. It wasn't the hope. The moment of relief we had all been waiting for.

It was like holding someone who looks and feels familiar but isn't. Like a dream. 

And as they blasted a "Fran playlist," all the way back to Manchester, and I wrapped myself in my Taylor Swift cardigan which smelled like home, drank my Diet Coke, I was still in prison. I didn't come home.

It's taken a long time for that version, that person, to fade away. It came with waves of anger, sadness and loss from all involved. Heartbreak and angst at the loss of life inside to bring it into our home all the same. This echo of the person I was before.

Piece by piece, I came back.

It was like waking up from a pro-longed nightmare, that somehow felt like a dream, there were so many mixed emotions about my time away.

We're a month away from my 3 years being home.

Only 3 years.

It's been the longest and shortest period of time in my life all at once.

At face value, it's nothing short of miraculous, the recovery, the return, the reset and reunification of past and present.

I sometimes look at our life now and have to hold back a cry, a burst of emotion at the gratitude of how far we've come, together.

From wearing a cardigan in an apartment building in lockdown, prancing around to Taylor Swift, to wearing it in the car coming home from prison.... to....

Sarah wearing it in London as we went to see Taylor Swift.

To see the actual bloody cardigan and the V & A museum.

Now; seeing Taylor Swift in concert is an impressive feat in 2024 regardless of our whirlwind lived experience - the most sought after tickets ever (until tomorrow when Oasis go on sale obviously!!!!)

It's the context that gives it power.

My little Canadian bestie (Timbits) after many many many attempts at getting tickets, achieved the impossible and got us some epic tickets for Wembley, we booked our accommodation, travel and off we toddled to London Town.

Now, two things here - I met Timbits in 2019 when I had gone through a huge period of recovery, to become the person I am now. So she had the joy of meeting Fran 2.0, and we became fast friends. It turns out if you're a good person, you attract good people, and she's the best of the best.

Just one year into our friendship, I disappeared off to prison and the press had a field day at my expense plastering my so-called criminality in every local and national rag even making the New York Post, who knew people were so interested in a failed fraudster baker from Manchester?

I digress. My lovely, normal, functional friend, had to read these things without any real context from me. I had shared with my friends the ins and outs of the court case and what I was looking at - not the sentence I got that's for sure, but off to jail I went.

That could have been the end of this new found friendship. I asked Sarah to check in on her and if she still wanted to know me after my very public downfall. Naive, childish and the mind of a lonely woman on 24 hour bang up.

Fast forward, summer 2024. Singing our hearts out, handmade swiftie bracelets a-plenty, curated era's tour outfits, co-ordinated geekery, and for 3 hours we screamed and sang and danced and loved along with 92,000 people in Wembley stadium.

In my freezing cold jail cell in December 2020 with snow coming through the broken window, wearing every item of clothing I had come in with to keep warm, writing letters home with shaking hands, did I think I could get to a place like that with the people I love and have them still love me?

No.

But we did it.

And we took the damn cardigan with us.

There were hundreds of women and girls in London with the Folklore cardigan and it made me wonder what the stories behind their cardigans were? Or were they just nice knitted items bought online to celebrate a songstress that's taken over the world?

Sarah and I got Taylor Swift tattoos on New Years Eve 2023.

Mine says "This Is Me Trying,"

Someone asked me recently, what did that mean to me?

I said it reminds me that trying is enough, that I try to be good, kind, honest, healthy and happy.

It's quite the Wishlist, but I'm living up to my own expectations in achieving those ideals.

I've joke a few times with Sarah now that when I make the documentary of my crazy life, I want this to be the soundtrack song, because if you start life and love with Taylor Swift, you end it the same way.

The blue mattress

Yesterday, the greatest questions ahead were : what car shall we take and what cheese should we buy?

Middle class problems, I know.

As a small group of friends, we came together, convening at mine and Sarahs little terraced house in suburbia and decided that the bigger car, the better - to fit more wine and cheese in.

And off we rode, the four musketeers of mischief for a weekend in the wild - well, wild for me.

