Episode 4 - Babies

Shell Dockley may be as hard as nails, but even she couldn't handle the way her baby was snatched away from her so soon after his birth. Now she too has been transferred to a secure psychiatric hospital.

Shell would have been unusual for giving birth inside the prison in the first place. Every effort is made to transfer women to a hospital maternity unit when they go into labour. Maybe it all just happened too quickly. Little Ronan arrived safely and we saw a softer side of Shell as she nursed her newborn baby.

Predictably it couldn't last. Women with babies are always put in special mother and baby units in women's prisons. There are 72 places in mother and baby units in prisons in England and Wales. Babies are generally allowed to stay with their mothers for less than a year in closed (secure) prisons and less than two years in open prisons. More information about mother and baby units can be found in the mother and baby factsheet. from series 4.

If Shell had been in a mother and baby unit she would have been with staff who work on the unit all the time and other mothers and their babies. The arrival of Colin Hedges to visit her would have been noticed and treated as a bit strange. At Larkhall no such safeguards existed and she was very vulnerable.

Jim Fenner's allegation that Shell had been trying to suffocate her baby was the result of some very quick thinking on his part. He was able to remove the baby, leaving Shell in such as state that he was able to get her shipped off to a secure psychiatric hospital.

In reality great care is taken not to separate mothers and their babies unless it is felt that there is a real risk to the baby. Even when a baby is thought to be in immediate danger and is removed, interviews with social workers and court proceedings would follow. In real life Shell would have been able to challenge the decision to remove her son in the courts.