�����I know it�s a bit late to say merry christmas and happy new year, but heck I am saying it anyway.

�����Many, thanks to all you people who sent me a christmas card, I am sorry that I have not had the chance to reply to you all to show may appreciation.

�����I�ve been in segregation since the 14th December and still in it today as I write this letter.

�����My private cash is frozen, my statutory pocket money confiscated and I am not allowed to go to the canteen. My own clothes, radio, even my trainers, have been taken from me by order of the governor. The reason i�ve been told for their inhuman treatment, is that these are the rules when you are in segregation.

�����Why am I in segregation, I am a Rastafarian and the use of cannabis is part of our religion and therefore I will not subject myself to Mandatory Drug Testing (MDT).

����Plus I smashed a window in one of the cells.

�����I just get tired of the constant oppression, not being allowed to hug my wife and children when they come to visit. Speaking to them trough glass you can hardly see through. One year and four months I have been undergoing the same treatment.

�����HMP Gartree staff, seem tp make the rules up as they go along and use the least excuse to punish me. Then turn round and laugh in my face as if they had done nothing wrong.

�����I�ve been asking for the Prison Rules manual for several weeks now and also the address of the prison HQ. Just can�t get it off them.

�����It�s just one big conspiracy, even though i�ve never been convicted for drugs, I am stereotyped as a drugs dealer, being black and Jamaican.

�����I am still waiting to hear what is happening with my appeal, will let you all know, as soon as I hear something concrete.

���I wish you all well, don�t know if any of you can do anything for me,

���"Prison life is �to sleep the sleep of never waking up."

In Struggle,

Carl Kenute Gowe
HMP Gartree
Market Harborough
Leicestershire

LE16 7RP

================

"I have No Voice from Within these Prison Walls"

�����Robert Brown, HMP Haverigg, 'Inside Out' issue 14', may soon be on his way to the gate. Below story from 'Scotland on Sunday',

=================

�����Robert Brown a Scot jailed 25 years ago for bludgeoning a spinster to death in her home is set to have his case sent back to the Court of Appeal after securing powerful new evidence of his innocence.

�����In a case with striking parallels to that of Stephen Downing, lawyers for Robert Brown say the 44-year-old was the victim of falsified police confessions. They say investigators at the independent Criminal Cases Review Commission have compiled a dossier of evidence which all but clears their client of killing Annie Walsh on Manchester's Hulme estate in January 1977.

�����An alibi witness has been traced whom Brown, then 19, has always claimed was at a football match with him when the killing took place.

����New information - never heard at the original trial - shows that clothing fibre was found on another suspect which was consistent with clothes worn by the victim.

�����Claims that Brown's confession to police was fabricated by detectives and extracted only after hours of physical and psychological torture, have also been backed up by linguistic experts.

�����Further doubt has been cast over the confession after the conviction of Jack Butler, a senior detective with Greater Manchester Police's Serious Crime Squad who conducted the confession, for corruption in a separate case.

�����Finally, the post mortem evidence also did not match what Brown was supposed to have told police.

�����The papers are expected to be lodged at the Court of Appeal within weeks and if successful, Brown, from Drumchapel in Glasgow, could be in line to receive millions of pounds in compensation.

�����He is now one of the longest serving prisoners in the country who claims his conviction was a miscarriage of justice

�����Brown's solicitor, Robert Lizar, said: "Robert's case has all the hallmarks of a classic miscarriage of justice. It has striking parallels with the Downing case as both involve a disputed confession from young and vulnerable defendants.

�����"We are hoping for a positive decision from the Criminal Cases Review Commission at the end of the month so the case can be sent back to the Court of Appeal."

�����Brown is currently a Category C prisoner in low-security Haverigg Jail in Cumbria.

�����His case first came to light in the early 1990s when government minister Lord Gus Macdonald, then an executive at STV, made a television documentary about it.

�����Brown was sentenced in October 1977 at Manchester Crown Court to be detained at Her Majesty's pleasure for the murder of Walsh and lost a subsequent appeal.

���Walsh, 51, had just finished work for the day in a factory in Manchester when she walked home with groceries on January 28, 1977. Three days later she was found dead at her home by a visiting electricity meter reader. She had been killed by repeated blows to the skull, leaving her unrecognisable.

