After 9 months of relentless fighting, we can finally share that our lad has been moved from HMP Long Lartin to another prison where he is receiving help to Improve his mental health. 

This has been incredibly hard work; exhausting, traumatic and at times heartbreaking, but it exposes just how difficult it is to get urgent and appropriate mental health care inside the prison system. 

But we can’t stop there.

This is the reality prisoners face every single day. There are good professionals in the system, but finding them among the bad is far harder than it should ever be.

It should never take an MP standing outside a prison just to get an ambulance for a prisoner at HMP Bronzefiled  yet this has happened, and it reflects what is going on behind the walls of many prisons across the country.

This has to stop.

People need to cast aside their judgement. Yes, there are people who are guilty of the crimes they were convicted of, but there are also people who are not guilty.

There are people serving unreasonable sentences under IPP and joint enterprise laws. Regardless of the reason someone is inside, their basic human rights are not being met.

And don’t ever think this couldn’t happen to your family, because it can. Wrong place, wrong time. Remanded or sentenced. The way the system currently works, your loved one is at a higher risk of serious harm or even death.

This is exactly why we have human rights in this country.

I am not talking about the prisoners who are already protected and housed separately.

I am talking about the rest; the forgotten, the vulnerable, the ones struggling daily.

Saying that prisoners should be held accountable is 100% right  if the aim is; rehabilitation, taking responsibility, addressing behaviour, becoming a safer and better member of society.

But whether people want to believe it or not, this system is doing the opposite. The treatment of individuals inside prison is making our communities less safe, not more.

This is bigger than one case. This is about humanity.