Rebel Justice

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In this Rebel Justice Podcast our host Trystan Kent speaks with Andrew Morris, former IPP inmate and vocal campaigner against injustices. Andrew sheds light onto the outrageous realities of IPP, and brings his experiences and insight into says we could reform the criminal justice system,  within prisons and wider national reform.  Andrew Morris is the co-founder of the Taking the Initiative party, a political party he started while still incarcerated.

IPP stands for Imprisonment for Public Protection - an indefinite sentence that prevents someone from leaving prison until a Parole Board deems them no longer a risk to society. This significant discretionary power has led to some appalling injustices, with thousands serving sentences  far longer than their minimum tarriffs  with no way of knowing when exactly they would be free again.

Despite being abolished in 2012, there remain thousands of prisoners with these sentences to this day, their lives shrouded in uncertainty.

Andrew was originally given a two year minimum sentence, but after a judge's decision to make this an IPP, this time was dragged out into 12 years behind bars.

During that time Andrew started a political party (Taking the Initiative Party), and since leaving prison he now works for the Prison and Probation Ombudsman, a prison reform consultant, and become a trustee for a prisoner human rights group (The Raphael Rowe Foundation). 

Andrew is an important voice in the campaign against IPP sentences and for radical reform of prison more widely. 

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This week we bring you Zoe Cohen, a self employed mum who has had a successful coaching career and was previously a senior manager in the NHS. Zoe was one of 51 people who broke an injunction which protects the fossil fuel industry, and was remanded for contempt of court.

 
All these people are in ongoing civil resistance as part of the Just Stop Oil campaign, whose simple demand is for the UK Government to end all new oil and gas projects, thereby rapidly accelerating the transition to a safer, fairer world.  Zoe brings us  a privileged perspective of being a campaigner, but also a woman with lived experience of our criminal justice system.

The Just Stop Oil campaign is currently occupying Westminster in a daily protest during the month of October.

For more information you can go to https://juststopoil.org/, and attend an online or face to face talk.  Also check out the social media channels:

ps://twitter.com/juststop_oil

ps://www.facebook.com/JustStopOil/

https://www.instagram.com/just.stopoil/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-t4U1Azf8AOkCBJILSNBmw

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Monday 10 October 2022 marks the 20th anniversary of the International End the Death Penalty Day. We speak to theatre director Claire Parker and actress Edie Campbell  about Apples in Winter, by Jennifer Fawcett  - a one woman play  premiering in London this week at  Playground Theatre in West London. This award winning play gives a voice to the mother of a violent offender who is on death row and asks for his mother’s apple pie, as his request for his last meal.

The subjects this ambitious and poignant play covers are difficult and topical - forgiveness, trauma, unconditional love and how justice intersects women’s lives, at all ends of the spectrum.

For tickets please go to

Https//:theplaygroundtheatre.london/

For more on this production:

Https://www.lynchpintheatre.com/applesinwinter

On Twitter and Facebook: @LynchPinTheatre 
On Instagram search @lynchpin_theatre

For more information and links about ending the death penalty :
https://www.amnesty.org/en/what-we-do/death-penalty/
https://youtu.be/K7Xl5o7s70o
https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/end-death-penalty/

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This week, we bring you personal perspectives on  recent gender violence issues in China from the curators' team of the  #MeToo in China exhibition in the UK, a group of young artists who advocate for Chinese women's justice and rights, narrating the stories of sexual violence survivors and feminists from different social backgrounds in China. 

Additional information for reports mentioned in the podcast:

Case of Jinyao Liu: https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20191213/liu-jingyao-interview-richard-liu/dual/

Case of Xuzhou: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60194080

Case of Tangshan: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-61878122

#Metooinchina_exhibition_uk: https://linktr.ee/metooinchina

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This week we bring you someone at the  forefront of talk therapy for the most disenfranchised communities in Ireland: Jimmy Judge. Jimmy started in the 80s as an addiction counsellor. He then went on to work with the Traveller Community and specialises in trauma counselling and also identifying abuse in institutional settings, and in relationships where it would be easy to exploit a power imbalance.

