Speaker 1: You're listening to a Mama Mia podcast. Mama Miya acknowledges
Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast
Speaker 1: is recorded on. I'm MEA Friedman and the team at
Speaker 1: Mama and MEA are bringing you over one hundred hours
Speaker 1: of the very best of the podcasts that we've made
Speaker 1: from across our podcast network. Do you know that we
Speaker 1: have something like fifty six different podcasts here at Mamma Mia.
Speaker 1: And if you follow this one, we have selected some
Speaker 1: others that you might like to listen to as well,
Speaker 1: and we've also brought back some of our most popular
Speaker 1: and most riveting stories from No Filter. Kerry Tucker's story
Speaker 1: is one of those stories that really sticks with you.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's because she experienced something that most of
Speaker 1: us would consider our worst nightmare. She was in prison
Speaker 1: for four and a half years. But the funny part
Speaker 1: is she loved it. She actually loved being in prison.
Speaker 1: I interviewed Kerrie in twenty eighteen, and in the years
Speaker 1: since and then she's continued to be an advocate for women,
Speaker 1: both women who were in prison and those women after
Speaker 1: their release. And I know that her story is going
Speaker 1: to stay with you like it did with me. I
Speaker 1: was just I had so many questions you'll be shocked
Speaker 1: to hear, and Kerrie answered all of them.
Speaker 2: Even though you've gotten out of prison, you still have
Speaker 2: to serve time. You know that you're still going to
Speaker 2: be judge. You're going to be held accountable for that
Speaker 2: crime for your rest of your life. And I'm the
Speaker 2: first one to say absolutely not.
Speaker 1: From the mom of mea podcast network, I'm Meya Friedman
Speaker 1: and this is no filter, real stories that will make
Speaker 1: you lean in. How do you prepare to go to
Speaker 1: prison and what's life like when you get there? How
Speaker 1: is a mother do you tell your two little girls
Speaker 1: that they aren't going to see you for anywhere up
Speaker 1: to seven years. Carrie Tucker was jailed in two thousand
Speaker 1: and four for one of the biggest white collar crimes
Speaker 1: committed by a female in Victoria. She'd been stealing money
Speaker 1: from her employers, and she owned up to it, was
Speaker 1: found guilty, and she spent four and a half years
Speaker 1: behind bars in a maximum security prison. When Carrie arrived
Speaker 1: in jail, she was utterly terrified and totally clueless about
Speaker 1: what was going to happen to her next. From sex
Speaker 1: to violence, friendships and babies. And drug addiction and making
Speaker 1: cups of tea for murderers. Life is very big and
Speaker 1: very complicated on the inside, and it's also very different
Speaker 1: to the way you might imagine it to be. In fact,
Speaker 1: the most surprising part of this story is that at
Speaker 1: the end of her sentence, Kerry Tucker actually asked if
Speaker 1: she could stay in prison. This story is so interesting
Speaker 1: and you're gonna love it. Carrie, tell me about the
Speaker 1: day you got arrested.
Speaker 2: It's funny when I get asked that question, because there's
Speaker 2: two different memories. I knew that I was about to
Speaker 2: be arrested, you know, I just didn't know when That
Speaker 2: waiting was just terrific. I didn't know that they'd had
Speaker 2: me under surveillance for a week. One must remember that
Speaker 2: this was a really big crime in a very small town.
Speaker 2: Anywhere else, they wouldn't have put me under surveillance because
Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't a violent offender and I was
Speaker 2: sitting at home with my daughters. I went to the gym,
Speaker 2: and they arrested me at the gym, so that was
Speaker 2: really good. So that day, you know, being arrested, you know,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of things that I learned from that,
Speaker 2: because I was very compliant, I knew that I'd done
Speaker 2: the wrong thing. I wanted to own up to it.
Speaker 2: I felt, if you're going to be big enough to
Speaker 2: do this sort of stuff, then own up to it
Speaker 2: and just go through the process and whatnot. But there
Speaker 2: are a lot of things that people need to realize
Speaker 2: that in that as soon as I was taken back
Speaker 2: to the station, they actually said to me, you know,
Speaker 2: if you don't confess, we're going to get too uniformed
Speaker 2: officers to go up to the children's school and preschool
Speaker 2: and put them in foster care. Now, there were two
Speaker 2: things about that was that I didn't know they couldn't
Speaker 2: do that, so it was a bluff. And I sang
Speaker 2: like a bird anyway, so I had full intentions of it.
Speaker 2: So it was sort of a mute point. But what
Speaker 2: it did made me realize is that, you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of times when I used to sit back and think, well,
Speaker 2: police don't use these sort of tactics, you know, I
Speaker 2: actually saw firsthand. So a lot of women that say
Speaker 2: they were treated certain ways, I can say, you know,
Speaker 2: but that's not everyone in the police force.
Speaker 1: Obviously, where did they take you from the gym.
Speaker 2: Back to the police station and then back out to
Speaker 2: my house. When we got out to the house, there
Speaker 2: was this great, big truck and about eight or nine
Speaker 2: police cars. It looked like a crime scene. As they
Speaker 2: were searching your house, they were removing every no, no, no,
Speaker 2: they just removed everything. They gutted it. They took everything
Speaker 2: that I had as restitution. I hadn't ever been charged yet,
Speaker 2: let alone tried or found guilty or whatnot. I hadn't
Speaker 2: even been interviewed. So I literally was back out there.
Speaker 2: They were gutting the house.
Speaker 1: So they took everything because they thought they might have
Speaker 1: been bought with the proceeds. Yes, crimes, because you'd embezzled
Speaker 1: money from your employe.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So at the time of your arrest, you had two
Speaker 1: little girls. How old were they?
Speaker 2: They were five and seven?
Speaker 1: And you talked about the time between knowing you'd been
Speaker 1: caught and then being arrested.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: I've always wondered what that time is like in terms
Speaker 1: of preparing. Essentially, you knew you were going to jail.
Speaker 2: Yes, but but knowing that and actually having it happen
Speaker 2: are two different things. You know, that time, I was
Speaker 2: just waiting. I can remember. It was like I was
Speaker 2: watching myself in the land room. You know, I can
Speaker 2: still see it now if I look into my memory,
Speaker 2: someone was watching me, just sitting and waiting and going
Speaker 2: through the motions. You know. I'd tuck the kids away
Speaker 2: with their dad sort of things so that, you know,
Speaker 2: if anything happened, they were with their dad. So I
Speaker 2: didn't want that used against me or to have to
Speaker 2: worry about that. The one thing that I couldn't do,
Speaker 2: And to this day it's still sort of, you know,
Speaker 2: make makes me sort of a little uneasy. As I
Speaker 2: couldn't tell the girls that I was leaving them. It
Speaker 2: didn't matter how I tried to gloss it up, It
Speaker 2: didn't matter how I tried to approach it. I couldn't
Speaker 2: do it. As and as fearless as I am, not, No,
Speaker 2: I absolutely couldn't. I left that up to you know,
Speaker 2: their father makes.
Speaker 1: You couldn't because it was too confronting for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then yep, I can't even talk about it.
Speaker 2: It was just so difficult. So it was it was
Speaker 2: that I unfortunately left up to my ex husband, so
Speaker 2: it was easier, and I think it worked out that
Speaker 2: way better anyway, because they were eased into the thought
Speaker 2: process that I'd gone to More Durid to see the
Speaker 2: family and then something had happened, and something had happened,
Speaker 2: and so you know, it sort of dragged out for
Speaker 2: a little while before while mummy was gone, and then
Speaker 2: we sort of moved into that that having to tell
Speaker 2: them that I'm actually in prison.
Speaker 1: You were actually at the gym to try to build
Speaker 1: up your strength to prepare for prison.
Speaker 2: And again, you know, this is what I go to
Speaker 2: a lot of pains to talk about. You know about prison?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 2: In my mind? It was everything from the movie.
Speaker 1: So I, yes, did you watch Prisoner?
Speaker 2: No amazing?
Speaker 1: How old are you at this stage?
Speaker 2: Forty? Real life begins at forty, So in one way,
Speaker 2: I was just about to turn forty. I had my
Speaker 2: forties in prison.
Speaker 1: I've jumped ahead. I want to ask you about your
Speaker 1: first day arriving at prison. Were you so scared? No?
Speaker 2: But one of the reasons is with the women. It
Speaker 2: backs up and you go into police holding cells around Melbourne,
Speaker 2: and as one woman is released from prison, someone from
Speaker 2: the police holding cells in the order that they arrived
Speaker 2: goes out to the prison. So I was there for
Speaker 2: NELLI so the women's prisons are full always.
Speaker 1: In fact, they've just probably a whole up.
Speaker 2: They've just built another another block of cells out there
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: So you spent how long in the holding cells?
Speaker 2: Three weeks? You know, at least that was horrific. Because
Speaker 2: the police holding cells are run by the police. Now
Speaker 2: there's a big difference between police and corrections officers because
Speaker 2: the police are the police and the corrections officers are
Speaker 2: civilians that have done a six week training course. The
Speaker 2: police's job is thankless and I absolutely understand that and
Speaker 2: respect it. And in the Maraban holding cells, I was
Speaker 2: treated very very well, except for a female officer there.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's a really hard place. It's all concrete.
Speaker 2: You can't wear, you know, socks, you can't wear shoes.