I am not a hostel lover. It's a learned and chosen behaviour and loathing for several reasons; hostels for me are a reminder of my period of homelessness, where I spent the pocket change I had to put a roof over my head as a treat on occasion and as such, temporary, overwhelming, loud pockets of chaos in a period of my life I'd sooner forget and more so of late - they remind me of prison.

Now don't get me wrong, I write upon my computer, sat on a faux leather mock Chesterfield sofa, in a lounge with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, aching under the variety of items upon them - smut books, maps, John Grishams entire catalogue it would seem (and one wonders, has my mother stayed here?!) and many a board game of which I'm sure we will partake in later today with some wine.

Oak floorboards, with an age that tells you, you're sitting in a building of history and magnificence, but for all its beauty, there are stark reminders of prison life here for me. It's a bewildering mix of HMP Askham and HMP Styal.

I sat upon faux leather sofa's in Askham; in the ballroom - where a portrait of our late majesty Queen Elizabeth hung to oversee the women in her establishment, after all, when sentenced in the crown court it is indeed you vs Regina, and as such, we reside in the stately home of Askham Grange, prisoners. Pretty. But prison none the less.

Similarly, the floorboards there were beautiful and I'd find myself wondering what feet had walked upon them, woman after woman through those gates and the history of the establishment, post war Britain and a female governor, a matriarch and powerhouse of what rehabilitation could be in this country, Askham made it's name for all the right reasons. A template, for how things could and should be done.

It's the first thing I read when I arrived there - The History of Askham Grange, a fascinating book that showcased the history of the prison, the who, why, where. and how.

There's a book upon the table as I write now; the history of Wasdale Hall.

Worlds apart, yet spinning on the same axis.

And it's jarring.

My brain is in full PTSD mode and it's overwhelming.

A weekend away with friends to relax, recuperate, recharge and just be has found me reeling, sat alone in the silence of this room to write, whilst they walk and hike and take time together, I needed moments to gather myself and my thoughts and so, here I am friends, of course. An anxious mind, writes.

Sarah and I have had many conversations regarding a trip like this over the past year, because she of course recognises, my discomfort and pain at places like this. Shared accommodation is no longer a posh girls irritation and more a thorn in my side of moments of loneliness that know no measure.

Alas, we came, we saw, I did not conquer. My fear and anxiety is all consuming.

It began with the opening of the heavy door, one key, one turn, and a heavy push see's two sets of bunkbeds. 

Bunkbeds I could deal with, I had psyched myself up to overcome this and I stepped into that room with an open mind.

"Bottom bunk - I won't go on top,"

A selfish request perhaps, but quite frankly, I don't care right now.

I refuse to scale the little ladder, to launch myself in an unladylike fashion upon the blue mattress above.

Blue mattress.

I can feel the ground falling from under my feet, and I'm swallowed into the realms of hell or purgatory as prison was for me. The torment, the pain, but temporary.

When I was moved from my cell in Styal, I arrived on the houses, those familiar with the prison estate in Cheshire will know, it dresses well. Little Victoria-esque houses dotted up and down avenues like some sort of delightful community in the countryside. Look closer and you will see the bars, broken glass, blood spattered walls, the faeces, the filth and the utter disinterest in human dignity. Everywhere.

I walk, slowly, with my perspex bag of items from cell block to house, holding my mint green bedding in my hands.

There's one bunk left in a house of 22 inmates, in a shared room with two other women for now.

The two other women are loud, gregarious, obnoxious, territorial and domineering. This is theirs. And I am an outsider setting foot on their turf.

Top bunk.

I scramble up the creaking steps, above the head of one inmate, with my bedding under my arm and begin to make my bed. Stretching out the length of the mattress to tuck my sheet under.

"Tie it in a knot," one girl says

"It won't slip then,"

She shows me under her mattress.

Tied a both ends like a Hermes scarf, the sheet is snug to the blue mattress underneath. Well-used sheets so faded you can see the colour of blue as bright as the summer sky.

I tie the knot and I smirk to myself. I tied a knot like this just last week. For me. Not my mattress.

A sick joke only I'm in on.

