Veronica Bird: The Harrogate woman famed for transforming prisons

BBC News

2 days ago

One of the first female governors of a men's prison in the UK, Veronica Bird, has spoken about her experiences as part of a year-long celebration of "remarkable" women.During her 35-year career in the prison service, Ms Bird was governor of Armley Prison in Leeds as well as New Hall in Wakefield.Now, she is speaking as part of Women Winning, a project that celebrates women in Harrogate.Born in Barnsley, Ms Bird joined the prison service in 1968 at Holloway Prison in London where she met violent prisoners such as Myra Hindley.She has now retired for a quieter life in Harrogate."Armley Prison was a huge shock to the system," she says."Being one of the first females in the prison, the transition, not just with staff, but with the prisoners as well."When women started to work in male prisons, it made a huge difference. The men were respectful. They stopped using bad language when the female prison officers were present. It calmed them down."It reduced the assaults and fights but, slowly over the past 25 years, it's just gone down and down and they don't care about who's in charge, who's looking after them and that's sad."
Ms Bird says the worsening conditions in prisons are largely due to the influx of drugs."People often say why can't you stop drugs coming into the prison? Well, they swallow them wrapped in cling film, wrapped in condoms. They secrete them internally," she says."We used to have books coming into the prison and the men would put the powder between the pages and lick them. They would throw oranges over the prison fence."We had to stop selling Polo mints in prison and we had to stop selling bananas because they would dry the skin and mix it with the cannabis to make it go further."It's sad to see parents bringing drugs in for their children in prison. So it is a huge, huge battle."Ms Bird says she was disappointed to see a number of recent cases of prison officers having relationships with inmates and taking drugs into institutions."Sadly, the conduct of some staff taking contraband into prisons has grown. The relationships with prisoners. That's taken off enormously."Myra Hindley had an affair with officer Patricia Cairns and plotted her escape. So it's not something new but it is increasing all the time."When I was at Styal Prison, a female prisoner sentenced to life made a complaint that she was being abused by a prison officer in the cleaning cupboard."I was given the job of investigating and there were sacks full of beautiful underwear, nighties and goodness knows what that this male officer had taken in for her and other prisoners."But fortunately, the investigation came to a very quick end because he did the right thing and resigned there and then."The prisoner didn't complain to the police because she had no trust in the police. And she told the area manager the only person that she would trust to do a fair investigation was me."
During her time running prisons, Ms Bird became recognised for transforming failing institutions.She was asked to work on what was known as Grisley Risley in Warrington and Brockhill Prison in the Midlands, which she said was the UK's worst prison at the time."I was given the most difficult prison, the worst prison in the country," she says."I had no more money than the previous governor, no more staff. But I got the staff together and they changed that prison within one year. It was amazing."The conditions in 1995 in that women's prison were worse than when I joined in 1968."The poor staff were having to have their lunch in a prison cell. If you don't treat staff with respect, how are you going to get them to treat prisoners with respect?"Nobody wants to work in a terrible prison. It's not good for them. So everybody rallied round," she says.Ms Bird has high praise for the work of Lord Timpson, Minister of State for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, who employs ex-prisoners to work in Timpson shops. "He's on the right track. Give people a second chance," she says."How lucky I was to be given a chance in the prison service. Two years I thought I'd be there. But, 35 years later, I was still there and continued in retirement working in jobs to do with prison."
During her time in the service, Ms Bird watched over members of the IRA such as Old Bailey bombers the Price Sisters, Rose Dugdale, and the Birmingham Six – who were later exonerated.She "gave her life" to prisons, she says, never having had a family or partner of her own."Leaving Brockhill, the staff said to me: 'Governor, please can we give some advice - don't give your life to the next prison, like you have given to this prison.' And yes, I suppose I gave my life to prisons and prisoners," she says."But I couldn't have coped with marriage, family, so I have given my whole life."Ms Bird was awarded an OBE in 2000 and turned her life story into a book, co-written with Richard Newman, called Veronica's Bird, which was published in 2018.Today she tours the UK, giving talks to prison and police officers as well as members of the public.Lynne Mee, co-founder of Women Winning, said it had been a delight to meet Ms Bird through the Harrogate project.She said: "There's lots of amazing and inspirational women living in Harrogate. Veronica did a talk last evening to 70 people and you could have heard a pin drop. We laughed, cried and everything in between."
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