Speaker 2: They used to just hose it out with a fire
Speaker 2: hose at six o'clock in the morning. This was winter
Speaker 2: and it was you know that the blankets all had
Speaker 2: women had lice, everyone was menstruating.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 2: It was just dreadful and if you needed pads or
Speaker 2: tampons whatever, you had to ask an officer and they
Speaker 2: bring you one. You know, they didn't just put it
Speaker 2: in the cell for you know, it was just.
Speaker 1: Horrible, so quite dehumanizing.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. And I was in there with some old
Speaker 2: school heavies. You know, what does that mean? They'd been
Speaker 2: in prison hard times, and they knew all the people
Speaker 2: that needed to be known. You know. They were movies
Speaker 2: and shakers, you know, they you know, and sort of
Speaker 2: mucked with a lot of these you know.
Speaker 1: Did they look as scary as you're making them sound.
Speaker 2: Ah, No, because it's hard because there were some of
Speaker 2: them had you know, lots of tacts and whatever else.
Speaker 2: So that was a bit confronting to me, which I
Speaker 2: always assigned it as being tough. But they're also going
Speaker 2: through withdrawal, so I saw their vulnerabilities as well.
Speaker 1: You know, because a lot of them were taking drugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they were all heroin addicts, you know, so
Speaker 2: so then they were going through withdraw so there was
Speaker 2: about as sick as you can be, you know. And
Speaker 2: so I saw both sides of that. And I've and
Speaker 2: I've always wondered, always wondered when I was in there
Speaker 2: that they could be so so weak and so sick
Speaker 2: yet still worry about how I was going, you know,
Speaker 2: because I was a newbie. I was you know, and
Speaker 2: that showed me a lot about the women and how
Speaker 2: women tend to look after each other.
Speaker 1: Were you the only white collar criminal in those holding sound? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they knew straight away, you know, the nails
Speaker 2: gave it away well, you know, and I just didn't
Speaker 2: have the appearance of being a street criminal, so to speak.
Speaker 1: And are you still in your active car?
Speaker 2: I was, actually yes, I was. They thought I'd been
Speaker 2: done for shoplifting, you know. I was one of these
Speaker 2: you know, privileged women that you know, still needed something
Speaker 2: in their life. And I was like, no, No.
Speaker 1: The women that you were in the holding cell with,
Speaker 1: what kinds of things were they there for?
Speaker 2: Or on drugs? Drug charges? One was on a violent
Speaker 2: you know, a road rage thing, I think, but they
Speaker 2: were all related to being addicted to drugs, you know.
Speaker 2: So whether it be robbery, there was a fight on
Speaker 2: a platform or something over drugs and whatever, generally drugs.
Speaker 2: And you'll find that with most women, in the greater
Speaker 2: majority of women in prison, and it's such a sad
Speaker 2: thing because they don't want to be drug addicts, you know.
Speaker 2: But I would I've put this question a lot out
Speaker 2: there in the sense that if you've lived the lives
Speaker 2: that they have lived and then they end up being
Speaker 2: drug addicts. They're victims before they become perpetrators. And that's
Speaker 2: not an excuse, it's a fact. It's a research fact.
Speaker 2: And most you know, as opposed to men men men men,
Speaker 2: you know, they don't know their aggressives. You know, they'll
Speaker 2: get into a drug feud or you know, a turf
Speaker 2: war or something like that. You know, and they don't
Speaker 2: generally have an intimate relationship, whereas women, you know, they
Speaker 2: more often than not have an or had a relationship
Speaker 2: with their aggressors. They're violent, you know, perpetrator, and that
Speaker 2: person's probably told them I love you at least once
Speaker 2: in their life. And that could be the rapist father,
Speaker 2: it could be the domestic violence husband or partner. It
Speaker 2: could be you know, the brother, the priest, this, that
Speaker 2: and the other, you know, and a lot of the
Speaker 2: girls are then you know, they're victims of incest or
Speaker 2: rape or sexual abuse. Then they're turfed out on the
Speaker 2: street as soon as they start talking about it. They
Speaker 2: get onto drugs, then they have to commit crime. And
Speaker 2: they're more of a nuisance to society than they are
Speaker 2: a threat to society. And while I was in prison.
Speaker 2: There were no specialist programs for individual rape incest. There
Speaker 2: wasn't even domestic violence programs when I was there.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how many women in prison, just about
Speaker 1: everyone sexual abuse or domestic violence.
Speaker 2: A very small minority aren't and they're the true criminals
Speaker 2: in my mind.
Speaker 1: When you arrived in prison, what was your experience, I mean,
Speaker 1: after the holding cells, it must have. Was it like
Speaker 1: arriving at a balley resort.
Speaker 2: Totally totally, except except I it was a prison had
Speaker 2: been locked down, and it was and then by the
Speaker 2: time we got you know, it takes a long time
Speaker 2: to be processed into a prison, so it was dark
Speaker 2: and we were escorted over to this unit. Now at
Speaker 2: the time, I don't know what unit was what, And
Speaker 2: I was put into a disabled celt because again the
Speaker 2: prison was full. It had a dinner, and it had
Speaker 2: a pillow, and it had shower. We didn't have to
Speaker 2: keep pushing the button and it has shampoo. And I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, this is this is what
Speaker 2: heaven is going to be like, you know. And then
Speaker 2: next morning, the next morning, the most terrifying thing you
Speaker 2: can do is when they come around and they open
Speaker 2: the doors to let you out. They let everyone in
Speaker 2: the prison out. I had no idea what was on
Speaker 2: the other side of that door. I didn't know what
Speaker 2: was prison as much as I come from the police
Speaker 2: holding cells, and I was sort of rough and ready,
Speaker 2: you know. Now, I didn't know what the big girls'
Speaker 2: school was like. And as I opened that door, I
Speaker 2: was I can remember standing at the door, going, just
Speaker 2: do it, you know this, just do it. And so
Speaker 2: I pushed it open a little bit and this giant
Speaker 2: woman just just pulled the doors off their hinges and said,
Speaker 2: you know good, I my name is Robin. Let's go
Speaker 2: for a walk. And I was like, and she was
Speaker 2: twice or so, and I'm like, yeah, I was, you know,
Speaker 2: I agreed with it. I was a very agreeable person
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, and I said, off we go.
Speaker 2: And we walked outside and she said, this is Bomber
Speaker 2: and I looked at Bomber and I realized it was
Speaker 2: because she followed Essendon and then there was Sparky, and
Speaker 2: Sparky wasn't an electrician. So she turned around. She said,
Speaker 2: you know, Bombers threatened, you know, she blows up airports
Speaker 2: and things like that, and judges and things and sparky lights,
Speaker 2: big fires and things like that, and I was like,
Speaker 2: and I was onder the fact that I went up
Speaker 2: to one of the offices and I said, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Call me old fashion, but I'm starting to suspect that
Speaker 2: I'm in the unit for the criminally insane. And she
Speaker 2: said she just sawt of looked at me, and she said,
Speaker 2: what makes you think that? And I looked over and
Speaker 2: I said, I said, that woman over there is drawing
Speaker 2: a face on her pillow and she's talking to her.
Speaker 2: And I said, I don't know, I'm just suspicious. Call me,
Speaker 2: call me old fashion, and she said, yeah, no you are.
Speaker 2: She said, it's just that, you know, am I insane?
Speaker 2: Because apparently only the insane people don't know they're insane?
Speaker 2: So I thought, am I one of them?
Speaker 1: My goodness?
Speaker 2: And they said they said no, look, the other place
Speaker 2: is full. You're just going to be here for a
Speaker 2: couple of days. And so that was my introduction to prison.
Speaker 2: And again, you know, after that, working that out and
Speaker 2: sort of getting to know people and putting your face
Speaker 2: out there as the new person, you know, then the
Speaker 2: wonder because it's such a place that doesn't change, so
Speaker 2: as soon as you see new faces. That's the only
Speaker 2: thing in your world that changes. So you've got to
Speaker 2: just get in amongst it.
Speaker 1: You're in a high maximum security women's prison. Why maximum security, because.
Speaker 2: Where there's such a small population of women in prison
Speaker 2: in Victoria anyway, there's a maximum security prison. You only
Speaker 2: need the prison, you only need one prisoner in there
Speaker 2: to be maximum security, for the whole place to be
Speaker 2: maximum security. The only other place we have is Taran
Speaker 2: Gauer and it's minimum. It's not medium, it's minimum, and
Speaker 2: it's right out towards Bendigos.
Speaker 1: But I would have thought you would have been minimum security.
Speaker 2: I mean it was you have to be sentenced first
Speaker 2: a white collar crime, but you have to be sentenced first.
Speaker 2: So I was on remand for eighteen months. So while
Speaker 2: you're on remand, your maximum security and it's only you.
Speaker 1: Remind me the part between being charged and being sentenced.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're in prison awaiting your trial.
Speaker 1: Okay, So no bail for you, no.
Speaker 2: No, And so they hold you because they have enough
Speaker 2: evidence to support going to trial. It's how long your
Speaker 2: trial gets to go to court, and on the bigger
Speaker 2: cases it's usually out in months to two years. So
Speaker 2: your maximum security. The minimum security prison has no fences,
Speaker 2: so only people on very short sentences that if they
Speaker 2: know they're not going to run the risk of running away.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't put someone up there on murder, you know,
Speaker 2: in twenty years, because they'll run. So you've only got
Speaker 2: this one prison that holds everyone, So everyone in it
Speaker 2: is maximum security. Even though once I was sentenced, I
Speaker 2: could have gone to Tarangouer, but I didn't want to.