I flap the wafer thin duvet from one side to the other and lo' - mint green wonderment, sheet, pillow and duvet rest neatly upon the creaking structure.

I spent weeks in that bunk.

I was so sleep deprived through perpetual insomnia invoked through hyper-vigilance, lack of medication, moments of psychosis, exacerbated by the noise. Snoring. Farting. Crying. Screaming. Sighing. The blare and glare of the tiny television shared amongst the three of us, but dare to change the channel and it would be a finger you would lose.

The sleep depravation got so bad, I could sneak out of my bunk in the early hours of the morning and go and sit in the "lounge" - I'd watch television alone, in the dark, and nod for short moments of reprieve, and then, I'd go back to bed for fear of being caught out of bounds so late.

Those of you who have read this blog will know, my first proper sleep in prison came in week 13, in the prison van, leaving Styal to go to Askham. Perhaps my body knew, a kinder fate awaited me.

I was thrilled, because I knew, no matter how great the anxiety of the unknown was, one thing was certain - I would be in covid isolation for 10 days, alone. No bunk beds. No bunk mates. No danger. Just me. On another blue mattress, now hundreds of miles from home.

Last night, I couldn't settle. Filled with wine and time, I lay, much like in prison, staring up.

Fucking blue mattress, and a sheet that hadn't been tied and as such, was slipping. 

Clearly the YHA haven't caught onto the prison hack, perhaps I'll share it before I leave?

I got up this morning, dazed and confused, with a sadness that sits deep within. I walked the corridor to find the bathroom and even that short meander left me reeling, dealing with the trauma of what jail was for me.

Fear. Perpetual fear and loneliness.

That's what prison does.

Regardless of any life you left outside the gates, it's impossible to permeate this prison walls.

Sarah got in the bottom bunk with me last night for a little bit, to soothe me, like a child. She read her book and I watched a murder documentary; which was a nice change from living next door to the actual murderers truth be told!

But I'll admit, with two more nights ahead of looking up at the blue mattress, this faux leather Chesterfield is proving more appealing as I contemplate sitting here with a rolled up hoodie, like my little prison van ride to York.

I have moments, where I wake, wander downstairs to make a pot of coffee, I get dressed, Sarah gets dressed; if we've been proactive, our clothes are laid out ready for the next day and the process is much more efficient but regardless, we both end up downstairs sipping coffee from our favourite mugs - it's a particular routine, but I wouldn't change it and it's what I missed most whilst away.

For my first ROTL release on temporary license weekend release home, I wrote practically War & Peace in my ROTL plan, documenting my meaningful activity of what I would do whilst at home - Saturday morning 9-10am coffee with Sarah, coffee machine on, proper coffee made, particular cups, sofa, handholding. 10-11am Saturday kitchen, 11-1pm walk into the city to hit a supermarket to buy ingredients to cook ostentatious, unrealistic meal from Saturday kitchen.

Most offender managers would have laughed it out of the jail and suggested I was making it up, but no, signed off, sent off and coffee was had. My bed was slept in. No blue mattresses for a weekend. And the warmth of Sarah and Gordon Ramsay the cat to remind me, there is a life after this.

Of course, those who know me, know it didn't quite go to plan when I came home, this idealistic notion of wife, and cat, and home and life, fell apart. If temporarily. It was a hard fight and climb to build it back. But we did.

And we build a new home, with a new bed, in a new space that we made ours. So it's a trial for me to leave it, even for a night, and it's a tribulation for me to sleep alone. I don't like it.

A weekend away to relax, spend time with friends and settle into all that's come to pass. It is a joy and it is a luxury and I am so grateful this is the life I have, I build and I choose. But that god damn mattress haunts me.

I live my life at 100mph these days, work, work, work, life, life, life, baby making and baby failing on loop, and I realise, as I sit, it's because I'm scared. If I stop. I think. If I think. I go back. If I go back, I'm scared I'll be trapped there. And I prefer life here. Happy. In the now.

I messaged my prison girls last night because I know they feel the same pains I do in their own way, we're connected through the experience but we're empowered by each other and our love for who we are, were and will be.

