Jess’ Story

“It is all about equality for me. My name is Jessica Davidson, a senior clinical forensic charge nurse. It’s not publicly well known that there are custody nurses in here or anywhere for that matter and I think it’s worthy going forward of people knowing this is an incredible role, hugely influential, to people and systems. I would like to think the police can’t do without us. I would say that, but we are very close, closely aligned and we work very, very well with each other. Those people that come into custody are possibly facing being incarcerated. I mean, definitely for 12 hours. It could be a lot longer and you just have to put yourself in that human spot to find out how, how you’re going to feel and all of that vulnerability is wrapped up in spiky shell because people are scared. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about that and that’s it, I feel really connected to what we do because I feel it’s really meaningful.”

“He was an older man, he was drunk, came into custody, our workers got in touch with him, found out that he was living in a tent in the woods and then it found out that it’s actually his spouse who had severe and enduring the health problems, was also in the tent and also their adult son who had a learning disability was in the tent. Unacceptable. But, with that brief conversation that whole thing changed from let’s not be punitive to this gentleman, let’s actually give them the family that we like to think everyone deserves in this country, because we do checking if they’re fit to be detained for whatever reason, we do checking if they’re fit to be released, we do checking if they’re fit for court. We have built up mental health pathways where we can get a visiting clinician if we think someone is really super-ill and needs to be detained or admitted to hospital.” 

“So, there is diversion. What we are achieving here is parity of esteem, parity of access, equivalence, if you like, equity of healthcare. These are very human needs. It could happen to any one of us – any one of us at any time. I don’t know how many payslips we are away from being homeless for example. None of us know that, or illness or misfortune or becoming addicted to something and suddenly you’re in this sort of fresh hell of not being respected by your own society. A PF came up to me, a Procurator Fiscal came up to me afterwards and we had a nice chat and he says ‘Since your team has been working my court is a safer place.’ It’s that interagency, it’s not saying that the police are the people that you run away from,  but they’re the people, you walk towards them, the nurses are going round on bicycles and bring handmaidens to doctors and all that stuff is historical, an anachronism and is not what’s happening.”

“Scotland deserves to have vibrant and delivering public servants because public services and social democracy is a huge part of who we are, a massive part and it’s what makes this country work. So, you cannot allow anyone not to get on the boat with you. Wherever we are sailing, which looks like it’s in a certain direction, we can use all of our brains, all of our collective brains. There are fantastic things going on that have changed people’s lives and that’s what I mean. If we look at ourselves as this small country with X million people in it, how can we just put a bunch of people over here and just say, no we’re going to not do anything about you but actually it’s too difficult, but it isn’t too difficult, it’s not beyond us. They’re not over there and not in the… No. That person in that sink estate. Well, fix the sink estate. Fix it. If we can build a new bridge, the Borders railway, we can do this, we can do that and we are and we can do up the fountain in Princess Street Gardens, which is beautiful by the way, it cannot be beyond us. It’s just that enough already, we can’t afford to waste another generation. We have free education all the way through. What is making people fall out of that? So, let’s be realistic and kind, above all, kind, because it’s how you make people feel. People often feel that they can’t join in and don’t even listen to criticism. You’re going to be criticised anyway.”