Firstly I need to clarify what this case is actually about.
Many people have assumed that if my case in the Grand Chamber is won then my
tariff would be put back down to the original 25 years set by the trial judge.
This is not the case. What my legal team has applied for is for a review to be
inserted into my mandatory whole life sentence.
It is my position that the UK Government is in breach of
Article 3 and article 5 (4) of the European Convention on Human Rights by
imposing a whole life sentence without review, this amounts to ‘inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment.’ But what does this actually mean?
In light of the January ruling that whole life tariff's are not in breach of human rights law, the only appropriate submission my legal team could make to
the Grand Chamber is that there is no problem with a government applying a
mandatory whole life sentence, but the breach of Human Rights Law lies within there
being no mechanism for review of the prisoner’s whole life sentence. It is then
asserted, (and it is also my particular view) that a whole life order then
becomes parallel with a death sentence. To order someone to die is to permanently
exclude them from society and it then follows that to sentence a person to
whole life imprisonment is also permanent social exclusion. Social death is a
dimension of the slavery which replaced death in Classical society, and was and
still is intrinsically linked to loss of liberty. [1]
As I have stated many times, I have been sentenced to death by old age.
This leads us to the psychological state of those
incarcerated for whole life without reviews. It has been clarified by
psychologists including those assessing me that I am at continued risk of
having depression brought about the prolonged environment of prison.[2]
I am in total agreement about life without hope, after all hope is what keeps
the human spirit alive and without hope there is nothing. For me, even with the
insertion of a review there is still very little hope of release. If the Grand
Chamber rule to allow me to have reviews there is no knowing at what point a
review could be placed, it might be at 30 or 40 years into a sentence. As I
have maintained innocence, there lies the other difficulty of reviewing my
prison term in light of this. Because I have maintained innocence I have not
taken part in any rehabilitation programmes and neither can I be viewed as a
prisoner who has gained atonement. The judiciary and review boards see me as
being in denial of guilt. So when the European Court of Human Rights ruled
against my appeal at Strasbourg in January 2012, the three dissenting judges emphasised
that Article 3 was being infringed and their words rang true for me, “equally
importantly depriving him of any hope for the future, however tenuous that hope
may be.” Tenuous, really is how I feel about this ruling even if we win in the
Grand Chamber. After this digression, nevertheless the argument my lawyers have
put forward is that this treatment, taking into account psychological effects
does amount to inhuman and degrading treatment. To this I have to agree
wholeheartedly, respect for ‘hope’ an essential dimension of human dignity does
underpin the protection of human rights. [3]
In the USA and China the death penalty still exists in
contrast to Canada where there is no death penalty and no whole life sentencing.
The USA, similarly to England and Wales currently has the sentence of ‘Life
Without Parole’ (LWOP) and in Florida the US Supreme Court commented broadly on
the destructive impact of this sentence “It deprives the convict of the most
basic liberties without giving hope of restoration.[4]
If you have always felt that England and Wales are soft on sentencing
then think again because the statistics show otherwise. The position is that all
majority state parties of Europe rule that life sentences must have reviews.[5]
Only England and Wales and Hungary have an authentically irreducible whole life
sentence, England and Wales with almost 21 times more life sentenced prisoners than any other
single European country and we currently have more whole life sentence
prisoners than all of Europe put together. [6]
The first whole life tariff in the UK was set in 1988, and in 2003 reviews at
executive discretion for these prisoners was abolished (under a Labour
government).[7]
Although Scotland’s sentencing is generally similar to England and Wales their
human rights laws were brought into line with Europe at the time of the
devolution of powers.[8]
Whole life tariff prisoners cannot be subject to a
prerogative pardon. The only mechanism for release of a prisoner (other than to
overturn their conviction) on a whole life sentence in England and Wales is
granted in exceptional circumstances, where the prisoner is medically
incapacitated with death to occur within 3 months and no life sentence prisoner
has ever been released under this or any other power in England and Wales. This
exception compounds the view that a whole life sentence is literally a death
sentence.[9]
As I am not guilty of the crimes I have been convicted of
carrying out, where do I fit in all of this? Currently the only avenue to appeal is through
the politically controlled quango of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. When
this avenue is exhausted because the commission has usurped the role of the
appeal courts and is in violation of the Criminal Appeals act 1995, and non
disclosure of evidential materials still prevails, surely this is a violation
of both Article 3 and 5(4) of European Human Rights Law, and should be taken
into consideration when assessing whole life sentences. As crime is
intrinsically tied to sentencing it is axiomatic that the problem of
Miscarriage of Justice cases could be expanded within this framework simply
because a Miscarriage of Justice in UK law does not allow for innocence but
only a “miscarriage of due process.”[10]
If we are to believe the statistics quoted by Dr Michael
Naughton as opposed to the Government’s ‘massaged figures’ we face a very
worrying situation indeed. Naughton reveals that there are no less than 18
convictions a day over turned in the UK which is an astonishing figure
warranting a full review of the causes of wrongful convictions.[11]
Indeed Naughton himself states:
“miscarriages of justice as understood from the perspective of the legal
system are not the exception to the rule, rather they are a routine and even
mundane feature of the criminal justice process.”[12]
It is of course, with my own conviction and these statistics
in mind when I consider what a whole life sentence means to the individuals
living a ‘social death’ as I do each day. But whatever happens on the 28th
of November this year it will make little difference to my current life,
release for me with my conviction intact means no life at all. There is only
one freedom and one hope for me and that is that the truth of my innocence will
be heard in a court of Law allowing me the liberty I have been fighting for.
[1] Patterson,
O. Slavery and Social Death: A
Comparative Study, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982
[2] Dr
Anderson Report, 2006
[3]
“reintergrationist” versus “exclusionary” types of imprisonment, Dolovich, pg
13 & 122; Life Without Parole, Ed
Ogletree and Sarat, NYU Press, 2012.
Absence of a “dignity tradition” comparative study USA, Europe, pg 19 &
282-310, op cit.
[4]
Graham v Florida 130, S.Ct. 2011, 2021
(2010) at 2027 & Naovarath v State, 105 Nev. 525, 526, 779 P.2d 944 (1989),
at pg 4 &40
[5] http://treaties.un.org & UN report on Life Imprisonment (1994)
[6]
Stats prisoners serving life or IPP http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/statistics/prison-probation/omsq/omsq-q1-2012.pdf,
The Howard, Newsletter of the Howard League
for Penal Reform, Summer 2009, http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/prisons/
& Hansard, Baroness Stern at Col 448 http://www.publications.parliament.uk/
[7]
Provisions of CJA 2003
[8]
Convention rights (Compliance) (Scotland) Act 2001 c.7
[9]
PSO, 4700, para, 12.2.1
[10]
Naughton, M. Rethinking Miscarriages of
Justice, 2012 edition, Palgrave, Basingstoke, pp 21-24
[11]
Daily average in Crown Court, CACD (including referrals from the CCRC) and
House of Lords, 18.21, op cit.
[12]
Ibid pg 4
