Former postal employee Tracy Felstead was simply 19 when she was despatched to Holloway Prison – as soon as residence to monsters like Rose West and Myra Hindley.
But in contrast to these evil ladies, Tracy was harmless and had been wrongly accused of stealing £11,500 from her aged prospects at Camberwell Green put up workplace.
It was her first job since leaving college and through her time behind bars she skilled some chilling horrors like strolling in on a woman who had taken her personal life.
READ MORE: Daily Star launches marketing campaign to have Post Office hero Alan Bates knighted after scandal
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Over 20 years later, tales like hers are being retold as 557 former Post Office staff take the corporate to the High Court to clear their names to show that a pc glitch prompted cash to vanish.
It is considered one of many biggest miscarriages of justice Britain has ever seen and it’s being highlighted within the new ITV drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.
The Daily Star is now launching a marketing campaign to get Alan Bates knighted for his relentless makes an attempt preventing for justice over the Horizon IT scandal.
Tracy’s harrowing story in the meantime was not featured within the present however under we have a look at her forgotten case as she continues to take care of the trauma all these years later.
Speaking to the Daily Mail about how she nonetheless suffers 18 years after the scandal, the mum-of-three, from Telford, stated: “I don’t think they realise overall what they’ve actually done. Because still to this day I’m having flashbacks and nightmares, and I still can’t bear a door slamming because it takes me back to that prison door shutting, which is the most dreadful sound in the world.”
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She is now a 36-year-old instructing assistant however she was simply 17 when she began working at Camberwell Green put up workplace.
She was then accused of robbing pensioners in 2001 and a choose later inspired her to apologise in court docket, one thing she refused as a result of she knew she had executed nothing flawed.
Tracy, who twice tried suicide, was then despatched to most safety jail HMP Holloway alongside killers and gangsters the place she spent six months of her life.
It was Europe’s largest feminine jail earlier than it shut down in 2016 – and Tracy won’t ever be capable to erase the despair she noticed there.
She bravely opened as much as journalist Nick Wallis, writer of The Great Post Office Scandal, about her time contained in the infamous jail.
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Remembering being placed on suicide watch after arriving at Holloway in June 2002, she stated: “I was in a high-security prison at the age of 19. I walked in and… you go through all the protocol. You’ve got to strip. You’ve got to be searched. You’ve got everything like that.
“And then I met the governor of the wing, because you have to have a meeting with them when you go in. I sat down, and I was obviously very, very distraught because they had to give me medication to calm me down.
“And he said to me, ‘What are you doing here? A girl like you shouldn’t be here.’ And I said to him, ‘If you can tell me why I’m here then you’re a genius because I don’t even know why I’m here. I’ve been accused of something that I haven’t done and I’m sat here and I’m dealing with it.’”
She additionally stated she walked in on a lifeless lady who had hanged herself in her cell and describing the day by day terror, she added: “There were fights. People screaming they’re going to kill someone. It was like prisoner cell block H.”
(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Tracy was launched after six months and her dad and mom and boyfriend picked her from the North London jail – and he or she remembers sitting within the automobile shaking on the way in which residence.
And when the terrified younger lady lastly received again she begged her family members to maintain the doorways open.
Explaining why, she added: “Still to this day I can’t have doors closed in my house because it takes me back to that sound of the prison door slamming.”
Tracy finally had her conviction overturned on attraction and he or she hopes the brand new ITV drama will shine a lightweight on what peculiar folks endured and misplaced after being falsely accused of stealing.
For emotional help you may name the Samaritans 24-hour helpline on 116 123, electronic mail jo@samaritans.org, go to a Samaritans department in individual or go to the Samaritans web site.