Ex-prisoner gives rare and shocking account of what life’s like in a women’s jail
Scarlett Roberts’ diary of her four months inside a women’s jail last year is a rare and shocking account of mostly male prison officers allegedly abusing their power over women.
One extract reads: “14th of May, cell 19 after lunch at 12:30. Two officers were arguing with her. She was not violent… There were seven officers in the end, all restraining her in her cell. No officers put bodycams on. One officer kicked her in the chest.”
Her account details the alleged treatment of a youth offender in a cell next door.
Scarlett recalls: “They folded her in two, they brought her arms up behind her back until she was screaming. Then the senior officer kicked her in the chest right before they closed the door. They didn’t let her out for 48 hours.”
She is choosing to speak out about her experience despite the stigma of being a former prisoner.
Her testimony comes on the day a government report into women’s prisons makes eight recommendations that recognise that the Prison Service currently does not offer the support needed for women.
It comes as self-harm rates among female prisoners continue to soar – up 63% this year according to the latest government “safety in custody” statistics.
Scarlett tells Sky News the conditions at HMP Eastwood Park were ‘inhuman’. Pic: Andy Portch
Officers showed ‘no compassion’ to prisoners
Scarlett was jailed in HMP Eastwood Park in Gloucestershire for perverting the course of justice.
An inspectorate report of the jail earlier this year said levels of self-harm there were “the highest of all women’s prisons”.
It also noted two recent self-inflicted deaths – with two more yet-to-be-classified deaths mentioned in a progress report this September.
Scarlett says conditions in the jail are “not fit for purpose” to ensure the safety and rehabilitation of women prisoners.
She alleges that male staff used disproportionate force against women prisoners to keep them in check and they would also withdraw meals or medical attention as punishment for troublemakers.
She said prisoner self-harm was rife and officers showed no compassion.
“One lady had self-harmed significantly,” she recounts. “There was a lot of blood, and they didn’t dress the wound. They didn’t cover it up. She was bleeding and they gave her a bowl to bleed in. They were like, ‘there you go’.
“When they opened the door, she threw it in distress and as a result got days added on to her sentence.”
The inspectorate report published in February said Eastwood Park had extreme levels of self-harm, a lack of clinical supervision, and acute staff shortages.
It also stated: “The number of times force had been used against women had increased significantly and we were not confident it was always used as a last resort.”
The report added: “The cells were appalling, dilapidated and covered in graffiti, one was blood-splattered, and some had extensive scratches on the walls which reflected the degree of trauma previous residents must have experienced.
“No prisoner should be held in such conditions, let alone women who were acutely unwell and in great distress.”
Staff shortages meant women didn’t spend enough time out of their cells, the report also said.
A cell door at HMP Eastwood Park. Pic: HM Inspectorate of Prisons
Prisoners ‘caged for 23 hours a day’
A subsequent progress report found limited improvements – but some things had gotten worse.
For example, the use of force had increased in the last 10 months.
The conditions are “so inhuman”, Scarlett said.
She added: “You are caged for 23 hours a day – and that’s if there is enough staff to let you out even for one hour. So many days they were like ‘we don’t have enough staff, so no one is getting out today’. And in a space I couldn’t even open my arms wide.”
Clothes and sanitary products also seemed to be in short supply.
Scarlett says she didn’t have underwear for weeks, and had little help from the officer on call when she had her period.
She told Sky News: “He just didn’t know what a tampon was. So, I had to explain to him what they were and then he came back with big sanitary pads and then I had to explain I’m not wearing any underwear.”
Scarlett Roberts was jailed for perverting the course of justice. Pic: Andy Portch
‘You’re watching your life fall apart’
Scarlett is now an exercise physiologist and founded Red: Redemption CIC to provide movement for mental health services for those at risk of self-medication, self-harm and suicidal behaviours.
She’s also written a blog about her experience.
She described how her mental health deteriorated during her four months of incarceration, and you can almost see it illustrated in the way she crossed off the days in her pocket calendar with increasing pressure in the strokes – the last pages are multiple thick lines.
Scarlett said: “Prison should be like a scaffolding is to a building – that it’s a structure, a temporary structure, to help you build a better life for when you come out.
“Instead, it’s a cage – being put in the crumbling building – you’re watching your life fall apart.
“I mean there’s nothing you can do. And then one day you are released, and you are just in the rubble.”