They messaged me positive loveliness and I found myself grateful. In a shared room with people who love me but can never understand the trauma, but supported with love and guidance regardless; rallied on and loved from friends from the past life who love me just as much and cheerlead through the realms of Facebook.

I don't think I can do shared accommodation again.

I certainly can't do bunk beds. My only exception is if Sarah and I achieve the impossible and create two children, when one seems close to impossible lately.

I'll make an allowance for cute, small people bunk beds.

But for 2024 Fran and future Fran, it's recognising my weak spots, and walking into trauma with my eyes wide open isn't brave, it's stupid.

I'll know for next time.

The Baird Review? GMP laid bare - like their victims.

 The Baird Review makes for dismal reading, in that, none of it's content is surprising but merely a reminder that the powers that be in this city and locality believe their power means more than the people they are paid to protect. Much like reading coroners reports, prison inspectorate reports, IMB recommendations for the prison system - it's clear, that in the criminal justice system there remains a toxic masculinity underbelly of power mad men who feel they wield justice of their own making. Be it strip searching vulnerable women, leaving men to parade and sit naked in cells, name calling and belittling language, from prisons to police stations up and down this country; the injustice and inhumanity and indignity is rife. It is, as Vera Baird noted "the culture in GMP seems to be one of exercising power they don't have, as and when they wish, without expecting to be held to account for it,"

This is a stark summary of the conduct of police officers as it's the kind of arbitrary summary one would expect from a crown court judge when sentencing. I have read and heard many a sentencing remark that skates across these sentiments all too well and yet, a criminal sentenced pays the price of such arrogance in their misdemeanour and deviant behaviour - why then are there no such consequences for this grotesque breach of trust and failing of duty for the GMP officers involved?

Do as I do, but not as I say.

The lip service public announcement with shallow and translucent apologies, masquerading as changed and learn-ed behaviours; but alas, and unsurprisingly, lacking in accountability and real acknowledgement.

If I stood in the dock before the judge and mumbled a half-arsed apology, citing a difficult period of time where I was "under pressure," - as GMP say is the reasoning behind this lapse in otherwise exemplary civic duty, if I dared to say I didn't perform my own civic duty to an acceptable standard, would I too get a slap on the wrist and be told to take heed and make use of "recommendations and learnings,"?

No.

I would be reprimanded for my lack of authenticity, depth of understanding of the impact of my actions, the harm they create and catalyse upon my victims and I would be sent to prison on the basis of a moral and legal breach of ethics and decency.

I'm just Fran.

I'm not a police officer. I'm not in a position of responsibility, but I do accept that when stepping outside of the lines, law and the morality that we live by - there are consequences.

I'm also Fran, who throughout my life has wanted, desperately to seek justice for my own moments in time that have been abused by men, but being statistical by nature and cynical even more so; I knew then, as I know now, no good would come of telling my truth in the hopes of justice, let alone conviction.

Because when a woman, particularly a woman who has been branded an addict, a sex worker, a fruit cake, a liar and a convict - the men in power, in their police stations up and down this country would greet such stories with disdain, disbelief, disinterest and much like the ladies referenced in the Baird report but somehow, in the most vulnerable moments of honesty and pain be found; criminal.

Worse; insignificant.

And apparently in Manchester, naked, abused and reminded of why we cannot put our faith in the people who are there to protect us.

I wrote in rage and sadness behind bars, mourning as we did, as women, the loss and tragedy of Sarah Everard. I was bitter and pained that every woman screaming from the concrete cells and barred windows, howled at the men who hurt them as we heard of another murder. Another abuse of power. Another woman lost to the violence of fragile little men with badges like little boys playing cops and robbers.

But these men don't play. They hurt. They kill. They laugh. They get away with it. Time and time again.

When does it stop?

Take a leaf out of Emmelines book GMP, for the love of god.

Let it be DEEDS NOT WORDS.

Because frankly, we've heard it all before.

An eye for eye, and still more die - but it's ok, HMP have had "learnings"

Trigger Warning : Self harm / suicide 

I don't know which I'm more angered by this morning.

