Why parole hearings were crucial in deciding to meet my offender
This is a blog by our Ambassador, Nick Dawson.
I am writing this shortly after attending a prison parole hearing for one of the two offenders who murdered my twin brother. It feels like the end of a chapter in our long journey of living with the murder of our beautiful Simon. We’ve been attending parole hearings as a family for the last 13 years – its now been 27 years since Simon was murdered. We have just learned that the second offender (Carl) has finally been released, and I think now this particular chapter of our journey will come to a close – or at least I hope it does. We are ready. Now both of Simon’s murderers are living free lives out of prison.
Simon is my identical twin brother, he is my mirror image. He was taken away from us following a chance encounter and totally random brutal attack in August 1998 after a night out. We were 30 years old. Two young teenagers were sentenced to life imprisonment for his murder in 1999.
We first started attending parole hearings for Simon’s two murderers in 2012, 14 years after the crime. As each hearing came up, we would be invited into their respective prisons to read out our victim personal statements (VPS) – something we always really wanted to do as a family. One by one we would walk into a room deep inside each prison to face the offender across a table, face to face, eye to eye. Breathing the same air. The silence is deafening as you are directed to speak by the parole chair. The emotion is raw. The heart feels like it is going to thump out of your chest. And then you read out the words of hurt directly in front of and to the offender, looking them in the eye, barely two feet from their face. It’s the most amazing piece of power given to the victim for a fleeting few seconds/minute or so. One by one – mum, dad, and I – we walk into to the hearing to speak for Simon, to say our piece. Then we walk out. No dialogue, you walk in, you speak, you walk out.
I attended Craig’s parole hearing in 2014 – he was the younger of the two offenders, but we always thought of him as the intelligent one, and the ring-leader of the attack on Simon. As I walked in I noticed he was holding a tissue tightly in his hand, tears rolling down his face – he had just heard my mum’s desperately harrowing VPS. I looked at his emotions and said my piece, the words of hurt hitting him hard just like those of my mum and dad. Then as I was leaving, an unexpected feeling. I looked further at Craig as I got up to walk out and felt in that moment that I wanted to reach out to him. So many what if’s rifling through my head. Maybe he wasn’t the monster I always thought he was, maybe he and I could talk. Monsters don’t cry do they?
A strange, truly unexpected desire to connect with the person who was the last to see Simon alive. Almost as if Craig had shed the cloak of horror in that moment, a cloak I always thought he wore. I nodded to Craig as I left the room in acknowledgement, and to thank him for listening – it felt the right thing to do. I walked out with a real sense of unfinished business. Maybe there could be dialogue between us. Maybe now is the time. Maybe he is ready? Maybe I am ready?
The rest is history. I did eventually go on to meet Craig in a very powerful RJ conference held in HMP Woodhill, near Milton Keynes – about a year later. A truly transformational event in both our lives.
Looking back on this now years later, attending parole hearings in person and seeing the offender face to face in the same room was hugely significant. I don’t know if I would have ever accessed RJ had I not seen Craig that day in the prison. It was also a time when I first heard about Restorative Justice, and started to understand what it could do for us as a family. The parole hearings had opened my mind to possibility, to healing and reconciliation. Up until that point, the thought of giving ‘air time’ to one of my brothers killers had been unthinkable.
Covid changed things for parole hearings though. Since then, they have been moved to Zoom online – to save time and money I guess. Now we attend parole hearings at Chester probation office, sitting in a room looking at a small laptop screen – seeing the offender in his remote prison as a small dot on a small screen. Totally different. Totally not face to face. Instantly the power of emotion and rawness is removed. A layer of protection is put back for the offender. I suspect most parole hearings are on Zoom now, and in a heartbeat, they’ve removed the opportunity for the victim that was so life changing for me. You can’t see/feel/hear/sense emotions on a Zoom call – you almost may as well not have them. The power is taken away.
I hope that at some stage parole hearings can come back to in person “face to face”. I personally think they should ask a question to the victim’s family in the planning stages of a hearing – do they want to attend the hearing in person to read out their victim statements, and also is the offender willing to attend? If yes then without question the parole hearing should be held in person. Here’s hoping…
For now Craig and Carl are free, and I consider myself very lucky to have accessed Restorative Justice. It has brought so much healing and positive transformation into my life. It is without doubt a very powerful process that can heal trauma and help rebuild. I have recently published a book which recounts our whole story of losing Simon through murder, and how I eventually went on to meet one of his killers. It’s a personal memoir called Face to Face and is available through all major booksellers online and in store.