Speaker 2: I had a really important role at the maximum security prison,
Speaker 2: and to me, it wasn't maximum. It was just my prison.
Speaker 1: How is it different from what you expected?
Speaker 2: Because it's a funny place as well. Once you settle
Speaker 2: in and you know where you stand, I suss that
Speaker 2: out very very quickly. I have a good intuition and whatnot.
Speaker 2: I'm also very interested in women. I was also very
Speaker 2: much one of them. I never set myself aside from them.
Speaker 2: Whether it was a drug crime, whether it was murder,
Speaker 2: whether it was whatever. I was right in there with them,
Speaker 2: you know. So I didn't Sometimes in prison, white collar
Speaker 2: people contend to separate themselves and go, well, you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't harm anyone, and I didn't do this and
Speaker 2: that the other and because you don't actually get your
Speaker 2: hands dirty. That's that's today's nail. That's a sure fire
Speaker 2: way of getting the compound to turn against you. You know.
Speaker 2: So I was very much a part of them, and
Speaker 2: I you know, I liked a great deal of the women.
Speaker 2: Some of them I couldn't stand, but like any group
Speaker 2: of yeah, exactly, that's that's my point. But it's it's
Speaker 2: I liked the vast majority of women. Once they come
Speaker 2: off there withdrawals and they come off their drugs and
Speaker 2: whatever else, that's when they really need help, because that's
Speaker 2: when reality for them really sort of settles in. And
Speaker 2: you know, so I liked the woman.
Speaker 1: Did you have to suspend judgment?
Speaker 2: That's a good question because sometimes yes and sometimes no.
Speaker 2: You know, the amount of women that come in that
Speaker 2: you know of a crime, and a big crime, whether
Speaker 2: it be murder or attempted murder, you know, on partners,
Speaker 2: you know, that to me just was water off a
Speaker 2: ducks back. You describe.
Speaker 1: Tending to one person who arrives because you sort of
Speaker 1: greeted the new arts. Yeah, and she just stabbed her
Speaker 1: partner like twenty times, and as you were just sort
Speaker 1: of not processing her but kind of easing her into
Speaker 1: and making sure she was okay and settling her in.
Speaker 1: She was just telling you about her crimes, and you
Speaker 1: were just like.
Speaker 2: I remember that I was. I was trying to make
Speaker 2: her a cup of coffee and she and you know,
Speaker 2: and she was sort of like she was just sitting
Speaker 2: And this is what tended to happen, is that it'll
Speaker 2: be the first that they can confess about something or
Speaker 2: get it off their chests. Not so much confess, but
Speaker 2: get it off their chest. It's probably a better way
Speaker 2: of saying it because they know they're around someone who cares.
Speaker 2: I've made that very upfront. They also know that I'm
Speaker 2: not going to say anything. I'm one of them. I'm not,
Speaker 2: you know, and no one will listen to me anyway,
Speaker 2: And I don't care. They've got a due process that
Speaker 2: they can go through. But sometimes people want to do that,
Speaker 2: you know. They feel the need that they can talk
Speaker 2: to someone that they can trust. They don't even know
Speaker 2: their lawyers by that stage. So and I remember she
Speaker 2: was sitting there, and I think it's the first time
Speaker 2: because the crime of stabbing him was only about five
Speaker 2: hours old, so she'd been caught taken through the police system,
Speaker 2: which is very non individual sort of you know, and
Speaker 2: then brought out here. So I was the first person,
Speaker 2: and when she sat down next to me, I said
Speaker 2: to her, sweetheart, you're fine, You're safe. You're safe here.
Speaker 2: We women are going to look after you. And it's okay.
Speaker 2: I need you to know that so that you can
Speaker 2: then relax and we can start working on where you're
Speaker 2: going to go. Have you got kids, tell me about
Speaker 2: your kids, that sort of stuff, And that's that can
Speaker 2: bring a whole new wave of safety, because sometimes it's
Speaker 2: safer on the inside than it is on the outside,
Speaker 2: you know, because the outside is where the crimes are committed.
Speaker 2: On the inside, we're dealing with broken people themselves. But
Speaker 2: I'd heard it so many times, you know, And I
Speaker 2: remember I was trying to she just wasn't cooperating and
Speaker 2: getting this coffee made for her and she wants your girls,
Speaker 2: and she's like, she's like, then I stabbed in, you know,
Speaker 2: and and and you know, I could I could hear
Speaker 2: this noise in his chest and then I'd be like, right, sorry,
Speaker 2: you know, did you want milk in that? In that coffee?
Speaker 2: She's said, yeah, yeah, I have to milk. I said,
Speaker 2: to her, Oh okay, so sorry, sorry you were stabbing
Speaker 2: him and you heard noises like you just pick up
Speaker 2: from there and off we go. And it wasn't until
Speaker 2: one of the officers said to me, you know, Jesus,
Speaker 2: you know, and then I started thinking, okay, maybe this
Speaker 2: is becoming just too common. It's becoming too common for me.
Speaker 2: So those sort of crimes I never you know, I
Speaker 2: never ever had any judgment there. There are a couple
Speaker 2: of people that I did have judgment on absolutely, but
Speaker 2: that was because I absolutely did not like them their heart,
Speaker 2: their soul or whatever, and that's just part and parcel
Speaker 2: of a community of women. But you know, yeah, I
Speaker 2: didn't have any any judgment at all.
Speaker 1: What about the place in prison of women who are
Speaker 1: there for her harming or killing their kids.
Speaker 2: That's in protection from protection from protection. So you've got protection,
Speaker 2: which is which is generally where women go if they
Speaker 2: are if someone on the compound, on the main part
Speaker 2: of the prison is a threat to them, and it
Speaker 2: will always be if someone has testified against another prisoner.
Speaker 2: So you might have two women that have done the
Speaker 2: same crime and one is staying, you know, quiet, and
Speaker 2: the other one goes. It was her. So that's the
Speaker 2: worst thing that can happen in a criminal world. So
Speaker 2: they'll go to the protection or what they call the boner,
Speaker 2: so they'll go to protection for that. People that have
Speaker 2: that have sexually abused their kids and want to go
Speaker 2: to another area that's within that and even smaller, and
Speaker 2: that's protection from protection because the women that have sexually abused.
Speaker 1: Their kids or harmed there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the women that are in protection anyway,
Speaker 2: they're still just normal creams that have given somebody else up.
Speaker 2: But they still have opinions about women harming children, so
Speaker 2: they need to and I don't understand. Let's just go back.
Speaker 1: So the women who've harmed their children, they they in
Speaker 1: a separate place.
Speaker 2: But there in where we were there there's a protection
Speaker 2: building and there's the protection prisoners off to the right
Speaker 2: and then off to the left. They're segregated again, they
Speaker 2: because the women in protection still have issues with them,
Speaker 2: let alone.
Speaker 1: So they're the lowest of the absolutely in pretty much everybody.
Speaker 2: And particularly in women as well, because because all of
Speaker 2: the women see themselves in those tormented kids. You know,
Speaker 2: they've all been sexually abused, you know, ninety percent probably
Speaker 2: more have been sexually abused as a child, so they
Speaker 2: know what it's like. And then this woman comes in
Speaker 2: saying that this is what they've done to their child.
Speaker 2: They see themselves in those children, and.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, it's just quarantine and population.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, And and when they're moved, the entire prison
Speaker 2: will be locked down. Everyone will be taken back to
Speaker 2: their cells or to their cottages and whatnot and lockdown
Speaker 2: because if they're you know, if if there's any prisoners
Speaker 2: out on the compound. When these women are on the compound.
Speaker 1: Film, what do you do for sex?
Speaker 2: Well, it depends. You know, I'm heterosexual, and I wasn't
Speaker 2: about to. It didn't interest me. You know, I can
Speaker 2: women can go without if they need to. Young younger women,
Speaker 2: of course, there were the ones that had you know,
Speaker 2: that come in that were gay and got into relationships
Speaker 2: with other women that were gay, which is which is fabulous,
Speaker 2: but that always ends in tears because someone gets released
Speaker 2: before somebody else, and then there's those expectations the younger girls.
Speaker 2: You know, it was just a it was just a
Speaker 2: sex sex word yep, gate gay gay cat. But you know,
Speaker 2: and that's and that's because women a lot of the
Speaker 2: women that were having sully, older women from say thirty on,
Speaker 2: that were having relationships with other women. It was more
Speaker 2: about the companionship, about the affection.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was the first time that they had actually because
Speaker 2: I used to say, why change why, you know, And
Speaker 2: that's what it was about. Wasn't the companionship and that,
Speaker 2: you know, not having the crap belt out of you?
