Don't Let Her See Me Cry

(Paperback)

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This is the gutsy true story of a woman's remarkable journey from a hopeless young heroin addict facing a prison sentence with a newborn baby to a successful psychologist and mother and best friend to Ali - the daughter who gave her the courage and determination to survive. Sentenced to the longest drug-related prison term ever meted out to a woman in Victoria, the discovery that she was to become a mother was far from welcome news to Helen Barnacle. The irony was that this tiny helpless being gave her a new lease on life - and a reason to hope. Helen's love and devotion for baby Ali led to her winning an historic battle. In a landmark decision she became the first woman allowed to keep her baby in prison beyond her first birthday. But three years later Helen had to face every mother's worst nightmare and give up her daughter. While she knew the time had come for Ali to leave the prison for her own good, this did not make the decision any easier. Ali had become her reason for living. Handing her daughter over at the gates of the prison almost destroyed her. In utter despair she resumed her love affair with heroin and was on a hopeless path of destruction until she

Author Bio

Born in Melbourne, Helen Barnacle received the longest drug-related prison sentence for a woman in Victoria and won a landmark battle to become the first prisoner permitted to keep her baby beyond the age of 12 months. Having survived the trauma of giving up her daughter, heroin addiction and eight years in prison, today she a successful psychologist, drug counsellor, a tireless campaigner for prison reform and, most importantly, mother to Ali, the daughter she began raising in prison.