INNOCENT: TRIAL & ERROR
At our first annual Paddy Hill Memorial Lecuture, we were delighted to share that we have been working closely with local award winning documentary film-maker Hannah Currie and executive producer Sandra Leeming. We have for the past two years putting together developement filiming for a campaign film about the plight of our clients.
In order to produce a proof of concept and take our film to market we have launched a Crowd Funder.
Details of how you can support our project can be found HERE.
Aim
To fund development of feature-doc centring victims of miscarriages of justice, and challenging the flawed systems that keeps them trapped.
A documentary examining the multiple layers of injustice committed by the state, told through the ‘stranger-than-fiction’ stories of victims of miscarriage of justice.
With exclusive access to the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation (MOJO), a unique victim support agency based in Glasgow, twice BAFTA Scotland winning director Hannah Currie embarks on her first feature film, delving into the lives of society’s most disenfranchised community: those found guilty of a crime they did not commit.
Primarily affecting people from low income backgrounds, wrongful convictions arise from a shocking inequality of resources between prosecution and defence, with the legal aid system in deep crisis. Serious miscarriages of justice are further compounded by an inherently flawed appeals system, which fails to acknowledge or correct its mistakes in the interest of upholding its reputation, and public trust, in the illusion of justice.
This results in victims who not only endure prison sentences serving someone else’s time, but who are released back into society damaged, destroyed and uncompensated. Trapped in a cycle of trauma and stigma that continues for the rest of their lives, they deteriorate. No matter how many times they try to set the record straight, nobody is listening. They have been labelled criminals, sinking to the lowest echelons of society, unable to gain employment or form meaningful relationships. They have exhausted all of their options legally to clear their name. Their friends and family may believe them, but they want them to move on; get over it. They can’t. They grow older knowing that this falsehood will likely be their legacy.
Now, this pioneering documentary hands power back to those whose stories have been warped by a malicious system, and gives them the opportunity to re-tell their stories in the pursuit of truth. As they re-create scenes from their past, the audience are invited to question what is real as we play with the concept of reality: in doing so, we reveal how assumptions can be formed by a jury and how truth can be manipulated. By the end of the film, we hope to have swayed public opinion back in our ccontributors’ favour, bringing them out of the cold into the light – and activating a renewed fight for justice.
Why this film is urgent
Miscarriages of justice are more common than you might think, and none of us are immune. It could happen to you or your family.
MOJO receive 300 applications a year and typically take on just ten cases, where they can be sure of a stateable claim to factual innocence that has not already been exhausted by the restrictive appeals process. MOJO are the ‘last chance saloon’ for their clients. And even then, they acknowledge that their chances of achieving exoneration are remote, due to the system’s unwillingness to acknowledge and correct its most serious mistakes.
Miscarriages of justice do not just affect the individual wrongly convicted of crime, and by default their families: they come at huge cost to the public purse and public safety. The Crown prosecutes people in the public’s name, with public money. The Post Office Scandal has so far cost the public over £700m in compensation, and it demonstrates the unwillingness of the state to admit their mistakes on a mass scale: so one person fighting the system has very little chance of success. Public safety is also severely threatened: with the wrong person imprisoned, the true perpetrators of crime walk free amongst us.
Film has the power to raise awareness of miscarriages of justice, to challenge and reform the system.
In recent years, explosive cases have been brought to light by film and television portrayals: ITV’s dramatization of the Post Office Scandal averaged 13.5 million viewers and forced a change in the law, while the BBC documentary ‘The Wrong Man: 17 Years Behind Bars’ told the story of Andrew Malkinson, whose case directly led to the resignation of the Chief Exec of the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
On release in the UK right now is the Scottish documentary ‘Everybody to Kenmure Street’ which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Civil Resistance. It’s having a huge success in cinemas inspiring audiences, creating impact through storytelling and connection, amplifying its message of civil resistance and community solidarity. It serves as a record of a successful, citizen-led action against a government-backed immigration crackdown.
With support from MOJO and bolstered by factual evidence – but led by the stories of those affected by miscarriage of justice – it is our ambition that our film and the associated impact campaign will create enough shockwaves to reform the system and open up further chances for our contributors’ exoneration.
Why we have launched a crowdfunder
The dire state of independent documentary funding was recently laid out in this report by the Documentary Film Council. Whilst we rigorously pursue competitive public funding for the production of the documentary, we are appealing to those who support this cause to help us raise the initial funds to create a proof of concept and teaser tape that will enable us to take the film to market and expediate our chances of full funding. We urgently want to draw attention to this issue and campaign for reform of a broken system.
