Prison drawing by Raphael Rowe
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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 181 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 181, December 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Raphael Rowe writes from prison
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Prison drawing by Raphael Rowe |
Imagine that you are me – a 19 year old living in a big house in south London. Since you left school you have been mainly concerned with having a good time, scraping together a living – not altogether legally but nothing too serious. One evening you have a takeaway with four friends. After you’ve eaten you take a bus together to another friend’s house where you spend some time socialising. Later you and a couple of others get a lift home and you spend the night in bed with your girlfriend.
That same evening, off a section of the M25 far from where you live, a series of crimes take place – cars are stolen, several violent burglaries and a murder are committed by a vicious gang. From the extensive news and media coverage you learn about the crimes. The police are looking for three men. Two are white, one with fair hair and blue eyes.
Four days later the house you live in is raided by the police. You are arrested and charged with stealing cars, aggravated burglary, grievous bodily harm, firearms offences and – yes – murder. Your best friend is also arrested and charged. You hear a third man, someone you have met only once, has been charged as well. All three of you are black.
This is what happened to me, Raphael Rowe, in December 1988. After one year in prison on remand a trial took place. I was found guilty. I am now serving a life sentence for crimes I did not commit.
The case against me relied on circumstantial evidence.
Statements by the prosecution witnesses were contradictory. One of the victims has since admitted to changing his evidence at the behest of the police because they claimed his ‘times did not fit’ with the case they were building against the three black suspects. Fingerprints from two of the original (white) suspects were found on a car at the scene of the murder. Two white men were seen dumping the cars stolen during the robberies.
There was no forensic, confessional or direct evidence against me. At the trial the judge said, ‘So much of the evidence is disputed, where much of the prosecution evidence is itself tainted for one reason or another, and where there is considerable uncertainty and inconsistency in important areas.’ And yet the court saw fit to convict.
Since then my family and I have struggled to fight against this miscarriage of justice. Along with co-defendants Michael Davies and Randolph Johnson, the M25 Three campaign has amassed new evidence and uncovered material evidence that was not disclosed at the time of our trial. We have garnered the support of journalists, campaign groups, churches, trade unions, civil rights organisations, members of parliament, and many individuals. My family and I have been forced to learn about the criminal justice system from the inside.
In June 1993 our appeal was presided over by Deputy Lord Justice Watkins. One of the most important points in our appeal was that we were able to demonstrate that a police officer’s notebook from the investigation was not disclosed to the defence at the time of our trial. The notebook contained the details of an interview with one of the burglary victims conducted immediately following the assault. In her initial account this victim clearly identified two of her assailants as white, and one as black. The appeal court judges decided that the non-disclosure of this police notebook was an ‘irregularity’, but not a ‘material irregularity’.
A second major part of our appeal was evidence believed to indicate that certain witnesses brought by the police during the trial had received reward money, £25,000, thus contaminating their testimony. In a Public Immunity Interest ruling, the appeal court decided that this evidence could not be disclosed. The reluctance of the prosecution and the judges to deal with the issue of disclosure – and the unwarranted secrecy this implies – has prompted my barrister to take the issue to the European Court of Human Rights.
Deputy Lord Justice Watkins’ dismissal of our appeal came as a tremendous blow to our campaign. Despite my efforts to remain cautious, I had set all my hopes on walking free from the courtroom. It required all my resources to pull myself together back in prison and begin to fight all over again.
During the past year my solicitors and I have prepared a dossier on our case showing more new evidence. It has been presented to the home secretary. A cross section of MPs support our case and have themselves made submissions to the home secretary.
One week after our appeal was rejected, Deputy Lord Justice Watkins retired. A few weeks later the second of the three judges who presided over our appeal, Lord Justice Leonard, also retired.
Those of you who have never been in prison cannot know the unbearable pain of separation from the world, from those you love, the terrible dehumanising monotony of prison routine, and the feeling that every day spent inside is a day stolen from my life.
So, imagine that you are me – what would you do? Imagine that you have lost everything, convicted of crimes you did not commit, convicted of murder, of taking a life. Imagine that your only way out of this nightmare is through the labyrinth of slow moving bureaucrats, a judicial system and home secretary embarrassed by the number of miscarriages of justice already revealed, and a police force reluctant to admit to a series of convictions founded on racism and social victimisation. I survive through my will to fight these convictions, through the support I receive from people on the outside.
The M25 Three are innocent. Please join our campaign.
M25 Three Campaign, 28 Grimsel Path, Camberwell, London SE5 OTB. Phone 071 735 2985. Send a Xmas card to Raphael and the other prisoners.
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