| Watch Rianna Cleary speaking out on Channel 4 News about the death of her daughter Aisha and her quest for justice: “I have lost Aisha forever, so the most important thing is that no pregnant woman ever goes through what I did again.“ Rianna gave birth alone in her prison cell at HMP Bronzefield after prison guards ignored her calls for help – her baby, Aisha, died as a result. Rianna is speaking out now because the senior coroner overseeing Aisha’s inquest announced last week that he will not publish a report into preventing future deaths. It’s outrageous that the coroner has rejected the opportunity to include recommendations to stop pregnant women being sent to prison in the first place. The coroner’s report in July 2023, strongly condemned Bronzefield and Camden Council for their failures, yet now he has decided to believe their claims that they have made enough improvements to prevent future tragedies. He has not even said if or when the prison guard who refused to answer Rianna’s calls for help was sacked. As Rianna says in her interview: When it comes to prison, what’s written on a piece of paper is never what happens in practice. The way the prisons are run, it is all about power and control. They will never be caring places. Prison officers do not always follow policy – look what happened to me when I pressed my cell bell twice – nobody came. Everybody now accepts that all pregnancies in prison are high risk. So why was I sent there? Sentencing policy is inherently sexist: it treats women as if we were men, ignoring the fact that we get pregnant and give birth and are the primary carers for children. This MUST be taken into account during sentencing but it rarely is. Prison is NOT and will never be a safe place for pregnant women and new-borns. It also has a devastating impact on children whose mother is taken from them, causing lifelong trauma, especially if they end up in state care as a result of following their mother’s imprisonment. Most women in prison are there because of “crimes” of poverty, or because we are victims of rape and domestic violence for which we never got justice and were left to struggle with traumatic experiences. And because of racism: Rianna has previously asked if her being Black played a part in the treatment she received. If Rianna had got the support she was entitled to from Camden Council as a vulnerable care leaver she would never have been in prison in the first place; the hostel she had been put in was so unsuitable she actually asked to be sent to prison while on remand, despite being seven months pregnant. This should have rung alarm bells and triggered the immediate provision of services she had been denied. Rianna knows more than anyone that no matter how many changes are made, prison will never be a safe place for pregnant women and no pregnant woman should be sent there. As Janey Starling from Level Up and No Birth Behind Bars who are campaigning for an end to pregnant women’s imprisonment says: “Prison will never be a safe place to be pregnant and it’s time for courts to stop sending pregnant women there. After two babies have died in prisons, the NHS and Prison Ombudsman have declared all pregnancies in prison as “high risk” and we already know that pregnant women in prison are 7 times more likely to suffer a stillbirth and twice as likely to give birth prematurely. When a pregnant woman is sentenced to prison, she is effectively being sentenced to a high risk pregnancy, premature birth or a stillbirth. . . The solution is simple: stop sending pregnant women to prison. Eleven other countries, including Brazil and Italy, have laws against sending pregnant women to prison“. |
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