Speaker 2: I guess. So, you know, it's very complex situations when
Speaker 2: it comes to you know, you get it. You get
Speaker 2: a lot of girls that come in that are you know,
Speaker 2: twenty one, twenty two, you know, and they come and
Speaker 2: upset the balance of stable gay relationships in there. You know,
Speaker 2: they come in and just blow and put a hand
Speaker 2: grenade amongst it, and that causes a lot of issues,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So there are no conjugal visits with no no, no,
Speaker 1: and no sleeping with guards.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I've been watching too much Orange in your Black.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yes, the American prisons are quite different, you know,
Speaker 2: but no at Taran Gower, there are you know you
Speaker 2: because they have the little family units and that's what
Speaker 2: four it's all. Tarang I was also good for women
Speaker 2: that are coming off twenty years sentences. They'll send them
Speaker 2: up there for the last three years, you know, or
Speaker 2: two years, you know, so that they can slowly because
Speaker 2: reintegrading back into the community is a huge, huge thing
Speaker 2: to be faced with. But you know, I know I was.
Speaker 2: I can't imagine after fifteen, sixteen, seven, eight years, you know,
Speaker 2: particularly is an older woman, you know, so, but we
Speaker 2: certainly didn't have no. This is a maximum security prison,
Speaker 2: so you know, maximum everything.
Speaker 1: Early on, you describe a conversation you had to have
Speaker 1: with your daughters on the phone when you had to
Speaker 1: tell them you couldn't come home and they couldn't understand why,
Speaker 1: and they were very distressed. They were five and seven
Speaker 1: when you were initially arrested. Yeah, how do you stay
Speaker 1: being a mum and stay connected to your children for
Speaker 1: those formative years when you're in prison.
Speaker 2: Look, it's the hardest thing ever, you know. I think
Speaker 2: that might have been when I was in the visit
Speaker 2: center when you know, I'm watching the first visit I
Speaker 2: had with the girls and they come racing in and
Speaker 2: you know, their little little arms and legs, you know,
Speaker 2: just hang off you. And then seeing them walked out
Speaker 2: of the visit center with two burly corrections officers you know,
Speaker 2: and to them, they were like policemen, you know, and
Speaker 2: they're yelling out, come with us, mummy, come with it.
Speaker 2: It still breaks my heart today, It just yeah, it
Speaker 2: just breaks my heart. So trying to remain relevant in
Speaker 2: their life was the thing that fuelled me because I
Speaker 2: always knew that I was going to get over the
Speaker 2: crime in a sense, you know, and I don't mean
Speaker 2: that in any disrespectful way, but I knew that I
Speaker 2: would be able to move through that. But to get
Speaker 2: my daughter's respect back and whatnot, I knew I had
Speaker 2: to do something much bigger than my sentence, you know,
Speaker 2: so that I could eclipse all of that and for
Speaker 2: them to say that they're proud of me from that
Speaker 2: moment to that moment, I had to do something major
Speaker 2: because you know, for the girls to be able to
Speaker 2: do that, we had six minute phone calls, you know,
Speaker 2: so six minutes with each child. Twelve minute phone calls
Speaker 2: and it cuts off. There are automated phones out there,
Speaker 2: and I had two a week, so when there's six
Speaker 2: and seven, you know, i'd have six minutes with its
Speaker 2: child and you know, three minutes into it, they still
Speaker 2: haven't said a word. You're there you're okay, sweetheart, or this.
Speaker 2: They might be crying and then they'll just start to
Speaker 2: open up, and you've got to say, put Channing on,
Speaker 2: put Channing on Sarah, puts Sarah's crying.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's just I would have I didn't do anything
Speaker 2: wrong in prison, but I would have absolutely sold my
Speaker 2: soul for a mobile phone because I would have done anything.
Speaker 2: Decide women have them No, No, some women silly, stupidly enough,
Speaker 2: you know, brought brought them in. And they bring them
Speaker 2: in vaginally. Yeah, so I'll never forget. One day we
Speaker 2: didn't end up putting this book, but one woman had
Speaker 2: just arrived, and then we had dog squad raid, you know,
Speaker 2: from the police, and we were standing out in line.
Speaker 2: You know that they run the dogs over you to
Speaker 2: see that.
Speaker 1: How did that happen? Often?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What were they looking for?
Speaker 2: Drugs? Anything? They just it was a routine sort of thing.
Speaker 1: You know. So vagina is the way people would smuggle
Speaker 1: things in and out of the prison.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. And and one woman can can bring in
Speaker 2: a ship loaded drugs really vaginally. I didn't, Yes, that's
Speaker 2: exactly totally so, you know, and this woman had brought
Speaker 2: in the tiny little mobile phone hadn't thought it through
Speaker 2: because it started ringing in her vagina. The dogs got
Speaker 2: of walking along with the dogs, you know, seeing if
Speaker 2: we've got drugged. And next to it there's this mobile phone.
Speaker 2: We could houst hear it and it was like and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh my god, I looked at us. You
Speaker 2: said you're vagina ringing.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, and put it on flatious.
Speaker 2: It was hilarious. It was like you didn't think that
Speaker 2: one's really you know, some of those things were just
Speaker 2: you know, there are some really funny funny times in
Speaker 2: there as well. But yeah, so most of the most
Speaker 2: of the drugs. Because you're going to prison doesn't mean
Speaker 2: that you're going to stop taking drugs. You're an adict,
Speaker 2: and an addict is an addict is an addict. You
Speaker 2: get more drugs in prison than anywhere else, you know,
Speaker 2: because that's how it is. That's that's how it works.
Speaker 2: Everyone's an addict. They don't want to go through withdrawal,
Speaker 2: you know, and also being in prison is enough to
Speaker 2: probably take drugs as well.
Speaker 1: You've sat with a lot of people going through withdraw.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, and like horrific. It's it's it's terrific. They
Speaker 2: have diarrhea, they can't get off their beds. So the obvious,
Speaker 2: you know, happened to the sweating. The you know, some
Speaker 2: of them I thought were going to have a heart attack,
Speaker 2: you know that, and they were so some of them
Speaker 2: were like forty five, forty six, forty seven kilos, you
Speaker 2: know they were, And it was just wretched. It breaks
Speaker 2: your heart, you know. And one of the first things
Speaker 2: I did was able to get cordial. You know, I'd
Speaker 2: go up because everything's rat you know, so I'd sneak
Speaker 2: up to the kitchen and get the girls up there
Speaker 2: and would steal extra cordial to take another scamper back
Speaker 2: down to you know, the remanding unit with mo Hall,
Speaker 2: you know, and give them you know, generally straight cordial,
Speaker 2: just to get some sugar into their system. You know.
Speaker 2: It was just terrific. It's people really don't understand that,
Speaker 2: you know, why they would want to not go through
Speaker 2: a withdrawal.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you had such purpose.
Speaker 2: I did. I knew your own prison, Yeah, I did,
Speaker 2: you know, And I think I think it also too,
Speaker 2: was it It was also a distraction from me from
Speaker 2: my children, you know, trying to trying to.
Speaker 1: Just Sue, a mother and other women.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and I was one of the healthiest there,
Speaker 2: and I could do this. Other girls, you know, they
Speaker 2: might have wanted to have but they couldn't. Either they
Speaker 2: didn't have the vocabulary or the education, or they were sick,
Speaker 2: or for whatever reason, it just happened to be there
Speaker 2: was a gap, and I happened to be there. One
Speaker 2: of the other things I did with the girls, too,
Speaker 2: was that we've all got good sense of humor, the
Speaker 2: girls as well. And so I'd get a card each
Speaker 2: day from the canteen, and I got the programs officers
Speaker 2: to get me some joke books, kids joke books, and
Speaker 2: each day I'd write in the card, you know, and
Speaker 2: I sequenced them so that you know, there was this
Speaker 2: ongoing fluid connection. So I'd say, you know, one card
Speaker 2: each I'll go dish and today I thought of you
Speaker 2: a hundred times, and then I'd put a joke in it,
Speaker 2: and then i'd do the same for Sarah. And then
Speaker 2: the next day i'd tell them what the answer to
Speaker 2: the joke was. And I thought of more one hundred
Speaker 2: and one times, right up until it was sixteen hundred
Speaker 2: times a day that I was thinking of them, and
Speaker 2: they've still got all those all of those you know,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize it until about twelve months ago. They've
Speaker 2: still got all the books of cards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it was that really like trying to parent, yeah,
Speaker 1: try trying to stay in their lives.
Speaker 2: Trying to stay in their lives. I couldn't parent. And
Speaker 2: it got to the point too where you know, they
Speaker 2: were talking, their lives were moving on and so naturally,
Speaker 2: so when they would come and talk to me about
Speaker 2: people I didn't know them, they were new friends, they
Speaker 2: were knew. So I just wasn't interested in that side
Speaker 2: of things because in prison, it's about the actual tangible connection,
Speaker 2: physical connection with me and my girls. When they started
Speaker 2: talking about stuff on the outside, I couldn't even visualize
Speaker 2: who they were or what they were or where they
Speaker 2: come from or whatever. So to me, they just weren't relevant.
Speaker 2: And it also showed how much I was missing out on,
Speaker 2: you know, So when they come to see me, I
Speaker 2: just wanted to sit and talk to them and just
Speaker 2: be with them and you know, be in that moment
Speaker 2: with them. So it was there's a disconnection there as well,
Speaker 2: because I just know who they'll talk about, you.
Speaker 1: Know, some of the women in there have arrived pregnant.
Speaker 1: And what happens if you give birth in jail? How
Speaker 1: does that go?
Speaker 2: Well, it depends. You know, most of the women that
Speaker 2: arrive that are pregnant, the fair majority when I was
Speaker 2: there anyway, were drug users. So the child was born addicted.
Speaker 2: Where possible, the child will be kept with the mother,
Speaker 2: and so the mother.
