Who has the right to decide punishment and why? What do you think?
Michael O'Connell, who has been promoted to the Victims of Crime Commissioner arranged with the Attorney General to give us a copy of the trial transcripts to ensure we accurately report the trial. He said it's taken 100 years to realise how isolating the legal system is, and it will take more than a decade to undo it. He's working to change the legislation to involve victims at the stage when charges are laid. We spoke about a flaw in Restorative Justice; why is it that the angry person can choose a sentence, or the loud one, or the forgiving one? With so much diversity amongst family members, who has the right to decide?
In the last weeks Andrea has retreated into herself. She won’t answer Debbie's calls. Debbie went to her house and she didn't even answer the door. She's become a recluse.
Today we were back in court and the divide has returned. There was no contact between the two families. Andrea looked like a ghost. The last two months have f****d her up, and they're f*****g us up too. Mum's stressed; it takes her a week to recover from one day in court. I've got bad stress-related psoriasis on my head.
So at court, in the great divide, the prosecutor called two witnesses to talk about Andrea's pain medication regime in prison. There is no infirmary in the women's prison. She'd have to go to the men's infirmary where she could take her morphine for a while, and then they'd put her on methadone. She can't stay on morphine in the jail because the other prisoner’s would bully her.
She could only have methadone once a day. It's faster acting, so she really needs it three times a day. Her suicide risk is less if her pain is treated. If not, her risk is high. They talked about her as though she wasn't there; they even got her name wrong.
Debbie told us that Andrea’s lawyer told her that Andrea did take her night dose of MS Contin (500mg). Her lawyer told her not to lie, and she did. I guess she was scared of the truth, but in the end the lie made it worse.
Written on 10 Oct 2006
Over 8 years since incident
Tags:
punishment, drugs in jail
There are no comments yet.
If you log in, you will be able to add comments here.
