Helen
tries to have a relationship with Nikki, but realizes that it's
not that easy, which leads her to persuade Nikki to appeal against
her sentence. Because of Nikki's jealousy and Helen's concern
about compromising her position as a prison officer, they break
up at least twice. During one of these break-ups, Nikki has a
brief fling with new inmate Caroline Lewis (played by Helen Grace),
but it's short-lived. Nikki also successfully manages to escape
from Larkhall at one point and greets Helen at her front door;
the two spend the night together but Helen forces Nikki to return
the next day.
With all these twists and turns it's amazing that Nikki and Helen's
relationship survives--however, unlike most prison love stories,
theirs' ends happily. Nikki wins her appeal and is free to leave
prison; Helen quits Larkhall so the two can start a life outside
of the prison together. The final scene with the two women kissing
outside a bar during their victory party.
Cassie and Roisin
These two prisoners arrived in Series 4 and appeared to be a fairly
average lesbian couple at first. Cassie Tyler (played by Kellie
Bright) is a high-flying businesswoman who has been sentenced
to 3 years of incarceration after embezzling £47,000. Her
lesbian lover and former PA Roisin Connor (played by Siobhan McCarthy)
has been sentenced to four years for attempting to hide evidence
of the embezzlement. The officers of Larkhall are unaware that
Cassie and Roisin are in a relationship together and give the
two newcomers a shared cell along with Denny.
Cassie has been in several lesbian relationships and is completely
at ease with her sexuality, but Roisin is married to Aiden, who
doesn’t know that the two women are involved. To make matters
worse, Roisin has two small children on the other side of the
prison bars waiting for their mummy to come home. With such close
proximity between Cassie and Roisin, it becomes increasingly more
difficult for Roisin to continue pretending she is a happily married
heterosexual woman.
Cassie
feels guilty about Roisin being separated from her family and
tries to take the blame for Roisin’s cover-up, saying that
she forced Roisin to do it. “I'll get you back with your
family," she tells Roisin, "because I know for sure
you don't want to be with me!"
Eventually,
when Cassie provides Roisin with the means to appeal against her
sentence and gain early release, Roisin realizes that she can't
go back to a life with her husband and makes the decision to stay
with Cassie regardless of the consequences and despite the fact
her husband refuses to allow her children visit her in jail:
Roisin (to Cassie):"I think about you and then I think
about going back to Aiden. I can't go back to sleeping in his
bed, not after being with you. I've done what you wanted; I've
chosen to be with you over my own kids!"
But
the pressure of not seeing her children forces Roisin to beg her
husband to see her children and when he still forbids it Roisin
starts to suffer from insomnia and depression and finds herself
going down the slippery path of drug addiction. The drugs lead
to more problems because when Roisin’s husband eventually
agrees to bring the children in, Roisin is given an impromptu
drugs test, and when she fails it, her visiting privileges are
revoked. To make things worse, Cassie begins to have feelings
for powerful inmate Yvonne Atkins (played by Linda Henry); this
doesn’t last long, however, after Roisin confronts Yvonne
about Cassie's feelings:
Roisin: "She's fallen for you"
Yvonne: "Well, I'm not interested, so why don't you go and
set your girlfriend straight…so to speak"
In
the last episode of Series 4, Roisin and Cassie finally unite.
When a bomb in the prison goes off, prison officer Neil Grayling
is trapped but freed by Roisin and Cassie, and as a reward they
receive a pardoning from the prison service.
Denny and Shell
Denny and Shell were never a serious couple; they had sex when
they felt like it, they intimidated other inmates, and they were
generally known as the bitches of Larkhall.
Michelle
‘Shell’ Dockley (played by Debra Stephenson) is a
lifer in prison for torturing and killing the woman who stole
her boyfriend. She is a manipulative woman who sees herself as
being in charge and better then the other inmates and officers,
saying things like "Do as I say and I might just be alright
with you…disobey and I'll cut your tits off."
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