Speaker 1: Even if they were an addicted Yep.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, the mother will be taken into the hospital, she'll
Speaker 2: give birth, she'll come back out, and then she'll go
Speaker 2: back in each day to see the child where needed,
Speaker 2: or stay in there with them once she's okay. Bubb
Speaker 2: will usually stay on a little bit longer because they're addicted.
Speaker 2: But the prison will take the mother in and out
Speaker 2: and whatnot, and then the baby will come back. Unless
Speaker 2: there's any unless she's been convicted of a violent crime,
Speaker 2: unless there's been child offenses beforehand, unless DHS are involved,
Speaker 2: you know that sort of stuff, taking it out. All
Speaker 2: of that, the child will come back to the prison
Speaker 2: with the mother. And in my mind, I still stand
Speaker 2: by the fact that a child should be with its mother.
Speaker 2: So long was it safe a child shall be with
Speaker 2: this mother, Because I know with my daughters. You know,
Speaker 2: the love of a child, as you know, can never
Speaker 2: ever be touched, but the bond can absolutely be broken.
Speaker 2: And that's never good for anybody because you know, the
Speaker 2: particularly for the child. So the child needs to know
Speaker 2: that and have that connection with it for the whole time.
Speaker 2: The hidden victims of all of these are children that
Speaker 2: think that their mother's abandoned them, and that's worse than
Speaker 2: their father abandoned them, I believe, you know, because that
Speaker 2: mothering nurturing side, if it's lost when they're younger, it
Speaker 2: gives them the opportunity and the vulnerability to then enter
Speaker 2: into relationships like that where they feel rejected, you know,
Speaker 2: where they're not worth it.
Speaker 1: What was the narrative your girls were told about where
Speaker 1: you were and why you were there.
Speaker 2: We were honest with with where they were and with
Speaker 2: worth while I was there, and they started visiting me
Speaker 2: at the prison pretty early on. After a while they
Speaker 2: got used to it, and I don't think the funny
Speaker 2: thing is now yeah, so they got used to it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The hard part was was was, as I said, I
Speaker 2: couldn't you know, say I'm not coming home next week.
Speaker 2: I'm not coming home next month, I'm not coming home
Speaker 2: for years, you know.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's impossible for kids to think.
Speaker 2: So what I do and it was just by default,
Speaker 2: but because I didn't master plan this sort of thing,
Speaker 2: but it worked out better was drip feed them a
Speaker 2: little bit at a time, hopefully after Christmas, the judge
Speaker 2: will tell him when Mommy can come home, you know,
Speaker 2: even though I knew it was going to be, you know,
Speaker 2: i'd do it in six months since you know. And
Speaker 2: at the same time, they were sort of moving along
Speaker 2: a little bit as well. It was so living with
Speaker 2: their dad, yeah, and it was so different, and he
Speaker 2: was terrific. You know. I was so fortunate that they
Speaker 2: had a father that they could live with that tended
Speaker 2: to them where the mother was away, you know. So
Speaker 2: it was it was really quite It was really quite
Speaker 2: difficult for them to understand, particularly why Mum isn't there.
Speaker 2: But after a while they just got used to it.
Speaker 2: And I was only talking to Sarah, who's twenty one tomorrow,
Speaker 2: about this the other day and she said, you know,
Speaker 2: she just doesn't remember, and I think that's just that's
Speaker 2: something that she just probably doesn't want to remember, because
Speaker 2: she remembers things prior to that, so, you know, but
Speaker 2: it's nice to know that. You know, these are two
Speaker 2: very strong, really well you know, disciplined, really well organized,
Speaker 2: really responsible young women. You know, I'm very, very very
Speaker 2: lucky that it hasn't been generation.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot downe in the prison.
Speaker 2: You wrote a book, the children's book was I noticed
Speaker 2: a lot of women weren't seeing their kids. And again
Speaker 2: I go to great pains to say that women in
Speaker 2: prison do it tough, you know, and anybody that says
Speaker 2: anything different, it doesn't know. And they're not an authority
Speaker 2: on it, because they absolutely do. And you know, women
Speaker 2: from domestic violence are used to accepting blame. You know,
Speaker 2: it's always their fault, so you know that's they just
Speaker 2: get on with it. They're tough and they just get
Speaker 2: on with it. But they weren't seeing you know, a
Speaker 2: lot of them weren't seeing their kids, you know. And
Speaker 2: again it's not the women saying I'm their mother, I
Speaker 2: should be I've got every right so my kids blah
Speaker 2: blah blah. I've heard it all before. It's the children's
Speaker 2: right to see their mother. A child will visit their
Speaker 2: mother wherever they are and still love them. You know,
Speaker 2: they'll usually be you know, I won't even know what's
Speaker 2: around them. So that was what it was about, was
Speaker 2: it was trying to let everybody know that the prison
Speaker 2: is a safe place to visit, you know, for children
Speaker 2: to come to. The offices are fantastic, you know. They
Speaker 2: talked to the kids in her eyes, I was talking
Speaker 2: to your mummy the other day, you know. So it
Speaker 2: gives the kids this thought that they're in a mummy
Speaker 2: safe and she's in another community just for a little while.
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily a prison, so to speak. The visit
Speaker 2: center brand of Money was the general manager when I
Speaker 2: was there. He went to great pains to make sure
Speaker 2: that it was brightly colored, it had games, it had toys.
Speaker 2: You know, we could get photos taken with the kids,
Speaker 2: you know. So it was a really vibrant, you know,
Speaker 2: place to be. And I and my ex husband had
Speaker 2: issues as well, because, and understandably so, we had never
Speaker 2: been involved in the prison system before. He thought that
Speaker 2: the kids would come into the main compound and wander
Speaker 2: around and have barbecues with the arm robbers, and that
Speaker 2: I took offense with because everyone knew that you didn't
Speaker 2: invite the armed robbers for the barbecues as they always
Speaker 2: knocked off the meat. They seriously, so I wasn't having
Speaker 2: a part of that. So I thought, we'll have to
Speaker 2: write a book and educate people so that when, for instance,
Speaker 2: my or someone that's going to prison, we can get
Speaker 2: the book. Lawyers can give the book to the you know,
Speaker 2: the mum or the dad. And it's a color reading
Speaker 2: book and it steps through a visit that Shannon and
Speaker 2: Sarah have with me, and it'll say the dog squads
Speaker 2: come in, and the dogs are really friendly, but they're working,
Speaker 2: so you can't touch them, so that when the children
Speaker 2: come in they know what to expect. And then you know,
Speaker 2: Shannon took five dollars in coins and went and got
Speaker 2: some drinks from the drink machine, so we can let
Speaker 2: them know what to expect, what's available, but in a
Speaker 2: very friendly, in a very friendly way, and that and
Speaker 2: color it in so the kids are part of this
Speaker 2: interacting before they even get you know, get there. So
Speaker 2: and it was one that was still in operation today.
Speaker 2: It's in all the law firms and legal aids and whatnot.
Speaker 2: It was a really, really really good thing to do.
Speaker 2: I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: One of the photos that I liked most in your
Speaker 1: book that I poured over was of your cell. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: can you just describe that because there's so much I
Speaker 1: don't know myth around what a prisoner's cell might look like.
Speaker 2: Well, the one that's in the book is in the Cottages,
Speaker 2: but initially I was in the Romanian, which is a
Speaker 2: single cell. Now, if I stood, I did it many times.
Speaker 2: If I stood and walked to the length of my cell,
Speaker 2: it's fifteen and a half of my feet long, and
Speaker 2: I'm about a seven and a half shoe of.
Speaker 1: Your feet, but not in the steps. Fifteen and a
Speaker 1: half feet to heel.
Speaker 2: Yep, So fifteen and a half long. And if I
Speaker 2: stood in the middle of the cell and outstretched my
Speaker 2: arms and just moved a little to the right and
Speaker 2: the left, I could touch the walls on outher side.
Speaker 1: Is it one person personal?
Speaker 2: Yep, yep. Now in that room, you've then got a
Speaker 2: bed on a slab of concrete, You've got a shower,
Speaker 2: you've got a toilet, and you've got a desk. So
Speaker 2: there's only about you know, three or four feet of
Speaker 2: width that you can walk and then you've got you know,
Speaker 2: you've got barred window, not barred so to speak. But
Speaker 2: you know, reinforced windows that look out onto the razor wire.
Speaker 2: It's quite a treat in the book when you move
Speaker 2: up to the cabins, and therefore, because you can't I
Speaker 2: was in that cell. Usually you're in that cell for
Speaker 2: about two to three months. It's a settling cell. But
Speaker 2: it was in the reminding. I was in it for
Speaker 2: four day months because I was doing my work down
Speaker 2: at the greeting, so I decided to stay there. I
Speaker 2: was quite comfortable. I didn't need anything.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: You know, when you move up to the cabins, because
Speaker 2: you can't have a woman in a single cell for
Speaker 2: twenty years. You know they'll go insane. You just can't
Speaker 2: do it. So the cottages up on the top end
Speaker 2: of the prison are for women doing long, long sentences.
Speaker 2: And because I was a peer educator, and you know,
Speaker 2: I was the youngest sort of nearly five years in
Speaker 2: sentences up there.
