I have just found this draft from 2021, and thought it would be good to post: New post coming later too!
In these days of Long Covid, there is a collective empathy from our community around the long term physical, emotional and mental effects of Covid. The effects on those who sadly caught this virus and have not fully recovered, the effects on families and friends who have lost loved ones, and on whole sections of society who have suffered from the lockdowns and feelings of isolation throughout the last 16 months.
But what about the long term physical, emotional and mental effects of a conviction, especially a conviction that was false, ungrounded; from a crime that didn't actually exist. The long term effects are countless, and here I am eight years post sentencing, twelve years post arrest, and every day is the same. The effects are there, they are real. They affect me, they affect my family, and my biggest lesson has been learning to manage expectations about the rest of my life, my children's lives and probably generations beyond.
Living with a conviction is hard. Living with a wrongful conviction is incredibly tough and frequently unbearable. One of the hardest things is dealing with having a criminal record. It is so difficult and costly to attempt to appeal convictions and most wrongfully convicted people do not get the chance to appeal. Yet, over just nine months last year, 1336 appeals against Magistrate Court decisions were successful, and the court of appeal Criminal Division overturned 64 guilty verdicts. There are rules and regulations in place to make sure that justice prevails, however, from this data we can see that a huge number of wrongful convictions are still made in the UK.
Living a life of childhood trauma, growing up in foster care, dealing with emotional, physical and sexual abuse, led to my life-long desire to become a foster parent myself. To help young people like me. To do a better job of parenting than was done with me. But having a criminal conviction, despite evidence to show the conviction was wrong, unfounded and corrupt, seems to be a mountain that cannot be traversed. Although it is claimed that a criminal record does not stop potential foster carers from being assessed, being unable to explain how I have addressed offending behaviour, and then changed that behaviour, is a big blocking point! But how can I address offending that doesn't exist? Despite the evidence I have that my now adult children do indeed have the same needs, receive the same benefits I was convicted for, and will do probably for the rest of their lives, the stumbling point is that I don't admit my guilt. The guilt that does not exist.
But how am I comparing long Covid to life after a long trial, a guilty verdict, a prison sentence? I guess its the unknown, forever symptoms, that are debilitating, painful and don't seem to fade away. Caused by an unwanted and unexpected event.
But what has recently really become obvious, is the effect on my children which, like Long Covid, seems to show no signs of ending.
