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I was brought up in Grove Hill in Middlesbrough, which is where I still live. It was a rough place when I was growing up and it’s even worse now. It’s not so bad if you’ve always lived here but if you try and come here from outside then you’re unlikely to stay long because the people here will force you out. I should think more than half of the people here are on heroin or crack or both and a lot of them have spent time in prison.
My real dad was an armed robber and he was away in prison. One time when he came out he tried to hurt my mum and after that my mum stayed with my step-dad. Me and my brother were always in trouble with the police and at first my step-dad was snobby about it, but he had to change because that was how it was. I had one brother by my real dad and two half brothers and a half sister. My mum rejected me and my brother in favour of her new family. I’ve forgiven her for it now but that’s not to say it didn’t happen.
By the time I was ten or eleven I was shoplifting to get the things I wanted or sometimes just the things I needed. My mum never had anything so I looked after myself my own way. When I was eleven I was arrested and taken to the police station just like all the other times except this time it was different. As usual I phoned my mum and asked her to come and pick me up but she refused and told me she didn’t want anything more to do with me. By that time my older brother was already in care so it seemed to me she wanted rid of us both so she could have her new family with my step-dad. Her refusal to come and get me remains my most painful memory and doesn’t seem to soften with the years.
I spent a year in a children’s home in Stockton before I was allowed to come home but it wasn’t long before I was back in care again. When I was fifteen I was sent to Low Newton because I’d been shoplifting. No one had checked my age and they’d assumed I was sixteen, so when they found out I was only fifteen I was sent back to court. I told the magistrates I’d rather be in Low Newton than back in a care home and they let me stay because I was nearly sixteen.
I’ve been in and out of prison, mainly for shoplifting. I started using heroin when I was twenty one - I was first given it when I was serving a sentence in Styal Prison - and I’ve been on it or methadone or both since then. I served my last sentence a couple of years ago. I was pregnant when I went in and I was on a methadone script. The prison reduced the script which made me ill. I thought I was going to lose my child because of the shock to my system. I only used methadone during that sentence because I was pregnant but during all my other sentences I’ve used heroin and other things: there’s never been any problem with getting drugs in prison.
I’ve got two children, a boy and a girl. Last year they were both put on the at risk register because some kids came into the house whilst my boyfriend was injecting his warfarin medication and Social Services thought he’d been injecting heroin in front of the children. I’ve been told they’re being taken off the register next month.
I had a probation officer a few years ago who was different from the others. He listened to me and he helped me in practical ways like helping me sort out the bond for my house; the lady who gives me my methadone also talks to me. It makes all the difference in the world when people bother to take a moment to try to understand. All of a sudden it makes the world seem like a brighter and more hopeful place. But those people are few and far between.