Speaker 1: You talk about the age of your sentence. So you're
Speaker 1: four or five, so you're young and someone old if
Speaker 1: they're twenty or third.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know. So what happens is you go up
Speaker 2: to the cabins and you'll have five bedrooms, three showers,
Speaker 2: and a toilets at the back of the it's still
Speaker 2: within the cabin, the cottage.
Speaker 1: It's like a share house.
Speaker 2: It's like a it's yeah, absolutely, but it's built out
Speaker 2: a big best of blocks, concrete, best of blocks, and
Speaker 2: the front and the back door are all that's locked
Speaker 2: at night because you don't have toilets in your cells now,
Speaker 2: so we're free to walk around the unit as much
Speaker 2: as we want. And your cell look tiny, Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: very ear but it was bigger than the one in
Speaker 2: the reminding units.
Speaker 1: So when you say you were free to walk around,
Speaker 1: like I could not a slumber party though.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I could walk out of my unit and
Speaker 2: out of my cell and go out into the lounge
Speaker 2: area or make a cup of coffee or whatnot. But
Speaker 2: in a lockdown, so you can't. You'll make a coffee
Speaker 2: in your cell and that door shut until the next morning,
Speaker 2: you know. So there's a lot more movement up in
Speaker 2: the cabins, but they have to be because you know,
Speaker 2: you're up there for twenty years sort of thing. But
Speaker 2: that brings its own set of complexities as well, because
Speaker 2: women that are up there for two twenty years often
Speaker 2: like to take over the cabin because you know, my
Speaker 2: sentence is the longest start. You know, this is the
Speaker 2: way I like the cabin to be run, and this
Speaker 2: that and the other and blah blah blah. So and
Speaker 2: then there's who do you live with? You know, you
Speaker 2: you can't have someone in there that's incompatible because you
Speaker 2: hopefully you'll be living with this person for maybe five years.
Speaker 1: So who makes those decisions?
Speaker 2: The women in the unit. Generally the officers will come
Speaker 2: on board if we need that to do, but we
Speaker 2: would generally scout our own.
Speaker 1: Tell me about a day in the life.
Speaker 2: Well, it's Groundhog Day. Every day seven forty five, the
Speaker 2: compound puts out announcements to be up and ready dressed
Speaker 2: and ready for muster. And muster is where the officers
Speaker 2: go around every single cell or door or unit. I'll
Speaker 2: open up the front door and come in, and you've
Speaker 2: got to be standing by the door and they'll count
Speaker 2: you one, two, three, four, five, one to three fo
Speaker 2: and just to make sure no one's escaped. To a
Speaker 2: head count. Every morning, every lunchtime, every middle of the afternoon,
Speaker 2: and at night. There's four counts every day without fail.
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter what's happen. There's a count at those.
Speaker 1: Time, so you have to be up at seven forty five.
Speaker 1: Where's breakfast?
Speaker 2: Well, it depends, you know, if you're in the reminding
Speaker 2: the girls will you know, from the kitchen, will bring
Speaker 2: it down because you can't cook for yourself, so they'll
Speaker 2: bring it down to the units. We could cook for
Speaker 2: ourselves because it's a cabin so we'd order the food
Speaker 2: from the kitchen on I think it was at the
Speaker 2: time thirty three dollars per woman a week, and then
Speaker 2: someone in the cottage does all the ordering. What's the
Speaker 2: food like in jail, Well, the women, you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's pretty cheap. You can do your own cooking
Speaker 2: in the cabins, you can, yeah, but the women in
Speaker 2: the kitchen prisoners as well, they do all the cooking
Speaker 2: there as well, so they look after their own. And
Speaker 2: it's actually pretty good. It's the meat and sort of
Speaker 2: stuff that I think would be fairly cheap. It's not,
Speaker 2: you know, but you get used to that. I wouldn't.
Speaker 2: I would not. It wasn't bad food. And because it's
Speaker 2: cooked by the girls who have at them, you know
Speaker 2: at one stage been in the remand unit who are
Speaker 2: being cooked for you know, it's damn good, I think, yeah.
Speaker 1: And so you have breakfast, then.
Speaker 2: What do you have? And then it's medication time. So
Speaker 2: because so many women are on medication, whether it be
Speaker 2: to ease their withdrawal from anxiety, depression, bipolar, you name it,
Speaker 2: you know, just mental health issues, you know, for a.
Speaker 1: Stasteril, medication, heart mads for that, older women, all kinds
Speaker 1: of things, everything.
Speaker 2: So you line up at that and you line up,
Speaker 2: the nurse has your file, they'll give you the medication.
Speaker 2: The officers check your mouth so that you haven't stored
Speaker 2: it to sell to somebody else, which is often the case.
Speaker 2: And that could go for quite some time. And then
Speaker 2: you've got to go to work. And this is something
Speaker 2: that I object to because prison and your sentence. One
Speaker 2: can never ever trivialize a prison sentence. So I hear
Speaker 2: people say, oh, she just got two years or she's
Speaker 2: got three years. That is two or three years. But
Speaker 2: what comes with that is huge. Everything else around you
Speaker 2: becomes this big black hole that everything falls into relationships, children, family,
Speaker 2: you know, careers, all that sort of stuff. So it's
Speaker 2: not just plus you are exiled totally from the outside world,
Speaker 2: you know, so that's fair enough. You know, and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, you've got to sort of understand that that's
Speaker 2: there's so much more than just a sentence, you know,
Speaker 2: so when you're in prison, then I don't think it
Speaker 2: should be a double sentence where you've got to work
Speaker 2: for five dollars a day on menial silly tasks. To me,
Speaker 2: it should be a program prison. As soon as that
Speaker 2: women get their medication, they then go to a cooking
Speaker 2: class because most women can't cook for their children, you know,
Speaker 2: they've never cooked because they're drug addicts.
Speaker 1: You know, so you're I want to ask you what
Speaker 1: the menial silly tasks are.
Speaker 2: Well, the first thing I think of was when when
Speaker 2: I first got there, and I don't think they do
Speaker 2: it now, but when I first got there, it was
Speaker 2: sand in chairs. It was it was chairs that were
Speaker 2: made from wood and we'd have to hand sand them
Speaker 2: so that they could be sent off to Ikea or
Speaker 2: whatever else. You know, you spend hours, you spend eight
Speaker 2: hours handstanding a chair, you know, you know, stinking hot
Speaker 2: shed for Ikea or whatever. You know, when you could
Speaker 2: have all of these women instead doing a program on
Speaker 2: sexual abuse, domestic violence, you know, parenting programs, how to
Speaker 2: look after nutrition for themselves and their children that they've
Speaker 2: never had and all that sort of stuff. Education, you
Speaker 2: name it, so you know, but no, this is what
Speaker 2: they do. The Anzac Day badges all women prisoners, all
Speaker 2: female prisoners. So whenever you see an Anzac Day badge,
Speaker 2: women sit in sheds that are about forty five degrees,
Speaker 2: you know, because it's done over January. It starts in January,
Speaker 2: the hottest time of the day. And all they do
Speaker 2: is get the little cards, they get the pin and
Speaker 2: they just pin it onto that card. That's all they
Speaker 2: do for eight hours in the whole hottest temperatures possible.
Speaker 2: It's it's great for the Anzac Day legacy, don't get
Speaker 2: me wrong. I get that, but it's such a waste
Speaker 2: when we have broken people in there, you know. You know,
Speaker 2: even so you know, just just gardening jobs such as gardening,
Speaker 2: you know, when there's there is any grass.
Speaker 1: You could a degree. How did you do that?
Speaker 2: My Master of Arts I did in prison. There was
Speaker 2: a Japanese woman come in and she was doing her
Speaker 2: Master of Arts through swimber And University and she said, well,
Speaker 2: I want I want to continue to do it, and
Speaker 2: she sort of fought her own little fight, and then
Speaker 2: they agreed and said, well, okay, well why don't we
Speaker 2: you know, why can't she do it? You know, let's
Speaker 2: let's and we thought she was going to be there
Speaker 2: a lot longer. So they came out and said, well,
Speaker 2: you know, and then they picked four of us that
Speaker 2: was sort of had a reasonable education and said, you know,
Speaker 2: do you want to do it as well? It looked
Speaker 2: like yep. So there were five of us. One sort
Speaker 2: of did a year and got her had served I think,
Speaker 2: you know. The rest of us went through and did
Speaker 2: the full masters, and it was the first no one
Speaker 2: thought we'd do it.
Speaker 1: When did you study? When did you do all of that?
Speaker 2: At night?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: That was the only time I could study because during
Speaker 2: the day I was I was literally my job was
Speaker 2: going from place, settling people in and you know, getting
Speaker 2: them clicked in with programs and writing their kids and
Speaker 2: all that sort of stuff. So and I really enjoyed that,
Speaker 2: you know, And so I do it at night or
Speaker 2: on the weekends, because because prison is a is it
Speaker 2: an operational sort of thing where where weekends it sort
Speaker 2: of closes down as well, all the programs, education, everything shut.
Speaker 2: So weekends you have a lot more time to be
Speaker 2: able to do that sort of stuff, you know. Plus
Speaker 2: you know when people say, you know, you know, prisoners
Speaker 2: get these benefits and whatnot, it's absolutely not. You know,
Speaker 2: I've got a hex step from my master's I did
Speaker 2: it exactly the same way as any other person out
Speaker 2: in the community. I didn't take anyone's position there. And
Speaker 2: I'll go as far as to say that we did it,
Speaker 2: you know, we did it Dan. Well, we didn't have
Speaker 2: the internet, you know, we were allowed to use the internet,
Speaker 2: so so our tutor used to bring out reams and
Speaker 2: rooms and rooms and rooms of paper. The problem with
Speaker 2: that was that we couldn't keep it in our cell
Speaker 2: for more than a week because it become a fire.
