She looked like any other women in her 20s – but there was one stark difference: This woman was a convicted killer who cruelly murdered two men in cold blood… and she was about to be released from Broadmoor.
Alison, now 58, worked as a psychotherapist at Broadmoor – Britain's most notorious psychiatric hospital – between 1995 and 1996, where she treated some of the UK's most infamous and dangerous female criminals.
It was Alison's job to make sure patients were ready to leave the maximum security hospital – and to help them reintegrate into society while they lived in a high-security safe house close by.
And it was a job that came with many risks.
Though many of the patients had committed crimes on behalf of other people – usually boyfriends who they wanted to please – the brutal killings and sick injuries inflicted on innocent people by these women were utterly horrifying.
As she tells Sun Online, she was often left fearing for her safety as patients were prone to attacking workers with kitchen knives when they didn't get their own way.
“You were constantly on the lookout when working there,” she says. “I’d be thinking, ‘if I turn my back in this room, am I safe? Clearly I wasn’t."
Stabbing each other and setting rooms on fire
Broadmoor, located in Crowthorne, Berkshire, opened in 1863. It's now one of three maximum-security psychiatric hospitals in the UK and holds 260 patients.
The 53-acre site became male-only in 2007 following claims that female patients were sexually assaulted and raped by male patients – and by Jimmy Savile, who was a volunteer at the hospital.
Previous female patients included Janet Cresswell who spent more than 25 years as a patient for attacking her psychiatrist with a knife, Sarah Benyon who battered her dad Colin to death with a hammer, and Justine Cummings, housed in 1999 for killing her boyfriend in a kinky sex game in Taunton, Somerset.
Alison worked with women in Broadmoor's safe house – which housed eight at a time – and says she was "constantly on the lookout" while working there.
"There were many incidents: women cutting themselves with blades, stabbings. One woman actually set fire to her room," she tells Sun Online.
"They were allowed to use knives in the kitchen as part of the domestic set up, but some of them stabbed each other or the workers and people were hospitalised.
"The whole house had a false, eerie sense of calm and my calm was false too because I was simply trying to hold it all together.”
Forced into crime by abusive partners
Many of the women suffered from mental illnesses such as psychosis, paranoia and schizophrenia.
"They were often coerced into crime because they were afraid or abused by their partners or co-dependent on them," says Alison.
"A lot of them had anger issues and they’d sit there simmering, their legs jiggling, avoiding eye contact, chain smoking and chewing gum.
"Some of them were very normal-looking but others looked quite deranged, their eyes glazed over, not wanting to engage.
"They self-harmed too with razor blades which they smuggled into their pockets: I could often see marks on their arms."
Broadmoor's notorious patients
Over the years Broadmoor has been home to several high-profile patients.
These have included:
- The Yorkshire Ripper, Peter William Sutcliffe, who murdered 13 women and attacked several others.
- Armed robber Charles Bronson (now Salvador), commonly referred to as “the most violent man in Britain”.
- Ronald Kray who, along with his twin brother Reginald, were the foremost perpetrators of organized crime in London’s East End during the 1950s and 1960s.
- Janet Cresswell who spent more than 25 years as a patient for attacking her psychiatrist with a knife.
- Schizophrenic Sarah Benyon who battered her dad Colin to death with a hammer in 1996.
- Justine Cummings, housed in 1999 for killing her boyfriend in a kinky sex game in Taunton, Somerset.
As well as fears for her safety, another overriding emotion Alison felt while counselling these women was sadness and despair.
“The most surprising thing was that they weren’t monsters,” says Alison.
"Most of them were vulnerable and were scared about going back to their lives, mainly because all they knew was crime.
"I tried to encourage them to think about how they could make things different – but it was hard.”
Snarled at by 'shark' patients
Alison had to be inventive when trying to strike up a conversation as many of the patients were wary and didn’t want to talk to her.
“One woman was watching cartoons so I started talking to her about the characters, asking her what type of animal she would be,” recalls Alison.
“She said ‘I’m a shark – look at my really big teeth’ and snarled at me.
"I asked her to tell me more. As the shark, she told me she was scared someone was going to stab her with a spear under the water.
Since many patients had anger issues, Alison advised them on different ways of dealing with their rage, such as kickboxing.
“One girl said she was going to join a steel band because she wanted to hit something and get her aggression out,” says Alison.
"Others chanted life-affirming mantras like, ‘I’m not that person anymore’ or ‘I’m different now’.”
The child murderers
However, Alison often wondered what would happen to the former Broadmoor patients on the outside.
“They were very fragile personalities, and most of them came from quite dysfunctional backgrounds, so it often felt hopeless. I knew they’d probably re-offend again,” she says.
Alison gives the example of a woman called Nadia, whose parents had been in prison.
"She was worried she was being released straight back into the same surroundings and wouldn’t be able to make different choices.
"There was such a sad sense of resignation about her as if she knew she’d be back in the system before she knew it."
While the women didn’t usually talk about their crimes, other workers told Alison how serious they were.
"The women would often be used by a gang as part of a conflict, perhaps as the 'lure' inviting the victim in.
"One woman violently pushed a guy down the stairs and others put firebombs through letterboxes: the type of crimes where they could walk away and not know if anyone died.”
Many women were also housed for murdering their own children while suffering post-natal depression.
'Detachment' from their crimes and 'a lack of remorse'
Alison says the common denominator was the women's lack of remorse.
“There was always denial, like somehow it wasn’t their fault or they shouldn’t have been caught,” says Alison.
“I can’t think of anybody who admitted they did a terrible thing.”
Although over 20 years ago, Alison’s experiences remain vivid.
She's since become a bestselling author of crime thrillers, with many of her books featuring disturbed women as serial killers.
“I got into the mind of those criminals,” says Alison.
“I saw it all – the detachment, the wariness, the sense of lack of responsibility, the histories, the gang culture, the never ending cycle of violence."
After a year working at Broadmoor, Alison moved into private practice.
“I didn’t get a real sense of movement forward," she says. "You never knew if you’d really helped or if these women were just going to go straight back.”
Perfect Bones, by AJ Waines is out now, £8.99
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