It's been a hell of a year, and I'd thought I'd share my insights on the criminal justice and prison system.
Last September I had a psychotic episode in hospital resulting in mental incapacity, during which I "locked" some staff in an office for a couple of minutes due to hallucinations that there was some danger outside the room, and at another point in the corridor exposed myself saying I had a radioactive penis.
Astonishingly the staff somehow did not seem to pick up on the fact that I was psychotic and called the police, which led me being taken into custody.
During my time in the police station, I was not given my prescribed psychiatric medication (I'm prescribed 3 psychiatric medications, one of which is listed as a "critical med"), but was declared fit for interview despite my psychosis. After my unmedicated interview where my duty solicitor gave a prepared statement, I was charged with false imprisonment and indecent exposure and remanded into custody despite having no criminal convictions and not being on bail.
The next day I was taken to the magistrates court and remanded into prison by default because my duty barrister did not show up to court.
I was taken to HMP Preston and classed as a VP (sex offender) due to the exposure charge (in my case I probably didn't need VP status). I was also classed as "High Risk" (to others) due to my false imprisonment charge, so was allocated a single cell, one of the lucky few.
In effect I was "disappeared" off the streets, the sort of thing that you hear about happening in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I was absolutely terrified, going into prison while psychotic, not on my medication, with no one knowing where I was, having not had the opportunity to speak to legal counsel.
The first few days I could barely function, hardly ate (lost 6kg in the first 6 weeks), slept, with little opportunity to shower, nothing was explained to me when I came into prison, no proper induction because I was classed as a VP.
I did eventually get most of my medication, but not the most critical one, pregabalin, a drug which should not be abruptly stopped. This is currently the subject of a GMC investigation after I raised a concern for safety with them, as patients coming into the prison frequently had their controlled drugs abruptly stopped without even seeing a doctor!
The practical effect of this is patients are being punished by having their medications stopped. The time I spent in prison without my meds significantly impacted my functioning and was absolute torture.
After about a week I did get moved to the VP wing and spoke to the "Here to help rep", where I did get acquainted with some of the prison process.
After a few weeks I did eventually get into an education course, Art, 3 hours in the morning and started working in textiles for 2 hours in the afternoon. You get paid 50p a weekday for being in prison, £1.10 per education session and £1.20 per work session at HMP Preston. It was more an opportunity to get out of my "pad" than anything else.
HMP Preston, I'm told, is a hole compared to other prisons, worn down old facilities, there were only 3 working showers on the wing which had a rated capacity of 160 prisoners. Everything was paper based so ordering things or submitting requests would take 2-3 weeks, whereas at other prisons you have tablets in your pad. There's a phone in your pad, and an 18.5" TV with about 16 terrestrial channels. You can buy a stereo and DVD player from the Argos catalogue, although you can't buy 18 rated DVDs (you can buy adult magazines bizarrely), and if you can afford it, a PS2/XBOX/Gamecube.
With it being a cat B prison, there were quite a few restrictions on items you can have in possession, for example you can't buy shaving razors, and the electric ones they give you when you come in are crap, so I was really unkempt for a while until I could afford to pay for a trim from one of the prisoners who had a pair of clippers.
The only positive at HMP Preston seems to be that you had access to the GYM and sports hall 6 days a week (if you are an enhanced prisoner) and you get about 8 hours a day out of your pad, whereas at some other prisons you can be locked up for 23 hours a day.
What I saw inside shocked me in a number of different respects. The propaganda line from the government is that remand is for the most dangerous offenders, which it should be, putting someone in prison without a trial should be a very high bar and reserved for predatory offenders and terrorists.
However, many people were on remand without a trial because of just one bad thing, sometimes for a crime committed years ago, clearly those are not the "most dangerous" offenders. A number of people ended up walking out of court after receiving a community order or suspended sentence, clearly those people should never have been in prison in the first place.
The lack of education that many prisoners had, and the number of people that had had traumatic experiences such as sexual abuse, was awful, and goes some way to explaining how they went down the path they did, their view of consent has been warped by their childhood experiences.
