Holly’s Story

Holly Deane-Johns was staring down the barrel of a death sentence on heroin trafficking charges in Thailand 25 years ago.

Today she works at Wungening, connecting some of WA’s most vulnerable prisoners with the practical and emotional tools needed to successfully reintegrate back into their communities upon release.

Holly’s remarkable story is one of drugs, darkness, survival, loss and redemption -and she’s sharing it to inspire others to turn their lives around.

Thankfully, Holly was spared the death sentence in 2000 because she pleaded guilty to her drug trafficking charges. She was instead sentenced to 31 years inside the notorious “Bangkok Hilton” Women’s Prison – an environment so dire and overcrowded, that inmates often died from the lack of sanitation or medical treatment.

Luckily, Holly made it out after seven-and-a-half years – granted a prison transfer back to Perth’s Bandyup Women’s Prison, where she served another five years before being released.

Holly, who overcame her dependence on heroin back in 2001, has worked hard to turn her life around.

She now works under her married name of Wallace, having been hired as a Case Worker with our specialist ReSet team. Holly’s lived experience is proving priceless when connecting with inmates, who quickly realise that as a survivor of one of the worst prisons on Earth, she’s the perfect advocate to guide them from the darkness back to the light.

Wungening’s inspirational ReSet service provides support to inmates as they prepare to leave prison, connecting them with the essentials required to enjoy a meaningful new beginning that breaks the cycle of offending. Those essentials are jobs, training, housing and family/social support needed to make it on the outside.

In her spare time, Holly is also on a mission to connect with as many people as possible through her autobiography “Holly’s Hell, Seven Years in a Thai Prison” and through her public speaking engagements. In fact, she wants to see her book become a part of the high school curriculum, to save as many young people from the drug life as possible.

Holly started using drugs at the tender age of 15, when she tried some of the heroin that her mum, and her mum’s addict boyfriend, were using.

Tragically, the heroin cost Holly and her family everything-the pain and heartbreak incomprehensible. As well as the 17 years spent locked up in prisons (Holly served two five-year terms in Bandyup, the first as a 20-year-old on heroin-related charges), Holly lost her mother to a heroin overdose during her first Bandyup stretch. She also lost two of her four siblings to heroin overdose.

But it’s her heartbreaking lived experiences, such as having to attend her mum’s funeral handcuffed to a prison officer, that help form an an instant trust bond with her incarcerated clients. There’s also the horror stories from Thailand, where Holly was forced to share a 3x4m cell with 120 inmates in extreme heat and humidity-and just finding a place to sleep on the floor was a daily fight.

Holly currently has 20 clients, all men, whom she visits in jail fortnightly as part of her ReSet role.

Holly says: “Once these people know my story, they open up to me and that trust is there. It’s there and, you know, they all say the same thing: ‘you get it! Yep, you understand ’cause you’ve been here, you’ve lived the life that we’re living,’ and that’s gold to them.”

She was so proud that she was already seeing her investment in her clients pay off- and said “nothing was more satisfying”.

“I love doing this type of work,” Holly said. “It’s pretty amazing!

“One of my clients got out of prison and went to Breathing Space {a men’s FDV program run by another organisation). He’s due to graduate from there. He’s got full-time work. He’s doing a lot of counselling. It’s so rewarding to see him motivated to change his life around.

“When you meet these type of clients, you know whether they’re going to stick at it and go with it. And I have two guys there who are just going to kill it. Wow! It’s great!

“This program’s amazing. I wish there had been something like this when I was in jail.

“It’s a program where if somebody is in prison, and they’re due out within six months, they can reach out to us for support to prepare them for release. And for us, it’s about lining up what are essentials if they are going to succeed, and not reoffend, on the outside.

“Once these clients are free on the outside, they can still be with our program for up to a year, which is really, really good. Most people aren’t with us forth at long, because usually they’ve sorted everything out.”

Holly, who was left with chronic Post Traumatic Stress from her incarceration in Thailand and other traumatic events, is strangely at peace working within WA’s prison system.

“The first couple of times I walked back into a jail was very confronting,” she said. “I was very nervous about how I would react. But after those first two times it was fine, it was like yeah, this isn’t anything to worry about anymore.

“Counselling for me was everything after my release and, you know, I’m working with people that are having their own struggles. I advocate for counselling. It’s amazing.

“So yeah, that’s where we ask our clients a lot of stuff because we need to find out about their life, their upbringing, everything. A lot of our clients have a lot of trauma so really getting to the nitty-gritty stuff of their personal life is what’s going to help us decide what services are better suited to help them succeed.”

Holly is in a good place today, determined to help as many people as she can learn from her past mistakes.

She says: “I don’t really look too far ahead. I’m just sort of living in the moment.

“But there’s one thing I do want …. And that’s that I would really love my book to be in a lot of places, like schools and rehab clinics.

“This is only because I know that reading my book will help so many people. It could stop young people taking drugs. And for others, it will give them hope.

“That would make me happy.”

 

To purchase Holly’s book, or if you’re in a position to help get it on the high school curriculum, please visit her website: https://www.hollydeanejohns.com.au/