Speaker 2: Hasn't if that caught fire, the doors of double locked,
Speaker 2: you know. So so we had we had a great
Speaker 2: incentive to to to make sure that our homework was down.
Speaker 2: Each week we'd just miss out. So Swimberin brought the
Speaker 2: entire course to you. Yeah, absolutely, and we all passed
Speaker 2: and passed it very well actually, And then they brought
Speaker 2: the first graduation out to a prison photo of yes
Speaker 2: there was and look and they were humble enough to
Speaker 2: come out and so and so respectful of the fact
Speaker 2: that they come out. They were searched, they went through
Speaker 2: the whole procedure. You know, these are professors and vice
Speaker 2: chancellors and whatnot. They brought all the regalia out for us,
Speaker 2: like at the robes, and yes, a lot of officers
Speaker 2: came in on their days off.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It was fantastic. The women in prison were just were
Speaker 2: just over the moon for us because it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, someone succeeded. You know that that's what they want,
Speaker 2: you know, they want to see that people can actually
Speaker 2: really make a difference. You know, maybe it'll be them.
Speaker 2: So it was, it was, It was fantastic. It was
Speaker 2: really good. The Japanese woman was released not long after
Speaker 2: we all got this going anyway, But and I think
Speaker 2: she can finish hers as well. I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 1: So you spent almost five years in prison, Your girls
Speaker 1: were now ten and twelve, Yeah, something around that age.
Speaker 1: It was time to get out. You must have been elated.
Speaker 2: No, No, I wasn't.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: In fact, I cried the closer I got to leaving,
Speaker 2: the more frightened I got. And I didn't. I actually
Speaker 2: went to the general manager and said, can you stop this,
Speaker 2: can you can you just keep me here, you know?
Speaker 2: And he was like, what never, No one has ever
Speaker 2: said that to you before. And I burst into tears
Speaker 2: because he'd invested so much in me that I felt
Speaker 2: like I was betraying him by leaving, and I'd miss him.
Speaker 2: He was a genuinely lovely man that had a really
Speaker 2: good heart, was a good leader, and I just didn't
Speaker 2: want to go. You know, how was the place going
Speaker 2: to survive without me?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: It was literally that's how I felt, you know. And
Speaker 2: I was in a place where I was respected, I had,
Speaker 2: I earned a lot of my integrity back. I matted,
Speaker 2: I had statue, and then I was going, yeah, and
Speaker 2: I was going out, you know, because just before I
Speaker 2: got out, the girls came out and visited it. Because
Speaker 2: I was sort of like, Mumy's going home, thinking, you
Speaker 2: know the world and yeah, the world had stopped for
Speaker 2: me in there, but it had gone on for them.
Speaker 2: I just thought that they were just sitting doing the
Speaker 2: same thing. Can't wait, can't wait. They came out and went,
Speaker 2: we don't get mad, mum. You know, I'm like and
Speaker 2: they said, now we don't want to live with you
Speaker 2: when you come home and and I actually literally physically
Speaker 2: felt i'd been kicked in the stomach.
Speaker 1: I feel like I just got.
Speaker 2: And I was like, and I but I had to
Speaker 2: hold it together because I had to not just I
Speaker 2: had to really really listen to what they were saying.
Speaker 2: You know, this is huge for them. And then I
Speaker 2: realized they're frightened that I'm coming home, you know, And
Speaker 2: it was it was this so I didn't want to
Speaker 2: go home even more.
Speaker 1: You know when you say frightened, frightened of the unknown,
Speaker 1: of well.
Speaker 2: Of the of the instability. Is m I'm going to
Speaker 2: do this again? Is she going to you know, end
Speaker 2: up in prison and away from our lives again? You know?
Speaker 2: God knows what their father was saying, I don't know, you.
Speaker 1: Know, it was it's split up by this, oh yep.
Speaker 2: And you know, so I didn't know, but I just
Speaker 2: had to understand that, you know, they were frightened because
Speaker 2: they didn't trust me, and and I was just you know,
Speaker 2: going along thinking here we are, you know, and then
Speaker 2: and then boom, and I was like, okay, all right,
Speaker 2: I've got to I've got to actually find a place
Speaker 2: for this to sit. Because when I got out, the
Speaker 2: biggest problem of getting out is where do I fit now?
Speaker 2: Where do I you know? And unfortunately the community still
Speaker 2: believe that a lot of people in the community still
Speaker 2: believe that even though you've gotten out of prison, you
Speaker 2: still have to serve time. You know, you're still going
Speaker 2: to be judge. You're going to be held accountable for
Speaker 2: that crime for your rest of your life. And I'm
Speaker 2: the first one to say absolutely not. You know, you pay.
Speaker 2: We have to have a judicial system in our community
Speaker 2: where you pay for your crime and then you move on,
Speaker 2: you know, And that's how it has to be. Otherwise
Speaker 2: we need to just get people to go before the
Speaker 2: judge get tried and take them at the back of
Speaker 2: the court and shoot them.
Speaker 1: I would have thought straight away, Okay, come on, carry
Speaker 1: be a corrections officer and get back in there.
Speaker 2: I've got a criminal record. I'd love to do that. No.
Speaker 1: And the other thing too, Can you work in the
Speaker 1: prison in any capacity?
Speaker 2: No? No, not with a criminal record?
Speaker 1: But that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know I would. I would love to,
Speaker 2: there's no doubt about that. But there's also different levels
Speaker 2: of that as well, you know, because because what I
Speaker 2: was doing, I was one of them. When we went
Speaker 2: back and filmed Australian story. We actually went into the
Speaker 2: prison and as soon as I appeared, some of the
Speaker 2: girls in the in the medical center, we're going carry
Speaker 2: Can you pop down at a five and see me? Can you?
Speaker 2: And I couldn't even go near them because I'm now
Speaker 2: a civilian, So I and they're looking thinking why are
Speaker 2: you coming down the end of the hold of time
Speaker 2: because I was now not one of them. So I'm
Speaker 2: sort of trying to go and I'm thinking, he's God,
Speaker 2: she doesn't even know that I'm not even here. I'm
Speaker 2: not even a prisoner anymore. So it was there's that
Speaker 2: disconnection again. But that wouldn't take that wouldn't take long.
Speaker 2: You know, it just depends that corrections might see that,
Speaker 2: you know, am I on their side or on my
Speaker 2: own correction side sort of thing? You know, there's an
Speaker 2: allegiance there.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what happened after you got out.
Speaker 1: I had the world changed much?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was. It was. We
Speaker 2: had the barbecue the day before, you know, that's that's
Speaker 2: what you do when you leave prison and everyone gets together.
Speaker 2: And I'd made a point of making sure that the
Speaker 2: officers were invited as well, because and and of course
Speaker 2: people are, well, I'm not going, and I'm like, fair enough,
Speaker 2: but you know, they've been here longer than you have, sweetheart,
Speaker 2: so they're coming, you know. And and then we walked
Speaker 2: to the gate and off you go. So you walk
Speaker 2: to the gate, you know, crying of leaving this community.
Speaker 2: You walk through and get into your civilian clothes and
Speaker 2: outside into your family's arms and you and you're smiling.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's a very difficult thing. And has that had
Speaker 2: a great year most a couple of my sisters and
Speaker 2: nephews and odds and odds, you know, not your girls.
Speaker 2: We'd had issues with that. Marke's husband and I and
Speaker 2: and I'd waited, you know, they were the pot of
Speaker 2: gold at the end of the rainbow, and here I
Speaker 2: was at the end of the rainbow and they weren't there.
Speaker 2: He felt that it would be best that I saw
Speaker 2: them a couple of days after I got out, and
Speaker 2: you know, again I had no input into that, so
Speaker 2: so fitting in with them was a was a big thing.
Speaker 2: I remember going uh and seeing them day three. The
Speaker 2: other thing, too, is that when I met all of
Speaker 2: my family too, there were a lot of people that that,
Speaker 2: you know, I hadn't seen for a little while. I
Speaker 2: wasn't so much to that, but they all had people
Speaker 2: were talking talking about these people and these kids and
Speaker 2: these and these there were new members of the family,
Speaker 2: Like I was the I was the odd one out
Speaker 2: of my own family. I didn't even know who they
Speaker 2: were talking about. She married, she married, you know, your nephew,
Speaker 2: you know, and yeah, and that's then they had a baby. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you know, so the dynamics of the family had
Speaker 2: changed as well. You know. So then when I saw
Speaker 2: the girls, I remember thinking, we went to Chanside Park
Speaker 2: shopping center, and the girls were like, they were excited,
Speaker 2: but they were nervous and they were you know, and
Speaker 2: I didn't want to I didn't know how to act. Actually,
Speaker 2: I'd lost on my parenting skills. I wasn't an authority
Speaker 2: in their life by any streage. So when we when
Speaker 2: we got there, you know, they started they started arguing,
Speaker 2: and I did not know, for the life of me,
Speaker 2: how to handle this. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: They were annoying the hell out of me because I
Speaker 2: wasn't used to little kids arguing around me. I was
Speaker 2: used to this tough, you know environment where you turn
Speaker 2: around and go shut up, go away, you know. So
Speaker 2: so it was just so it was. And when they
Speaker 2: used to come and see me on a visit, it
Speaker 2: was always best behavior because all loved each other. And
Speaker 2: this was so different, and I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: I couldn't be I've been out four hours or something
Speaker 2: with the girls anyway, you know, start yelling at them
Speaker 2: or it was just horrible. I didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: And then then, you know, I remember there were people
Speaker 2: sitting around this table and they were talking about things like,
Speaker 2: you know, don't forget we're going to have that barbecue
Speaker 2: on Wednesday, don't stop at Bunnings and pick up the
Speaker 2: stuff for the law mar and and I remember sitting
Speaker 2: there thinking, God, I don't even I don't. That's that's
Speaker 2: someone living a life. I don't have that anymore. I
Speaker 2: don't I don't have friends, and I don't know anyone
Speaker 2: that will go to a barbecue. I've got no need
Speaker 2: to go to Bunnings because I've got nothing, you know.
