HMP for Women Askham Grange, located by the village of Askham Richard near York, does not look like a prison. It more closely resembles a red brick country mansion built by a newly wealthy coal mining magnate with little imagination and even less taste, as if unable to decide what style of domestic architecture he liked and so decided to incorporate them all.
Nevertheless, despite its confused and chaotic architecture, Askham Grange, as a prison, was far more inviting in appearance than, say, Dartmoor or Wormwood Scrubs. Housing about 128 inmates serving sentences of up to five years, the prison ethos concentrated on rehabilitation and re-settlement back into the community.
It was for Charlie a redemption. The ordered life, the discipline and the institutional structure all helped to g
