Real-life stories from those who help our most disadvantaged neighbours

Who is my neighbour? Volunteering in the Justice System

2019 Sir Harold Hood Memorial Lecture

Nicholas Hilliard QC

Recorder of London

 

Sir Harold died in 2005 at the age of 89, a good age, but he had, I know, some poor health as a young man. He had a series of operations on his knee which he had injured jumping out of a window to reprimand a young man who was steeling pears. I’m not sure that anyone steals pears nowadays, bur Sir Harold evidently had a strong moral sense and he wasn’t someone to sit on the side-lines, or one might say the window ledge, but throughout his life as you will see his was a faith which prompted him to action and that’s one of the things I want you to keep in mind.

There, in the jury box today, are, I think, nine members of the Hood family. Nearly a jury, not quite, including Sir Harold’s daughter, Margaret, and you are, if I may say so, all especially welcome this evening.

When Sir Harold was born in 1916, this courtroom had been open for 9 years. If you look at the screens, if you can see one, the only photograph of the death penalty being passed in England and Wales, was taken in this courtroom in 1912, and that is the photograph. It shows Fredrick Seddon being sentenced to death by Mr Justice Bucknill for the murder of a lady called Eliza Barrow, who had been the lodger in his house and who he had poisoned. For us at least it’s an interesting photograph, not just for the evident solemnity of the moment, but for what has changed, and what has not.

The courtroom furniture you can see is exactly the same as it is this evening, but although the courtroom was packed as it always was for capital cases, there are not, I think, any women in that photograph. Women could not serve on juries at that time, they couldn’t become lawyers, and if they couldn’t become lawyers, they couldn’t become judges. There was however no bar to women sitting in the dock, and later in that same year 1912, just as Fredrick Seddon was standing where you are sitting now in the middle and at the front of the dock, Emily Pankhurst and Emily Wilding Davison would sit in exactly the same place. The suffragette and the suffragist movements were well underway, and as you know the very next year Emily Davison would lose her life when she was struck by the King’s horse at the Derby. But that 1912 photograph and the trials of the suffragettes in this courtroom are a good example of how what goes on in the cases here, has a habit of reflecting society’s concerns and preoccupations outside, at any one time.

 

Image of the Central Criminal Courts in 1959
Pic credit: S&G/S&G Barratts/EMPICS Archive

 

Previous speakers in this series have concentrated more than I shall about theories of punishment, prison conditions, regimes and what prison can or can’t achieve. And they have covered the ground so comprehensively there’s little that I could add, but the problems haven’t gone away and there is no doubt that prison and prisoners still need, and deserve, our attention. At the top of the news agenda at the moment, are I suppose Brexit and knife crime, and you may be relieved to hear I will not be troubling you about the first of those. But there is of course a public debate about the many issues involved in knife crime: stop and search, police numbers, regulating the internet, the role of social media, excluding pupils from school, the provision of facilities for young people out of school hours, sentencing policy and much else besides.

How different things might be if police officers stood on every street corner at all times of day and night, if every young person was surrounded by supportive families and inspiring role models, if they had a stimulating and well paid job, which exactly suited their particular skills and abilities. And if it came to it and someone went to custody, they would be surrounded by motivated people who would make sure that only positive things came out the experience. Well, you only have to put it like that to realise that without almost limitless resources, what I have described is simply not possible. And the level of resources, and deciding between competing claims for a share of them, are political questions for politicians.

And so is there nothing we can do?

Well, in my view, far from it! Because we all have our own resources and if things are to get better, and not worse, we all have to take some responsibility for the problems we all know about and more than we are doing at the moment.

There can’t, I think, ever have been a greater responsibility on successful people to pay back, to show what good things look like, and to help others get there. We do need to promote the best values; patience, kindness, humility, looking after and out for each other, rather than pursuing our own interests to the exclusion of all else. We all have a responsibility to show young people what these values look like in practice if they may not otherwise have the best opportunity to see them. If we don’t do that, rest assured, because I'm afraid we see it day in day out in here, a sense of belonging and shared values may come from being a member of a criminal group. Excitement, stimulation and purpose can come from crime and all the associated things that are idolised and celebrated at an ever-younger age.

In the last 18 months or so, we’ve held regular events in this very courtroom for young people thought to be at risk of getting caught up in gang and knife crime. 50 or 60 young people each time. Martin Griffiths from the London Hospital explains better than anyone what the physical consequences are, assuming you survive an attack with a knife. We have some young people come here who were once caught up in this kind of thing and they talk about how they got into it, and how they got out of it.

