The Linguist

Chartered Institute of Linguists SPRING 2025 The Linguist 13 FEATURES cigarette lighter that she had forgotten to remove from an inside jacket pocket! The damage that could have been done with that lighter, had it fallen into the wrong hands, doesn't bear thinking about. ALONE WITH A KILLER Interpreters' prison assignments can be bizarre experiences. Imagine sitting alongside a convicted killer who is detailing the finer points of a fatal stabbing or strangulation to his lawyer. Alternatively, you might be with a prisoner who is on a video link to a court hearing room or on a pre-hearing video- conference with their barrister. On video links, the interpreter is the only person who is physically present with the client (other than the prison officer guarding them). These jobs usually take place in a working environment consisting of a small and claustrophobic consultation room with little or no natural light, where you are constantly being monitored by cameras and passing guards. In my experience, most prisoners prefer to be physically present in court – if nothing else, it gets them out of prison for a few hours! It is arguable that not being physically present in court is a breach of their human rights because in some court video links there are times when neither they nor their interpreter is able to see and/or hear properly due to connectivity and other issues, such as wrongly positioned cameras in the hearing room. Attempts by the interpreter to alert the court to these problems are often unseen and sometimes possibly ignored by the judge. Invariably, once the link has ended, the prisoner will start asking the interpreter for legal advice, which we cannot provide as that is not within our remit. The absence of their lawyers at this point is clearly problematic for both prisoners and interpreters. MOTHER AND BABY UNITS Interpreting at HMP Styal is a completely different experience. At first sight, on arrival in the pretty Cheshire village of Styal, the entrance to the prison looks like a pleasant housing estate comprising several attractive detached Victorian houses – albeit surrounded by tall wire fencing. In fact, HMP Styal used to be an orphanage for destitute children from Manchester, but it is now a closed prison for convicted and remanded female prisoners and young offenders. There is also a mother and baby unit where prisoners can have their babies with them until they are 18 months old. One of my visits involved a mother who had been convicted of several immigration offences and the interview took place in a brightly decorated room in one of the houses on the site. It covered future plans for the care of her child at 18 months, and how mother and infant would be reunited ahead of her probable deportation back to her country. She told us that she was studying catering at the 'Clink Restaurant', which turned out to be a training facility. Different interpreting experiences again occur at HMP Forest Bank in Manchester, a privately run Category B men's prison built in 2000, so a relatively modern building. Housing convicted and remand prisoners and young offenders aged 18-21, it is unfortunately in the news regularly due to allegations of out- of-control drug and alcohol abuse, violence and suicides. While working in modern surroundings is a relief after Strangeways, the intense lighting and tiny consultation rooms can be difficult to cope with. HMP Risley in Warrington, Cheshire, is another very different experience. A Category C (low-security) prison, it houses approximately 1,000 male prisoners, many who have been convicted of sex offences. Some attend sex offender treatment programmes, depending on the length of their sentences and the availability of places. It can be very hard emotionally to interpret for sex offenders (especially those who were themselves abused as children) but maintaining a professional approach, which neither judges nor seeks to excuse these behaviours, is the best option. MEDIUM-SECURITY HOSPITALS On another level altogether is interpreting in medium-security mental health hospitals. Here you are working in a cross between a prison and a hospital. Instead of prison officers, you work alongside nurses who fulfil a hybrid role, providing treatment and surveillance. Your client probably has mental health issues of varying degrees of severity (pending the outcome of assessments) and you may be interpreting visits for psychiatrists as well as lawyers. While many people in ordinary prisons have mental health issues including stress, anxiety and depression those in these hospitals are likely to have more severe problems, such as schizophrenia and psychosis, requiring psychiatric nursing support. They may have been sent to the hospital from other prisons after being assessed or direct from the courts. On one occasion, having travelled to a long-distance appointment, the psychiatrist and I were unable to conduct the interview because the prisoner refused to talk to us. Such are the ups and downs of interpreting in secure hospitals and prisons, with a wide variety of often unpredictable challenges. © SHUTTERSTOCK

• Cover