The Manchester Evening News reporting on the inquest details of ANOTHER death (2019) at HMP Styal, or the fact they are writing taglines such as "heartbreaking" when they, much like other faux media and journalism will have written this woman's tale in a much more onerous light when she was sent to prison.

I'm sure, much like the rest of the women who find themselves before the judge, jury and journalists, they will have had their story "told" with some of the key phrases "X was caged for 12 weeks," "X was put behind bars for 12 months" "X no longer a menace to society was imprisoned" and so on.

But no, the monsters who are caged, but happen to die behind the bars that keep them, suddenly; imagine, only upon death - are viewed as victims, as tragedies, as failings of a broken system. Yet somehow, we don't cast these aspersions of horror, sadness, regret, disgust when the women are being sent down by the bang of the gavel - no we hail the justice system for serving the community by removing these criminals from society - to protect it.

Well, who protects them?

Who protects us?

Let me tell you. In HMP Styal.

NO-ONE.

How many times do I have to write this in anger, burning sadness and contempt?

We are sending women to prison to die.

For stealing cheese and shampoo?????????

We have created a self perpetuating cycle of crime, fuelled by poverty and the governments unwillingness to invest in proper systems of change; mental health spend, addiction services, domestic abuse support, stable housing, a less arbitary welfare system, trauma informed practices that address offending behaviour and stem the fallout before the implosion.

The illogical approach of building more prisons to line more profiteering private pockets, than to really look at society and it's screaming, it's begging - help us.

Banging up women behind bars exacerbates and amplifies mental health issues, addiction withdrawal, isolation, degredation, pain and suffering.

Loss of liberty, family, community, stability, whatever form that presents itself in. It's loss, it's mourning, it's brutal and it's dehumanising.

I can't keep waking up to the hypocritical click bait titles of death and sadness, when there's no action, there's no meaning. Theres a moment of mourning with the trolls in full force "another one off the streets for good," "good riddance," "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime," and the do-gooders who feel the pain of it in a fleeting second, at the thought of a mothers loss, a daughter, a sister, a friend and then, life moves on. We move on. And we put the inconvenient truth behind us.

For change to come, it needs to be with the roar of the people, to push back and fight back and say : ENOUGH.

It's enough.

Change must come.

And yet, where is my army?

Are you with me or not?

Are you angry? Use it.

Write to your MP, use your social media, comment on the articles, probe the journalists, query the inquest, challenge HMP, ask the questions, tell the stories, shout it as loud as you can.

ITS NOT OK.

I could have died in HMP Styal, and I write in anger. I do.

I could have died.

And the MEN would have written an article reporting on my death, and they would have said "there were failings, there were learnings," and no-one would be held to account - just me, the one who broke the law and got sent to prison.

Not the prison for failing in its duty of care.

Not the courts that put me there knowing my mental health would spiral.

I am all for accountability and proportionality, this you know. I'm not shirking my responsibility or requirement of punishment - but should that have meant death?

I sit, as I type, in a pair of shorts - lovely imagery, bear with me.

Tanned brown thighs, beautifully reminiscent of a recent family holiday.

Tanned brown thighs with white glistening lines scattered, etched, for eternity.

History.

Like a tree, the rings of my life and my sorrow, each with a story, a pain, I can recall.

I lay on my sun lounger just last week, and I traced a more recent one and recalled the memory if it's occurrence.

Friends and family, don't endure the following. Scroll on.

I was sat, cross legged on my prison bed, dark green duvet, pale green sheet, gazing, at the razor in my hands.

I drew it across my skin and gasped. Blood red. Release.

I haven't self-harmed for a long, long time. The last time I did, was when I blew the business up and couldn't control the mental breakdown that followed. Those lines are listed in white on brown still.

In that moment, in that environment, in that isolation and chaos and a sadness I've never had, I felt like I had already died, and couldn't fathom why I was wandering around this prison existence a ghost of who I was, because I was adamant the person I was, couldn't exist beyond these walls any more.

Bang bang on my glass window, I drop my razor, lift my blind, and it's my girls.

