Natasha Avery
Natasha Avery (A5180AD)
HMP Send, Ripley Road, Woking, Surrey GU23 7LJ.
Natasha was remanded in May 2007 and sentenced in January 2009 to 9 years for conspiracy to blackmail in connection with the SHAC campaign.
Birthday: 28th December
What you can send: Cheques/postal orders made out to ‘HM Prison Service’, Write Natasha’s name and number on the back. Stamps & an SAE. Also stationery and blank cards.
Letter from Natasha, 29th October 2009
Hi everybody,
First of all I just want to say that everyone’s support has been absolutely amazing. I adore mail times and everyone always comments on the big piles of post I get. Thank you too to everyone who visits. It is such a joy to sit down for an hour and a half with friends, to laugh, hear all the news and talk about what’s going on in the world. Thanks to everyone who sends stamps, stationery, books, cards, money and computer research, and the people who contribute to our dogs’ upkeep. You make us all feel 100% supported and cared for. To those of you we mither with requests and shopping orders, you go way beyond the call of duty and we love you! A special Christmas mention to George and Shirley who have got all our dogs, look after them so brilliantly and keep us constantly updated with photos and news: thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
I’m blissfully happy working in the gardens here and doing lots of exercise, including 5 or 6 mile runs every week. Those of you who run regularly will know how amazingly laid back and relaxed it makes you feel. Lots of exercise has definitely contributed to me sailing through this sentence. I can’t wait to run outside in the forest with Gregg and the dogs again. Treadmills don’t come close – I long to be covered in mud!
Since the last ARPS newsletter, I’ve had 2 visits with Gregg, the 1st one, me going there, was a complete shambles and to cut a long story short, we didn’t get there till 3:30, when their visits were due to end at 4. They let us stay a bit longer but it was rather fraught, though it was still so amazing to be together. As soon as they took the handcuffs off when we got there and let me through the door, I ran across the visits room to him – eh, it was like something out of one of them romantic films!
The second time I was going to work when a guard said I had a visit. I was surprised as you usually get a slip under your door telling you you’ve got a visit unless it’s a private detective – yes we’ve had one of those in since the last newsletter too! He came to serve us with a Scottish injunction from Fidelity Investments – as if a 9 year prison sentence and indefinite ASBOs isn’t enough! Funnily enough I didn’t feel like going on a visit with him so he had a wasted journey! I went up to the visits hall and Gregg was there. It was a complete surprise and just the most brilliant visit in every way, so loving, great fun and also an opportunity to talk about important things like where on Earth we are going to live when we get out! He looked incredibly fit and healthy and is as strong as ever. I’ve seen prison smash so many people’s relationships to pieces, but with Gregg and me all they have achieved is to make us love each other even more. He is such an inspiration to me and the source of so much strength, and I can’t wait to be back with him where I belong.
He and I reached our FLED date on 2nd November this year, 2 years before our release date and the date where technically you’re meant to be able to go out for the day locally with friends, go away for the weekends and work in the community. Guess what though? Neither of us has been cleared yet – now there’s a surprise. We will of course do all we can to ensure we are treated the same as other prisoners though we blatantly aren’t. None of this comes as any surprise and I’m sure it won’t to you either. Caring for animals and fighting to stop their suffering seems to be the greatest crime going in these people’s books.
Everyone is always amazed at the sentences we got. Gregg and I got 9 years and were told by the judge that if we hadn’t gone guilty, we’d have got 14 years, the maximum sentence for blackmail. Heather got 11 years,Gavin 8. I constantly see cases in the media of violent assaults and child abuse where people get less than we did. The government’s support of HLS was undoubtedly a factor, bearing in mind they are the lab’s bankers and insurers to this day because no bank or insurance company in the world will do business with them. The 40 companies in our case claimed they had lost 12.8 million pounds in criminal damage and security costs because of the SHAC and ALF campaigns against them, and the police operation apparently cost 4 million pounds. In a day and age where big business rules and money is more important than anything else, these sums were definitely taken into account when we were sentenced.
These people operate under a premise which many people, thank goodness, refuse to accept, that Nature with all its wonders and wildernesses is there to exploit and destroy as they see fit. Look at the Yangtze dolphin and so many other creatures driven to extinction, and the Brazilian government prepared to sell off 75% of the rainforest and wipe out the indigenous populations who live there. No-one gave these people the right to abuse the world for their own profit and greed.
