By Lucy Caulkett-
A British woman serving a life sentence for stabbing her partner has had to explain to her young son of six years old that she killed his dad and it was as part of a feature in a Channel 4 documentary about women behind bars.
Alexia Heckles, 40, was jailed in 2014 for stabbing her partner, Scott Dunne, to death. Jurors were shown footage of her at a police station frantically shouting : ”tell me his not dead”
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Mr Dunne, 41, died after Heckles plunged a large kitchen knife through his heart at their home in Rosemary Gardens, Allerton in December 2014. Heckles, who suffers from “emotionally unstable personality disorder”, has now been in prison for nearly six years, and is mandated to serve 12 years before she can be considered for release.
Channel 4’s documentary, titled ‘Prison’, depicts life inside Foston Hall, Derbyshire, where Heckles is serving her life sentence. In episode three of series two, Heckles recounts the incident which led to her imprisonment, explaining its effect on her relationship with her children, aged 21 and 5 at the time of the recording.
In the first series, the broadcaster treated viewers to the inside of HMP Durham, an all-male facility, while the second series, which started last month follows several inmates at HMP Foston Hall, which is a female-only prison.
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In the third and final episode of Prison’s second series, viewers are introduced to an inmate by the name of Lexi Heckles and fans quickly take to the inmate and believe that the punishment she received doesn’t fit the crime. Each episode features the stories of different inmates at HMP Foston Hall in Derbyshire , with episode 3 featuring some of the most characterful inmates yet.
Heckles story is equally moving and disturbing. She was with a partner who subjected her to numerous episodes of domestic violence, then one day snapped and killed him. At the time, she acted in the heat of the moment but her deep regret was evident when she was at the police station. Her young son has asked endlessly for his mother but is constantly told she is working. Heckles explains how difficult it is, and that her boy is too bright to continue to be fed those lies.
“Now he is getting older, it’s even worse, because he’s starting to ask more questions and he wants to know why I’m here, and it’s not that easy to just tell him mummy’s working, she says of her youngest son.
“He’s not having that now, he’s too bright and he’s getting too old to be told that”, she says.
“Because he’s starting to ask more questions now, I think any sort of conversation that takes place, around any of that, needs to be somewhere safe, more private and relaxed.”The documentary also reveals when she finally explains her fate to her son and the reason why she is in prison as she gets to spend some time with her young son, celebrating his sixth birthday
“I told him: you know that it’s naughty to fight, well that’s what happened with mummy and daddy, and daddy died, and that’s why mummy’s here”, she later tells the camera.
“He said ‘I miss daddy’, and I said, when you look at the sky and you see the brightest star and it’s shining really bright, that’s daddy and he’s looking over you all the time, and he’s with you all the time, and he loves you very much.”
Series two of Prison is available to watch on Channel 4 and online vis the All 4 streaming service.
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