Legal Advice for Women Prisoners

Further expansion of Outreach Clinics for Women, the Disabled and Older Prisoners

Since our last report, your donations have helped us to continue to expand our outreach services across England and Wales. During 2016 we restarted outreach sessions at HMP Downview, a women’s prison in Surrey. We also started outreach clinics aimed principally at older prisoners at HMP Erlestoke in Wiltshire and HMP Guys Marsh in Dorset. In addition, we continued to run regular outreach sessions at a further 13 prisons: Belmarsh, Pentonville, Thameside and Wandsworth in London; Bronzefield and Send in Surrey; Eastwood Park and Leyhill in Gloucestershire; Lewes in Sussex;  New Hall in Yorkshire; Styal in Cheshire; Kirkham in Lancashire; and Manchester. At HMP Send we have trained Peer Advisors to run clinics when our Caseworker is not present. We are currently in the process of selecting and training volunteers for similar Peer-Advisor-Led-Clinics at HMPs Bronzefield, Downview, New Hall, and Styal.

GlobalGiving Approve PAS Girl Fund status for International Women’s Day, 8 March

PAS is asking supporters to donate on International Women’s Day, 8 March, because we have been offered ‘match-funding’ for contributions by the GlobalGiving Girl Fund.PAS would be most grateful for all kind donations to our appeal on Wednesday 8th March. Please donate here, your support is very much appreciated.

Initiating our new Family Law Project

Our new project, in collaboration with Lancaster University and Rights of Women, to provide Family Law advice and advocacy services to mothers in prison is getting underway. The training of two of our Caseworkers in Family Law by Rights of Women has now begun. Last month, several members of our project team met with representatives of the funders: Sir Halley Stewart Trust and Wates Foundation (pictured) to discuss the implementation of the 3 year project. We are extremely grateful for the support of these organisations

Case Study: Helping to appeal an unfair decision to recall a prisoner for breaching her licence

Prisoner had served the minimum 12 years of her life sentence, had been released and had begun to rebuild her life in the community. After two years, she was recalled into custody for breaching licence conditions and spent six months back in prison. We could clearly see that the decision to recall her was made upon false allegations of a criminal offence that had no substance. We represented her at a hearing before the parole board and helped secure her release.

Case Study: Ensuring a prisoner suffering from cancer retains his chance to have children

Prisoner was suffering from cancer. He was due to have a lifesaving operation in a week’s time that would render him infertile. He wanted to provide a sample that would enable him and his partner to undergo fertility treatment in the future. To refuse this would prevent them from ever being able to have children. The prison had told him he was not allowed to give a sample and that they could not confirm it would be agreed to in time for the operation. We made reports to the Governor and Secretary of State and liaised with both. Following our intervention, confirmation was given that Prisoner C would be allowed to provide a sample to be saved by the hospital for future use after his operation.

Other News:

New Partnerships with Sussex and Swansea Universities

We have recently continued the expansion of our remote letters clinics, the latest additions being at the University of Sussex and Swansea University. Some students there will offer assistance with our letters advice service. We train the students on prison law in order for them to draft responses to prisoners’ letters and advice requests. The principal aim of the remote clinics is to provide assistance and increased capacity for PAS in the form of additional legal volunteers at remote locations, in the context of growing demand for our services from prisoners. The remote clinics also benefit the students participating by giving them hands-on experience in prison law and the drafting of legal letters. Sussex and Swansea Universities join our 3 existing academic partners: the Universities of Essex, Kent and Sunderland. We are also grateful to our 7 pro-bono corporate partners, involved in a similar scheme, which are: BlackRock, Herbert Smith Freehills, Latham & Watkins, Mayer Brown, Reed Smith, Shearman & Sterling and Simmons & Simmons.

London Marathon

On 23 April 2017, Emily Martin of Doughty Street Chambers is kindly running the London Marathon on behalf of PAS; all funds raised will go towards our work with prisoners.

Thank you all for your generous support of our work with prisoners through your donations via Global Giving.