My fellow prisoners and all of you out there who fight for the animals are the kindest and most compassionate people I have ever met. We are all driven by deep caring for the animals and horror at the abuse they are forced to endure. Look at the jobs people now in prison have done: Sarah was a geriatric nurse for 30 years and Heather was a riding instructor for the disabled. It says it all: decent, caring, compassionate human beings who care about animals and people too. I have seen them and the others moved to tears at the horrors inflicted on animals, horrors that will haunt every single one of us in this movement until the day we die.
We are all locked up, yet those who terrify, abuse and murder animals and destroy the planet are never held to account. I think so often too of activists who have paid the greatest price, including Mike Hill, Tom Worby and Jill Phipps. Were their murderers ever bought to justice? No, of course they weren’t. We as a movement carry on their struggle and stand in their place. What are a few years in jail compared to their deaths? We know that the cause that we love and believe in is a just one. We will never be broken by arrests and prison sentences and our spirits are stronger than ever.
For the animals, lots of love, Natasha
Letter from Natasha, 9th August 2009
Thanks so much for the brilliant support. The longer I’m in jail, the more mail I get, and it’s so wonderful to hear from you all.
I’ve been at HMP Send for 4 months now and as jails go, it is great. I’m working in the gardens, which I love. I used to do gardening as a job before I started campaigning against animal cruelty and to have my hands covered in mud again is brilliant. I’m security cleared to go all over the prison planting, pruning, weeding and mowing. Mrs Green Fingers eh! All for £11 a week too!
This prison caters for vegans well thanks in no small part to an excellent Head of Diversity. I can order from Holland & Barrett every two months and Honesty Cosmetics every three months where I get vegan toiletries and cleaning products. The weekly packs are excellent; 14x250mls fortified soya milk, walnuts, dried fruit, Provamel yogurts and best of all vegan cheese which never last very long! The Vegan Prisoners Support Group continue to provide us all with excellent help, advice and support.
I’m still doing lots of exercise, running, cycling and lots of circuits. Gregg is a constant inspiration as his times have got faster and faster since we were imprisoned in May 2007. I just had an interprison call with him and it was heaven and the highlight of my month by a million miles. He is such an incredible human being and husband in so many ways and I constantly long to talk to him and be with him.
I miss Heather as they have ‘shipped her out’ as they say in prison jargon to Foston Hall. Apparently we’re not allowed to be in the same jail as we’re co-defendants, even though every jail I’ve ever been in has had co-defendants galore in them. What they fall to realise is that by separating us all (Gregg and Gavin are only together because of Gavin’s failing eyesight) and preventing Gregg and I from having an interprison visit – we have had one in 27 months of being apart even though the prison order states that they should be every 3 months- they just make people support us even more and rally the movement behind its prisoners, so what an own goal.
I remember writing to prisoners when I first got involved in animal rights. I wasn’t really sure what to write about and wrote long and no doubt unbelievably boring letters about all the cats at the local CPL rescue I volunteered at! I just knew though that I wanted to get in touch with people who had given up their liberty fighting to save animals’ lives and let them know that I supported them and was thinking of them. Never ever underestimate the difference that your letters and support make. They make our day and we love getting them, so keep them coming. We are all part of one movement and we all play the part we can.
When 7 of us in the 1st SHAC trial were sentenced to a total of 50 years in prison, we launched the Sponsor A Year Appeal for Greek Animal Rescue and it has raised £3,200 so far. Thank you so much to everyone who has sponsored us. Vesna from Greek Animal Rescue sent me pictures recently of the dogs GAR have rehomed, dogs that had been starved, beaten and abused are now rushing about playing or snoozing on sofas, well-fed, safe and loved, and those pictures express better than a million words ever could what we all long for with all our hearts for all animals.
I know that as long as animals are tortured in labs, have the fur ripped from their bodies, are hunted, terrified, abused, murdered and butchered for man’s profit and greed, we will all do all we can to save them.‘Good is never accomplished except at the cost of those who do it. Truth never breaks except through the sacrifice of those who spread it’.
Cardinal Newman
Lots of love
Natasha xxx