The concept of rehabilitation just seemed to be lip-service, there was a level 1 Maths and English course, but that was the only accredited education on offer at that prison. The waiting list to see a counsellor was over 6 months, which is crazy considering that psychological and psychiatric reasons were why they ended up in prison in the first place. I frequently rolled my eyes at the placards in the prison stating that they were "rebuilding lives", when prisoners have just had their lives destroyed by the remand system. What shocked me with regards to both the prisoners and prison authorities was not so much the actions people take, but the lack of insight and awareness into them.
This experience has taught me not to "other" entire groups of people as "criminals". I remember one young lad, who had committed a terrible crime; statutory rape of a 12 year old girl he'd met on the internet and groomed, who he believed he was in a "relationship with", his case was on the BBC news. But talking to him, it was obvious he lacked maturity for his age (he was assessed as having the mental age of a 12 year old due to lack of maturity), he'd been sexually exploited by older women from the age of 11, had basically no parenting or education, and the fact he had 3 kids, the oldest of whom was 8 at the age of 23 was telling in and of itself. He was clearly presenting as dangerous to me, and obviously the judge agreed hence why he got a 16 year extended sentence, but at the same time he was clearly vulnerable due to his upbringing, and speaking to him he just seemed like a normal lad, who'd done a terrible thing which was in part attributable to his upbringing.
Before this experience I would have labelled him as a monster based on the news article, and indeed it is shocking, and hard to reconcile with the lad that was standing in front of me, but he was clearly not a monster to me, just a frightened young lad who needed rehabilitation, and to be locked up for a long time to protect the public and himself. But it's enough that he's spending the next 10 years in prison and publicly shamed without plebs calling for his execution and torture as some here no doubt would.
Don't get me wrong there were some monsters on there, offenders whose lifestyle was destroying children's lives, and for whom the key should be thrown away as they clearly didn't want to change. But that did not represent everyone, and a significant number of people were there for less serious incidents for which they received a couple of years inside for.
I initially entered no plea for my charges, as my legal firm wanted a psychiatric assessment to assess my fitness to enter a plea due to the psychosis. At my arraignment in November at the crown court I entered a not guilty plea because my barrister stated he did not think what I did amounted to false imprisonment.
When I did finally see a solicitor in prison at the end of January, (it's actually quite hard to get appointments with legal counsel at times due to the prison) I was told that even though my barrister did not think I was guilty, that it was in my interest to plead guilty, because I would spent longer in prison if found not guilty than if I entered a guilty plea, because I was unlikely to receive a prison sentence.
Yes that's right, in the UK, on remand, you can spent much longer in prison if you are found not guilty! Because of the amount of time (up to a year) it can take to actually get a matter to trial.
Eventually, when it came to my PTPH, my barrister had argued with the prosecutor regarding the false imprisonment matter, and it was left to lie on file. I then entered a guilty plea to the exposure offence, and another charge from 4 years ago regarding possession of 7 indecent images, after someone posted them on Twitter and there was cache on my computer of that, despite me reporting them to the internet watch foundation; so despite the forensic evidence clearly showing that they were unsolicited, i.e. no searches, clicking on dodgy links, or going on illegal websites etc. and that it was cache, i.e. I was not guilty, I had to plead guilty just to get out of prison which is ****** up and happens to people frequently, I was in practical effect, prevented from having a trial under my article 6 right, because no reasonable person would say having to spend one year in prison as an innocent person constitutes the right to a fair trial.
It's as though, the facts don't matter to the court, what matters is the narrative.
So I'm guilty of what, seeing something? If you can be guilty of indecent images on that basis then it is a trivial crime, because no matter how serious an offence may be in theory, if in practice, that is what people are prosecuted for, then it becomes trivialised by the actions of the crown, and I can now understand why so many people have the attitude that, "it's just looking at a couple of pictures".
In my judgement, the remand system serves as a conviction mill, it hampers one's defence massively when they are not given their psych meds, it's a huge struggle to get phone numbers added and talk to a solicitor, you don't have access to a computer to review the evidence etc. It's not justice, and is a scandal on par with the post office. It makes a mockery of the notion of "innocent until proven guilty", words like "liberal democracy", "liberty", "freedom", "human rights", and "rule of law" are thrown about, but they are all meaningless when ~8,000 people are in prison without a trial. The police frequently abuse it in order to coerce defendants into pleading guilty so they can get out of prison, and in effect to impose their own brand of extrajudicial justice on them.
