Eric Allison: a tribute

Photograph: Helen Pidd

It is this blueprint of planned inequity and inequalities that Eric tirelessly exposed in his writing. The criminal justice system and particularly prisons were, perhaps, the most striking evidence – or, better, the result – of the profound inequalities that Eric saw as the very structure of our social formation, from the class system to gender to ethnicity.

Eric’s Guardian colleague and friend Simon Hattenstone described him as “the most moral person I knew”. As such an ethical person, Eric would not resist the call to action to expose the state of ‘our’ prisons. And so he wrote, he organised, he protested and rarely turned away anyone seeking his help or empathy. He corresponded, sometimes for years, with prisoners and their families about their cases, listening to them, writing for them, joining them on demonstrations and harassing those in power who needed to right their wrongs.

To us, Eric was not only an utterly likeable person; he was a vital actor in the struggle to hold the state to account.

Nelson Mandela is perhaps the world’s most famous prisoner who reminded us that “no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails”. Eric himself served several prison sentences some 20 years ago, and ever since shone a light on a system that has since then swollen in numbers, while ever diminishing in humanity.

We were lucky to enjoy Eric’s involvement with Prisoners’ Advice Service as a trustee for many years. Through either side of that tenure he was always in touch, so we could share knowledge and help one another.

He could talk the hindlegs off a donkey (always to an enthralled audience) and it was always a cause of wearied anger that he spoke of people in prison having a far worse time of it than he ever did, including his many spells in segregation.

He did not just write about the acutely powerless, like children and pregnant women, but about the unremarkable prisoners in their thousands who struggle to see their families, to get onto a course that will let the Parole Board set them free, to access semi-decent healthcare, to be given a ‘job’ even with no employment rights, to have their children’s photos and drawings arrive with them when they moved prisons. The list goes on.

Eric did not embellish his evidence to portray a kind of horror story. The evidence he laboriously dug up spoke for itself, whether it told of the bravery of the Strangeways prison protesters in 1990 or the horror story of the Medway Secure Unit for children.

To us, Eric was not only an utterly likeable person; he was a vital actor in the struggle to hold the state to account.

A huge pleasure to have known him! A tremendous loss to so many, inside and outside prisons. We will not forget him.

Eric Allison, journalist, born 2 December 1942; died 2 November 2022

Lubia Begum-Rob is Director and Martine Lignon is Chair at Prisoners’ Advice Service

Read Simon Hattenstone’s Guardian obituary here