Four volunteer prisoners recently spent time behind bars as part of a novel fundraising initiative for a local charity.

Barclays Bank employee Gemma Bowman bid for the special ‘prison experience’ offered by Prison Governor Bob McColm during an auction at the Manx Cancer Help Ball.

Gemma and colleague Catherine Quarrie invited Mark Payne of the Children’s Centre and Tim Crookall MLC to join them for the event, which was organised by members of the prison staff in their own time.

Senior Officer Mike Pacey and Physical Education Instructor Andy Morrison put together a full itinerary to give the participants a brief taste of life at Jurby Prison.

The four ‘prisoners’ were collected from Douglas Courthouse and gained an insight into the prison induction process. They spent time in a cell and also toured the building, had a prison lunch and witnessed demonstrations of key aspects of the prison regime.

SO Pacey said: ‘The prison experience was well received and hopefully our guests left with a good understanding of how the prison operates. Staff at the prison are long-standing supporters of Manx Cancer Help and are always happy to raise funds for such a worthy cause.’

Andrea Chambers and Gareth Nicholson from Manx Cancer Help also shared in the prison experience.

Andrea said: ‘We are so grateful to Mike and Andy for putting together the prison experience and for giving up their time off to make it happen. This was a unique opportunity for Gemma, Catherine, Tim and Mark to experience first-hand some of the extremely valuable and often overlooked work that takes place within the prison. During our trip back to Douglas we discussed the day and agreed that we had all been so impressed by the dedication of each and every member of the team that we came into contact with. Their compassion and drive for the often challenging work that they are doing was impressive and we were fortunate to witness some of that.’

She added: ‘We were also pleased to be able to talk to Governor McColm and hear some of his plans for the future development of prison services. His belief that building on the support and rehabilitation of prisoners both during their imprisonment and leading up to and also after release was something that we all agreed was an important area of work. It is an area that can be difficult to achieve public sympathy, but can only be for the benefit of all of us living in the Isle of Man. All the staff at The Lisa Lowe Centre are really grateful for the continued support of the prison team with our fundraising and awareness, but we would like to give a special mention to Mike Pacey for all he does to help us raise much needed funds for our service.’

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