I have had the amazing luxury and opportunity of late, to be here, there and everywhere on behalf of Coming Home - learning, leading and engaging in meaningful conversation, research and fundamentally - lobbying.
It's not great secret my passion project is more than that, it's a part of my core and certainly a part of my core work at Coming Home - reducing stigma.
So it occurs to me on this Friday morning as I sit on yet another train, to another part of the country, to present on the media harms in use of language and the perpetuated stigma of "women who commit crime," there's an irony.
I put my clothes out last night, to avoid the stress and faff of deciding what to wear early on this morning - I have a tendency, as an over-thinker, over-worrier, and let's be honest; control freak, to flap - as my wife calls it - the Fran flap. A whirlwind of anxiety induced fussing, forgetting and overwhelm.
This morning I put on my suit, lovely light cotton pinstipe shirt and then stumbled over what shoes - first pick; summery black flats. Right choice - smart brogues.
But I have an aversion to these shoes.
Particularly THESE shoes.
They're beautiful, real leather, shiny, buff up nicely for events and for days of serious work, they're my formal work shoes. They're also the shoes I wore to my sentencing hearing. So to say they've had a life, is an understatement.
They've walked through the streets of Manchester, they've clip clopped through the Crown Court, they've been in a prison van or two, and they've walked the landings and walkways of two of his majesty's prisons. Laces and all.
The girls in prison used to snigger at the sheek and shine aesthic of these shoes and bray "only nonces wear posh shoes like that!"
And I'd remember what the first prison officer said to me - when they ask what you're in for, tell them fraud, but have your paperwork to make sure, they know, it IS fraud.
Between the posh shoes and the white collar conviction, apparently one can be mistaken for quite a different type of criminal. Good lord.
So I'll admit, I smirk and grimace when I see these shiny shoes of mine.
Much good the presentable suit and good characeter references did me last time I wore these and felt such anxiety.
Let it be said, I type this now, on my University laptop, in a first class carriage (don't make me harp on about the joys of Seatfrog upgrade auctions, I'm obsessed) going through my notes for today's presentation.
Slide one, introduction to me.
How does one consolidate such a thing in one slide?
Good girl gone bad, gone good again, gone bad, gone good. I'm every female offender in the country with a track record like that. Certainly every non-violent perpetrator of crime and I'm a screaming example of what reoffending and offending behaviour looks like if you don't address the route causes.
Childhood trauma, sexual abuse, gender identity, sexuality, sexual assault culminating in an unwanted pregnancy and STI, homelessness, sex work, trafficked, addiction, criminality.
A cliche. A trope. A woman who was always going to end up in prison.
Of course, the media didn't mention any of that, just my forever branded labels - dishonest, decietful, and a variety of incredulous claims even I burn with anger at so many years after the fact.
It always amazed me when I came home from prison and read every single article, every single comment, forum, facebook share, to my detriment, of course, it was the most brutal character assaisiantion one can weather and I had only just been released from prison so to say my mental health and sense of self were at an all time low would be an understatement. Alas, I read and I re-read and I still do now, because those grotesque representations of who I was and what I did, continue to be the fire that fuels me to change it. No woman should leave prison looking to a future beyond the bars, to be faced with the futile and putrid hatred of strangers, nay-sayers and those completely removed from the reality of what it is to commit crime and pay for it.
How have we come to live in a world where it is acceptable to do this to human beings? Brand them like cattle in a digital world, so that they may walk the streets and live the lives of shameful beasts, the immoral, living among us, cloaked and dangerous, walking side by side, and the only way to know who is good and who is bad, is in picking up the local newspaper or clicking on the latest facebook post to read from the safety of your own home and moral standing to cast apersion and judgement on those who have done wrong. Bad people.
They walk among us.
In black brogues and nice suits.
It's true.
Does it soothe the souls of the masses to know that they have the moral high ground? Does it make them feel safer knowing these people, like me, have been outed? Falls from grace documented? Reminders. So that no matter what progress and purpose comes forth, they remain trapped under the judgemental foot of society?
The society we are released back into, to rehabiliate, reassimilate, reiintegate into?
With good grace and hard work and smiles upon our faces, with relentless gratitude at the second, third and forth chances bestowed upon us?
No.
My talk today is about the harms of media use of language. Yes. It is also about how we combat that, as people, academics, policy makers, human beings. The challenging of media outlets, journalists and social media platforms in their use of language and the questioning of whether it is indeed in public interest to write these things for a known eternity in a digital world. To combat the negative, with the positive, and empower women to take back their narratives - through digital literacy, legal knowledge and self advocacy - sharing the right to be forgotten pathways, the address to google, media and more. The combat the grotesque nay sayers and those who perpetuate and amplify the negativity with ideals of "throw away the key," "bring back the death penalty," "more prisons," "let them rot," and educate them with kindness, proportionality and rationality, as there by the grace of god go I - we are all one mistake away from a moral misstep and misdemeanour that could outlive us.
If those of us who commit crime, are to be held to account and understand the depths of accountability for our actions, then so should the people who report on it. Sentencing in this country is by design, by guidelines, supposedly so its ethical reporting - the two don't marry up.
If a woman serves a sentence, it must end in accordance with it's timeline.
For me, 27 months issued in December 2020, should have meant a line was drawn at the point of sentence expiration. My offender manager said to me the week before my release "when you walk through those gates, you're a free woman, you're sentence here is over," Of course, semantics, I was released upon tag, tagged for 4 months, on licence with probation meetings until the end of my sentence so freedom was not an accurate summary - however, my sentnece is still ongoing, 5 years after the fact, 10 years after the crime. It's endless. I'll speak today and those who hear me, may well google me to follow up, engage. If they do, they'll find the topics I'm talking about - they won't find Francesca Barker-Mills, speaker. They'll find the dishonest baker who defrauded half of Manchester with radiator loaves and 5* holidays - only one of those is true. In 2025, none of those are relevant.
And yet, you'll have to work hard to find my LinkedIn and the life I have now, who I am now, who I've always been underneath the chaos and behind the bullshit.
And maybe when you find me on page 2 or 3, you'll understand the severity of the issue.
That nice suits and black brogues, don't mean anything. Google does.
