Hi, again.
It's been awhile since I posted. Not because I stopped caring. Not because I came to believe Barry had done it after all. None of these things. I stopped because, in all honesty, I got scared.
Somewhere in the paperwork it says that I don't understand the justice system. They are right. I don't. Or didn't. One thing I have learned. The system is never wrong. And if you say so, you do so at your peril, or in my case, at Barry's.

I grew up avidly reading stories about the famous Chinese judge Ti who worked in the seventh century A.D., still famous because of his absolute determination to do his job well: Keeping the innocent out of prison, and sending the guilty down. In his legal system, he had access to all the evidence available in order to come to any decision. He asked for more if more was needed, or did some investigation of his own. There were no lawyers. Everyone made their statement there and then in the courtroom; this was recorded, read back to whoever had made it and signed if found in order. It was numbered and added to the file.

There were pressures: all his decisions (including all supporting documents) were routinely sent to the capital and checked for accuracy. If he got it wrong, it could cost him his career. If he got it too wrong, it could cost him his life. He could resort to torture, but chose not to, as he felt this did not necessarily provide the truth. (That is what made him famous. And loved.) He had to witness the consequences of his decisions, be present at executions.

One of my favorite stories explores the law that in those days dictated that if a person made an accusation and was found to be guilty of perjury, he or she would receive the punishment for the crime he or she had falsely accused another of. This is bound to have given people pause for thought.

But, I hear you say, having one person being judge, jury and executioner leaves the whole justice system too vulnerable to abuse. Not having lawyers leaves vulnerable people vulnerable. Some of us aren't as well able as others to present our case. And you are right.

So, is it any wonder that, with some 1300 years having passed, lawyers in abundance, some specialising in defense, some in prosecution, judges in all sorts and sizes, torture almost a thing of the past, capital punishment abolished, and even, for the more serious cases, a jury of twelve peers passing judgement, I end up with a -with hindsight wholly unwarranted and entirely naive- confidence in the British legal system?

Take the case of Simon Hall, whose conviction was upheld. Two years ago, I'd have agreed. Due process took place and he's guilty, end of. Now I know that he wouldn't have been allowed to mount an appeal unless he had excellent grounds to do so (i.e. new evidence). This, we are told, is so as not to waste our precious tax payers' money. But in the two years since Barry has been inside, I have heard of so many petty, nasty, horrid ways the legal system (and their sidekick the prison system) resorts to to ensure that even considering an appeal is something one has to be dedicated to do. You get a lesser sentence if you agree with them and say you're guilty. Many little (but oh so important) privileges that one is entitled to earn through behaviour (and that in theory are nothing to do with whether or not you consider yourself guilty or innocent) are denied anyone who maintains their innocence (or, revealingly, 'denies their guilt'). You are denied access to rehabilitation courses, and then punished for not attending them, even though they haven't been offered to you. They even come into your cell and steal the material you are putting together for an appeal, some two weeks or so before the deadline for submitting it. (This, btw, by the same professionals who give you a telly back two days after you used yours to hit an officer over the head with! Meaning, the legal system has conditioned the prison system to be keener to protect the lawyers' good name than their own colleagues actual health and safety!) And should you show a letter confirming you are allowed that material, they steal that too. Well, they don't steal it. They put it in your 'personal box', the one you only have access to once you get released. By the time you have a lawyer on the case, your sentence may very well have ended anyway. So much petty abuse of power. Ask yourself: Is this the behaviour of an organisation that is confident that what it is doing is right, or of one who knows to expect opposition, because of the many mistakes it makes. And one wonders at so many suicide attempts in jail?

Ask yourself these further questions: In the recent case of the crown prosecution having been found to sit on evidence that exonerated a defendant, I forget the details, do I really pay taxes so CPS lawyers can hinder justice taking its proper course by hiding evidence? Isn't the whole idea to find out the truth? Are their careers/purses really more important than justice? Do I really pay taxes so they can edit statements made to the police, leave out what isn't humanly possible (and therefore a lie) as well as what is unlikely to be proven? Is it possible we consider good enough a system that allows twelve of our peers to pass judgement without those people having had all this evidence? And yes, we don't (as a rule) torture victims or witnesses, but ... we pay them?!? Does that not put the whole system at risk? Have we improved on the system such as it was in China all those years ago? Or has true access to justice become a myth, something rendered much more difficult, not in the least because we seem happy to let it be run in an adverserial manner, by tow sets of lawyers who each have a vested interest in making any dispute last as long as possible. That way they earn more. Besides, it's all a game, the aim of which is to win, by any means. And anything you get past the judge is fine. Forgetting so often it's people's lives, their freedom at stake, and not football. And justice had better stay blind. Or is she blindfolded to hide the fact she must be crying her heart out?

And conviction targets for police and prosecution services? Isn't that as ludicrous as would be suggesting targets to midwives to ensure that of all births 85% are male? Doesn't that rather depend on what is in the womb in the first place?

I am not saying that CPS or police have an easy task. And I feel it is precisely because it is so very difficult that they should be allowed to get it wrong. Often. But there shouldn't be that siege mentality, to protect the system at all cost, even if it means that innocent people go down, and are kept down. By the time one stops counting the body bags, and soothes one's conscience with claims it is all done 'for the greater good', we might be better off in China.

