Jailhouselawyer's Blog

As quotes go, it does jump out of the page at you: "It's not like I'm killing someone now because there's no lids for my jam jars". It is an off the cuff remark, and at the same time I am making a self judgement of a continuing acceptable risk to the public. Not that I killed for that reason in the first place. True, there was an outburst captured by Andrew O'Hagan. I had let him into my personal space to conduct an interview for a piece he was writing for the Guardian Weekend magazine. It appeared in print on 18 November 2006, my 56th birthday, and I was informed of this by my friend Lucy sending me a text. I went out and bought a copy of the Guardian. Sometime later I went to Lucy's house to collect my birthday present, and she asked what I thought of the article. I said that I liked the photo, and that I had only scanned the article quickly and that I would need to read it a couple of more times before I was able to respond properly. I did add that initially I thought that it was less than flattering.

The subheading appears to be a mixture of two sides to the story, mine and the victim's daughter, and the writer being judgemental. Andrew O'Hagan appears to have used artistic licence to describe the area I live in as being decayed, I am not proud of the neighbourhood but I have seen worse. And he describes pushing my doorbell. This is fiction because I have a gothic looking doorknocker. He says he just knew that a dog would start barking as soon as he pressed the bell. He maybe psychic, if not observant, but as soon as he entered the gateway the sensor on the CCTV camera would detect his presence and a audible "beep!" would alert the dog if he had not already sensed the intruder and barked his warning to me. In my view, the writer has probably got his timing of the events confused in his mind because of his apprehension at meeting me.

It is not as though I have a sign above the door like that at Dartmoor Prison "Abandon all hope ye who enter here". He lived to tell the tale, for what it's worth. It is a well written article from an established author. It's not what I would have like to have seen, or written myself. But, it is realtively accurate and he is entitled to his opinion and I support the notion of freedom of expression. At least it wasn't a hatchet job like the gutter press are fond of doing on me. I had forgotten that the idea was to tackle the story from two different angles. I got confused with sentencing which is what Duncan Campbell wrote about. So, to be confronted with the victim's daughter again was uncomfortable. She is unforgiving and wants me dead. I cannot say that I blame her for holding these views. She wants to transfer some of the guilt she is feeling onto me, and I won't wear it. I did suggest in a Ch4 news programme, that she needed to move on. It is interesting to note that Andrew O'Hagan ends the article quoting her saying, "At the end of the day, you just want to move on and live a decent life". My sentiments exactly. This is what I had to do mentally, move on, and now I try to live a decent life with what time I have got left.