Euthanasia campaigner speaks of time in prison

Euthanasia campaigner Lesley Martin spent seven months at Arohata Women's Prison after being convicted of manslaughter for the so-called mercy-killing of her dying mother. About to launch her second book, Martin talks to Keith Richardson about life as an inmate:

How much of a culture shock was prison?

"I literally felt as if I was in emotional shock when I arrived there. In some way it was the peak of what had been a very long, drawn-out period of stress anyway. So by the time I arrived at Arohata, I was pretty much wiped out. When I was being programmed into the system there, the guard said to me he was concerned because he felt I was too calm. In that way I think I had shut down on a lot of levels and was just going through the motions".

How difficult was it to settle into the prison routine? Is there routine?

"There is a routine. It's quite different to what we experience on the 'outers', as they call it. You're told by the officers about the cell rules and ring rules but the actual rules of prison are something you have to learn by trial and error, by shutting up and keeping your ears and eyes open."

Can you take me through a typical day?

"We have lockdown, which is any period of the day ... They can just lock you up. Unlock is in the morning. Normally, at 6.30am, you're unlocked and have until about 7 or 7.15 to eat breakfast, which comes on a trolley. If you don't get to the kitchen in time, quite often your milk ration will be missing. First day I was there, there was a big fight in the kitchen between two women over milk rations. I had a job in the library for the first four months so I'd head off to the library at about 8am. At 11am we'd have lunch. One day it would be a barbecue bun with some coleslaw in it, or a slice of cheese or tomato, or something like that. The next day, it's four slices of bread, the cheap, white plastic stuff, with spaghetti or a tablespoon of cold creamed corn, or jam sometimes, or a real scraping of Vegemite. They didn't like doing Vegemite sandwiches, because the women would try to get the yeast from the Vegemite and the bread, and then make homebrew with sugar and fruit and things. Dinner was at 4pm. Then you basically have free time until about 8.30pm, and you're locked down for the entire night. Every three hours during the night the guards would do rounds of the wing. They'd bang on the outside windows and then they'd come and bang on every door and shine a torch through the peep-hole to make sure you're awake or moving and that you're not dead in your cot. But when that prison population blow-out was happening and people were being held in court cells, what they actually did was close down our wing early and relocate the staff to the courthouses. So we would be unlocked at 8am and locked down at 4.30pm. It was a long time for women to have nothing to do, to be locked in your cell at night."

What about personal products. I understand there were restrictions?

"You could buy dye and some very basic shampoos on what's known as a buy-out form if you have money in the trust account held for you at the prison. No-one handles money because obviously you'd get it stolen or you'd be beaten up for your money. They gave you a list of things on Monday which you could buy, and a balance. You could spend up to $60 a week. There was no way of buying make-up, we weren't allowed perfume or any kind of deodorant spray or aerosols that could be used as weapons, or be lit and be used as torches. We weren't allowed manicure sets or nail-files or scissors. I wore make-up for every visit on Saturday and Sunday, and lipstick to keep myself cheered up but the rest of it went by the board. It was right down to basics."

I gather there was some suggestion you might be moved to another prison and there was some support from the other inmates.

"I'd had a bit of a run-in with the guards and it resulted in a misconduct charge against me. I had to defend myself in the little court they hold - and I won. I was very unpopular with one of the middle-managers there. His first managerial decision was to transfer me to Waikeria prison and I just refused to go because I'd settled in at Arohata. I didn't want to go through learning a whole new set of faces and guards and changing my environment again. But also for my [ex-] husband, Warren - he'd become acclimatised to the routine of getting to Arohata. I was on anti-depressants - I had been for about a year prior to the trial, just as tension and stress were building. I was weaning myself off those and felt a move would only stress me again. Also I had the appeal coming up ... my lawyers were in Wellington and I needed access to them. Sometimes their reasons for transferring people were nothing to do with the person or their legal process and their family environment. And it's never discussed with you first - you're just told. The other women offered to barricade themselves in my cell with me. I said 'we don't need to do that, I'm just going to refuse to go'. I made sure I was up and dressed, my bed made, and I was just sitting on it, reading, when this manager came in to tell me I was going. He could see I hadn't moved a single thing off my walls or packed anything. He said: 'What do you think you're doing?' I replied: 'I'm not going',... and he said: "Right, that's it, you're locked. Breakfast, lunch and dinner until further notice," and just slammed the door and locked me in... I got one of the other women to call Warren for me and call the Ombudsman. I was unlocked within the hour and nothing further was done... The whole system there is disempowering and unhelpful. We don't have a corrections system at Arohata. We have a penal system. Whereas a lot of people in the general public might relish this idea, and be of the mind that all these miserable bastards should be locked away for life and throw away the key, these are real people and they need very specialised psychological help and intervention and remodification rather than being in a system that keeps undermining them. I've come out feeling very inadequate. I'd been sitting in a cell for seven months and now I'm part of this bigger environment and it's really daunting for the first few days. I can only imagine what it would be like if I'd been in there for 10 years."

Was that the only time you had a run-in of that nature?

