"I
will NOT admit to a crime I did not commit! I do not care what they do
or what anyone says. If I have to, then I will die in prison, but I will
die an innocent man"Justice for Frank Wilkinson
"In the face of complete disaster, the only recourse is total defiance"
My name is Frank Wilkinson. I was arrested for murder in March 1986 and convicted in January 1987. It was a murder which I had neither knowledge of nor involvement in. My appeal was refused in January 1988 by Lord Lane, a man whose decisions and utterances in many other cases have been seen to be less than judicious. He was removed from the bench finally.
A few months after my appeal was refused, another man, Edward Wood, made a signed and sworn statement in which he admitted committing the murder, how he did it, where, when and how. The original statement is now in the hands of the Criminal Cases Review Commission, (CCRC). Edward Wood clearly states that I had no hand in the murder and had nothing to do with it in any other way. He states that the only reason that my name was ever mentioned at all was at the insistence of the investigating police officers. This statement was in the hands of the authorities in 1988 and yet here I am, still in prison in the year of 2005 and on at least two occasions separate Home Secretaries have refused to send my case back to the appeal courts.
I have protested my innocence every day for the last nineteen years and the only response of the prison service, in the early part of those years, was to take the matter of my innocence as some sort of personal challenge and affront and turn violent toward me. In the years from 1986 to 1994 I was moved from prison to prison, segregation unit to segregation unit, special unit to special unit, something like forty or more times. Most of these moves were accompanied by aggression and in many cases actual violence. I was beaten up on a fairly regular basis and suffered a certain amount of physical damage. At one point police were called in to Frankland prison because of my injuries. Statements and photographs of my injuries were taken and yet no prison officer has ever been charged or even disciplined internally. The grounds given for this decision were that there was not sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction in a court of law. This is curious considering that I myself was convicted on no evidence other than circumstantial.
Things were so bad at one stage that I was seen in Wandsworth segregation unit by two International Jurors from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Degrading Treatment, Professors Astrid Heiberg and Jacques Bernheim, on August 1st 1990. When we consider the fact that I am a "lifer" and lifers are not sent to Wandsworth, what was I doing there? When I saw the two Jurors I could not speak because I had been beaten up the day before and a towel had been held around my neck until I had become unconscious, therefore my throat was damaged. My answers to the Jurors' questions had to be written down. A short while after the Commission's visit I was transferred to Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight. There I was taken directly to the segregation unit and beaten up very badly. At one stage I was placed in a body belt and leg chains and a kind officer thought it would amuse his cohorts to watch him urinate on me. I was naked in a strip cell at the time. He was washing the blood off me.
Throughout the eight years that this sort of treatment went on, eight years of abuse, I refused to admit to a crime which I did not commit.
In 1994 I was again moved to Frankland prison and was informed that I would be left alone provided that I left prison staff alone. I still maintained my innocence. The only reason that the prison service were leaving me alone and in peace was because of the involvement of Vicky King, then at the Prisoners' Advice Service, who was monitoring my case and had taken up the matter of my treatment with the authorities.
From that day onward the physical violence ceased and I was then allowed to continue an educational process which I had started on my own volition in about 1990. I finally gained my B.A. in Fine Arts which I upgraded to an M.A. a few years later. At the same time I was studying for my PhD in English Language and Literature for which I earned a first. From 1994 to 1999.
I did not spend one single day in the segregation and was in Frankland prison the whole time.
I continued to protest my innocence
In 1999 I was moved to Long Lartin prison, for 'Operational Reasons', which is a euphemism for getting rid of prisoners from one prison to another who are seen as 'troublesome', but who have not actually done anything that they can be accused of. In 20011 was transferred to Full Sutton and in 2002 transferred here to Whitemoor, all for good old 'Operational Reasons'.
To-day, because of the violence and abuses of the past, I am now registered unfit for work of any sort and am waiting to have knee replacements, to repair the damage due to past Control and Restraint methods. I spend all my time studying, writing on various subjects or simply writing letters to people outside.
For some reason, after nineteen years in prison and having made great strides forward in my educational levels, and not having been on so much as a Governor's Report for well over three years, I have still not been allowed to make any sort of progress. I am still a Category A prisoner. I have never taken drugs or had a positive drugs test. All I hear from the prison service is that I MUST admit my guilt. If I had actually committed the murder I would be out of prison by now. It seems the innocent must be punished. I will NOT admit to a crime I did not commit! I do not care what they do or what anyone says. If I have to die, then I will die in prison, but I will die an innocent man. The prison service, the police, the judiciary and even the criminal fraternity know who committed the murder and it was not me!
Please afford me any assistance that you can. Letters to Members of Parliament, newspapers, letters of support, any assistance at all will help and will be gratefully accepted.
Thank you most sincerely if for no more than taking the time and trouble to read this letter.
Frank Wilkinson,
March 24th 2005
Frank Wilkinson
R60852
HMP Whitemoor
Longhill Road
March
PE 15 OPR
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