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In today’s episode, one of the founders of The View, Farah Damji, speaks with Siyanda, who was released from prison recently, about her experiences inside, what she learned and what kept her going.  A few weeks ago we brought you an important podcast with Camilla, Siyanda's mother and the force behind the Free Siyanda campaign. Camilla believes her 22 year old daughter who was vulnerable and disabled was let down and has suffered a miscarriage of justice.

She was sent to prison for 4 years and 6 months. Her attackers walked free although Siyanda called the police and was clearly the victim of a racially motivated violent attack. We explore Siyanda's experience inside prison, what she learned, and what kept her going. Siyanda's wrongful incarceration led to the beginning of the Free Siyanda campaign, from which she got a lot of support. After two years and three months, she has faith that this was not the end for her. The unfair sentence has caused a rift between her and the administration of justice.  

She says "There's a miscarriage of justice because I'm a Black woman."

As a Black woman, the judge considered Siyanda a criminal and a threat to the public even though she believes he knew she was not guilty. She felt that the judge had to make some negative comments. While in prison, she did not get any support for her disability; her mum had to send her medication to ease her pain. The situation also caused her trauma leading to Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in prison when she finally hit rock bottom.   

Siyanda hopes that with the help of the campaign, she can free herself from the wrongful conviction and help other people in the same situation she was in. Since different organisations could not help black people, especially women who find themselves in prison or in the wider justice system, Siyanda and her legal team took her case to the Court of Appeal and the judge accepted their witness statement as fresh evidence. 

 Amplifying the Free Siyanda campaign will help raise awareness in the community, especially for black people who are racially abused in Wales. There should be a mass movement with people who have been abused to come out and tell their stories.  

Siyanda believes that the justice system should change, and women being sent to prison for the crimes of men should not be incarcerated. 

"For anyone who is not white, your life is irrelevant to them," she says.

 The judge said she had been through so much, after looking at her pre-sentencing report, and she had overcome so much, and there was no reason she could not overcome prison. 

This is an appalling attitude for a judge to take which is literally, "It sounds like you have been abused before; let me abuse you some more."

With the justice system clearly favouring white people, Siyanda said she felt that her life was not as important as a lighter skinned or white person's life. 

For #FreeSiyanda: http://freesiyanda.com/

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In today’s episode, our host Madalena Alberto meets feminist activist, writer and musician Janey Starling, who is responsible for strategy and campaigns at the UK gender justice organisation We Level Up. Janey produced the first UK media guidelines on reporting domestic abuse deaths, backed by all UK press regulators, and regularly does training in newsrooms on this subject. She is currently focused on a campaign to end the imprisonment of pregnant women and new mothers.

Janey’s writing has featured in The Guardian, Independent, Refinery29, OpenDemocracy and The I, and she has co-authored several self-published zines. A seasoned Sisters Uncut activist and punk singer who has toured and connected with feminist communities across Europe, Janey lives to create public spaces for women’s collective rage, joy and solidarity.

Janey believes that murder is contextualised in relationships. Quoting Luke and Ryan Hart, reports should be memorials for the victim and not propaganda for the perpetrator. Janey adds that journalists should report with accuracy and accountability, and images should be dignified.

She says, “There is no such thing as a perfect victim; that’s a fairy tale myth and no such thing as a monster perpetrator.”

Abusive men are incredibly charming, very good at managing their perceptions, and always in control, whether through charm or violence. Survivors of abuse often cope by using alcohol or drugs to escape or take their own life. Using the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp case, there is a noticeable power difference as Depp’s status is more extensive than Amber's. Regardless of what she did, it does not change their power difference. 

Janey quotes Helena Kennedy: “We live in a society of misogyny; any woman who strays outside gender norms is punished.” 

