FROM CELLMATE TO CEO

Ahead of a pivotal week for government spending, former inmate Paula Harriott tells the Express why prisons have become a public service no one wants to fund... as she reflects on her own path of rehabilitation and the painful lessons she has learned

- Richard Ashmore

SURROUNDED by beautiful African sculptures in a lovely home nestled in a salubrious suburb of Birmingham, Paula Harriott is explaining her journey to me of how she became the head of a national charity. Grammar school education, a degree from a prestigious red-brick university, her pole position at the helm of an organisation with an income of £400,000 a year seems as well supported as you'd expect for any CEO in Britain.

But sitting among her elaborate carved figures, Paula, 64, reveals the elephant in the room. Just over 20 years ago, as a mum of five children all aged under 18, she was sentenced to eight years in jail for drug offences.

"What was my path to prison?" she asks rhetorically. "A gradual involvement in drugs that then escalated to being arrested for use and supply of cocaine.

"At the point of my arrest in 2002, to be honest I was in many ways grateful — when you're in a cycle of continual drug use, it’s really hard to stop. At some point you need an intervention."

The echoes of the time Paula spent inside still loom large in every part of her life nearly two decades after she was released. "I went to prison for four years, I was four years on licence, and it was only last year that my conviction was deemed as spent."

Paula acknowledges how being put behind bars has since shaped her whole personal and professional existence. Today, she is the boss of Unlock, a charity whose mission is to help some of the 12 million people with a criminal record to lead fulfilling post-conviction lives. The charity receives 1.4 million hits to its website and another 10,000 calls to the helpline it runs annually.

Her role before Unlock was working on a senior management team at the Prison Reform Trust when it was chaired by Lord James Timpson, the current minister for prisons, parole and probation.