Elizabeth Holmes’ big con deserved prison time – so why do I feel sorry for her? | Emma Brockes

Seeing the former founder of Theranos turn herself in should have offered the thrill of schadenfreude. Instead I felt sympathy

It is an image that, for any number of vilified public figures, is supposed to offer the audience a measure of closure: a version of the perp walk to the front door of the jail. On Tuesday, Elizabeth Holmes, erstwhile founder of the blood testing startup, Theranos, self-presented to a federal prison in Texas to begin her 11-year sentence for fraud. So much about Holmes has turned out to be phoney that, on looking at the photos and feeling the first peckings of sympathy, I instantly checked myself to see where I was being manipulated.

Still, a measure of sympathy remained. Holmes was dressed in jeans and a sweater, her black turtle-neck long retired along with the contrived pitch of her voice. It is always curious in these circumstances to consider what the fraudster tells herself has actually happened, how far into denial the internal narrative goes. On the evidence of her own testimony and the interview Holmes gave to the New York Times last month, she is deeply invested in the story of her own victimisation, both by her former business partner and boyfriend, Sunny Balwani, currently serving his own almost 13-year sentence, and by Silicon Valley itself. Even the wording of her apology - I am devastated by my failings" - seemed designed to position her not as the instigator of her own bad behaviour but as just another of its passive victims.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist