I’ve always loved bingo. I went every week with my mum since I was 18. Then I started playing online, happily spending about £15 a week.
It all went wrong when I discovered gambling sites. Winning £50 here and there was thrilling – and then I won £220,000 in 2011. I couldn’t believe it at first but soon felt that if I could do it once, I could do it again.
I ended up losing left, right and centre but carried on because gambling became my escape from real life. I was having marriage problems and my best friend had died suddenly. It felt like living two separate lives.
Everyone knew I was doing it but I’d lie, saying I’d spent £50 rather than £10,000. And because I never actually saw the cash – it all went into my account on the website – it felt unreal.
I was addicted, and when I ran out of money I started to steal from my employer. I was working as an account manager at a restaurant shop fitter and interior fit-out contractor, so it was easy.
The first time I stole was after I’d spent all my money on the slots and needed to go food shopping. I wrote myself a cheque for £100 and put a fake invoice through the accounting system.
From there it got worse. The biggest amount I took in one day was £50,000. I felt so guilty but couldn’t stop.
A year later, in October 2012, I won huge on the slots: £1.6million. I soon gambled it all away, though, because every time I lost, I honestly thought I could win the money back. When I didn’t, I kept on stealing.
Every day I’d go to work waiting to be found out, like a lamb going to slaughter. I felt so anxious all the time and the guilt was eating me up, but I got away with it for five years, taking £1.7million in total.
In the end, I couldn’t take any more stress and shame, and by Christmas 2015 I knew I had two options: own up or kill myself. Not being able to bear the looks of shame and disappointment on the faces of my husband and our three children, I wrote them a letter explaining what I had done. I put it on the side in the bedroom and left the house to end my life.
Then, as I was walking out the door, my son and granddaughter unexpectedly turned up. I told him I was fine, and after he left I decided I couldn’t do that to them, because I didn’t want my family to feel any guilt or blame. Instead, I confessed to my husband.
Understandably, he was shocked and angry, but also very supportive. He took the note I’d written to my bosses to show what a terrible place I’d been in.
Two days later the police arrested me at home. I confessed to everything. I felt overwhelming guilt and shame for everything I’d done to my family, my employers and my colleagues – but the relief at coming clean was phenomenal.
I was told to expect eight to ten years in prison and, although terrified, I accepted that. I just didn’t want to leave my family, especially because I was such a hands-on nan to my eight beautiful grandchildren.
In the end, I got four years. At my sentencing I was called callous and horrible, which was hard to hear – I felt like the scraping off someone’s shoe.
I sobbed on the prison bus. A woman asked what I’d done, and when I replied ‘Fraud’ she said: ‘Yeah, that’s what they tell all the paedophiles to say’. I was mortified.
I arrived at HMP Peterborough at 9pm and was put in a cell on my own. I made up my bed up with disgusting, filthy sheets. I didn’t realise it at the time but I was on suicide watch.
As the days went on, I found my feet and got a job in the servery. Then I was moved to Downview prison in Surrey, four hours from my family. It was bleak: the cells were old and dirty, but I was in prison, so who was I to expect luxury?
Six weeks later, I was back at Peterborough for my Proceeds of Crime Act trial, when I was told to repay £786,766. I was given an interview to be a peer-support worker.
The prison officer said she liked my attitude and gave me a job in the induction wing to support new prisoners coming in. This meant I could stay in Peterborough.
Helping others helped me build up my self-worth, but two weeks before I was released, my husband said he didn’t want to be with me. He was angry. We lost everything – our house and our belongings – to pay for everything. I was heartbroken and terrified.
The day I left prison, I went back to my parents’ house and had a breakdown. I’d swapped one cell for another of my own making. I was relying on universal credit and stayed in bed for weeks feeling sorry for myself.
Eventually, after a couple of months, I realised that nothing was going to change unless I changed it. So I got myself a job in a warehouse, picking and packing goods. I scrimped and saved but then Covid hit and I lost that job.
Thankfully, three months later I found a job with the St Giles Trust – a charity that helps people held back by poverty, abuse, addiction, mental health problems, crime and other issues. It felt as though the role had been made for me. I was honest about my past, but they saw my passion for helping others and I’ve never looked back.
Now I work with women who have become involved in, or are at risk of becoming involved in, the criminal justice system, as a victim or perpetrator – and it’s so rewarding. I’m helping people who genuinely want to turn their lives around.
I’m at peace with myself now. I’ve got a better life than before I went to prison, and that astounds me. I still feel deeply ashamed that I stole – it’s my greatest regret. But I’ve learned to forgive myself so I can get on with the rest of my life.
Tracey is a Wonder Plus link worker with the St Giles Trust
As told to Sarah Ingram
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