An inmate locked up for attempting to murder her father he allegedly raped her helps a fellow prisoner confront past abuse in a new Channel 4 programme airing tonight.
Sonia Whitton, from Derbyshire, is serving a ten year sentence for attempted murder in HMP Foston Hall after trying to kill her father. She explains in the 9pm show that she attacked her father after he was found not guilty of raping her, but that prison had saved her life.
At the prison, Sonia leads a course called Healing Trauma in order to help other prisoners deal with their difficult past. One attendee is Janine, an inmate who struggles to come to terms with trauma from her childhood.
After going through the course, Janine finally opens up about her past, revealing she was once kidnapped while working as a prostitute and held by a group of men for four days.
Sonia Whitton (right), from Derbyshire, is serving a ten year sentence for attempted murder in HMP Foston Hall after trying to kill her father. In prison, she runs a Healing Trauma course to help other inmates to deal with their troubled pasts, including Janine (left)
Janine deals with a lot of anger and her confrontational attitude landed her in the segregation unit a few times during her prison sentence. The inmate turns to drugs as a way of dealing with the phantoms of her past
Sonia is four years into a 10-year sentence, and acts as a mentor for the course at Foston Hall, where she tells the group during the first session that she won’t accept any nonsense.
She says: ‘If you wanna do your drug s***, you can go out in the gardens. If I see it, it’s my responsibility to do something about it. So don’t put me in that position.’
But she adds: ‘If you’ve got any problem, people asking you to pass s***, or drugs, you can come to me, it’s confidential.’
She tells the camera: ‘When I came in, I took no s*** off anybody. The first three weeks, I tried to take my life three or four times.
‘I was still out the courts, fresh out of everything with my old man. It was a bit of a bad journey I’d been on.’
She calmly explains: ‘I took him through the courts on 12 counts for sexual assault, rape, and he got found not guilty.
Sonia explains in the programme that she feels prison has helped her overcome her trauma and wants to do the same for other inmates by running the Healing Trauma course
‘I went to see him, and stabbed him, frenzied attack.’
But she insists she has since changed, explaining: ‘I’ve worked on myself, I’ve done that many counselling and that many diplomas, I know myself inside out.
‘Prison saved my life. It’s what you make it and if I can help any of these girls, I’ll help them. I’ve been where they are.’
And it’s not just in the prison gardens that she acts a mentor to others, she also leads a pioneering ‘Healing Trauma’ course in the prison’s chapel.
Janine finds it hard to open up about her past to the Healing Trauma Course, even with Sonia’s help
The course asks women to reflect on challenges from their past, including sexual assault and domestic abuse.
With over 300 prisoners reside in Foston Hall, the vast majority of women have suffered trauma in their lives.
The healing trauma course was brought to the UK by Lady Edwina Grosvenor and has achieved startling results.
A survey on the course in June 2019, regarding prisoners experiencing depression, showed that 43.3 per cent of participants were experiencing severe depression.
This reduced to 23.3 per cent after completing Healing Trauma.
The HMP Foston Hall is distinctive, because it is prisoner led, and appeals to those who might protest at staff intervention.
Sonia explains: ‘When you’re in this group, what do you want? Calm. No violence.
‘We’ve all got different opinions and had different trauma, so it’s about sharing with each other.’
But she says what happens in the chapel must remain confidential, explaining: ‘I will bring up one thing before we crack on. If I hear of anything being taken out of this group by anybody, you’ll just be took off the group. We’re all in prison, we all know how prison works.’
Janine, an inmate with a track record of drug use and violence, attends the sessions but struggles to open up.
Eventually, the course has a positive impact on Janine, and prison staff say they think she’s made tremendous progress
The following week, she attends the second session but despite her keenness to help others, she avoids talking about her own difficulties by causing distractions.
She has a mishap with a kettle while making a cup of tea, and says she plans to sue the prison.
She tells the camera: ‘I was making a drink and as the water spilled out on my foot and now I’ve got a claim for about £2,500.’
Fiddling with a toaster, she goes on: ‘Next week I’m going to make out I’ve been electrocuted. I know what I’m going to do.’
But before she gets the chance to go through with the plan, she is pulled to one side to review her recent conduct.
The prisoner is praised for her hard work and for addressing her drug issues, with staff telling her she will be categorised as ‘an enhanced prisoner’, or someone who is ‘really good’ with positive behaviour in the prison.
She has only been enhanced once before in the 20 years she has been in and out of prison, and her confrontational behaviour means she has spent a lot of time in the segregation unit.
Janine arrives at the next Healing Trauma session elated, but as the course turns to discussions about self harm and suicide, she says she can’t cope with the conversations.
Just minutes into the session, her mood dramatically drops and she puts her head in her hands before fleeing the group.
Sonia says: ‘I think it’s hit a raw nerve with Janine today. She’s a class clown – but when you get down to the nitty gritty, I don’t think she feels safe. and if she doesn’t feel safe, then she’s gone.’
Sonia is a non-nonsense group leader who warns the course their conversation must stay confidential, but she coaches Janine into opening up to help her deal with her trauma
The two women have a heart-to-heart in Janine’s cell, when Sonia tells her she would like her to open up.
She said: ‘You defer it, then you go and look after someone else. But if you want to talk about it, we can talk about it. If you want to cry, then cry. I ain’t going to judge you.’
‘I’d mentor you as well, but you need to pinky swear with me that you need to open up about your trauma first.’
With three healing trauma sessions remaining, Janine pledges to open up about her past.
But it’s not long before she begins to struggle and retreats back in to her old behaviours.
Eventually the violence she threatens towards others, she turns on herself.
After a confrontation on the wing, she refuses to engage with healthcare and begins self harming.
Sonia arrives at her cell and takes Janine, who is covered in blood across her neck and hands, for a chat.
She confesses: ‘This is everything building up. I let everything build up., build up, and then I just explode.’
After chatting with Sonia, she calms down, and ends up seeking professional help for her drug use.
But when she continues to refuse to open up to prison staff, the Channel 4 team connect with her in the cell.
After asking if she’s been ‘through a lot’, she admits: ‘Depends what you call a lot innit. To some people it’s a lot, to others its not. It’s just part of it all, isn’t it. The life you lead, drugs and that.’
‘You can’t take drugs and have a good life. It doesn’t work like that. I’ve had s*** happen, but hasn’t everyone?’
At the end of the episode, the beneficial impact of the sessions can be witnessed in Janine, who prepares to leave the prison
The documentary team turn the cameras off and, Janine goes on to share some of her past experiences.
After speaking to the team, she decides to share one of them, with the producer saying: ‘When you say kidnapping, for someone like me, you say “F***** h*** that’s so serious”.
Janine explains: ‘It was serious. I was in a violent relationship, he owed a lot of money for drugs. I was working the streets to pay his drug debt off and support our drug habit.
‘Someone picked me up for business, I went back to theirs, and there was four other geezers there. I got held for three or four days.’
After being asked if she was badly treated, she responded: ‘Yes.’
And Janine can barely speak as she breaks down, saying: ‘I’ve been through loads. We’d be here all week if we start talking about it.’
Later, as the documentary team catch up with Sonia, she says that Janine has progressed ‘loads’ while on the Healing Trauma course.
She said: ‘Janine come on leaps and bounds. […] There’s hope for anybody.
‘If you’ve got somebody in front of you and they think there’s no hope, then where’s the rehabilitation?’
Shortly before her release, Janine can be seen chatting with Sonia, saying she now finally understands why she turns to drugs.
And as she is collecting her things to be released out of prison, Sonia embraces her in a huge hug, before the woman collapses in tears on her shoulder.
Prison airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.