kitchen drawer and went into the bedroom where Stephen lay sleeping. She stabbed him once at first, in the arm which was no more than a shallow flesh wound, and when he had woken and comprehended what she had done he lunged at her. Fearing he would kill her she stabbed him again and again. He wandered to the kitchen where he collapsed and bled to death while she hid in the cupboard.
The police took photographs of her injuries and these too were enclosed with the file. Lisa looked through the photos with shock and shaking hands. The injuries this poor woman had suffered were horrendous. She was absolutely black and blue. The photos were taken of her with no clothing on from every angle imaginable, therefore leaving her with little dignity. Her whole body was covered with injuries which were listed on the next page; broken cheek-bone, intense swelling to her eye caused by a fractured eye socket and subsequent blindness in that eye once the swelling went down, her head was covered in bald patches where he had ripped her hair out, her finger was broken, her shoulder was dislocated, there were enormous bruises between her legs from when he had held her down to rape her, there were even bite marks on her chest and buttocks. The list of her injuries was huge and saddening. It stated how her womb had been ruined, her ovaries ruptured when he had repeatedly stamped on her, therefore making her infertile, and also how, at the time she was arrested, her arm was healing from a break which had been inflicted around five months previously.
Lisa completely sympathised with her, but unfortunately the judge had not. She was remanded in a psychiatric hospital for the rest of her life. Apparently she would have had to have been in a poor mental state to kill her husband. Nothing was mentioned about how maybe she just could not take the torture anymore. She was penalised when what she really needed was care and support. The hospital closed down in 1952, so Margaret was transferred here to Lisa’s grandfather’s hospital where she died from a heart attack only three weeks after being transferred. She hastily put the file back and tried her hardest to suppress the intense emotion and sympathy she felt for Margaret. She found it hard to believe that so many people who were probably sane before all deteriorated so much, or were, in Margaret’s case wrongly accused of suffering from mental illnesses, that they had to be put in an insane asylum, because at the end of the day that was what it was no matter how you tried to sugar-coat it. It made her realise how unfair life can be and also how precious. It was a bitter-sweet understanding. Margaret had finally plucked up the courage to get out of the abusive relationship she was in the only way she knew how, and, thinking she would get her life back, she ended up in a psychiatric hospital; a prisoner all over again.
Wiping away a tear from her eye she turned her back on the wall of files and books. She was glad to be way from all those disturbing documents. It just seemed so awful to her that those poor people had to suffer that humiliation and then have someone write a file that contained their whole lives in it. Why couldn’t people understand that everyone, well, almost everyone, has a right to die with their dignity and pride intact?
29
On the wall opposite were more files packed back to back on the built-in bookcase. Lisa went over to them and the edge of the shelf had a piece of card attached to it reading “ Staff Files ”. Lisa was intrigued to know what kind of people worked here, what it took to care for people who were declared mentally unstable, so she teased a file from the shelf whilst carefully pushing the surrounding ones back on when they all started to come free at the same time, so densely packed was the ledge. The name on the file cover she held in her hands was Christine Perry. Inside the file it stated that Christine was a qualified nurse who had worked at the hospital
The police took photographs of her injuries and these too were enclosed with the file. Lisa looked through the photos with shock and shaking hands. The injuries this poor woman had suffered were horrendous. She was absolutely black and blue. The photos were taken of her with no clothing on from every angle imaginable, therefore leaving her with little dignity. Her whole body was covered with injuries which were listed on the next page; broken cheek-bone, intense swelling to her eye caused by a fractured eye socket and subsequent blindness in that eye once the swelling went down, her head was covered in bald patches where he had ripped her hair out, her finger was broken, her shoulder was dislocated, there were enormous bruises between her legs from when he had held her down to rape her, there were even bite marks on her chest and buttocks. The list of her injuries was huge and saddening. It stated how her womb had been ruined, her ovaries ruptured when he had repeatedly stamped on her, therefore making her infertile, and also how, at the time she was arrested, her arm was healing from a break which had been inflicted around five months previously.
Lisa completely sympathised with her, but unfortunately the judge had not. She was remanded in a psychiatric hospital for the rest of her life. Apparently she would have had to have been in a poor mental state to kill her husband. Nothing was mentioned about how maybe she just could not take the torture anymore. She was penalised when what she really needed was care and support. The hospital closed down in 1952, so Margaret was transferred here to Lisa’s grandfather’s hospital where she died from a heart attack only three weeks after being transferred. She hastily put the file back and tried her hardest to suppress the intense emotion and sympathy she felt for Margaret. She found it hard to believe that so many people who were probably sane before all deteriorated so much, or were, in Margaret’s case wrongly accused of suffering from mental illnesses, that they had to be put in an insane asylum, because at the end of the day that was what it was no matter how you tried to sugar-coat it. It made her realise how unfair life can be and also how precious. It was a bitter-sweet understanding. Margaret had finally plucked up the courage to get out of the abusive relationship she was in the only way she knew how, and, thinking she would get her life back, she ended up in a psychiatric hospital; a prisoner all over again.
Wiping away a tear from her eye she turned her back on the wall of files and books. She was glad to be way from all those disturbing documents. It just seemed so awful to her that those poor people had to suffer that humiliation and then have someone write a file that contained their whole lives in it. Why couldn’t people understand that everyone, well, almost everyone, has a right to die with their dignity and pride intact?
29
On the wall opposite were more files packed back to back on the built-in bookcase. Lisa went over to them and the edge of the shelf had a piece of card attached to it reading “ Staff Files ”. Lisa was intrigued to know what kind of people worked here, what it took to care for people who were declared mentally unstable, so she teased a file from the shelf whilst carefully pushing the surrounding ones back on when they all started to come free at the same time, so densely packed was the ledge. The name on the file cover she held in her hands was Christine Perry. Inside the file it stated that Christine was a qualified nurse who had worked at the hospital
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