I am back after spending two years in jail following trumped-up charges and a vicious prosecution, during which they didn’t even spell my name correctly. I was, and am, innocent — there was no physical contact and no criminal intent. A mistake was made while under great stress: my attempts to get the experiment underway were failing miserably and at the time of the supposed offence I just wanted to exhaust the few cards I had remaining and wrap it up. The novel experiment I was attempting may have been foolish (everyone has 20/20 hindsight) but it would have been a great gimmick had it been successful, and enlightening to men. This article was written when I had been in jail a year but had yet to be sentenced. More may be written of my experiences later, particularly, anonymized details of some of the other prisoners’ cases. My best friend in Hull jail was a Pentecostal minister, in whose innocence I have not the slightest doubt. (Aug. 2024)

This is written from a ‘Vulnerable Prisoner Wing’, aka ‘VP Wing’ aka ‘Nonce Wing’ of Hull prison, and comprises an update on my situation. I am told that around 1990 the VP population filled just one landing, approximately 50 prisoners, whereas now, with the introduction of new laws, the shedding of the constitutional Statutes of Limitation and removal of numerous safeguards, the VP population now fills several wings, around 400 men. My estimate is that at least 20% of the men on these wings are innocent. Over 95% of the prison population in Britain is male, so this is an issue for men generally, and the demoralisation and criminalisation of men in particular.

I have been torn between writing at length and the inevitable laziness that sets in in this place, while trying to get through each day with the minimum of stress and unpleasantness. It is actually not all that bad, certainly by historical standards, though obviously very far from ideal and my current cell-mate is practically a moron. I am doing a lot of reading and watching crap TV (mainly films) in between. It is as if I am making up for all the years I have spent without television. Many of the people in here would be doing exactly the same outside – sitting on their backsides watching TV all day. To my eyes it is relentless propaganda.

I considered writing about my ‘triple whammy,’ the three notable circumstances which have occurred during my life and have profoundly affected me. Each has been detrimental for me personally, but have had benefits generally (e.g. my psychological and medical work). However, what I am thinking about most at the moment is failure.

I keep remembering what happened to the first-born Kennedy son, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Jr. In 1944 the USNR wanted to employ an explosive remote-controlled airplane, but two pilots were needed to take-off, switch to ‘robot’ mode and arm the explosives before parachuting out. The detonation was to take place later. The eldest Kennedy son volunteered for the mission, but unfortunately for the two crew, something went wrong and both he and Wilford J. Willy were blown to oblivion in an enormous explosion.

I think that Hollywood’s influence extends much deeper than people realise. A typical narrative is of someone or some group going off on an arduous venture or quest, facing formidable odds and, after numerous struggles against adversity, they prevail. Real life of course is not like that, but reality does not make the best story-line. Long odds mean exactly that, and unexpected factors can appear out of the blue to cause a project to fail. Sometimes also the cost of a mistake can be unexpectedly high. People who spend all their time passively spectating forget that the only way not to make mistakes is not to do anything.

My scheme may have been mad, but the gains, had it worked out, would have been tremendous. The benefits would have been on multiple levels: drawing attention to my earlier work, personally (in resolving, i.e. curing, some long-standing neuroses), and potentially obtaining some novel results.

I have also been thinking about the behaviour of juries – a topic I was discussing with a couple of staff, quoting the anthropologist Marvin Harris. It is a bit involved to go into here, but after a couple of days’ thought I believe I have worked out most of it. The impression I got during my trial, that the jury actually enjoyed delivering guilty verdicts, was confirmed.

I had been perplexed by this and the readiness of juries to convict for supposed crimes that happened twenty, thirty or even forty years previously, often based on spurious and unsubstantiated memories. I can understand ‘perfidious Albion’ being thoroughly nasty, but what of juries’ apparent willingness to go along with it? Many of the prisoners here are elderly; I recently spoke to two who were eighty-odd in one day. Many wheelchairs are in evidence, especially in the wing next door, plus there are others who are obviously incapable.

My barrister (rather ineffective, and really just a milder version of the prosecution) has told me that when I am eventually sentenced I can expect four years. This is based on the legal fiction that I intended full penetrative sex with underage girls, which of course is nonsense – the documentation repeatedly stipulated “Unmarried women only.” He also told me that there are no grounds for appeal. I am caught in an impossible situation over which I have no control.

Anyway, I finally read The Golden Bough from cover to cover, also Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. In Philip K. Dick’s ‘The Man Who Japed’ I found this: “To a diseased mind any relationship is foul.” Judging by the freaks routinely featured on TV, there are a lot of diseased minds around.

Simon Sheppard, HMP Hull, 22 September 2022