Dear MOJUK

With the coming into force of the 1998 Human Rights Act on the 2 October 2000, the Prison Service issued a Prison Service Instruction: 'Computer's in Possession: Access to Justice" on 1st February 2001. This Instruction acknowledges Standing Order 5 and 16 and Prison Service Order 2605 of the Prison Service obligations to facilitate a prisoner's 'access to justice" and also recognises a prisoner's protection to access Justice under the European Convention on Human Rights. The Instruction was updated on me 1 February 2002 to expire on me 31 January 2003.

However, don't expect anything but promises and lip service to this Prison Service commitment and don't hold your breath waiting for an approval to have access to computers to carry out your legal work.

The Instruction comprises of over 40 paragraphs and does more to prevent one having access to justice if there is to be a reliance on the Prison Service undertaking. Following the issue of the Instruction, the Prison Service undertook to supply lap top computers to those who could demonstrate a legal need and in return the prisoner was expected to sign a compact which safeguards security and doesn't compromise the orderly day to day running of the prison? The Prison Service cannot have those who have genuine reasons and have satisfied the criteria, being in a position to undermine prison security can they ?

Never mind that for the innocent, prison is the last place that holds any interest. What the wrongfully convicted seek, are legal solutions to legal wrongs not situations that only compound their problems.

But being as they are, the Prison Service will as usual continue to make life difficult for anyone who dares to raise the slightest suggestion that they are innocent or wrongly convicted. As far as they are concerned, it is just not feasible that there are innocent people in prison, but then they have had many years experience in denying prisoners even their most fundamental rights and that includes the right to protest ones innocence without being penalised for it.

For the past 15 months, I have been trying to obtain computer access as part of the prison Service commitment to assisting those like me with access to justice. I am a bona fide appellant at the Court of Appeal with only limited legal aid at this stage and it has been necessary for me to carry out a lot of my own work.

Never mind that the state, has no limitations or restrictions on the information that it can access to convict someone. Has as many solicitors/barristers as they will need, no 'legal aid' for the state, just as much money as it wants to spend.

It is quite clear that properly presented documents and letters of which one is able to maintain copies of are a boon to those pursuing legal challenges, being that everything these days is required to be in writing and rightly so, how many of us have had letters and documents going astray?

I do not have a computer, no access to the Internet, I cannot fax or email, telephone calls are limited to my financial resources and photo copying is chargeable.

The Prison Service have told me that my access to a lap top computer and printer which they have agreed to supply through a firm called Electronic Data Services (EDS) is subject to a waiting list. The fact that they have only agreed to supply only 50 computers nation-wide means that for many prisoners their appeal or CCRC application will be history by the time a computer becomes available. One also has to take into account those who have yet to be tried and are banged up in local prisons where facilities are often sparse to say the least.

No wonder the state has the edge when it comes to the individual's so called right to access justice. They will throw the whole might of me state machinery at us including technology and the Prison Service will gladly go along with that. They cannot have prisoners daring to challenge their convictions or legal wrongs.

Whatever next?

"Prisoners will be claiming that they were fitted up, framed, railroaded by the criminal justice system, became victims of incompetent lawyers and had lies told about them and this will not be tolerated."

"How dare they?"

"Computers?"

"Well yes, one knows about the European Convention on Human Rights and a person's fundamental right to access justice and be given all the means necessary to achieve that, it is what in legal terms is known as 'equality of arms" but to the Prison Service equality of anything was never one of their strongest points was it?

I continue to wait for my access to a computer and printer, but I fear that after a 15 months wait so far, the lip service by the Prison Service to assist me and indeed all the other hostages with one's access to justice is just another mechanism, seeming to be honouring a commitment to fairness but at the same time continuing to snub us all.

The right of a prisoner to purchase or borrow a relative's computer is a no go area and I have known of cases where prisoners have succeeded in being funded by a charity for a computer to carry out legal and educational work only to have the prison return the cheque to the charity.

When it comes to justice and innocence, I'm afraid that they are words that has little meaning for the Prison Service and certainly has no place in their vocabulary, indeed I would be surprised if they knew how to spell the words.

Yours sincerely

   Charles Hanson

V V1638

HMP Kingston

Milton Road

Portsmouth

P03 6AS

16 October 2002