TOP 100 ENGLAND SITES
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| 'Thick Scots' slur Tory resigns A Conservative candidate resigns after allegedly saying Scots were "so thick" for hating Margaret Thatcher. bbc.co.uk |
7/7 inquest: heroism of London bombings survivors Ordinary members of the public refused to leave bombed-out Tube trains and bravely administered first aid despite the appalling carnage around them. telegraph.co.uk |
Paddy Hill wins trauma counselling for Birmingham Six ordeal Eighteen years after his conviction was overturned, Paddy Hill wins state help for the psychological damage he sufferedAlmost 20 years after he was found innocent of committing one of the worst terrorist bombings in Britain, Paddy Hill has won his fight for intensive trauma counselling.Hill, one of the the Birmingham Six, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 for killing 21 people and injuring 162 others. It took nearly 17 years before the convictions were overturned by the court of appeal.The six men convicted have never been offered adequate psychological help or support."After almost a generation of being held hostage by my own government, I was suddenly thrown out on to the streets and expected to cope," said Hill. "But I'm coming apart at the seams and time has made it worse. I'm like a hand-grenade with a loose pin, just waiting to explode. I wake up every morning and all I can think about is killing cops. But I'm not evil: I'm traumatised and I desperately need help."I have spent the last 20 years begging the state to help me, but I have been ignored or pushed between GPs, who just try to fill me full of pills, and specialists, who say my trauma is so extreme that they don't know how to help."Hill has also sought help from charities that help former prisoners, but they have all told him their funding allows them to help only guilty offenders.Last week, however, Hill was given funding by Ayrshire & Arran, his local NHS health trust, for one month's in-patient counsellling at London's Capio Nightingale hospital with Professor Gordon Turnbull, a consultant psychiatrist who helped Terry Waite and John McCarthy after their hostage ordeal in Beirut.Hill will also receive one month of out-patient care, during which he will live in London with Gareth Peirce, the solicitor who represented the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six.Pierce has spent years fighting to get help for Hill. "There simply is not any treatment available in the NHS for victims like Paddy, who have experienced such extreme torture and false imprisonment at the hands of their own government," she said."The government has repeatedly promised that something will be set up to help victims of miscarriages of justice, but every promise has not been fulfilled."Pierce is concerned that two months of treatment is not enough. "Will it even scratch the surface?" she asked. "Research shows that the pattern is of irreversable psychological damage."Hill, one of the founding members of the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation – the only body that exists specifically to help those imprisoned for crimes they did not commit – said he was "terrified" that the treatment could make his condition worse."I was told in the year after my release that I needed 10 years of counselling," he said. "I'm terrified that two months will simply let out the demons without giving me the ability to control them."Turnbull, who says Hill is one of the most traumatised people he has ever come across, said two months' treatment was unlikely to be sufficient."Being the victim of a miscarriage of justice in your own country is very much more traumatic than being a conventional prisoner or even a conventional hostage, who has been held against his wishes in a foreign country by people who have a different belief system," he said."It's totally shocking that there is no method of helping these victims reemerge into society. The state makes less provision for their release than those who have been rightfully imprisoned," he added. "The state has an obligation to rehabilitate these victims."Birmingham SixNorthern IrelandPost-traumatic stress disorderMental healthUK criminal justiceAmelia Hillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Tributes paid to Mourne victims Friends and business associates have been paying tribute to the three men who died in the Mourne Mountains helicopter crash at the weekend. bbc.co.uk |
Video: Cameron pledges economic 'dynamism' Speaking at the CBI conference in London, the prime minister today urged business leaders to back his strategy for economic growth guardian.co.uk |