'I was pregnant in prison with child killers and was terrified of giving birth in my cell'
manchestereveningnews.co.ukA mum who was sent to one of the country's most 'controversial' prisons whilst heavily pregnant has revealed she was "terrified" of giving birth in a cell.
The woman, only identified as 'Sue', was sent to the women-only HMP Styal in Cheshire for drug-related offences whilst 17 weeks pregnant.
The prison, just outside Wilmslow, is one of only six in the country to have a mother and baby unit which houses those who have children under 18 months old – meaning the child can stay with them inside the prison walls.
But for Sue, the end of her pregnancy was wracked with fear. "I think the thought of going into labour on the wing terrified me" she said. "Just being in that cell, what a thing to have to say my child when she's grown up, 'oh yeah you were born in a cell.' She wasn't, she was born in a hospital." During the programme, the jail, in a rural area just outside Wilmslow, was described as 'looking like Butlins' or a 'housing estate' with 'lots of little village greens' – but which has a 'huge barbed wire fence around it'.
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