How long have you been sober?
Thumbing through Judith Rumgay’s refreshingly original study of pathways out of offending for women offenders, who passed through the residential programmes run by the Griffins Society, I recalled that I once enlisted her to speak at a rally that I had organised in my capacity as a Napo (Probation union) representative.
She spoke alongside a prominent trade unionist and sympathetic Labour MP, at a time when the prison-centric bureaucratic leviathan, known by its acronym NOMS (National Offender Management Service), was threatening to subsume the probation service and erase its identity; much as today, when a similar structure known as HMPPS (His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service) appears to be replicating some of the more unwelcome centralism of former times in its absorption of the probation service.
But a second memorable professional link arose when I was reading the book. That was the supervision of Edna (not her real name) on a probation order that contained a residential treatment requirement, related to her long standing alcohol dependency and persistent flouting of court orders due to her chaotic and troubled lifestyle.
She had been placed at a hostel close to the probation office, with key worker support and access to a range of therapeutic interventions. Prior to our first meeting at the unit, I heard an almighty commotion outside the interview room. It appeared to be Edna, remonstrating with one of the other residents; an argument centred on a perceived grievance on the unfair distribution of chocolate biscuits in the quiet room!
A single woman, who had been raised in the care system and experienced abusive relationships, Edna had spent extended periods of time in the company of street drinkers. Her ebullient entrance into the meeting – the key worker had forewarned me that she was an incessant talker who struggled to cope with sobriety – was amusingly peppered with references to ‘Ruby’, her roseate nose, and meeting with one of the royal patrons of the organisation; a meeting in which she had asked the patron what his favourite tipple was.
Before long, a predictable relapse occurred, and Edna’s place at the unit was under threat, simply due to the cumulative number of breaches of the hostel’s core contract. It appeared that alternative arrangements might have to be reviewed and the separate funding secured.
But this hinged in part on the outcome of her most recent offending, which was before the magistrates court, where she would regale the bench with her abortive attempts ‘to be as dry as a judge’. As she would binge drink, oftentimes her favoured spot to urinate would be discretely some distance from public observation. But the offence for which she was facing sentence was the common law offence in England and Wales of ‘outraging public decency’.
It appeared that she had opted to publicly urinate outside one of the more fashionable restaurants in Central London, and the diners ‘outraged’ included some rather august citizens. “I’m as respectable as any of those nobs looking on”, Edna said in the appointment set aside for the preparation of the pre-sentence report. She was unimpressed by any suggestion that, by becoming so inebriated, she had not only answered a call of nature in a public space but had then exposed herself with some swagger to a number of passers-by who had found this street spectacle an unmissable one, as she was hauled away by the police.
By coincidence, I was on court duty when Edna appeared before the deputy district judge; someone known for her sympathetic understanding of probation’s role in rehabilitative endeavours. Edna’s wearisome solicitor made great play in his advocacy for her many relapses against a difficult background.
Although custody was within the court’s powers, the judge asked Edna how she planned to engage with probation and hostel providers if she was to be accorded “a further opportunity to remain sober”. “Sure, you honour, I ain’t touched a drop for 24 hours”!
Some judicial affinity with Edna’s winsome personality perhaps contributed to her being placed on a Deferred sentence for six months, “I do not expect you to behave in this disgraceful way again” was a barbed reminder that even the judge’s patience had its limits.
Edna’s supervision was eventually transferred to another colleague, when she was placed in an out-of-London residential unit geared towards working with alcohol-dependent women offenders. But for some time thereafter, I would reflect on her cheerful candour with the second most senior district judge in the country and how, on leaving court, she had winked to me and said, “Ah Mr Guilfoyle, how long have you been sober?”.
Mike Guilfoyle is a retired probation officer.