HOMELESSNESS
A homeless man asked to be sent to jail for a bed and a hot meal. It happens more often than you’d think
It’s normal for a lawyer to urge a judge to send an offender to jail. But it’s not usually the defendant’s own solicitor.
On Saturday 18 November, a lawyer in Shropshire asked the court to lock up his homeless client.
“He wants to be sent to prison because the alternative is being let out on the streets in late November/early December when it’s cold and wet,” James Ashton, mitigating for Scott Mills, told Kidderminster Magistrates Court. “Please send him to prison.”
Mills breached a behaviour order banning him from entering Whitchurch, Shropshire, visiting his mother’s home in a deliberate attempt to be sent to jail.
“He has taken the decision to breach the order by going to Mum’s,” the lawyer said. “He knows the police will be called and he will be arrested.” Mills’ subsequent night in the cells gave him a chance to eat and sleep on a “relatively comfortable bed”, Ashton said. The magistrate imposed a 16-week jail term.
In October, the English and Welsh prison population reached an all-time high of 88,225 people – just 557 short of capacity. A succession of reports have slammed conditions in these overcrowded and dangerous institutions.
But, despite this state of affairs, it is perhaps not as unusual as you might think for someone with no alternative but to sleep on the streets to request going to prison.
With a dearth of support available –