"No. My birthday fell on a Saturday. Warren had couriered four cards to me that the children had made. The prison withheld them, so they didn't get to me on that Saturday. There was no reason for it other than it's another example of this gradual undermining and sticking pins in people constantly. Come Thursday, my girlfriend brought a card in for me. She was concerned the guards wouldn't let me have it at the gate, so she smuggled it in. I read it and put it on the floor next to my chair so the guards could see it. After about half an hour they saw the card and terminated the visit without me being able to say goodbye to the children at all. So Warren and the kids had driven five hours for a 40-minute visit. I was so angry and upset that I refused to be strip-searched by this particular guard. She threatened to force-strip me with a number of other guards. I pointed out another guard and said I'd be strip-searched by her but 'you two bitches can wait outside'. So then I was put on a misconduct charge for calling them bitches. I called the site manager as a witness because he'd phoned Warren and apologised to him and said the termination shouldn't have taken place. The prosecuting guy was the one who was then made middle-management. I won that strike against them. But around that time I was also called to the office and one of these middle-managers... showed me all these incidents the guards had registered against me. One was when I was first there and I was in this round room with a blue, two-litre icecream container as a toilet, because you're stripped of absolutely everything. I was there for three days and I refused to use the container for anything other than wees. And so they incidented me for that - I had refused to use it as a toilet. I was horrified at what they had seen to be incidents, the black marks against my name, so I started conducting my own little vendetta and filing complaint forms every time a guard swore or did something they shouldn't, or whatever. I filed about 12 of these over two days and then my pen ran out and they wouldn't give me another pen, so that was it. I had the stuffing taken out of me."

Has this made you change your views on the whole euthanasia debate?

"No, this has actually strengthened them. I was prepared as much as anyone could be for going to prison and now, having experienced prison, I am even more committed. I don't believe anyone in my position should have to spend a day there, especially when they're still traumatised and grieving from being put in that position in the first place."

What has your case done for the whole euthanasia debate in NZ?

"Euthanasia supporters now know they have a voice in me. They can add their own stories to mine and remain anonymous. When you have social reform issues like this that put people at legal jeopardy, it takes one to kind of break the mould and say 'this is really what's happening, do with me what you will', but I know that I'm speaking for a lot of people. People have really seen me step up and assume that role of leadership, for want of a better phrase."

You say you didn't take home detention but you did apply for it later, but it was turned down, right?

"I didn't want to take home detention in the first instance because I had spoken to the head of probation in New Plymouth and she had said 'if you get a custodial sentence you are much better off spending half of it in prison and half at home, as home detention is a lot more stressful than people realise'. It is an invasion of your home by the custodial system. It creates stresses at home that you wouldn't even realise before you embark upon it. Warren and I discussed it. We had only been together two years and in that time we've courted and married; I moved from Wanganui to New Plymouth; separated from my 21-year-old son, brought my 10-year-old son with me - he's left his friends behind - we've blended two families, four children; we've moved houses twice; we've built a house; Warren was made chairman of the National Party electorate in New Plymouth; I set up Exit New Zealand; we had the parliamentary bill come and go, university touring public speaking debate; I've done a nationwide touring public-speaking series; we had a high court trial and seven months of prison... So by the time I went to Arohata, Warren and I were at our wits' end, we were absolutely at snapping point. We had issues of our own, being newly-weds. It was a horrendously stressful time, very unsettling and stressful, and I challenge any couple to survive that and remain intact. By the time I went to Arohata, we had to have some breathing space. I could not have stayed on home detention without us divorcing. By the time I applied for home detention, I was deemed to be a threat to society. That was kind of a kick in the bum, because I did think it should have been open to me."

What would your late mother have thought of the whole saga?

"My parents would be very distressed if I were in prison at any point in my life for any reason - more distressed as a result of helping mum, because they would feel that was an absolutely inhumane way to treat somebody who had helped one of them by acceding to their wishes. My mother would not enjoy her dying experience being public information in the same way that I don't enjoy it at all, but I believe she would have supported wholeheartedly trying my best to do something about it. This may seem churlish of me, but I think she'd actually be more disappointed in my sister's reaction to things."

The relationship with you and your sister is not harmonious, is it?

"Well, it hasn't been for years, actually. Louise had issues against me for her own reasons for a number of years. Before the book went to print, I gave the manuscript to her to read and she signed a form, agreeing on everything. I made it very clear that if she disagreed with anything at all, that was the opportunity to discuss it. She didn't, she was completely in support of everything I had done for mum. But, once the media started picking up on her, she just couldn't resist the urge to vent her spleen over all these other issues, and that's just really disappointing."

What motivates you?

"Arohata has touched me. You can't live with these women for seven months and not understand the process of criminology and what an incredibly complicated, specialised thing it is. And I couldn't nurse for 17 years without feeling for dying people. I seem to have landed with a strong sense of justice in these areas which are very difficult for us as a society to approach and deal with and address all the shortcomings within them.

This is hard for me because, when I was younger, I was very frivolous. I was the one at the parties and the beach, worrying more about a suntan than anything else - so this has been a maturing process. If you think about maturing as shedding a layer of skin each year, going to Arohata was like ripping 20 layers off at once. It was a very raw experience. I've grown a much tougher skin as a result."