Exeter prisoners run, row and ride for charity

This isn’t a typical prison story: instead it’s an amazing achievement by 10 people in HMP Exeter who in just one day rowed the English Channel, ran up Ben Nevis and rode a stage of the Tour de France, raising hundreds of pounds for a local charity.

Two teams of five - a total of eight prisoners and two prison officers - did not leave the city centre jail while doing this task, of course, but instead undertook the gruelling challenges in the gymnasium.

Each of the prisoners who undertook the challenge is a Samaritans volunteer Listener, specially trained to offer emotional support to others in jail.

On the treadmill, each of the 10 ran 4,409 feet - the equivalent of the ascent of Ben Nevis. They followed that up by 34 kilometres on the rowing machine, equal to the distance across the Channel from England to France.

To cap the day, they were then riding the gym’s bikes for 53 kilometres, the distance of one of the toughest stages in the daunting Tour de France. This final task took the combined row-run-ride distance to a jaw-dropping 103 kilometres.

The challenge was undertaken to raise awareness of Samaritans’ work in prisons. Over 100 prisoners lost their lives through suicide in England and Wales in 2016, an all-time record, so Listeners provide a vital service to help other inmates.

“It’s a part of prison life that very few people know about. Each listener is a volunteer, and when he’s on call he can be disturbed at any time day or night to offer support to another prisoner. It’s crucially important to the well-being of people in the prison” explains David Crawford, Governor for Safer Custody at HMP Exeter.

The Listeners and officers also raised £373.25p for the local Exeter Mid & East Devon branch of the Samaritans, which organises the training which the prisoners undergo before becoming Listeners.

“It’s a sign of the dedication of the Listeners and officers in HMP Exeter that they came up with the idea themselves and raised so much, getting sponsorship from other prisoners and staff” explains Anthony Binns, the Samaritans volunteer at the charity’s Exeter headquarters who co-ordinates the training of the prisoners.

“Each team included a person from each of the four wings of the prison along with a staff member. A lot of negative news comes out of our jails but this is one really positive story” he adds.

Samaritans’ Listener service in UK prisons celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and across the country there are over 1,800 prison Listeners. In 2015, the latest data available, there were 89,752 face-to-face prison Listener contacts in UK prisons.

(Pictured: Exeter Mid & East Devon Samaritans branch premises, central Exeter)