"In the face of complete disaster, the only recourse is total defiance."

My name is Frank Wilkinson. I was arrested for murder in March 1986 and convicted in January 1987. It was a murder which I had neither knowledge of nor involvement in. My appeal was refused in February 1988 by Lord Lane, a man whose decisions and utterances in many other cases have been seen to be less than judicious. He was removed from the bench finally.
A month after my appeal was refused, another man, Edward Wood, made a signed and sworn statement in which he admitted committing the murder - where, when and how he did it. The original statement is now in the hands of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC). Edward Wood clearly states that I had no hand in the murder and had nothing to do with it in any other way. He states that the only reason that my name was ever mentioned at all was at the insistence of the investigating police officers. This statement was in the hands of the authorities in 1988 and yet here I am, still in prison in the year 2006. On at least two occasions, separate Home Secretaries have refused to send my case back to the Appeal Courts.
I have protested my innocence every day for over twenty years and the only response of the prison service, in the early part of those years, was to take the matter of my innocence as some sort of personal challenge and affront and turn quite violent toward me. In the years from 1987 to 1994 I was moved from prison to prison, segregation unit to segregation unit, special unit to special unit, something like forty times. I have kept a diary every day and it does not make for good bedtime reading if I want to sleep at night. Most of these moves were accompanied by aggression and in many instances direct violence both by myself on prison staff and by prison staff on myself. I was beaten up on a fairly regular basis and sustained a certain amount of personal physical damage and distress. At one point, and I can supply the precise date, the police were called into Frankland Prison because of the damage to myself. Statements and photographs of my injuries were taken and yet no prison officer has ever been charged or, as far as I am aware, disciplined internally. The grounds given to me for the lack of any prosecutions were that there was not sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction in a court of law. This is curious considering that I myself was convicted on no evidence other than some very suspect circumstantial and even more suspect forensic evidence, clearly concocted by the police.
Things grew so bad at one stage that I was seen in Wandsworth segregation unit by two International Jurors from the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Degrading Treatment on 1st August 1990: Professors Astrid Heiberg and Jacques Bernheim. When it is considered that 'Lifers' are not sent to Wandsworth, what was I doing there? When I saw the two Jurors I was not able to speak because I had been beaten up the day before and a towel had been held around my neck until I had lost consciousness. My throat was damaged and I could not speak - my answers to the Jurors' questions had to be written down. They ordered that I be seen by an independent doctor the following day.
A short while after the Commission's visit I was transferred to Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight. There I was taken directly to the segregation unit and stripped naked. Of course I was stupid enough to fight back and that merely gave them the excuse to put me in a bodybelt and leg chains. As I was lying in the corner of the strip cell, surrounded by officers who were kicking me, one humanitarian decided that I needed the blood washing off me before the doctor arrived and he urinated on me.
Throughout the eight years that this sort of treatment went on - eight years of abuse - I refused to admit to a crime which I did not commit.
In 1994 I was again moved, to Frankland prison, and was informed that I would be left alone provided that I left prison staff alone. I still maintained my innocence. The only reason that the prison service was leaving me alone and in peace was because of the involvement of Vicky King, then at the Prisoners' Advice Service, who was monitoring my case and had taken up the matter of my treatment with the authorities.
From that day onward the physical violence ceased and I was then allowed to continue an educational process which I had started of my own volition in about 1990. I finally gained my B.A. in Fine Arts which I upgraded to an M.A. a few years later. At the same time I was studying for my PhD in English Language and Literature for which I finally gained a First. In Frankland I was left alone to study and to fight my case because that was the agreement I had reached with Principal Officer Billy Hunter who had come to see me in Durham Special Unit. He had said that if I behaved myself, did a couple of courses, did my education and left staff alone, then I would be progressed! From 1994 to 1999 I did not spend one single day in the segregation unit and I was in Frankland prison the whole time. I had agreed to this because I was learning things by then. I knew there were better ways to behave and get better results than being a front-line soldier in a war I could not win and in which I was the whole army.
I continued to protest my innocence.
For the next five years I did not spend a single night in the segregation unit, although I was on Governor's Report a few times for minor infringements of the rules.
In 1999 I was moved to Long Lartin prison, for 'Operational Reasons', which is a euphemism for getting rid of prisoners from one prison to another who are seen as 'troublesome', but who have not actually done anything that they can be accused of. I had started to assist other prisoners with their problems, putting my educational ability and newly gained skills to good use. In 2001 I was transferred to Full Sutton and in 2002 transferred here to Whitemoor, where I have now been for five years and no proven Governor's Report.
Today, because of the violence and abuses of the past, I am now registered unfit for work of any sort and am waiting to have knee replacements to repair the damage due to past Control and Restraint methods. I spend all my time studying and writing. I write quite a lot of letters to family and friends but I also write articles on various subjects, have written several novels and have won awards for my writing.
For some reason, however, after more than twenty years in prison and having made great strides forward in my educational levels, and not having been on so much as a Governor's Report for three years, I have still not been allowed to make any sort of progress. I am still a Category A prisoner. I have never taken drugs or had a positive drugs test, nor do I drink. All I hear from the prison service is that I MUST admit my guilt. If I had actually committed the murder I would be out of prison by now. It seems the innocent must be punished more than the guilty. I will NOT admit to a crime I did not commit! I do not care what they do or what anyone says. If I have to, then I will die in prison, but I will die an innocent man. The prison service, the police, the judiciary and even the criminal fraternity know who committed the murder and it was not me!
Please afford me any assistance that you can. Letters to Members of Parliament, newspapers, letters of support - any assistance at all will help and will be gratefully accepted.
Thank you most sincerely, if for no more than taking the time and trouble to read this letter.

July 1st 2006