Last woman at HMP Holloway: ‘My sentence still carries with me. Every time I apply for a job I have to declare’.
Four years ago the largest women’s prison in Western Europe, HMP Holloway in London, was closed. The building has huge historic significance having housed suffragettes like the Pankhurst sisters. People like Baroness Helena Kennedy and Glenda Jackson successfully campaigned for a women’s centre to remain on the site which was sold for housing. Following a year-long consultation process campaigners are dismayed that the current plan being proposed for Holloway Women’s Building, is for a much reduced building with an entrance at the back of the proposed mini-supermarket. Is the chance to replace the women's services which had sprung up around the prison in danger of being lost? A lot of the campaigners are former prisoners who retain a distinct fondness for the prison. Melanie Abbott spoke to the very last prisoner to leave.
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