"If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of fair play, so be it"(Jonathan Aitken, 10 April 1995, in his resignation speech from the Cabinet).
If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted opportunism, by a former Minister of the Cabinet, in our country with the simple sword of truth, so be it.
When I think of locked up potential, I am thinking of the prisoners in our prisons, who given the right breaks, could really amount to something within society. Jimmy Boyle, Erwin James, John McVicar, Rachel Billington, and myself, are living examples of those who reformed in spite of the system. This is not a claim that they, or myself, did it all alone. It was with the assistance of some within and without the system which made it possible. But it has to start with the prisoner's own desire to change for the better, and others facilitating this reform. It does not happen overnight, on the first night in prison, by claiming to have found God in the prison cell. If Jonathan Aitken saw the light, it was possibly the night clockie shining his torch through the spyhole into his cell.
Jonathan Aitken desired to be welcomed back with a role within the Tory party. Some believe him to be a reformed character. They are misguided. In any event, Jonathan Aitken managed to persuade the powers that be that his 7 months in captivity gave him a unique insight into the Criminal Justice System. The Centre for Social Justice commissioned him to Chair a Prison Reform Working Group, and its Policy Report "Locked Up Potential - A strategy for reforming prisons and rehabilitating prisoners" was published by the Centre for Social Justice on 23 March 2009.
There is very little to commend within the Report, and much of that has been said in numerous previous reports. However, I found much to condemn within the Report and these give me cause for concern. I found myself getting very angry when I read parts of "Chapter 7: Prisoners and their victims". In particular, the recommendation "Requiring prisoners to pay a proportion of their earnings in jail directly to their victims or to general funds for victims". I am against this in principle. And, given that in Jonathan Aitken's own case, "His £2m legal bill from the failed libel case remains unpaid" that such a suggestion should come from him is pure hypocrisy at its worst.
In my view, under English law, there is no debt owed to the victim or victim's family by the offender because "The underlying principle governing the CJS is that all crime (offences which have been codified as such in statutes) committed by an individual or groups against others are deemed to have been committed against society. Consequently the State takes action to prosecute the accused on behalf of, and in the interest of society...Barring a few exceptions, in criminal matters the party who is treated as aggrieved party is the State which is the custodian of the social interests of the community at large and so it is for the State to take all steps necessary for bringing the person who has acted against the social interests of the community to book". This does not mean that victims or the family of victims will always be satisfied with the penalty meted out by the courts on their behalf.
In my own case, I received a discretionary life sentence for manslaughter with a 15 year tariff and served 25 years. About the same time, I know of the case of a serving police officer who killed his ex-girlfriend with a knife he had specifically bought for the purpose and he received 18 months for manslaughter. Although I was not directly his victim, I felt he was treated unduly leniently whereas I felt as though I had been treated unduly harshly.
The courts do not always strike the right balance. However, I believe that the system is better than allowing individuals to extract their own justice or revenge. It would appear to me, that sometimes victims appear to want to have their cake and eat it. Either we have state justice or individual justice. The offender is also entitled to justice, and pays for the crime by undergoing the punishment meted out by the court. What Jonathan Aitken is advocating is, in effect, a Victim Tax.
From a practical point of view, the Report points out: "In 1996 a private members bill introduced in the House of Commons by Hartley Booth MP, which created the legal structure for this process, was voted into law. However, payments from prisoners’ wages to victims, or a victims’ fund, have never been made on the grounds that these wages are too low for this to be possible". In spite of this, and bearing in mind that Jonathan Aitken declared himself bankrupt in order to avoid paying his debt for a legal war which he started, he goes on to say: "Although we agree that prisoners’ wages have been kept artificially low for reasons of political and trades union pressure, we nevertheless believe that a start should be made in implementing this policy".
Rather than this, in my view Jonathan Aitken should start to pay the debt which he owes, which is totally separate from the sentence he received for his crimes against society.
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