When Dad’s behind bars
The prison population in England and Wales has risen by nearly 50 per cent over the last six years - giving them the second highest imprisonment rate in the European Union. Yet the impact of sentences on children has scarcely been recognised. Children's Express reporters spoke to two young South Londoners about the way their fathers' imprisonment has affected their lives.
| It was a shock to think that your parent is capable of doing something so wrong that they end up in prison. |
When sixteen-year-old Nicky Ruegg heard her father had been jailed she went berserk.
She said: "I just flipped out, destroyed my bedroom, wrecked the entire house."
While she struggled to come to terms with what had happened, Nicky found herself taking it out on the rest of the family.
She said, "Me and my older sister were beating each other up. My sister was just crying."
Nicky confided in school friends, desperately hoping to be supported, but instead was bullied. "I was called a scag-head, a drug dealer. It just made me feel sick and stressed."
She got through the ordeal as best she could and visited her father straight away. But prison wasn't pleasant.
She said "It's decent, it's clean. I rate them at that but it's not a nice place for little kids, surrounded by people who have been rapists and drug dealers."
While Nicky's reaction was to hit out, Gemma Fitzpatrick, 16, from Greenwich, was bewildered.
She said, "It was a shock to think that your parent is capable of doing something so wrong that they end up in prison."
Gemma says the anguish she went through, aged three, when her father left, was indescribable, and said, "We haven't done all the things you'd normally do with your dad.
If he came back for a home visit we'd spend days at the park or we'd go out somewhere. But we could have had him around all the time and it's not fair that we've lost that."
Visiting him for the first time in jail was a real shock. Gemma said, "To see what your dad's going through, being in a confined space, only seeing you every now and again. It makes you think, 'Why would anyone go through that, just to end up in a place like prison?'"
Both girls said keeping in touch was difficult. Nicky wrote every week and her father phoned two or three times a day. But prison visits were tricky because they were never private.
Nicky said, "Me and my dad were the closest in our family. But now when I go and see him, I can't really talk. There's always someone there. You can't get hugging like you want to."
Visits could also turn into very unpleasant affairs. Nicky said, "People get dragged out when they've tried to pass something and the officers have seen it. They're quite rough with them. It makes me feel miserable. I don't like it."
She's cut down the number of visits now because there was nothing much to do there, and said, "You can watch a video and there's a couple of toys for the little ones but nothing much for us."
But she admits her relationship with her father had deteriorated recently because of her own behaviour. She said, "I've done a lot of bad things, like get into trouble with the police.
If he were here it wouldn't have happened."
Equally her father's attitude towards the family had changed. "He's got more protective, he always wants to know what we're doing. If he rings up and I'm talking to him, he's like, 'Where are the girls?' I have to say where each one of my sisters is, and where my mum is. It's just crazy."
Gemma said her father had gone back inside again after his release. He was moved far away and taking time off to visit him had affected her and her sister's schooling.
She said, "We ended up staying overnight at places because he was so far away. It was just really weird having to take time out constantly to see your father, when anyone else would see their father whenever they wanted.
We were behind with schoolwork because sometimes we couldn't visit on weekends. It was getting too much,"
So she had to cut down on visits. But while there were worries over schoolwork she was also concerned about the way others saw her.
Gemma said, "People seem to judge you by what your parents have done, so it's important that they know what you're going through and all the problems you have."
Ideally, Gemma said she'd like her father to straighten himself out and get his own place.
She said, "So we could go and stay with him, for a little while, to give our mum a break. But I'm scared he'll do something wrong again and he'll end up going back."
Gemma said it was really difficult to tell her father what she was feeling, and said, "I don't want to hurt his feelings or upset him because he says he's sorry. He constantly says he's sorry for what he's done."
About the team
This article was produced by editors Rupal Patel and Savio Fernandes, both 16, and reporters Katherine Faulkner, 12 and Benjamina Avro-Owiriwa, 11. It was published in the South London Press.
