Visiting Order: A Story from a Young Offenders Unit

Visiting Order

Michael hadn’t seen his mother for nearly a year. He was too ashamed for her to see him in prison when he was on remand so didn’t let her know where he was or send her a visiting order. In fact his mother had been frantically searching for him, she called every hospital in London then every police station until she found that he was on remand, it came as a great shock to her, but without a visiting order from Michael she wasn’t able to visit.

He was on remand for supplying 300gms of cocaine; he was caught in a police ‘sting’. He pleaded guilty and I met him via the chaplaincy whilst he was waiting sentence, we quickly established a rapport and I asked him if he had any family support, he said he had a brother and mother in this country but was too ashamed for them to visit him in prison. We discussed the value of family and how his mother and brother must have felt about not being able to see him. We agreed to meet again but before our next appointment he had been moved on.

A month later I tracked him down to a prison in Suffolk, he had been sentenced to 18 months, it took a while to re-establish contact, but his mother had still not been able to visit him. At my next visit we discussed his family and he agreed that I could contact his mother and arrange a visit which I did. Trouble was his mother lived in Hampshire and couldn’t get to the prison which was very remote, I agreed to take her just this once.

It was a warm autumnal day when I turned up in Hampshire at 7.30 am to take Phyllis, a large Ghanaian woman with a gigantic smile and equally big heart, to the prison. She was excited at the prospect of seeing her son for the first time in many months, despite the circumstances. 75 miles into our journey she had a panic attack ‘Oh, Mr. Peter, I have done something terrible, I forgot my passport’ – without photographic ID the prison would refuse her entry. I was all for turning back. ‘Phyllis they wont let you in’ we were late anyway because she had booked the earlier visiting period which we had little hope of reaching the prison by. ‘OK’ I said, ‘ring the prison and see what they say’, she did, and they confirmed that she would need photographic ID to gain entry, but she could try her luck on the gate. ’Peter’, she said, ‘we will go and God will get us in’. So we prayed on the M11 that that would be the case, cynically I thought ‘No chance’.

We arrived at the prison just as the visiting entry period was closing, we were told at the gate to get clearance at the visiting centre, so we quickly entered the building, it was empty apart from two prison officers; it was here that I was expecting the rejection. ‘I am so sorry’ said Phyllis, this is my first visit, and I have forgot my passport, we have come all the way from Hampshire and I haven’t seen my son for many months’. Both the officers smiled, ‘so you are late and haven’t any ID? ‘No, sir’ replied Phyllis, ‘well we shouldn’t do it, but you can go in, but need to be quick’ Phyllis was ecstatic, ‘Praise the Lord’, ‘Amen’ I added, and off she went to the reunion with her 21year old son, who she had given birth to in Ghana at the age of 15.

I was equally thankful to the Prison Officers, they could have done it by the book, and indeed we couldn’t have complained if they had of refused us entry, but God had certainly seemed to have prepared the situation. It was one of the officers last day at the reception centre, and the other was standing in to cover a friend’s shift, they were both friendly and amicable. I stayed in the centre talking to the officer who was moving on, and he asked me who I worked for and why I had given up a Saturday and driven so far to help Phyllis and her son be re-united and I explained that I worked for a Christian organisation and what we were about, he then asked directly why I was a Christian and what I believed, I spent the next hour sharing my testimony.

When Phyllis returned she was tearful but overjoyed at seeing her son. We shook the officer’s hand and thanked him again. As we returned back to Hampshire I commended Phyllis for her strength of faith and shared my doubt that we would get into the prison, but that God had certainly answered our prayer, she said ‘Mr. Peter, thank-you for what you are doing, if you are doing His will, that is all you need to worry about.

It was an amazing day, one that I needed to experience, prisons are places where there is little hope, but on a bright autumnal day through a mother’s faith, determination and love for her son God touched the lives of five people in a special way.

Peter Hope (Jacob Project)

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