I didn't understand the justice system. It is a system that works better for you if you have clashed with it before, and neither Barry or myself had. We made mistakes. Trusted expertise that wasn't all that expert. Trusted that the aim was to find the truth, not for one side or the other to win a game. Unfortunately, the system only allows you one shot at justice. We missed. And I know that saying this, I may make things harder for Barry. But it's got to be said.

Passport and psychic probation officers

I was issued with my new Dutch passport yesterday, and aren't I glad to have it! Renewing it always brings the question to the fore whether I shouldn't 'go with the flow' and apply for British citizenship. Today, however, I am glad indeed that I resisted the obvious temptation. This country is getting scarier by the day. Today's new threat: psychic probation officers. Let me explain.

Barry has received a copy of his pre-sentencing report and his sentence plan. They both make for very depressing reading, if only for the reason that neither author can be said to have had anywhere near sufficient time with Barry to make the sweeping statements that they do. And they contain some gems. For instance: The fact that Barry considers himself to have been a respected member of the fencing community is an indication of his low self-esteem. (How do you work that one out?)

This kind of statement reminds me of that of Judge Simon Freeman, telling my husband he was "reprehensible, dressing in a flamboyant fashion to stand out from his peers". Remember this was being said by a grown man wearing a silly horsehair wig and clashing, bright purple and orange robes, which I understand he wears to distinguish himself from other law men. (I believe the scientific name for this is transference: attributing your motives to others' actions.)

Barry's probation officer too picked up on that theme: Flamboyance. Barry is flamboyant. (Must be that low self-esteem again!) She cleverly picked that up after 20 minutes of talking to Barry through a video link. Barry would have been in his prison get up. The most flamboyant thing he owns in that is a turquoise poloshirt. And she isn't of course. Flamboyant. There are after all plenty of excellent reasons beside the search for a little flamboyance that probation officers decide to dye a shock of their hair bright purple.

But this is not the only feat the woman was capable of: She made several sweeping statements about me too. And she has yet to lay eyes on me, or speak to me even! Psychic, I tell you. How else would you explain the unmitigated gall to say that I "collude in Barry's crime"? If I hadn't developed this acute aversion for lawyers and the British legal system, I would consider suing. Did she pick up on the fact I'm Dutch and reasoned that we Dutch are so permissive we are game for anything, including sexually abusing children? Am I the new Mrs. West?

She tells us that I am Barry's main obstacle for accepting his guilt. But for fear of losing me, Barry would comply and 'fess all'. She further says that I am unwilling to comtemplate the possibility of Barry's guilt. She must have seen that episode of the Mentalist, recently.

As I said, where does she get the nerve? But isn't it truly terrifying that so-called professionals are allowed to develop this level of irresponsible arrogance that lets them make statements about people they barely or even don't know using cheap pseudo-psychology? And suddenly, you can see something tragic like Victoria Climbie or Peter Connelly happen. Were life altering decisions about people in these cases too made by people who just didn't bother to find out who they were talking about?

In that vain, let me make a few sweeping statements of my own. My credentials: I have known Barry intimately for twenty years. Years. Not minutes.

Barry isn't flamboyant. He likes colour. Barry does stand out from the rest. He can't help it. What is it the bard said? Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em... I guess Barry is of the first ilk. He is kind, intelligent and funny. That is what makes him charming. He isn't charming to achieve some evil end. He just is. And he didn't do what he was convicted of for reasons I have explained earlier.

Mrs. Baldwin, like many of the professionals we've come across on this journey, allows the tail to wag the dog. She is making the assumption that since Barry has been convicted, Barry must be guilty. She is attempting to explain everything about Barry (and me) in that light. She is unable to speak to Barry or to look at anything objectively and come to her own conclusions. The only question remains: Is she doing so through sheer inadequacy, or in a questionable desire to support the system, which we so far have experienced as being extremely good at making it extremely hard for people to point out that it may have made a mistake. But then, the system doesn't make mistakes. The jury always gets all the facts, the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And the Guildford Four didn't happen either, or the Birmingham Six, or Ian Lawless or ... As I was saying: scary country, Britain.

Six months already and electronics wizzardry

It was six months yesterday that Barry was 'put away' as they say. We're both pleased to have have reached this 'milestone', but this pleasure is laced with bitterness. None of this should be happening to Barry anyway.

Since his move to Littlehey, Barry has been involved in the electronics workshop there and again has made a success of things there. He's become a wiz with the soldering iron and has been managing his own little group for some time now, to great success. Again, production has gone up drastically with him on board, so much so people came to visit to investigate. He is proud of his group, proud of their work and proud when they tell him that of the batch sent out, none of the circuit boards showed faults that were due to their administrations.

It made me laugh when he told me some time ago that he understood now why I spend time cleaning and looking after tools. Good soldering only happens with a clean soldering iron! And we're talking Barry here: Barry of the 'couldn't draw a straight line if his life depended on it' variety. Barry now drawing straight solder lines and other electronical marvels, which he explains to me at length and which I'm sure I'll understand fully the minute he shows me a board when he gets out. :) It was really nice to see him develop a new image of himself, a manually dexterous Barry, who has started to include drawings (!!!) in his letters.