But most significant of all, some parents whose children have died as a result of violent crime come and talk about what all this has meant for them. Mark Prince, who was awarded an OBE at the beginning of this year, is one. Mark’s son, Kiyan, was murdered outside a London school. George Kinsella, whose son Ben, 16, was murdered in north London, is another. Which of us would volunteer to talk to a group of strangers about the death of a loved one, and revisit it years after, even if they had died in peaceful circumstances?

In talking to the young people who come, you don’t have to engage with them for very long before uncovering an aim, or an aspiration; to be a mechanic, a stockbroker, an airline pilot, a hairdresser or in business, whatever it is, and I am simply picking some from the last event we had a fortnight, or so, ago. But they all need help. Some of us have been fortunate to have had people around us who have encouraged our aspirations, or who’ve shown us what they might be if we didn’t know them and who have been in a position to help us fulfil them. We do need to be careful where our young people are concerned, not to get caught up in a self-fulfilling negative spiral; optimism is, in my experience, just as infectious.

Everyone who comes to speak at the events we’ve been holding in Court One is a volunteer. I think it is a strength that the events are not government or state run. These are problems that we should all be taking some responsibility for solving. They are several layers of disadvantage down from where we are often operating at the moment. I think there is a parallel to be drawn with a lot of the work that goes on in prisons and with prisoners. Of course, voluntary groups don’t run prisons, they’re not responsible for the keeping of prisoners in prison, or for keeping them safe whilst they are there, any more than volunteers patrol our streets or solve crime. But there is a huge amount of volunteer and charity work which addresses employability, or involves mentoring prisoners, teaching literacy, work skills and so on, and helps their families too. Pact and the Sheriffs’ and Recorders Fund are two obvious examples. The scale of the problems we face with prisons, prisoners, with young people and violent crime is increasing. I think at least one part of our response has to be an increase in the volunteer effort that we all make to help what are, after all, our fellow citizens. Our neighbours. Albeit often some of the most disadvantaged and most challenging.

I want to use this evening to get that message across, but also to acknowledge the work that is already being done. To give you some idea about what is happening. There is no better way of doing that than hearing from some of those who are volunteering already. We’re going to start with some Pact people.

 

Kerry

'In 2017 I got married and four days after my wedding, my then husband, was arrested and remanded in custody. He was on trial and he got sentenced to a minimum of nine years. There was a lot of press surrounding it, and me and my family were dragged through the media and it was just such an awful time. It got to the point where I didn’t really want to go on anymore, I didn’t see where my life was going to go after that. I have three children as well, and I was pregnant at the time of his arrest. I was 7 ½ months pregnant and once I gave birth to my son it was very, very difficult. I realised that I had to take something positive from what I had experienced in order to carry on, to find a focus. What I did was I applied for university, this happened in January and by October I was sat in a lecture theatre studying criminology and psychology as a way to give myself a new focus, a new drive, a new life.'

 

NH: And in the course of that work, your university work, I think you came across Pact, is that right?

'I found out about Pact. For me at the time, when I experienced what I did, I didn’t know about the helpline, or any of the services that Pact offered; the befriending service would’ve just been amazing for me at the time. I started working for Pact, I now work on the helpline and as an ambassador for Pact. As soon as I started working there it just felt like home because it felt like it was giving meaning to my experience. It was while working for Pact that I came across the statistic that 60 per cent of men in UK prisons have, or have had, a parent in prison. From that I decided to launch my own campaign to try and get a university scholarship set up for young people who have, or have had, a parent in prison in order to try and help curb intergenerational offending. I’ve actually made massive progress in this over the last few months. The University of East London has launched a pledge that they’re going to support current students who have been affected by imprisonment.'

 

NH: I think you’ve had considerable help from the Vice Chancellor of your University.

'Yes, they’ve been so helpful, obviously their vision is to still offer a scholarship and to do fantastic work like the Longford Trust do.'

 

NH: Will you just tell us a little bit about the Pact Helpline? Tell us about where you do that, where do you go to do that?

'I go into central office. We take calls on the helpline, mostly from prisoners’ families.  A lot of the time it is around safeguarding issues, issues surrounding concerns about their loved one’s mental health in prison and then we liaise with the prison to try and get welfare checks done on inmates for example.'

 

NH: And can you just help us, what was your motivation for volunteering for Pact?

To know that I’m actually helping people that have waked a path that me and my children have walked. It’s just the most rewarding thing ever, it really is. I can’t stress enough how much it gives meaning to the experience that me, and my children, didn’t go through what we went through for nothing, it was to actually help other people.

 

NH: That is a very powerful story. Thank you very much.

 

Anne Arscott

For about four years, Annie has been a Pact volunteer in the Thames Valley area, mentoring prisoners when they come out in the community and on 'release on temporary licence'.