I was eventually sentenced in May, after a number of delays, to a 12 month community order, with no punishment element because of the length of time I spent in prison. The judge was shaking his head in disbelief, asking on what basis I was remanded. A cost of approx £45k for my 8.5month stay in prison, a 21 month sentence served in effect (as you spend 40% of your sentence in custody normally).
As a result of this, I've been made homeless, as my new landlord couldn't contact me, so illegally evicted me, and threw all my stuff out so I'm now staying in a hotel.
I can see how the prison system creates the social conditions that drive crime, such as; homelessness, joblessness, family break up and fatherlessness, poverty, trauma etc. Random conversations would arise about how to get away with x,y, and z crime etc. something that doesn't normally happen on the outside.
To anyone who would say "well then you shouldn't commit crime", ignoring the fact that my crime was the result of psychiatric illness, that attitude demonstrates that what you care about the most is not reducing crime, but punishing people, which is not the same thing, you would rather that people be punished for crime via the prison system and there be more crime as a result, rather than people not be imprisoned and there be less crime overall. The only way forward is to address the social issues that cause crime, and parties like Reform are misguided to say the least. We are spending £5 bill a year on locking people up as punishment, inflicting unnecessary suffering, money which could be used to reduce crime in ways that are actually effective and evidence based.
After this experience I don't trust the police, they are supposed to be there to protect the vulnerable, not harm them. I do not believe them to be overall a force for good, with the war on drugs etc. they inflict devestation on communities. The prison system is an absolute cancer on society, yes there are some dangerous offenders that need to be locked up for public protection, but many are people who have just done one bad, in some cases terrible thing.
I could go on, and will probably add more later, as a lot has happened to say the least. If you have any questions please let me know. I realise there's a bit of ranting, but considering my experience I believe I'm entitled to that.
The fact that all it takes in the UK, a supposed liberal democracy, with human rights, is an allegation of a low level offence and you can be disappeared off the streets, should horrify any right minded person.
Justice, what the **** is that? This is not respectable, reasonable people do not behave in this way.
Just ask yourself, in this system how much can you trust a conviction? How credible is the word of a UK court?
I hope this offers some insight into the prison system.
Last September I had a psychotic episode in hospital resulting in mental incapacity, during which I "locked" some staff in an office for a couple of minutes due to hallucinations that there was some danger outside the room, and at another point in the corridor exposed myself saying I had a radioactive penis.
Astonishingly the staff somehow did not seem to pick up on the fact that I was psychotic and called the police, which led me being taken into custody.
During my time in the police station, I was not given my prescribed psychiatric medication (I'm prescribed 3 psychiatric medications, one of which is listed as a "critical med"), but was declared fit for interview despite my psychosis. After my unmedicated interview where my duty solicitor gave a prepared statement, I was charged with false imprisonment and indecent exposure and remanded into custody despite having no criminal convictions and not being on bail.
The next day I was taken to the magistrates court and remanded into prison by default because my duty barrister did not show up to court.
I was taken to HMP Preston and classed as a VP (sex offender) due to the exposure charge (in my case I probably didn't need VP status). I was also classed as "High Risk" (to others) due to my false imprisonment charge, so was allocated a single cell, one of the lucky few.
In effect I was "disappeared" off the streets, the sort of thing that you hear about happening in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I was absolutely terrified, going into prison while psychotic, not on my medication, with no one knowing where I was, having not had the opportunity to speak to legal counsel.
The first few days I could barely function, hardly ate (lost 6kg in the first 6 weeks), slept, with little opportunity to shower, nothing was explained to me when I came into prison, no proper induction because I was classed as a VP.
I did eventually get most of my medication, but not the most critical one, pregabalin, a drug which should not be abruptly stopped. This is currently the subject of a GMC investigation after I raised a concern for safety with them, as patients coming into the prison frequently had their controlled drugs abruptly stopped without even seeing a doctor!
The practical effect of this is patients are being punished by having their medications stopped. The time I spent in prison without my meds significantly impacted my functioning and was absolute torture.
After about a week I did get moved to the VP wing and spoke to the "Here to help rep", where I did get acquainted with some of the prison process.