He is now also getting into diagnostics of it. Finding out where in the circuit faults are occuring and such. The puzzling involved, beating the fault, repairing what was broken, beating the system, all these things stimulate them no end. And yesterday he told me proudly that his team were given two non-working machines and asked to attempt to turn it into a single working one. They did! He was so pleased. Now they have a machine that helps adapting bought components to the specific needs of their applications (which I understand help adapt various items - kitchen scales, clocks, etc - to be of use to people whose sight is impaired). Working as hard as they had, they had been asked to slow down, as other departments, such as those that make the parts they need, couldn't keep up the demand. Now they might.

Meanwhile, back at home, I will be entertaining my 12 year old niece for a week. It will be difficult to explain to her that Barry can't talk to her on the phone, that she wouldn't be allowed to visit, that the sweets she brought for him from Holland wouldn't be allowed through. That none of that means that Barry is angry with or disappointed in her. She loves him a lot and struggles with the situation. Another victim of this supposedly 'victimless crime'.

My tip for the day: In a real court, people don't assume that if a person has lied about half her statement (and is proven to have done so), the other half might be a lie to. They just suppress that bit. Turn the rest into a plausible story et voila. Why does a jury not as a matter of routine get to see people's original unadulterated statement to the police?

The Laundry Man

When at Pentonville, Barry was soon known as the Laundry Man. He'd been offered the job of doing inmates' laundry. When he took it on, his predecessor managed some 15 or so loads per week. When Barry left, his 'personal best' was 62 loads per week. He established a system that didn't rely on favours being traded, but that tried to be fair: first come, first served. Along the way, he looked into why some inmates never handed laundry in and in one case, worked out that this person had problems with the unstructured setting of this aspect of his life inside. Being somewhere on the autistic spectrum, he needed to be given simple instructions: Hand in your laundry on Wednesday. Have a shower on the same day. It may not seem all that important, but it is. Barry made a real difference to that man, as well as providing an example for many others (some very young still) that shouting and violence isn't the only way to get things done. Barry excels at creating such nurturing bubbles in the most unlikely of climates, replacing antagonism with collaboration. They were lucky to have him at P-ville. Now Littlehey has that privilege.

Hair cuts and visiting orders

Barry has finally had a haircut! Hurray! For those of you who know Barry, you'd know this is a big deal, as hot weather and long hair is not a combination Barry enjoys, at all. When he was at Pentonville, a mate of his made sure he'd be the first one done, (meaning with freshly sterilised clippers) to avoid Barry picking up anything his depleted immune system would not let him fight off. Here at Littlehey, they didn't seem to see the sense of that and Barry has had to wait until such time as he had his Hep. B jabs.

Meanwhile, I have had to rearrange a visit to him that I had organised for myself and two of his ex-colleagues for August. I had committed the cardinal sin of using a yellow bit of paper instead of a white one to book a visit on a Sunday. For those of you new to this, visiting orders at Littlehey come in two versions: White and Yellow. If you are good, you get an extra visit, that can be booked with a yellow visiting order, marked 'privilege visiting order'. The privilege, you understand, is extended to a prisoner, who can take time off during his working week (in prison) to receive visitors. But I ask you: How many visitors can take time off their working week on a regular basis to honour such 'privileges'. My boss is brilliant and has been very accommodating, but I wager there are those among us for whom it is simply not an option.

And how are we meant to organise this? Barry has to send these out (three per month at the moment) with the visitors' details already filled in! Even at Pentonville the visiting orders were sent out blank, and we could sort ourselves out on the outside and tell him on the inside. And how is he to know whether someone will be able to take time off work or when? At this stage, the dates still have to be booked. Admittedly, so far I have been given the dates I asked for, but I'm told that this could be very different around busy times, such as Christmas. I'm told from all sides that this is our problem, meaning basically that Barry and I are having to waste valuable phone time discussing admin, instead of really talking. And if you thought your phone company was ripping you off, try HMPS! Privilege my ...

My tip for the day: Should you find yourself being interviewed by the police, and your brief advises you to make a 'no comment' statement, tell him he's an incompetent idiot. It may harm you defense ... annihilate more like!

My first outing

My thanks to C., for recommending this site. It is as easy as he said it would be, and I already feel a huge sense of relief to know that I shall be able to express all that the last two years, and the last five months in particular have been like. It needs to come out. To wake up of a morning knowing you live in a country where the likes of my husband Barry get put in jail is really scary. Anyone who knows Barry knows this too. Barry? In jail? They'll be digging up Mother Theresa next and bang her up as well! Hopefully cataloguing the mistakes we made will help prevent others suffering the same fate as him. And please stay with it. This is not a story of pure doom and gloom, far from it. How could this be, with Barry involved. Lands in the shit, comes up smelling of roses. This describe Barry to a tee/T/tea (?).

A wise man said, every journey begins with a first step. Here it is, at last.

My tip for the day: There isn't anything in the world that lawyers can't make worse for putting their oar in.