The very sad news of Sally Clarke's death
I feel so sad, yet angry because of course I know how difficult it is to try to pick up the pieces of your life after being wrongly convicted. I have spoken and written many times about the damage inflicted by such a nightmare and by life in prison. It really is impossible to relay how it makes you feel and how our lives are changed forever. It scars your soul!! Shame on the system because no one will tell me otherwise that had not Sally gone through all this, she would have been here today. The police, the legal system, the so called medical experts who readily condemned her and HMP are all contributers to her untimely death! My heart goes out to her family but they can always bring to mind how graciously she dealt with her awful ordeal.
posted by Susan
6 Comments:
Dear Susan,
Thanks for providing your blog where one can express something about these things. I was shocked when I saw the news this morning. I realize that even if one reads about this kind of thing, one cannot imagine what people like Sally Clark or yourself have actually been through and, moreover, are still going through.
One can only hope that this tragedy would awaken the powers that be to the need to do something to prevent this kind of thing from happening, rather than passing laws which make miscarriages of justice even more likely to happen.
The day after Sally Clark was convicted I met the baker who worked across the street from where I worked at that time. He did no more than mouth the tabloid press/ prosecution line that 'she was a bad mother...binge drinker...etc.' But I asked him 'why do you tbink Sally did this?', and of course, like the Police and the CPS, he had no answer. That's why I joined in the campaign to free her.
This morning I found that the letter Sally wrote to me of two lines, thanking me for my support, written after the CCRC's referral of her case in July 2002 is still in the binder (together with all your letters to me, Susan!). So it's not only a time of sorrow for the loved ones Sally has left behind, but also a time for me to be proud of the honour of having been a supporter of Sally Clark.
Here, here! Absolutely tragic.
My heart aches for all that Sally endured and for the pain her family now feel.
I cannot imagine losing to babies and the pain that must have been, only to be accused of murdering them. It doesnt even bear thinking about.
I hope now Sally has some peace because she surely didnt have any in her life over the past 7 years.
The police, Meadows and all who convicted her wrongfully all share the blame in what happened to this beautiful woman.
Eternal Rest Sally. My deepest sympathies to her husband and family.
This is an email that MOJO sent to Susan. She asked if I'd put it on here...
[start email]
The news of the tragic death of Sally Clark has saddened and angered all of us at the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO).
Since the release of our founder Paddy Hill, and the rest of the Birmingham Six in 1991, we have been pleading with the authorities to set up a specialised aftercare programme to help counsel innocent men and women after they are released at the Appeal Court.
Since then there has been over 200 high profile victims of a miscarriage of justice and none of them have been offered specialised counselling. It is not as if the authorities are unaware of the need for such duty of care.
In the same year the Birmingham Six where released after 16 years, two men who had spent five years of wrongful imprisonment, along with their families and some campaigners where taken to R.A.F. Lyneham to receive four months of deep counselling by Professor Gordon Turnbull and his team. The only difference was that these men where held captive in a foreign land, their names, John MacCarthy and Terry Waites.
It would seem, rather than face up to their responsibilities and help innocent victims of the state; the government continues to punish them.
Last week, a judgement from the House of Lords, allowing the Home Office to claim back living expenses from 'Miscarriages of Justice' (bed and board) from their compensation, was just another vindictive act.
One of the Law Lords remarked to charge them saved living expenses would be to "over compensate"; this man should hang his head in shame, as no amount of money can ever compensate for being wrongfully convicted.
You lose everything of meaning and value, all of them will suffer from severe posttraumatic stress disorders brought on by their wrongful conviction, and compounded by the sudden release from the appeal court.
At the present moment M.O.J.O. are trying to raise funds to build such a retreat, using the specialised, and shared experience, counselling, to help innocent men and women come to terms with the world they find themselves in.
Which is a world where their lives have been ripped apart, a world where they don't fit in and feel nothing.
We write this with a heavy heart, at the unnecessary tragic death of Sally Clark, and pray that at some point those in authority will face up to their responsibilities. By setting up a specialised counselling programme to help innocent men and women, who through no faults of their own have had their lives ripped apart, and at least try and help them put their lives back together.
This was a tragedy waiting to happen that, possibly, could have been prevented and our hearts go out to the family of Sally, and hopefully now she can rest in peace.
John McManus for MOJO Scotland
mojoscotland@mac.com
http://www.mojoscotland.com/
Dear Susan,
There was a good article in today's Daily Mail.
I think we all need to be more aware of what yourself and others have gone through.
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