Commenting on this interview, a Prison Service spokesperson said: “Custody is a last resort for women and the number of women in prison has fallen by a quarter since 2010.
“We are investing up to £14m to improve the safety and rehabilitation of women so they can turn their backs on crime for good – including specialist self-harm training for staff, improved mental health services and help into work on release.”
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But the government report published by NHS England on Thursday admitted “the prison environment is experienced as unfit for purpose by many women and health and social care providers”.
It recommends a number of measures including “providing specialist care, support and treatment for women that meet their unique needs, including for example pregnancy and the menopause“.
Recognising that a high number of women in prison are vulnerable and living with trauma, it says the service needs to improve access to services such as talking therapies, and acknowledges prisons are ill-equipped to provide the necessary treatment and care for acutely mentally ill women.
Read more:
Low-level offenders to be freed early to make room in prisons
Should pregnant women be spared jail?
One of UK’s oldest jails ‘unfit’ and ‘inhumane’
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‘A lot of prisons not fit for purpose’
Scarlett believes a much more radical overhaul is needed, including a review of what she describes as an “us and them” relationship between the prison officers and the inmates.
She says: “It’s right to remove people’s freedoms – but a judge does that. That’s what he did with me – he removed my freedom for a period of time – that’s my punishment.
“It is not other people’s job to further punish you by weaponising access to basic necessities – such as healthcare, food – because they see fit or because they personally want to.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.
Sharon Holland sits surrounded by fresh flowers as she scrolls through photos on her phone of her daughter, Chloe.
Warning: This article contains references to suicide and domestic abuse
Beautiful, poised, Chloe stares back at her from the screen. She was a fun, independent young women – until she wasn’t.
Caught up in an abusive relationship with a former partner, who her mother calls a “monster”, Chloe became a shadow of her former self.
Sharon never met him as Chloe kept the ongoing relationship a secret but she had suspicions when her daughter, who had moved out of home, retreated from her friends and family.
“As far as I knew, they’d split up in September 2022 and she was living happily in Southampton,” she says.
But Sharon began to suspect the relationship might be back on after she spotted her daughter liking some of her ex-boyfriend’s Facebook posts.
Chloe was full of life before she met her abuser
“I saw a few hearts on his pictures, and thought ‘here we go’. But she would always deny it and say she would never get back with him. Of course, she was lying to me.”
Increasingly isolated from her loved ones, Chloe’s only communication with Sharon was through text messages and the occasional phone call.
“She turned up at people’s houses with black eyes and made excuses for marks around her neck and everything else,” says Sharon. “No one told me.”
Chloe took her own life in February 2023.
Her family is not alone in their grief. There are now more victims of domestic abuse who take their own life, than those who are killed by their partners.
Between April 2022 to March 2023, there were 93 people who took their own lives following domestic abuse. A 29% rise compared to the previous year.
Sharon and Sky News’ Ashna Hurynag
Assaulted with a dumbbell and handed a knife
Marc Masterton, Chloe’s boyfriend at the time, was routinely assaulting her, controlling her appearance, isolating her from friends and family, belittling her and encouraging her to self-harm.
On one occasion after he assaulted her with a dumbbell, Chloe threatened to take her own life.
In response, Masterton handed her a knife.
“She said on a few occasions, his eyes went from blue to black and it terrified her,” Sharon says.
The abuse was happening in plain sight – in hotels, hostels and on public transport. Chloe eventually chose to report the abuse to police. But two weeks later, she attempted to take her own life.
At the intensive care unit she was taken to before she died, Sharon didn’t leave her bedside. It was here she learnt from a police officer about Chloe’s testimony a fortnight before.
Chloe and her mother, Sharon
Chloe’s evidence
“They told me she’d done a video statement for over two hours and were investigating him,” Sharon says.
“I’ve watched it. She was crying for lots of it and was distraught. I was devastated and angry. He was telling her to take her life. He was giving her knives up against her neck and then saying, you do it.”
Her evidence led to the conviction of her abuser. Masterton admitted coercive and controlling behaviour and was jailed for three years, nine months.
Justice which, Sharon feels, fell well below her expectations.
“We needed to get over four years for him to go on this dangerous person’s list, so he could be monitored as high risk,” she adds.
Sharon is now calling for tougher sentences for those convicted of coercive control.