Misogynistic society portrays women who commit crimes as evil and manipulative - they need to be punished because they do not fit society's standards. Women who are traumatised and locked up are not supported. Janey’s guidelines on reporting domestic abuse have encouraged publishers  to look at domestic abuse cases through a more nuanced lens. She has held training on writing about domestic abuse for journalists and this training has been reported by the BBC. 

Domestic abuse is a public health issue. Identifying what abuse looks like can help both  survivors and perpetrators in their situations. The media has two key roles in preventing domestic abuse: public information that is truthful and justice for families. 

@we_level_up
www.welevelup.org

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In today’s episode, our intrepid law student Narince Erkan from Durham University speaks to Camilla, Siyanda's mother, about the Free Siyanda campaign to clear her daughter's name in what she perceives to be a miscarriage of justice. 

Camilla tells The View how two white males and one female racially abused and attacked her daughter. Siyanda tried to fight back, but when the police arrived on the scene, only Siyanda was arrested.  

Siyanda alleged  that she was verbally abused and attacked, and the other female claimed that Siyanda attacked her. However, the police never investigated Siyanda’s allegations against the racist white female.

Camilla claims that her daughter suffered lacerations, bruising, a black eye and a boot print on her face.  The case went to the Court of Appeal, but it failed. However, Siyanda’s legal team established that she was attacked, and the court agreed that Siyanda was stamped on which they could identify her attacker by the boot print.

The Free Siyanda campaign helps people through its activism on social media by encouraging its supporters to  write  to their members of parliament (MsP). The racist institutions of the police, the CPS, the courts make it difficult to establish wrongdoing by the police but it was clear in fresh evidence presented to the Court of Appeal, that proved  that the police were lying and hiding the truth and evidence in Siyanda’s case. In some cases, people are considered criminals while they are victims. 

The injustice of her daughter’s case  opened Camilla’s eyes to how the country is run and how justice is not meant to serve  black or brown people.  Racist assaults happen frequently and are covered up and Camilla has heard of other mothers in her position or worse. The Court of Appeal  does not appear to want to help anyone racially abused but would rather you suffer instead of admitting to the  failure of racist institutions.  Camilla says that it has been a common experience in the wider community. 

Camilla says, “The police have been given too much power.”

There needs to be a system that polices the police because there is no system in place that polices the police. Siyanda has gone through the complaint system and the Independent Office For Police Conduct (IOPC). 

The police need to be held accountable to the community that it serves.  The white jury had not experienced racial abuse so they would not understand Siyanda’s situation and might  be biased; they did not believe her even with evidence—cases where racism is involved would benefit from  having a mixed race jury.

Most jurors are white, and most serious cases of assault and other crimes  in the area where the family was living are held at Swansea Crown Court where there is a low population of people of colour.  Camilla's next step is to prepare for the Supreme Court and she is  also looking to forge bonds with other organisations and create a united group for people going through hardships caused by the justice system  that affect black and brown people. 

You can support the campaign here and follow the campaign on Instagram here 

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This week we bring you Sarah Maile, a teacher at Sandbach Highschool and creator of Sandbach Feminists. The Sandbach Feminisits are a group at Sandbach Highschool fighting to urge the UK government to make it illegal for school uniforms to be sold in sex shops and used in pornography. They are fighting for this to end the sexualization of children, considering all children in the UK wearing uniforms are below the age of 16. 

The View magazine is the only platform by and for women in the  justice system. Every week we look at the flaws in the current system and solutions that will make it better and fairer, through art, creativity, acknowledging trauma, legal reform, reporting and oversight.

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This week we bring Margaret Meehan O'Brian, aka Moonqueen, a qualified Intuitive Healer and Spiritual Teacher, who works with women who have suffered from domestic abuse. Margaret shares how she came about her healing practices and the benefits they can have for women who have lived through trauma.  You can learn more about upcoming workshops and contacts on moonqueenhealing.ie

The View is the only organisation in the third sector that puts women with lived experience at the heart of all that we do, from our board, to our volunteers, The View is a living community that is creating a brighter future through art, story-telling and hope. Come and be part of our brave mission and vision for a fairer world. Thank you for listening.

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