Inside Oxfordshire's HMP Bullingdon prison: Staff reveal all

To mark international women’s day, two female prison staff have spoken to the Oxford Mail to encourage more women to work in HMP Bullingdon in Bicester.

Alexis Tonkin, 23, works as a prison officer in the Category B prison, which accommodates up to 1114 men aged 18 or over, and has said people are wrong “to have the impression that being a prison officer is a man’s job”.

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She explained: “I’m 5 foot 5 inches, about 10.5 stone and I have no problem walking around the landings and talking to the prisoners.

“Just because women tend to be smaller, it really does not make a difference to the day-to-day job.

“When I first joined the prison service, I was just 18 years old, so I used to worry about my gender and being so young, but I get a lot of respect.

“I think being a woman can help to diffuse some situations with prisoners.

The prison is holding a recruitment day on March 18 at 10am, where any potential applicants for jobs can ask current officers any questions they may have before applying.

Prison officer Alexis Tonkin (Image: Contributed)

The starting salary for new recruits at the prison can be over £34,000.

Ms Tonkin said women should not be put off working in a prison as it is “really not as scary as you may think”.

She added: “My colleagues have become a big family and I’ve made some really good friends.”

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HMP Bullingdon’s governor Laura Sapwell has spent 26 years in the prison service and said the gender balance in the workplace has changed since when she first joined in 1996.

She revealed: “When I joined as a prison officer there were definitely more male colleagues than female, but that has changed over the years and there is now a much more equal balance in all teams.

Prison governor Laura Sapwell. (Image: Contributed)

“Sometimes people are surprised to hear that women lead male prisons, which is extraordinary really.

“We have male and female leaders in all other high profile and demanding leadership roles - police, health, education – so why should prisons be any different?

“Being a woman has never held me back from anything I wanted to do, but equally, being a woman doesn’t make me better than any man at the job.”

Ms Sapwell admitted work was often very “challenging” but highlighted their jobs in the prison were extremely important as they are constantly interacting with “the most complex and vulnerable members of our society”.