The current maximum sentence a perpetrator can get for the offence is five years, but Sharon points to countries like France where the maximum sentence is 10 years.
“No amount of years is going to bring her back… But he needed to get more than that.”
The overlooked victims of a growing crisis
It’s incredibly rare to get a criminal investigation in these cases, says Hazel Mercer from the national charity, Advocacy After Fatal Domestic Abuse.
“Most of the families that come to us where there’s been a suicide as result of domestic abuse, the biggest issue for them is the lack of acknowledgement of what has happened to their loved one. Is there going to be any justice that says this domestic abuse was a crime against this person who’s now dead?
“They ask, is anything like that going to happen, and at the moment, nine times out of ten, the answer is no.”
Hazel Mercer advocates for families who have a lost a loved one after domestic abuse
Hazel works with families who feel a lack of “professional curiosity” by authorities means critical connections are often missed.
“When we have a homicide, resources are put into it, there is a real investigation… For a suicide, we seldom see that investigative desire or professional curiosity to look behind that suicide and why it happened.”
Fighting for change
The Crown Prosecution Service is investigating the link between suicide and domestic abuse more closely.
Efforts are being made to educate police and prosecutors on coercive control’s deadly trajectory after the high-profile death of mother Kiena Dawes, who was abused before she died by suicide on 22 July 2022.
Sky News has learnt the CPS is actively assessing similar cases, but Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown says “it isn’t straightforward”.
Kiena Dawes was abused before she died by suicide
“Invariably because of the nature of coercive and controlling behaviour, a lot of that offending happens in private. So without the victim, that’s quite difficult,” she says.
They are working with police to unpick the detail of the abuse a victim suffered in the lead up to their death. Collating evidence from family, friends or even doctors if the victim’s medical records show there’s been a history of physical violence.
Chief Crown Prosecutor Kate Brown
The Ministry of Justice told Sky News: “This government is committed to halving violence against women and girls. The independent sentencing review is looking at sentences for offences primarily committed against them.
“Victims of controlling and coercive behaviour will also now be better protected through a new law that ensures more abusers are subject to joined-up management by police and probation.”
For Sharon, her campaign is a way of honouring her daughter’s memory. “I won’t stop till I get justice for Chloe,” she says.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
A man has been convicted of drugging and raping 10 women in London and China between 2019 and 2023.
Chinese PhD student Zhenhao Zou, 28, filmed nine of the attacks as “souvenirs”, and kept a trophy box of women’s belongings, jurors in his trial were told.
Warning: This article contains details of sexual offences
He was accused in court of drugging and raping three women in London and seven in China between 2019 and 2023.
Jurors at Inner London Crown Court found him guilty of 11 charges of rape against 10 women, including two who have been identified and another eight who have yet to be traced.
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Moment police arrest student guilty of rape
The mechanical engineering student was also convicted of three counts of voyeurism, 10 of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one of false imprisonment and three of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
He was cleared of two further counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image and one of possession of MDMA with intent to commit a sexual offence.
The trial heard Zou kept a ‘lost property box’ full of women’s belongings. Pic: Met Police
The jury has not reached verdicts on four counts of possession of drugs with intent to commit a sexual offence.
Zou – who first moved to Belfast in 2017 to study mechanical engineering at Queen’s University before moving to London in 2019 – showed no visible reaction as the verdicts were read out in court.
Catherine Farrelly KC, prosecuting, told jurors during the trial that Zou “presents as a smart and charming young man” but is “also a persistent sexual predator; a voyeur and a rapist”.
A discreet camera belonging to Zou. Pic: Met Police
Zou, who also used the name Pakho online, befriended fellow Chinese students on WeChat and dating apps, before inviting them for drinks and drugging them at his flats in London or an unknown location in China, the court heard.
The jury heard how he would secretly film his attacks using a mobile device and hidden cameras, and was shown evidence found on SD cards at his accommodation of him raping unconscious women in London and in China.
Senior Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor Saira Pike thanked the “incredibly strong and brave” women who came forward to report his “heinous” crimes.
“Zou is a serial rapist and a danger to women,” she said.
“In some instances, we have not been able to identify Zou’s victims. Without knowing who these women are, we have not been able to support them through a deeply distressing period of time.
“We have always been determined to seek justice for both the unidentified and identified victims in this case.”
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