Justice for Frank Wilkinson

Frank Wilkinson was arrested for murder on March 9th 1986 and found guilty in January 1987. He has been in prison for over 24 years for a crime he did not commit - and, until July 2009, he remained a Category A prisoner all that time. Had he lied and admitted guilt, it is likely he would have been released years ago. Today, Frank Wilkinson (B.A., M.A., PhD, and winner of several Koestler awards) remains determined to prove his innocence. This fact alone should surely prompt a re-assessment of his case.

The campaign

We want to get justice for Frank. We started out with three goals, the first of which was achieved in July 2009 and the second, with the news in July 2011 that the Secretary of State has accepted the Parole Board's recommendation that Frank should be transferred to open conditions, seems on the way to being achieved:

1. Frank should have his Category A status immediately reviewed and amended on the grounds that:
   • he clearly presents no risk to society
   • the methods being used to assess risk (largely through offending behaviour courses) are inflexible and unfair when it comes to prisoners, like Frank, who maintain their innocence
   (Although Frank was downgraded to Category B in July 2009, it was not apparently the result of a genuine re-assessment - either of Frank or of the system - but in response to the falure of the Secretary of State's appeal against Frank's Judicial Review. Rather than be forced to amend the procedures for Category A Reviews, it has been found more convenient simply to move Frank out of the Category A estate. Welcome news for Frank - but it does little for other prisoners in a similar position.)
2. He should be actively prepared for release, on the grounds that:
   • even were he guilty, he has more than served his time
   • a prisoner should not be prevented from making progress because he maintains his innocence
   (Although the Parole Board Mandatory Lifer Panel review process which began in December 2009 culminated in July 2011 with the Secretary of State agreeing with the Parole Board's recommendation that Frank should be transferred to open conditions, this was not before the Offender Management Unit at Long Lartin tried to prevent such a transfer by lodging a challenge.)
3. An appeal against his conviction should be presented to the Court of Appeal forthwith by the Criminal Cases Review Commission on the grounds that:
   • the original investigation and trial should be regarded as unsafe
   • when a prisoner goes over tariff maintaining innocence, this should automatically trigger a re-assessment of the original conviction
   (In July 2010, the CCRC, having reviewed Frank's second application to have his case referred to the Court of Appeal, announced that they would not be referring his case. This did not really come as much of a surprise, given the very narrow terms of reference that the CCRC work with - for instance, an appeal cannot be based on the fact that there was simply not the evidence for a conviction in the first place.)

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