Am I the person I was always meant to be?

Such is David Honeywell’s 2021 study, which has a particular focus on the importance of higher education in the desistance journey. One of his interviewees was quoted as saying, “Am I the person I was always meant to be?”.

This quote put me in mind of a particularly troubling supervisory experience in my early years as a field probation officer.

Clemo (not his real name) was placed on a three-year probation order (the maximum in law) for a variety of offences, including theft by shoplifting and several common assaults.

The pre-sentence report had referenced a “disturbing childhood”, but also highlighted someone with a “high intelligence”, whose potential, with the right level of guidance, could succeed in his chosen field.

At out first appointment, Clemo presented as personable and articulate, who was keen to distance himself from his offending history. This ambition was supported by a desire to follow-up on his broken educational background and go back to college.

It felt very much like Clemo had long contemplated these ambitions and, as such, I envisaged that supervision could offer a supportive rehabilitative framework to oversee such changes.

It was when Clemo moved into temporary hostel accommodation that some of his laudable aims began to come up against the realities of shared living, in a environment which seemed very much to favour unregulated drug usee and other forms of illegality.

Over this period, his manner and demeanour began to shift towards a more callous disregard for his own well-being. He also hinted that one of his fellow residents merited a form of summary justice, which he dubbed, in the local argot of that part of London, as a “THJ” (Typical Harlesden Job). The victim of violence would, apparently, have brought the retribution onto his own shoulders and deserved limited sympathy.

In one of our meetings, I endeavoured to challenge this distorted assumption, and steer him away from such harmful thoughts, but seemed to make limited headway.

His hopes of securing a college placement, which would have offered a platform for a possible foundation year degree course, all but disappeared from sight. “Mike, I ain’t thought of nothing else in the past weeks”, he gnomically stated.

I left our meeting with a foreboding that I shared with the Senior Probation Officer (at the time the dynamic management of risk was deemed within the purview of all trained probation officers) and informed part of every generic caseload/

A short while later, I was informed that Clemo was in custody at the local remand prison, facing a Section 18 wounding with intent charge, which carried on conviction a possible life sentence.

A pre-sentence report had been ordered and I arranged to interview him. At our meeting , he seemed strangely unmoved by the gravity of the charge or the injuries he had inflicted on the victim (the fellow resident from above).

He admitted that he had secreted a hammer in his room and awaited the return of the victim, at which point he had launched a frenzied assault, hitting him several time over the head with what appeared murderous intent.

The offence of wounding with intent to cause Grievous Bodily Harm remained the preferred charge. The absence of any clear remorse or concern pointed towards a more deep seated emotional disturbance and early life trauma, which was noted, in passing, in his comments. “The b****** got what was coming to him”, and “I got the same when I stepped out of line”.

Due to time pressures at the prison, the interview was curtailed. But any community proposal in my report was unlikely to find favour at the Crown Court. I did allude to Clemo’s unrealised gifted potential and his evident ambitions for educational advancement. But such aims would not now be realised in the community. They would need to be acted upon during and after his prison sentence.

Clemo was given a lengthy custodial period with, the Judge opining that he was a “dangerous individual with a misguided animosity to the victim”, whose brutal attack might well have resulted in a fatal outcome but for timely medical treatment. “I read what Mr Guilfoyle has written about your disturbed childhood and your potential to go far with the right guidance and opportunity. But until such time you as are safe to release, these aims will falter unless you change your outlook”.

Clemo’s through-care contact was transferred to the existing long-term prison team and his probation order was revoked.

With some of the wilting criticism from recent probation inspectorate reports of Serious Further Offending by probationers, whilst under supervision (at the time of the above offence, such investigative scrutiny for offences short of murder was not in place), I was reminded of one of Clemo’s early, poignant, observations, when we sketched out his supervision plan. “Mike, I want to be me, someone people will be proud to be with”.

I hope that during his journey to his own form of desistance, this sentiment eventually came to define who Clemo always wanted to be?

Mike Guilfoyle is a retired probation officer.