Accounts of how VIPA has helped veterans now serving time.

Michael C - HMP Isle of Wight (Parkhurst)

"VIPA has been very helpful to me in so many different ways. The main ones being a meeting place of like-minded people who understand so I feel part of something again, and the education that it has helped me to gain so when I get out of prison I will be able to start work again.

Whilst in prison, VIPA is helping me to do courses so it won't take me so long to settle on the outside. When I am released, VIPA has even lined up another course in Farm Management."

David P - HMP Winchester

"23.12.10
My name is David Parker and I was in the Kings Royal Hussars from 1998 to 2002. I did several jobs, starting as a driver, going onto gunner, doing lots of courses and I eventually was the Sergeant Major’s driver because he liked me! On my final report I scored an A2 which meant I would have been promoted within a year. However, I left the army because I had gone home for a weekend and smoked cannabis with my friends, and I got tested and came up positive and was thrown out of the army.
I started getting in trouble when I had been drinking, fighting with people and getting in trouble with the police. I was also trying recreational drugs when I was drunk. In the end I went to Winchester Prison and served 5.5 months of an 11 month sentence for 2 assaults and an ABH, all when drunk.

While in prison I got in touch with VIPA after another inmate recommended them, as I was worried that I would have nowhere to go when I was released and I was having no luck with Veterans in Custody. I also felt as if nothing had changed since I left the army and that I was going nowhere in life. All I did at home was work at building sites and factories to make enough money to buy some clothes and buy beer at the weekend with my mates. VIPA recommended to the prison that a referral be done to an organisation called Alabare who, jointly with the Royal British Legion, provide supported housing for veterans in the South West.

I had an interview in prison with Emma from Alabare, I was accepted, and was the first client into a brand new house in Weymouth. I moved in the same day I left prison as I did not want to go back to my home town as my friends have sometimes been a bad influence on me in regards to my drinking.

Since I moved in on 10.12.10, I have started claiming benefits; I have registered with several employment agencies, I have managed to drink responsibly and I have so far successfully maintained my tenancy with Alabare. I feel good and positive about the future now. I am hoping to either get work, or to improve my education."

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