After a few weeks I did eventually get into an education course, Art, 3 hours in the morning and started working in textiles for 2 hours in the afternoon. You get paid 50p a weekday for being in prison, £1.10 per education session and £1.20 per work session at HMP Preston. It was more an opportunity to get out of my "pad" than anything else.
HMP Preston, I'm told, is a hole compared to other prisons, worn down old facilities, there were only 3 working showers on the wing which had a rated capacity of 160 prisoners. Everything was paper based so ordering things or submitting requests would take 2-3 weeks, whereas at other prisons you have tablets in your pad. There's a phone in your pad, and an 18.5" TV with about 16 terrestrial channels. You can buy a stereo and DVD player from the Argos catalogue, although you can't buy 18 rated DVDs (you can buy adult magazines bizarrely), and if you can afford it, a PS2/XBOX/Gamecube.
With it being a cat B prison, there were quite a few restrictions on items you can have in possession, for example you can't buy shaving razors, and the electric ones they give you when you come in are crap, so I was really unkempt for a while until I could afford to pay for a trim from one of the prisoners who had a pair of clippers.
The only positive at HMP Preston seems to be that you had access to the GYM and sports hall 6 days a week (if you are an enhanced prisoner) and you get about 8 hours a day out of your pad, whereas at some other prisons you can be locked up for 23 hours a day.
What I saw inside shocked me in a number of different respects. The propaganda line from the government is that remand is for the most dangerous offenders, which it should be, putting someone in prison without a trial should be a very high bar and reserved for predatory offenders and terrorists.
However, many people were on remand without a trial because of just one bad thing, sometimes for a crime committed years ago, clearly those are not the "most dangerous" offenders. A number of people ended up walking out of court after receiving a community order or suspended sentence, clearly those people should never have been in prison in the first place.
The lack of education that many prisoners had, and the number of people that had had traumatic experiences such as sexual abuse, was awful, and goes some way to explaining how they went down the path they did, their view of consent has been warped by their childhood experiences.
The concept of rehabilitation just seemed to be lip-service, there was a level 1 Maths and English course, but that was the only accredited education on offer at that prison. The waiting list to see a counsellor was over 6 months, which is crazy considering that psychological and psychiatric reasons were why they ended up in prison in the first place. I frequently rolled my eyes at the placards in the prison stating that they were "rebuilding lives", when prisoners have just had their lives destroyed by the remand system. What shocked me with regards to both the prisoners and prison authorities was not so much the actions people take, but the lack of insight and awareness into them.
This experience has taught me not to "other" entire groups of people as "criminals". I remember one young lad, who had committed a terrible crime; statutory rape of a 12 year old girl he'd met on the internet and groomed, who he believed he was in a "relationship with", his case was on the BBC news. But talking to him, it was obvious he lacked maturity for his age (he was assessed as having the mental age of a 12 year old due to lack of maturity), he'd been sexually exploited by older women from the age of 11, had basically no parenting or education, and the fact he had 3 kids, the oldest of whom was 8 at the age of 23 was telling in and of itself. He was clearly presenting as dangerous to me, and obviously the judge agreed hence why he got a 16 year extended sentence, but at the same time he was clearly vulnerable due to his upbringing, and speaking to him he just seemed like a normal lad, who'd done a terrible thing which was in part attributable to his upbringing.
Before this experience I would have labelled him as a monster based on the news article, and indeed it is shocking, and hard to reconcile with the lad that was standing in front of me, but he was clearly not a monster to me, just a frightened young lad who needed rehabilitation, and to be locked up for a long time to protect the public and himself. But it's enough that he's spending the next 10 years in prison and publicly shamed without plebs calling for his execution and torture as some here no doubt would.
Don't get me wrong there were some monsters on there, offenders whose lifestyle was destroying children's lives, and for whom the key should be thrown away as they clearly didn't want to change. But that did not represent everyone, and a significant number of people were there for less serious incidents for which they received a couple of years inside for.
I initially entered no plea for my charges, as my legal firm wanted a psychiatric assessment to assess my fitness to enter a plea due to the psychosis. At my arraignment in November at the crown court I entered a not guilty plea because my barrister stated he did not think what I did amounted to false imprisonment.