'I haven’t got such a wonderful story, but I think a lot of it resonates with a lot of what you said about feeling very privileged, about understanding one’s neighbours. Personally, the training, which is brilliant really helped me with patience, which was one of your words. I am not a patient person and the idea of any kind of sentence would be torture for me.  I am amazed and in awe of my mentees' patience, so that was a kind of personal thing. The other thing is that I’ve had a career in education, I’ve been a school governor and I was slightly disillusioned by being a school governor. I felt I wasn’t making an impact really. I wasn’t getting anywhere. So the other thing that resonated with what you said was the business of aims and aspirations, that’s what I love about what I do now which is in prison, one to one, which is finding what that aim and aspiration may be. It can be anything from passing a driving theory test to then becoming a forklift truck driver when they get out, or to a hobby of some kind and that is so exciting and so rewarding, the variety is just amazing.'

 

NH: Do you think it is something that we could all do? There you are with a teaching background, which is obviously an advantage, but do you think this is something we could all do?

'Yes, absolutely. The basic requirement I think, another word you said, optimism. I think they want optimism, they want respect obviously and confidence. I think those are the things that I have taken away from it.'

 

NH: Just give us some idea of the commitment that is involved.

'Fantastically flexible, you are allocated a supervisor, and to some extent it depends. I try to have two mentees and to make a whole morning of it. Quite often they will have other things going on so you may be missing one of them, you have to be very flexible, but you are guided by the mentee because they may actually only have weeks left until they’re released, so they may only have a few weeks. Then I may go once a week. If the process you’re transitioning is a year, then once every two weeks. They’ve each got homework to do and two weeks is about right.'

 

NH: Can you measure your success at all?

'Its not easy. When I have my supervisions what I say is that a slight frustration I have is that really, they (the prisoners) can be transferred, and then we have lost touch. Transferring has been something that’s been an astonishment for me, how that happens at quite short notice. Again, it must test their patience so much because you’ve suddenly lost that relationship. If what we’re doing is important, and suddenly you’ve lost them, maybe not to another "Pact prison".  It’s flexible – what we do – which is good, but it can also be frustrating sometimes.'

 

Dwayne Simpson, pic courtesy of Pastor Lorraine Jones

Pastor Lorraine Jones

Pastor Lorraine Jones' son, Dwayne, was a few months short of his 21^st birthday when he was stabbed to death. Lorraine has started something called Dwaynamics. She’s a regular visitor to the Old Bailey and has done some great work with young people. She is the Daily Mail Inspirational Woman of the Year 2019.

'As Nicholas just said, my son got stabbed. It was a result of him saving a boy’s life. He saw a boy being chased and he went to help, this man had a sword and it was one wound and it went through my son’s heart. He died two days later at King’s College Hospital. He started a boxing project before he got killed and that’s the boxing project, which I have now taken over, called Dwaynamics, because his name was Dwayne.

'Speaking about the police, they are a very important, I would say they are part of the root of Dwaynamics and I say that because it was the Borough Commander, Richard Wood; he came to my home to offer his condolences and I’ve got a massive portrait of Dwayne on my living room wall. He looked at the picture and then he said Pastor Lorraine, I’ve got two sons, and I can’t imagine what you’re going through. What did Dwayne do? I told him he ran a boxing club; he said can I have a look? It was just a minute from my home and it was that night that I saw, he was the Commander of Lambeth Police, but I saw a man of compassion. I saw a man that has such great responsibility and reverence because he has a track record of going that extra mile. He used that and reached out to a mother that was grieving.

'When he saw Dwayne’s kit, his eyes welled up and he said Pastor Lorraine, if you want to keep this going I’m going to support you. And I said yes please. So five years on, the police are still supporting Dwaynamics. We have tailored a special class called Lambeth Boxing Awards, we have police officers coming every week, training with our young people, training with our children, because we work with kids as young as 5, right up to 27 with our amateur boxers. These officers are coming in, training with, it’s not just the training, they’re transferring their skills, their knowledge, their love, their experience. These officers are now seen as father figures. It’s absolutely amazing!

Pastor Lorraine Jones

'We have officers that will write character references because they’ve built up a relationship with these young people. I’m talking about character references that will go before panels and have helped many of these young people even turn away from prison.

'Why am I doing what I’m doing?

'I’ll be honest with you, as beautiful as I may look, I am a mother with a broken heart. You can’t see my disability, the disability of trauma, pain, grief, shock; it’s all I can dream. But when the youth that Dwayne was working with came on three occasions and said, "Mum", cause some call me Mum in our community, "What are we gonna do now Dwayne is gone? We need this, there are no services for kids. We’re serious about this boxing!"