�����No money was taken from the flat after the attack and more than �200 in wages was left untouched in her purse. The murder weapon has never been recovered, although police decided it was a missing table lamp.

�����Brown's confession claimed he dumped the murder weapon down the rubbish chute, but a police search of the area immediately after the discovery of the body found nothing.

�����Nearly two months into the investigation Manchester police placed a 37-year-old suspect in an identification parade. Despite being picked out by a witness, the man was freed.

�����Later, in May, the police arrested Brown, a drifter who led an unsettled life in Scotland and who had brushes with the law before moving to Hulme and living in a series of flats.

�����Since the trial Brown has consistently denied murder and remained ineligible for parole, which would have freed him in 1988.

�����His case has now been taken up by the campaign group, the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, headed by Paddy Hill, one of the Birmingham Six.

�����Last night, speaking from his cell, Brown said: "They can't give me justice, I realise that. All I'm asking for now is the truth to be revealed.

�����"I feel the system has attempted to dehumanise me. It has never tried to rehabilitate me. I am not responsible for the victim's death. All I want now is to get acquitted and get my life back again. I just want to put my arms around my mother."

����His mother Margaret, 73, who lives alone in her Glasgow flat, said: "I know that he is innocent and that is what keeps me going. I'm getting tired after all the years of fighting and travelling down to England to see him in jail. Getting him out of there is all that I live for."

�����Many thanks to M.O.J.O (Miscarriages of Justice Organisation)for working hard to get Rob's case back to court and into the media.

Robert Brown

HMP Haverigg
Millom
Cumbria
LA18 4NA

=======================

Dudley Higgins, is Out and About

�����Last Wednesday, Dudley Higgins,had his conviction for robbery quashed on appeal. Dudley was convicted at Birmingham Crown Court last year and sentenced to 5 years.

�����In a rare exchange of dialogue, Lord Justice Kay said they had no hesitation in finding the verdict unsafe, that it was a miscarriage of justice - and refused to order any re-trial on the grounds that the appellant could never receive a fair trial on such 'tainted' evidence.

�����He did not accept the crown's explanation that the evidence produced at trial was a 'police error' and he told the crown that he was requesting the Registrar of Criminal Appeals to write personally to the Chief Constable of West Midlands enclosing a copy of the courts judgement and requesting that a formal investigation be conducted into the whole affair.

�����(At the end of last year, Mr. Higgins having been given leave to Appeal, was refused bail pending appeal because the Crown were contesting the Appeal. )

�����Paddy Hill, says MOJO is to write to the Court of Appeal expressing our delight at being privy to british justice being seen to be done. It was a wonderful experience.

���� Solicitor was Maslen Merchant - he deserves a medal for the way he conducted the appeal as does Counsel.

�����We are also writing to the Chief Constable - will send you a copy when it's done.

�����Source: Hazel Keirle for Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO).

======================================================

On the move:

Jimmy Wright, from HMP Parkhurst to HMP Doncaster - release date was 6th February now 20th February.

Paul Massey, from HMP Longlartin to HMP Full Sutton, paper work to CCRC.

=======================================================

Help for victims of miscarriages of injustice

�����The Home Office is set to close a loophole that sees victims of miscarriages of justice left without official support after proving their innocence.

�����Dozens of people - such as the M25 Three, Birmingham Six and Bridgewater Four, as well as many less high profile cases - have come out of prison in recent years only to found themselves abandoned.

�����Those who admit to committing serious crimes can be provided with day visits in the community and pre-release courses. The probation service and other agencies help find accommodation, and employment can be arranged.But those who prove their innocence are stranded in a Catch 22 situation.

�����Because they refuse to "come to terms with their crimes" they are refused places on prison pre-release courses, and when they are released by the Court of Appeal they find themselves struggling to get housing, jobs and subsistence benefits.

�����They leave jail with a small cash allowance and directions to the nearest social security office.Interim compensation payments take months to arrive, and final settlements can take years.

�����But after intense lobbying, the Home Office is expected to announce measures to help them in the next few weeks.