When I did finally see a solicitor in prison at the end of January, (it's actually quite hard to get appointments with legal counsel at times due to the prison) I was told that even though my barrister did not think I was guilty, that it was in my interest to plead guilty, because I would spent longer in prison if found not guilty than if I entered a guilty plea, because I was unlikely to receive a prison sentence.
Yes that's right, in the UK, on remand, you can spent much longer in prison if you are found not guilty! Because of the amount of time (up to a year) it can take to actually get a matter to trial.
Eventually, when it came to my PTPH, my barrister had argued with the prosecutor regarding the false imprisonment matter, and it was left to lie on file. I then entered a guilty plea to the exposure offence, and another charge from 4 years ago regarding possession of 7 indecent images, after someone posted them on Twitter and there was cache on my computer of that, despite me reporting them to the internet watch foundation; so despite the forensic evidence clearly showing that they were unsolicited, i.e. no searches, clicking on dodgy links, or going on illegal websites etc. and that it was cache, i.e. I was not guilty, I had to plead guilty just to get out of prison which is ****** up and happens to people frequently, I was in practical effect, prevented from having a trial under my article 6 right, because no reasonable person would say having to spend one year in prison as an innocent person constitutes the right to a fair trial.
It's as though, the facts don't matter to the court, what matters is the narrative.
So I'm guilty of what, seeing something? If you can be guilty of indecent images on that basis then it is a trivial crime, because no matter how serious an offence may be in theory, if in practice, that is what people are prosecuted for, then it becomes trivialised by the actions of the crown, and I can now understand why so many people have the attitude that, "it's just looking at a couple of pictures".
In my judgement, the remand system serves as a conviction mill, it hampers one's defence massively when they are not given their psych meds, it's a huge struggle to get phone numbers added and talk to a solicitor, you don't have access to a computer to review the evidence etc. It's not justice, and is a scandal on par with the post office. It makes a mockery of the notion of "innocent until proven guilty", words like "liberal democracy", "liberty", "freedom", "human rights", and "rule of law" are thrown about, but they are all meaningless when ~8,000 people are in prison without a trial. The police frequently abuse it in order to coerce defendants into pleading guilty so they can get out of prison, and in effect to impose their own brand of extrajudicial justice on them.
I was eventually sentenced in May, after a number of delays, to a 12 month community order, with no punishment element because of the length of time I spent in prison. The judge was shaking his head in disbelief, asking on what basis I was remanded. A cost of approx £45k for my 8.5month stay in prison, a 21 month sentence served in effect (as you spend 40% of your sentence in custody normally).
As a result of this, I've been made homeless, as my new landlord couldn't contact me, so illegally evicted me, and threw all my stuff out so I'm now staying in a hotel.
I can see how the prison system creates the social conditions that drive crime, such as; homelessness, joblessness, family break up and fatherlessness, poverty, trauma etc. Random conversations would arise about how to get away with x,y, and z crime etc. something that doesn't normally happen on the outside.
To anyone who would say "well then you shouldn't commit crime", ignoring the fact that my crime was the result of psychiatric illness, that attitude demonstrates that what you care about the most is not reducing crime, but punishing people, which is not the same thing, you would rather that people be punished for crime via the prison system and there be more crime as a result, rather than people not be imprisoned and there be less crime overall. The only way forward is to address the social issues that cause crime, and parties like Reform are misguided to say the least. We are spending £5 bill a year on locking people up as punishment, inflicting unnecessary suffering, money which could be used to reduce crime in ways that are actually effective and evidence based.
After this experience I don't trust the police, they are supposed to be there to protect the vulnerable, not harm them. I do not believe them to be overall a force for good, with the war on drugs etc. they inflict devestation on communities. The prison system is an absolute cancer on society, yes there are some dangerous offenders that need to be locked up for public protection, but many are people who have just done one bad, in some cases terrible thing.
I could go on, and will probably add more later, as a lot has happened to say the least. If you have any questions please let me know. I realise there's a bit of ranting, but considering my experience I believe I'm entitled to that.
The fact that all it takes in the UK, a supposed liberal democracy, with human rights, is an allegation of a low level offence and you can be disappeared off the streets, should horrify any right minded person.
Justice, what the **** is that? This is not respectable, reasonable people do not behave in this way.
Just ask yourself, in this system how much can you trust a conviction? How credible is the word of a UK court?
I hope this offers some insight into the prison system.
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