"Oi dickhead, come and have a coffee,"

It's like they knew, they felt it. And often, that's the way of the prison. The women see it, feel it, hear it and protect each other. The prison doesn't.

In this instance, the prison did. But it wasn't Styal.

In Styal, I was unmedicated for WEEKS, citalopram withdrawal after 3 years medicated, and it hit me hard. It hit me hard in 24 hour bang up, locked in cell, in freezing winter, during a global pandemic and as a first timer inside.

I eyeballed hanging places and positions for days. Which one, where, how? To use what.

Forgive the stark nature, reality is a bitter pill to swallow I know, and if it makes you want to turn away, it should, because this is the truth of what happens in places we send women every day - for YOUR protection, not theirs.

The light green sheets seemed cumbersome to become a noose, to loop a pipe, something else... something else.

And I sat, in my cell, alone, for days on end, with no human interaction, no mental health checks, no medication, and I thought, and I wrote, and it was psychotic ramblings of a broken soul, but I survived.

IF, I had had access to a razor, things would have been different. A familiar friend and swift exit.

This is the reality of what prison does to a complex mind.

And so, with horror story after horror story, we pine, for a better world, but do nothing to bring it to fruition.

For the Christine's, Annalise's, Deborahs and more... we remember names, crimes - probably.

And we wait, for the next headline, the next inquest, where the HMPPS will say "we have learnings," "we've got millions to invest in better mental health services in prison, we have better training and safeguarding for our prison officers,"

None of it equates to safer prisons. Women keep dying.

Christine died in 2019, Annalise died in 2020, Deborah died in 2020.

There have been 40 self inflicted deaths in women's prisons since 2013. 3 in 2022, 3 more in 2023, but following Christine and Annalise... there were learnings? So many "learnings" that 6 more women have perished since? An increase, not a decline.

(image from Inquest)

It has to stop.

For the sake of women standing in court today, tomorrow, next week.

We have to do something different or people will keep dying for the sake of justice.

The lady in red and the lady in white - the Maggie Oliver Foundation Ball

I don't trust the police.

I don't like them and I don't trust them.

This is an in-built defence mechanism from a childhood Fran who knows - men in uniforms are not there to save you - they are to deprave you.

At least that was my first experience of the law.

The men in positions of power, there to protect.

Didn't.

They took part in a pass the parcel of a child at the hands of my biological father who served me up to his friends as a party gift to be shared.

My first experience of men - my first experience of men and authority.

Is it any wonder at the age of 36, I loathe the very concept of the systems and the people who uphold them to be honour bound and those whom we seek to protect and wield the hammer of justice on our behalf?

My father, by blood and creation, was a police officer. A disgraced one. Whose short lived career saw him move into a logical side step of entrepreneurship - hustling.

By day, a less than reputable pub landlord, by night, a pimp of women, children; his whores.

Me I suppose.

Sex worker by trade in a later life, honing my skills under the age of 4. What can I say, I'm a natural.

When it comes to abusers and my magnetic ability to find them, I've never been far from the suffering of male sexuality and it's horrors.

I sat in a packed room of women a few weeks ago, to celebrate International Women's Day; earlier that day, I had had the honour of being the one at the front, sharing my story, of inspiration some say, and perhaps I feel that too when I recount and recall all that came before the prison, the rise and fall and the climb and crawl back to reality, normality and hope.

As I spoke, I locked eyes with a woman and she looked angry and at the time, whilst in the flow of my speech, I thought - "well, I'm not for everyone," - and I'm not. I know that, there is an air of distaste in thebarkerbaker bouncing back with a story of triumph over adversity, I live with that in my heart, I know. But this woman - beautiful, but fiery eyes, I could feel it.

I continued with my speech, the eyes softened and I was relieved; acceptance.

Later that day, I heard her speak and it struck me to my core.

I felt like she was telling chapter one of my story, and I had just shared the current chapter of the life of Fran. We were ying and yang, before and after, past and present and it broke me.

I listened with tears in my eyes, locked on hers, much like she locked mine when I spoke and with my wife by side, I inched my fingers closer to hers to feel the safety, I needed to feel the safety.

I'm ok.