Speaker 2: And I remembered how and I remember thinking I was
Speaker 2: like a ghost walking around this the outside of this place,
Speaker 2: because I didn't fit in anywhere.
Speaker 1: I knew, had every chance, Like you absolutely educated, you
Speaker 1: weren't on drugs, you weren't.
Speaker 2: I walked out to the job in the university.
Speaker 1: Were educated, you're white, you were all of those things.
Speaker 2: And I walked out to job in university, you know,
Speaker 2: which is yeah, you know, I had I had a job.
Speaker 2: I was off at a job while I was in
Speaker 2: prison from swim Burn after I did my masters. So
Speaker 2: so I had everything, but I just couldn't find where
Speaker 2: I fit. Where do I fit? And if you don't fit,
Speaker 2: it's just fundamentally the the who you are, where do
Speaker 2: you belong? You know. It was just so so goddamn
Speaker 2: difficult trying to try trying to work that out. And then,
Speaker 2: you know, the f POS machines, I've got a lot
Speaker 2: of pride, the f POS machines were different. So I
Speaker 2: was looking over this woman's shoulder trying to see how
Speaker 2: she was doing it, and she actually turned around and
Speaker 2: sort of had to go with me because she thought
Speaker 2: I was trying. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, terrific.
Speaker 2: I didn't even think of that. You know, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be back into prison within three days, you know.
Speaker 2: And I was like no, I didn't want to say
Speaker 2: I don't know how to use it, because totally it
Speaker 2: was just so it was it was just it was
Speaker 2: so good of Harden. The one time I did was
Speaker 2: able to assert myself or who I'd become was when
Speaker 2: we were sitting down having lunch with the kids and
Speaker 2: we're just sitting having great time, and this woman walked
Speaker 2: up and said, yeah, no, there are you know, here
Speaker 2: are you going, and then made a point of just
Speaker 2: ignoring me, even though she knew who I was. Because
Speaker 2: everyone knew that I was obviously out of prison. It
Speaker 2: was a big deal and everyone wanted a part of
Speaker 2: the show. And she went to walk off, so I
Speaker 2: sort of said the just there from when I went
Speaker 2: over to it, and I said to her, I don't
Speaker 2: know who you are, I said, and more of the point,
Speaker 2: I don't care, I said, but they are my daughters
Speaker 2: and I am their mother, and you won't change it.
Speaker 2: So next time I do see you, if you want
Speaker 2: to speak to my children, you will speak to me first,
Speaker 2: or don't approach us at all. And that's one thing
Speaker 2: that I have an issue with is that if you
Speaker 2: have been to prison and you've done your time and
Speaker 2: you've done, you know, and I've spoken it over three
Speaker 2: hundred maybe four hundred events in the community raising awareness.
Speaker 2: I've never changed, you know, it's my being able to
Speaker 2: give back to the community and whatnot. I didn't appeal
Speaker 2: my sentence. I did it all in maximum security, I did,
Speaker 2: you know, I assisted the community there, so I think
Speaker 2: that I've done what I needed to do. So to
Speaker 2: have then people feel that they can actually take ownership
Speaker 2: over my daughters is a huge trigger for me. So
Speaker 2: you know, I needed to set that straight, you know,
Speaker 2: because while I'm wandering through trying to work out where
Speaker 2: I fit in life, the one thing I do know
Speaker 2: is that they are my daughters and someone I've never
Speaker 2: met before. You know, I don't how long did.
Speaker 1: It take to re establish your relationship with the girls?
Speaker 2: Five years?
Speaker 1: Wow? Yeah, as long as you were aware it took
Speaker 1: that long again.
Speaker 2: And you know, and sometimes, you know, sometimes just to
Speaker 2: get settled back into the community is the same amount
Speaker 2: of time that you've been in prison. It takes that.
Speaker 2: It's such a big thing to you know, particular when
Speaker 2: you know that most people don't want you to be
Speaker 2: part of the community, you know, just buying large not
Speaker 2: maybe individually, but buy in large, you know. So, and
Speaker 2: that's what I always say, is the more the community,
Speaker 2: every woman gets out of prison, you know. And and
Speaker 2: again they're broken women, you know. My idea is that
Speaker 2: they come into prison, we work on them because they're
Speaker 2: doing their sentence, they're doing what has been told by
Speaker 2: the judge, by the community, by the judicial system. They're
Speaker 2: doing exactly that. So while they're in there, let's make
Speaker 2: it a win win situation and start working on these
Speaker 2: women so that when they leave, they come out better
Speaker 2: people than when they went in, and maybe a little
Speaker 2: bit more healed because they're going to come and live
Speaker 2: next door to you or you know, somebody else or whatnot,
Speaker 2: and then they can become productive members of the community.
Speaker 2: It's a win win situation as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: And you invest in these people because they're not most
Speaker 2: of them are not master criminals, you know, because when
Speaker 2: they come out, if the community says, actually, we don't
Speaker 2: want you, even though you've done your time, why on
Speaker 2: earth would they bother abiding by the community's laws. If
Speaker 2: they're not part of that community. Why feel an allegiance
Speaker 2: to do the right thing? And that, you know, it's
Speaker 2: just such a simple, a simple process about particularly about
Speaker 2: women in prison, because you know, most of them, you know,
Speaker 2: just need you know, there's no point putting people in
Speaker 2: prison and then just letting them sit there and then
Speaker 2: expect a different outcome when they come out. That's just ludicrous.
Speaker 2: That is just stupid. And unfortunately politics is that way
Speaker 2: a lot. You know, no one wants to invest, will
Speaker 2: just build more prisons. Well, that's just ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Your girls are in their twenties now.
Speaker 2: Sarah's twenty one tomorrow and Channel's twenty two. Fabulous, absolutely fabulous.
Speaker 2: I'm very very proud of the girls and they you know,
Speaker 2: and they're very proud of me. You know, they've told
Speaker 2: me so. And that's the one thing that I that's
Speaker 2: the one thing that I wanted. You know what, other
Speaker 2: people and and other people are going to have their opinions,
Speaker 2: and I absolutely respect that that's not an issue. But
Speaker 2: that's the girls that I care about, you know, so,
Speaker 2: you know, so it's been a long hard you know,
Speaker 2: I've had to be really really patient with with finding
Speaker 2: a place with them again enforcing you know this, you know,
Speaker 2: mummy's time. Let's just disrupt their whole entire life so
Speaker 2: I couldn't be prouder of the girls. You know, they're
Speaker 2: just they're wonderful, good hearted, law abiding citizens.
Speaker 1: Carry They're so lucky to have you, as we're all
Speaker 1: the women in prison who benefited from your attention when
Speaker 1: you were there. What an extraordinary story, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I've learned so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Well that's much that's important, you know, and
Speaker 2: I think people can change the way they think about
Speaker 2: things if they know how it actually works.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to this episode of No Filter.
Speaker 1: Next week for a complete change of pace, I am
Speaker 1: going to speak to a woman who life hacks her period.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this will actually change your life. If
Speaker 1: you enjoyed this story and you are looking for what
Speaker 1: to listen to you next, I have a suggestion for you.
Speaker 1: It's actually an episode of our family life podcast called
Speaker 1: This Glorious Mess, and this episode is actually called When
Speaker 1: Daddy Goes to Prison, and it's the most fascinating episode
Speaker 1: of the show. It's hosted by Holly Wainwright and Andrew Daddo,
Speaker 1: who hosts the show every week, and they speak to
Speaker 1: a guy called Scott Williams about the time that he
Speaker 1: had to tell his young son that he was going
Speaker 1: to prison, and I didn't get to talk to Carry
Speaker 1: enough about her relationship with her daughters and what that
Speaker 1: was like having that conversation so much. But oh, the
Speaker 1: interview with Scott Williams is really interesting. You can find
Speaker 1: it in the Muma Mea podcast app or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to this show. We will also put a link
Speaker 1: in our show notes to this and to the extract
Speaker 1: from Kerry Tucker's book. This show has been produced by
Speaker 1: Eliza Ratliffe. I am Maya Friedman and I will see
Speaker 1: you on Mama Mia dot com dot au. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for something else to listen to, like and follow
Speaker 1: all of our Muma Mea podcasts, which are currently bringing
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