I didn’t remember committing my crime but I knew I had fallen through the cracks of the system. Could prison really be my salvation?

Sixteen months ago, I somehow found myself standing bewildered in the dock of a magistrates court, at my own bail hearing for attempted armed robbery, wondering if I was really there or not. I had inexplicably gone into a shop with a toy gun at 7.30am, pointed it at the cashier and screamed at him for money while in a psychotic, delusional state. In my mind, I hadn’t committed a crime at all; I was merely acting out a scene from a film. Legally I had committed a Schedule 15 offence – a list that includes kidnapping, sex offences, manslaughter and soliciting murder, grave crimes that can result in a maximum of 14 years’ custody. Bail wasn’t even considered, as the magistrate believed I underestimated the seriousness of my crime, didn’t think I’d surrender to my bail conditions and saw me as a flight risk. I don’t know if he banged a gavel or not – I like to imagine he did – but he told me I’d be held on remand in prison awaiting trial at crown court. My solicitor told me in a vaguely panicked way that this was a “two-strike life offence”, meaning that if I commit a second offence of similar severity, I have to be given a maximum sentence. All the while I was half-there and half-not, observing it all happening, kind of bemused.

The magistrate made the right call, I see that now. I was manic, I would have done it again, I would have run, I would have died of misadventure (there was a time I was so manic I thought I could outrun trains, and if it hadn’t been Christmas Day when I made this discovery about myself, I would have died there and then on the tracks). I truly believe if the universe wanted to destroy me, then bail would have been granted that day. Me being placed on remand was an act of loving kindness from a power far greater than me: to remove me from society, to save me from myself, to get better for my two beautiful young sons back at home. I had been living mostly alone after my marriage broke down, and while the parenting situation between us is shared care, I had not been capable of this for two years. When I wasn’t committing major offences, I was under section in hospital, or trying to kick my constantly resurfacing addictions to alcohol and drugs in rehab. For two years, I spent more time in institutions than not, and it looked as if this year would be no different.