I'm ok.

I'm not ok.

Whilst our scars and stories of abuse vary and differ and I have heard many upon my journey, whether prostitution or prison, this one struck me unlike others have before.

"Just because an alcoholic doesn't like whiskey and they're a vodka drinker, doesn't mean they won't drink whiskey if there's no vodka in the house,"

I felt sick.

I remember that feeling of dread when I was a child, this fierce and ferocious fighter within me that thought every time it happened - take me, use me, but if you go near him, I'll kill you. I'll kill you.

I'll be the distraction and the plaything, I'll be the pretty little girl. But one look at him with the same eyes and I'll find away in this tiny body of mine to end you.

And I held that fight within me until we were plucked from that place.

I hold it still, as illogical as it is in 2024, I'd still die to protect him regardless of circumstance or time.

3 year old Fran knew that in her heart, that the vodka drinker would ultimately land on whiskey and it was a fear that kept me hyper vigilante and kept me playing the game.

The strange thing about being a child victim of sexual abuse and exploitation, is that you grow up with two personality traits from a young age.

1) blaming yourself for being the sexual provocateur

2) being a sexual provocateur

I was both. 

I remember asking the most beautiful of foster parents I ever had, and I had some shockers

"Was I sexual? Did I hit on you?" - I know it is a strange question to ask a man you've not seen for nearly 3 decades but I had to know the answer.

"Yes, but that was never unusual for little girls like you, so I would sit you on my knee, read you a book and make you a lovely, little buttery crumpet and be your daddy,"

If only there were more men like that in my early years.

More crumpets and less cock.

Forgive the vulgarity, I don't dampen my rage or sadness when I write, you know this to be true by now if you are here reading.

But why, you ask, do I write of such sadness and trauma on a Sunday night when my social media channels reflect and project a weekend of love and joy....

Well, that's exactly the point isn't it, the two things live side by side in a mind, body and soul as fragmented and damaged as mine.

I am happy, happier than I have ever been.

Safe, secure, well, healthy enough, busy, loved, and kind.

What a dream, what a joy. Something I never thought possible for a child like me, a teenager, a woman, a... Fran.

But there we have it. Happy healthy and sane.

With the caveat, the sadness and the broken lives within me. The trauma, the memories, the damage.

But mostly, the rage. The hypocrisy. The expectation.

That with beginnings like mine at the hands of men in positions of power and somehow the world expected more of me, to be kind, to be good, to be better.

With what help from you? With what justice? With what recovery and rehabilitation and piecing me back together?

- The Barkers have a lot to answer for, this we know to be true. Taking on a child of trauma and abuse and letting it fester, linger, take root and rot my growth and hope from the inside out.

To ashamed, too scared, too fucking arrogant to imagine a child they now called theirs was this creature of the night with more notches on the bedpost aged 4 than most whores down Piccadilly bridge, but alas, there I was, beautifully blonde, damaged and wild, but theirs none the less.

There's no more and I'm still angry.

I sat in a room full of white privilege last night; not a criticism, a summary.

I was amongst them. I was proud to count myself amongst them. I have been wild and lost a long time, I have tried to be the Cheshire daughter, I have tried to be the success story, the pillar of stability and failed, often to the cost of others.

But last night, in my custom black three piece tuxedo, looking oh so ever the dyke, but in beauty and power, I sat, wife by my side, in feminine attire, open tuxedo shirt, blazing red brassier, the epitome of feminine sexuality and power, and we emanated it across the room, together. We are here.

I digress.

In a room full of power, privilege and hope, there were morals and truths and authentic natures I have yet to see in a room like that. It was a joy. It was pure. It was purpose. I felt it.

So now I write.

A woman in white and a woman in red. Held the room in their power. Their purpose and their authenticity.

The woman in red, she laughed with the irony and I saw that sadness in her eyes like when we first met in that room as we both spoke our truths, hugged me and as a person who does not hug - who was raised in an adoptive family that was cold, without warmth or emotion, hugs were not something I knew, I never had hugs. I never had hand holds, reassurance. I never had bed tuckings in. Stories. I never had "love you" never had "proud of you"

I think to them, I was always "daddy's little whore" and they dare not touch the tainted child. At least that's how it felt to a little girl in a big house waiting for parents to love her. And it never came.