'I was moved with compassion. I don’t know anything about boxing, but I know how to love and it was at that time that I made that decision. The Commander came, joined forces with me and I’m proud to say that we’ve helped thousands of children over the five year period. We’ve had recognition from the Queen, we got the Queen’s award, which is the highest award for voluntary service. I got an award from the Prime Minister, a Point of Light Award. We had the Commissioner of Police that has been down as well as other dignitaries. Whenever they come, they come with their love, with their experience, they come with their expertise and transfer it to these kids – that you can are able to achieve whatever you want to achieve, and we’re going to help you.'

 

Linda Harlow

Linda Harlow is moving on after more than seven years in command of Victim and Witness Support at the Central Criminal Courts. During her time there she  assembled a team of volunteers who support victims, witnesses and bereaved families. One of the volunteers is Nina who also tells her story below.

'Let me tell you a little bit about what we do. The witness service is part of a charity that supports people that come to court and what struck me was what Pastor Lorraine was saying about trauma. Almost everyone that comes through these doors, apart from those being paid to come through the door, don’t want to be here. The exception to that is the volunteers who do want to be here, but most people when they’re witnesses or they’re bereaved family members, or defendants – they don’t want to come. There’s something very overwhelming about walking through those doors, walking through that hallway, coming here knowing that if you’re a witness, whether you’re a prosecution witness or a defence witness, and we look after both.

'There used to be a belief that we only looked after the prosecution witnesses, but that is not true. We look after defence witnesses too. And that’s how we first became involved with Lanis (Lanis Levy, Pact Volunteer Manager for the Courts Service) and her team here. Through supporting defence witnesses who were with us, we could see the trauma and the pain they were going through. I’m delighted to say that we touch base with Lanis and her team a few times a week, they’ll come in and talk about where we think we can point them in the right direction towards giving someone some support. I think it’s been something that’s been hugely beneficial; both for the people we support and for the volunteers, in terms of being able to refer people on to appropriate places for support.

'For example, just a couple of weeks ago we were looking after a bereaved family, it was a domestic violence case and very difficult because the family was torn. Parts of the family were sympathetic in supporting the mother who had been killed and the other part of the family were supportive of the father. Nina and the team looked after both parts that were here for the trial, in different rooms. When the verdict came in, it was guilty, so we had one of part of the family who were pleased at the outcome and the other two family members were distraught. What I was able to do which is why I love the work that Pact do, I was able to pick up the phone to Lanis and say, "Lanis, who’s here today? Can somebody come over and talk to this family?" They needed to understand what happens next; how they keep in touch with dad when he goes to prison for his sentence.

'In essence, what we do is support people to enable them to give evidence in the court under very difficult circumstances and we also support families who are bereaved by homicide to cope with the trauma of going through trials. It’s a very humbling position that we find ourselves in, those of us that have been quite privileged and not come across any of these situations. It was lovely to see Pastor Lorraine here, because of course I remember you and I remember all the times you come with families you support here and the great work that you do. It’s so important that we build up these networks because there isn’t a lot of money in the criminal justice system, is there? As such, volunteering is so important as part of that.  I’m going to pass you over to Nina, who I thought might tell you about a typical day of being a volunteer at the Bailey.'

 

Nina Cummings

Nina Cummings holds the record for having supported somebody, a traumatised young child, for 15 consecutive days through a trial.

 

'A typical day starts with a family coming for what we call a pre-trial visit. It was the death of a family member, there was a young person who was a part of this family and they came in when they were very, very reticent, they didn’t want to be here, were frightened to come to the Bailey, so when they went and talked through it, they asked for second visit which took a bit of planning.  Could they come here for a second visit? And all the back story to it all, to try to reassure them about screens, making sure that the youngest person in this family was taken care of and that her anonymity would be protected. I think I spent an hour and a half, nearly two hours, but the pleasure afterwards, their shoulders came down, I got a smile and they said well, "We don’t want to come, but will you be here?" I said I don’t think I will, but we always try to give families continuity for when they come back for the actual trial. Linda is amazing at that, so we do it. To be a volunteer is the most extraordinary privilege. To see people come with their shoulders hunched up, they’re frightened and they know that we are just there for them. We know our boundaries that we stay within, but I think it such a privilege to do it and I’ve done it now for 17 ½ years.'

 

Nichols Hilliard (cont.)

