Yesterday, Deb Madden and myself, Gloria Morrison were
privileged to meet Lizzie Donaghue in HMP Send. We went as representatives of
JENGbA, it was important to meet her. It was an emotional meeting and her mum
Marion was there also, but I’ve been corresponding with Lizzie for some time
now and she has become an integral part of JENGbA’s understanding of the flaws
and framework which allows miscarriages of justice to happen.
Before JENGbA was formed in 2010, London Against Injustice (LAI)
was the group where Marion found us, looking for support and help for her
daughter Lizzie who had been convicted of her husband’s murder via conspiracy
and was given a 30 year sentence. Marion
was in her late sixties at the time of her daughter’s conviction, and
traumatised by what had happened to her family, but so certain of her daughter’s
innocence she simply could not understand how she had been so let down by the
Justice system.
 | |
| Marion Donaghue & Gerry Conlon at TUC Conference |
I have visited many men and women in prison since we started
our campaign and once again I wonder what prisons are actually for. I see these women with children, and when
reunited with them seem so loving and desperately close.
A little boy arrived with his sister and his Grandmother,
and in the car park he was crying desperately trying to push her out of the visitors’
centre, yet once he saw his mum he ran into her arms screaming with delight. When
it was time to leave he was clinging to his young mum so hard it took all his
grandma’s strength to prise him away from her.
In the toilets his little sister was crying uncontrollably. But it is
not just traumatised children that make me wonder this, does it really make
sense to lock a human being into a system that is constantly being proven does
not work, at a cost to the tax payer of a minimum of £50,000 a year?
Lizzie has 3 children, who were teenagers when she went to
prison 8 years ago. She is now a
grandmother of 3 and one of the most beautiful and brave women I have met in a
long time. She has set up ICE (Innocent Connection Enterprise) herself with the
help of Inside Time. The idea is that prisoners maintaining innocence can find other
prisoners inside to communicate with via letters. This will be contentious. The prison system does not want to accept
there are innocent people in prison.
JENGbA knows this as we asked several prison governors could we have
representatives on the wing to signpost the campaign to other prisoners
convicted under JE. The responses were
the same. We do not recognise your
business? Simples we are not a business –we are a force for justice.
Lizzie is another excellent example of why JENGbA
exists. Her mother knew something was
profoundly wrong about her conviction, and as she told her story we recognised
the same path used by police and CPS to get an innocent person convicted. The
‘framing’ of how a crime happened in
court, though it bears no reality to what actually happened in reality and with
all the weight of the Crown against you,
you become a mere statistic and perhaps another round in the pub for our brave prosecuters
who have ‘won’.
Then once convicted all the resources to keep you in prison
are weighted against you. But this mother, grandma and great grandmother, Marion’s
conviction and determination to fight for her daughter’s freedom mirrors every
mother, father and child in JENGbA. That cannot be bottled, quantified or
changed – we will succeed because love means we have no choice.
Anyone who watched ‘I’m a celebrity get me outta here’ and
saw how Charlie’s daughter gripped on to her after 3 weeks separation should go
into prison and see all the children whose lives are being destroyed by the
prison system. Innocent people whose freedom, liberty and choices have been taken
away from them. In fact JENGbA has over 350 prisoners now that we are
supporting. Many of them fathers and women with children, heartbreakingly many
are children themselves, serving life sentences. If the public and MPs genuinely want to see
and learn about prison conditions and wrongful convictions why don’t they visit
our inside campaigners. Not as a
politician but as human beings who will easily recognise we have one of the
most disgraceful prison systems in Europe.
Our prisons are business and the people in there nothing
more than cattle. It is a disgrace that
must be exposed as long as it costs so much money to get people into a system
that enables others to profit from human misery.
