Kate in prison: Duchess of Cambridge visits women's jail to see how charity helps inmates overcome addiction

Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, makes solo visit to HMP Send in Surrey The Duchess of Cambridge has met inmates on a visit to one of Britain's toughest women's jails to find out how they are being helped with drug and alcohol addicition. On her first ever prison visit, the Duchess spent almost two hours inside HMP Send in Surrey, which houses murderers among its 282 prisoners. Send was in lock-down when Kate arrived and with its immaculate gardens, tended by the inmates, the complex of two-storey cell blocks had a tranquil air. On D wing, the prison's 20-bed Addictive Treatment Unit, the Duchess chatted to prisoners to hear their personal stories of how they became addicted to drugs and alcohol and how the unit is helping them to overcome their substance abuse. The women at the prison did not know who their visitor would be until half an hour before she arrived. Some were expecting Russell Brand. “They were surprised,” said one charity worker. “Pleasantly surprised.” She was making the visit at the request of the Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust (RAPt), which operates in 26 prisons across the country. The Duchess is Patron of the charity Action on Addiction, and is keen to learn more about the root causes of addiction, its destructive effect on individuals and society, and what can be done to stop it. As well as meeting current prisoners, she met ex-prisoners who told her how the RAPt programme had helped them turn their lives around and stay crime and drug-free after their release. She spoke group of women all known by their first names, offender Isha, 33, and two former inmates who have successfully been through the programme, Kirsty and Lacey both 36. On the walls were positive quotes from world figures like Nelson Mandela and Albert Einstein and an anonymous message which read "Addiction is the only disease that tells you you're alright". Kirsty, a former heroin and crack addict, told the Duchess: "I'm eight years clean now. I walked out of these gates on the 4 August 4, 2008," adding that both her parents had been drug users and that being "clean" of substances was a concept introduced to her at Send. The 36-year-old, who now works as an outreach worker for sex offenders in Gloucester, described an early experience that demonstrated how drug use was an everyday part of her family life. As Kate listened intently she said: "I remember finding a margarine tub under my dad's bed and it had syringes in it, and knowing what they were for - I must have been five or six - so it was normalised." Speaking about the Duchess' reaction to the story, Kirsty said afterwards: "She was saddened probably, anybody would be, it's not nice for anybody to hear that anybody was in that situation. "I think what it also does is it creates some understanding, it gives a backdrop. Because you know, sometimes the way that addicts live their lifestyles we're not the greatest advertisement for humanity are we? "And so sometimes to hear there's a potential reason, that it isn't just that we woke up one day and decided to test our families' lives and create absolute chaos in communities, there were reasons - some acceptable, some not - but there were reasons." After the meeting Isha gave the duchess two aprons made by inmates for Prince George and Princess Charlotte, as well as some prison-made pastries – from the Bad Girls Bakery – and honey from the prison bees. She said the duchess said of the aprons: “George is doing to need it for his painting and his colouring.” Send, a closed women's prison like HMP Holloway in London, has been home to some of the country's most notorious female prisoners in recent years, including Jane Andrews, the former dresser to the Duchess of York, who was released earlier this year from a life sentence for killing her lover Tom Cressman in 2000; and Tracie Andrews, who served 14 years for murdering her fiance Lee Harvey by stabbing him more than 42 times with a penknife in 1996. For the visit the Duchess wore a £365 white ‘Eaton’ dress from London fashion label the Fold