Just so you know if you were to go the Victim and Witness Support Suite here, you will go in and I think you will see some really impressive premises, I think. You might think ‘there’s plenty of money around they can afford to have this’?. Not at all, and if you look closely, you will see a little plaque on the wall in memory of two families whose cases were heard here. Just because of the quality of the support that they thought they had received from Linda and her team, they ran marathons, arranged football matches, raised all the money, nearly £20,000, which is what made the Witness and Victim Support Suite look as welcoming as it does. There is a special child’s room and so on, but that is all from two families because of the service they received.

By way of conclusion, you may remember the parable of the Good Samaritan. A man had been attacked, robbed and left for dead and the priest and the Levite passed him by and it was the Samaritan who stopped to help. The story was told because a lawyer had asked Jesus who his (the lawyer’s) neighbour was?  And Jesus responded with that parable and with the injunction, go and do likewise. And I think that parable resonates even today over 2,000 years later. We do have a duty to look after people, even if we do not know them, even if we have no connection with them, other than that we know of their need and we are in a position to do something about it. They are still to this day, our neighbours, for whom we have a duty of care. In my view, volunteering doesn’t just change those who are helped. The whole process of helping and volunteering brings about a change in those who are doing the helping and in due course, in society too.

Pact is presently seeking to set up volunteer co-ordinator posts with a view to recruiting, training and supporting double the number of volunteers who are presently signed up. The target is to recruit an extra 500 volunteers who will provide about 120,000 hours of service to support the rehabilitation of prisoners and to keep families together.

 

His Honour Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, the Recorder of London, delivered the Sir Harold Hood Memorial Lecture on 11^th April 2019 in Courtroom 1, The Old Bailey, London, EC4M 7EH

 

Footnote: 

Andy Keen-Downs, Chief Executive, Pact

 

This was the 7^th lecture in memory of Sir Harold Hood, who was a very dear friend to Pact (Prison Advice and Care Trust) and who served as our Vice President dating back to the time when we operated as the Bourne Trust. Sir Harold was a man of great Christian faith and a generous philanthropist who demonstrated through his life a keen interest in the welfare and the rehabilitation of prisoners, as well as an abiding concern for their children and families. Sir Harold was a devout Roman Catholic and a leading light in Catholic journalism in Britain.

Now many people have a faith, and many people have an interest in prison welfare and prison reform, but the story about Sir Harold that for me speaks volumes about the man, is that for no other reason than to demonstrate his Christian solidarity and fellowship, he would on occasions attend mass at the chapel of Wormwood Scrubs prison, literally rubbing shoulders with prisoners. And by his presence he told those men that they still belonged, that they were of worth. In this, and so many other ways through his life, Sir Harold provided an example of Christian accompaniment and discipleship, showing his faith by the way he lived. So at this event we celebrated Sir Harold’s legacy. We gave thanks for his life. We also thanked his family and friends, many of whom were with us on the evening; who continue, to this day, to support the work of Pact and to sponsor this lecture, for which we are very grateful.

So this is the 7^th lecture we have held, the first was in 2010 in the chapel of Brixton prison and was delivered by Cardinal Vincent Nicholls Archbishop of Westminster. Other lectures have been given by the late Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Conner, by Bishop Richard Moth, Sister Gemma Simmonds CJ, Professor Galena Rhoades from Denver University and Lucia De Rosario-Neil. Venues have included the prison chapels of Brixton and Wormwood Scrubs prisons, the hall of St George’s Cathedral, St Luke’s Community Centre in Islington, Allen Hall seminary in Chelsea, London Southbank University and now, the Old Bailey.

Each lecture was a very special occasion and an opportunity to contribute to public knowledge and understanding about how we can enable more people to achieve personal change and personal growth. To leave prison, to live good or better lives, in good relationships, in stable families, for the benefit of all our communities and the next generation. The latest one was also very special for us. We are celebrating our anniversary. Pact was founded in 1898 and so our volunteers and staff have been serving society for 120 years.

As we celebrate 120 years of service we look back on a proud history of enabling thousands of citizens to provide service to others; in prisons, in courts and in the community. We also look forward. Our new five-year vision is to double the number of people giving voluntary service through Pact to 1,000 volunteers – to reduce the risk of re-offending as "Through-the-Gate" mentors and to support families and children, working across England and Wales towards our shared vision of the common good.

This goal of a thousand volunteers will enable us to provide one-to-one support to people leaving prison who want to make a fresh start and to the children and families of prisoners who, through no fault of their own, feel they are serving a kind of hidden sentence of their own.Our volunteers and staff work in the courts and the prisons here in London and we continue to grow. We are now providing services in over 6o prisons in England and Wales, supporting rehabilitation in a growing variety of ways, but the demand for our work is always outgrowing our resources and so we need both funds and people to respond.