A candidate hoping to represent Brixton Windrush on Lambeth council in next month’s local elections once faced the prospect of a decade in an American prison, having been caught smuggling 10,000 ecstasy tablets into Los Angeles.
Carlotta Allum, now 54 and standing for the Green Party, was 25 when she was intercepted at Los Angeles airport with the drugs strapped to her waist and legs. She was acting as a mule for a Leeds-based drug dealer, who had promised her £5,000 to transport the ecstasy into the US and a further £5,000 to bring cocaine back to London. Unbeknownst to her, the dealer was already under surveillance by authorities.
“It was terrifying,” Ms Allum said, reflecting on her time held at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Los Angeles. “For the first three months, I thought I was going to get ten years.” The situation was compounded by the discovery that she was pregnant, with her mother travelling to the US to make arrangements for the baby’s care near the prison.
Her release came after nine months, following a deal with US authorities in which she testified against the dealer, who was later sentenced to seven years in a British prison. She believes the American authorities were keen to see her leave the country, as otherwise her child would have been a US citizen. Her parents had remortgaged their house to provide £30,000 in bail money. Ms Allum has stated that, had she been convicted of the same offence in Britain, she believes she would have received a three-year sentence.
From Prison to a Life of Service
On her return to the UK, Ms Allum qualified and worked as a teacher at a west London primary school. However, her career was upended following the Soham murders in 2002, which led to a significant tightening of criminal record checks. Despite her qualifications, her prison sentence of over six months meant she could no longer secure teaching work.
This experience of what she describes as prejudice fuelled her current mission. “I’ve spent a lot of time fighting the prejudice of having a criminal record and how drug records shouldn’t be the same as violent or sexual offences,” she argues. For more than 20 years, she has run the Stretch charity from Brixton, using art and storytelling to help drug addicts, homeless individuals, prisoners, ex-inmates, and other vulnerable people.
Her work is now underpinned by academic study. She is pursuing a PhD at Central Saint Martins University of the Arts, researching how lived experience can aid the rehabilitation of ex-offenders, having previously completed a research scholarship at the London School of Economics on arts and the rehabilitation of female offenders. “People with real life experience have a lot to offer, I think, in politics in general,” she says, citing the example of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointing a former prisoner as his head of corrections.
A Political Platform Forged from Experience
Ms Allum’s direct experience of the justice system informs her political ambitions. She joined the Green Party last September, the same month Zack Polanski was appointed leader, and is now campaigning nightly alongside her husband, Andrew Allum, who is also a Green candidate in Lambeth. She has been open about her past from the outset of her candidacy.
She is a staunch supporter of the Green Party’s controversial policy to legalise all drugs, including Class A substances, arguing for a public health approach that prioritises treatment over criminalisation to disrupt illegal markets. This policy has been criticised by rivals, with Labour describing it as potentially dangerous, but Green leader Zack Polanski defends it as a move towards regulation and away from prohibition.
With the local elections imminent, Ms Allum reports that her past has not been a major issue on the doorstep, where conversations focus on local and national concerns. For her, the path from the Metropolitan Detention Centre—a federal prison known for its unique design and operated by the US Federal Bureau of Prisons—to the streets of Brixton is not a contradiction but the foundation of her campaign. “I feel like I’ve put my experience to good use,” she said.
