This Christmas, my final wish is for justice – and change

 

It wasn’t me who did the beating that led to me and my nephew being charged with attempted murder, but I was convicted anyway.

Unfair trial

My trial was completely unfair. My first solicitor was a duty solicitor they gave me at the police station. I wasn’t happy with way he was pushing me. I said, “I am innocent,” but he would not get the CCTV to prove it. I got another solicitor, but there was something about these lawyers that did not seem right. They were not investigating. I knew was innocent.  I knew I wasn’t there, and this could be proved, but no one was listening. I tried to switch to another firm, but the judge said you go with the ones you have or you do it yourself. This left me with what felt like no choice, and so I represented myself at the trial.

 

At the time I thought I did quite well, considering. It was hard to understand what was going on. All those big words. I have no education. I grew up in children’s homes. I ran away from school to try to get back to my family. I ran away all the way from Birmingham to Scotland when I was 8 years old to try to find my mum but when I got there, she was gone. I would live on streets, taking money out of phones so I could have something to eat. They put me in Borstal and that’s where I learned to read as best I could, using Commando comics.

 

So, you see, representing myself at trial was a struggle. I am dyslexic. I couldn’t read all the paperwork. I couldn’t make notes or properly test the evidence. I was stuck in the dock with my nephew, and all the paperwork was in front of me, while he was leaning across in front of me and moving it all over the place.

 

From where I was sitting, it felt like everything the prosecution talked about didn’t relate to me. Their evidence was about my nephew Abul Ali and his brother-in-law on his wife’s side, Faruk Ali, and their situation – it was nothing to do with me.  It feels like the jury convicted me on evidence that was against my nephew, not against me. The attack happened in a small town and there were people on the jury connected to an alternative suspect in the case. I’ve never even met the victim or his family. I still don’t know why I was pushed into the centre like that.

Appeals turned down

I tried to appeal but the court never answered all my grounds. Then I went to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and asked them to investigate, but they turned me down. The CCRC was one-sided. They were not there to seek the truth. They didn’t bother to come and see me.

 

I asked the CCRC to check the DNA. They never checked the DNA – but it had already been found that there was unknown DNA on a bloodied metal pole and someone else’s DNA on a bloodied jacket. To my mind that means the CCRC should check it, to see if the real attackers can be identified. If they checked, they might have found the evidence I need to prove that I am innocent for the crime I have been in prison for. Now I am on a death sentence because of what they did to us.

 

Refused compassionate release

 

When I went to prison for this charge I had some serious gastric illnesses, but in prison it was my lungs that gave out. They put me in the hospital wing because of tuberculosis, and I got left there in a room on my own for 11 months.

 

I was moved to a D Category prison. When I was finally released on a temporary licence to go home for a few days, I thought at least now I can get to a proper hospital. But I was told I could not go to the outside hospital, and that I had to come back to the prison for treatment.

 

I was getting more and more ill. It was hard to breathe. I was dizzy and passed out at times. I got taken to an outside hospital for some treatment but then the prison told me told me the hospital didn’t want to see me anymore.

 

The prison left me for a year without treatment.

 

During a short Release on Temporary Licence in March this year, I was really ill, and my partner insisted on taking me to the emergency room because she was so worried. The hospital was so concerned about my condition they kept me in for three and a half weeks.  If my partner had not taken me into hospital that day I would not have survived.

 

After that, I was sent back to prison – in a wheelchair, with oxygen tanks and a mask. There were prisoners who would cook for me when I could not go near the hotplate with oxygen. The officers would check me at 11pm and then give me a radio to use if I got ill during the night. But if I passed out and couldn’t use it, they would have found me lying on the floor the next morning.

 

Being a prisoner, it’s like they just don’t care. There is lots inside going on of this sort of inadequate medical care. A friend of mine had the same illnesses that I have. He died on the concrete in prison.

 

I put in for early release on compassionate grounds on 16 April 2024 but it was turned down by the Secretary of State not once but three times.  I found a prison law team, SL5 Legal, who agreed to launch a judicial review on my behalf, to ask a judge to order my release. SL5 Legal had to fight it out every step of the way.  I felt really angry – it was like the prison was waiting until I was on my last legs, dying, before they let me out. They said Ronnie Biggs lived longer so I might do too. People who were fit and well were getting out, and I was in a wheelchair, dying.

 

I didn’t think I would win, I thought I would be the next one on the concrete. That day when I was on video link at the prison watching it argued in court, there was emotion like you would not believe. My team had to fight. Then the judge said you are going home now. I wasn’t expecting that. It was hard to believe that a judge would side with me rather than against me.  I was expecting to stay, like every other time. At last, I am home now and that is what matters.

 

They could have let me go sooner – I’ve now got months or weeks, that is the hard part, but at least I have got Christmas.

Asking for DNA testing

My legal team at APPEAL have put in another CCRC application for DNA testing, now that CCRC have been forced to go back over old cases where there’s DNA evidence that can be checked, because of what they did to Andrew Malkinson. The CCRC should have done it the first time around in my case, a decade ago. It is so important for the CCRC to get the DNA. I have gone through 14 years in prison – 14 years and now a death sentence – they should have done it right the first time around.

Some people who go through a wrongful conviction have a life after prison. But for me, the system has taken my life and given me a death sentence for something I haven’t done. I want the people in power to know what it feels like to go through what we have gone through. And I am not the only one going through this sort of thing, whether wrongfully convicted, or being refused early release on compassionate grounds.

Carry on fighting

It would be lovely to prove my innocence before I die, and for the truth to come out. But whatever happens, I want my case to carry on, even though I may not be alive. I want people to see what is really happening with the system and to change it, to help the people who come after me.