A poem inspired by a visit to the House of Commons organised by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Miscarriages of Justices. I wrote many rants like this in prison when I thought I was one of the few to have suffered a miscarriage of justice. I now realise that I am one of many and that the miscarriage which I suffered was minor compared to some that I have since heard about. Unfortunately, but understandably, most attention is given to those miscarriages linked to sexual or violent offences where an innocent person’s life is absolutely destroyed by years of imprisonment, abuse and suspicion. My aim is to get people to look at those miscarriages that have less general appeal because the “crimes” are seen as lesser or more complex. One miscarriage is one too many, of course, and what is needed is a cultural change whereby the search for truth becomes more important than the search for conviction. That is not the case today in the “justice” system.
Guilt and Innocence II
Show me a man who is innocent
And I’ll find something for which he is to blame
Show me a man who is guilty
And I’ll show you why he needs feel no shame
For there is no-one amongst us that cannot be accused
No-one that will have nothing to hide
No-one that has never been abused
And no-one that critics can totally deride
There are people for whom all is black and white
Who can only live with absolute clarity
Who will navigate through winds and waves
To identify a single disparity
In a statement made with the best of intent
That reveals the complexity of verity
Unaware of the preposterous extent
That an accuser will go to show insincerity
Show me the man that has the courage to say
That our prisons are not full of the criminal
Nor full of the absolute pure
And that certainty in justice is minimal
For we pretend a jury is always just
And that judges may make no error
And to maintain these myths society must
Defend an appalling reign of terror