“I remember people shouting and banging on doors, these maddening screams,” recalls former inmate Gerrah Selby on her return to Holloway Prison.

“For centuries I couldn’t fall asleep, because of the noise and being too scared to fall asleep, but I wanted to sleep so bad during my sentence.”

Gemma, who was sentenced to four years in prison for offenses linked to animal rights activism, is one of six former inmates who returned to what was Europe’s largest women’s prison , alongside the directors of a new documentary, Holloway, which recently had its premiere at the London Film Festival.

Returning to the ruined north London prison – which has been bulldozed since their visit – with the help of a trauma specialist, they reflected on their time there and the events that led to their arrest.

As the women sat in dust-covered chairs, against a backdrop of peeling walls, the memories came flooding back.