Eric Allison

Eric Allison is a former career criminal who was found guilty of conspiring to defraud Barclays Bank, and ‘did time’ in Strangeways and a number of other prisons. A ‘difficult’ prisoner, he spoke out about the abuse suffered at the hands of the authorities, and lent his support during the Strangeways Prison Revolt of 1990. In total he spent 16 years behind bars, 7 of which were for the Barclays job which netted £1 million and was to be his last hurrah.

Eric is currently the Guardian’s prison correspondent, a campaigning journalist whose mantra is that “we don’t know what goes on in our prisons.” He is a trustee of the Shannon Trust, a charity focused on improving literacy amongst the prison population, and speaks widely on crime, prisons, prisoners’ families and victims of crime at conferences, universities and charity events.