But there, last night in a bougie hotel in Manchester City centre, a hug was enough for two women to hold one another in pain and power and know, we're here.

We did it.

A beautiful lady in red, who has inspired me to own my truth and say it loud and proud.

You all know from snippets and moments of reference my beginnings were filled with trauma and sex. Now you know.

My father, was a disgraced police officer who abused me and allowed his friends and his networks to abuse me further still. My family did nothing. Nobody stopped it. He was enabled, allowed and empowered to do so and never ever held to account.

I was THRILLED to hear he died, clutching his chest in agony at a London tube station as he fell to his knees and died there and then of a heart attack. The coward's way out.

Had we have met in my adult years; I would no doubt have gone to prison a little earlier than planned and served for a lot longer.

What can I say, like mother like daughter. There's a murderous temper in my blood.

But that would have been my justice. Because up until now, I've had none.

I've been the black sheep, the drug addict, the hooker, the homeless, the prisoner, the fraudster, the criminal, the lesbian, the shame, the blame, the embarrassment. I've been disowned, disembodied and stripped of my life, my history, my family, all that I knew. Gone.

Well fuck you and feel the shame of what is it to be less than.

I am strong. I am power. I am all that I am because of the trauma, the pain, the taint, the stain, the hurt, the hate. I am fearless, I am angry and I am waging a war on the bullshit.

The systems that protect the wrong people.

The systems that fail those who need them most.

The people who cast blame and shame without looking closer.

The people who name and stigmatise for life without cause or concequence.

Shame on you.

I was a child. Less than 4 years old before I was rescued from the rinse and repeat pass around.

My adoptive mother never made reference to my harrowing beginnings other than this

"Of course you think you're a lesbian, you don't have a great track record with men,"

At 15? An unacceptable, abhorrent thing to say to a child that knew, that felt, that lived and relived the pain and the memories but was never allowed to say it out loud.

I was 8, I had a nightmare, I was in a pub, it was dirty, mattress, men, pain, tears, I woke up.

I told my mother (she doesn't deserve that name)

She said "What a twisted little mind you must have to dream such disgusting things Francesca,"

I thought she was right.

I spent years obsessing over the fact I was sick. I had something wrong with me for dreaming such things. What an imagination. What a fucked up human.

That's why they don't love me I would think, I'm broken. They see it. There's something wrong with me.

Imagine my relief in my twenties at my first court case for my first crime; IMAGINE, laughing with joy at reading my child court case records and putting the pieces together.

Not sick. Not twisted.

An 8 year old girl remembering things from a dark night and trying to tell her mummy about it.

I trace my story, I trace the roots, and I see, how I came to be a person who can lack empathy, lack understanding, be selfish, make bad choices, want to set the world on fire. I see it. The angry little girl lives on.

But in a 3 pieces tuxedo (it's worth mentioning twice, as it looked fabulous) - I held that power in such a positive way.

I sought out tickets to go to the ball, to support the cause, because the woman in white, is an angel.

Maggie Oliver.

In a room full of people who all want her ear, her attention and words, she made time for each and every one. With warmth, words and love. But most of all, with thanks. To every one who had made the time, the commitment and the effort to stand with her.

A woman who stood against a broken system, to call it out, to shout it out loud, to speak for the victims, to speak for the broken, she did it.

And she fucking set it on fire.

And I am here for it.

I am here for her.

I feel it firing inside me as I write, the purpose of that moment.

We are our trauma, but we don't let it define us, we define what it means for the future.

And for me?

It's knowing if I can be held accountable in a court of law and a society that says what's wrong.

Then so can the rest of the nonces and perverts that got their hands on me.

Game on.

Justice is transparency.

Justice is change.

Justice is healing.

Justice is protecting all the girls that came before, and all that come next. To make a safer, more accountable world.

That fire I had to protect my whiskey brother. I have it for all the girls and boys who need a protector. I'm here. And I'll fight.