Holloway Prison: ‘I remember people screaming and banging’

“I remember people screaming and banging on the doors, these maddening screams,” recalls former inmate Gerrah Selby on her return to Holloway Prison.

“For ages I couldn’t go to sleep, through the noise and the being too scared to fall asleep, but I so wanted to sleep through my sentence.”

Gemma, who was sentenced to four years for offences relating to animal rights activism, is one of six former inmates who returned to what was Europe’s largest jail for women, along with the makers of a new documentary, Holloway, which recently had its premiere at the London Film Festival.

While back at the crumbling north London jail – which has been bulldozed since their visit – and with the help of a trauma therapist, they reflected on their time there and the events that led to their arrests.

As the women sat on dust-covered chairs, with a backdrop of peeling walls, the memories came flooding back.