Wrongly convicted man ‘needs an apology’
He is a desperately unhappy individual and even wishes he was back in jail sometimes.
In an interview with a British paper Mr Hill revealed details of an assessment by him by psychiatric consultant Adrian Grounds three years ago.
The consultant was amazed that there was no substantial improvement in Mr Hill’s condition since an earlier assessment in 1993.
No statutory organisation is responsible for looking after people, like Mr Hill, who are wrongly convicted.
Dr Grounds said that the kind of support Mr Hill needed to control his mind was only available to prisoners who had done the crime and served the time.
“He continues to suffer from a chronic mood disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder,” Dr Grounds wrote in his 2001 assessment. The changes in his personality and his estrangement from others remain, and he has not been able to sustain intimate and close relationships.”
Dr Grounds wrote that a major aspect of Mr Hill’s chronic anger is the absence of any official apology for his wrongful imprisonment.
For people like Mr Hill the need to have an apology and an official expression of regret and acknowledgement that they have been wronged was of the greatest psychological importance.
Such an apology was more important than any money and the absence of such a response is maintaining his intense bitterness.
“Overall, Mr Hill’s psychiatric difficulties are of the same severity as when I saw him nine years ago and it is likely that he will remain permanently disabled by them,” Dr Grounds pointed out.
When Mr Hill was released in 1991 he needed a safe location at which professional advice and help was available to him and his family about the difficulties they might face.
He also needed long-term individual out-patient counselling and psychiatric support.
“If it had been provided and accepted by Mr Hill, it is likely, in my view, that such help would have reduced his anxiety and depressive symptoms,” Dr Grounds wrote. But, he warned, the changes in Mr Hill’s personality and outlook would not have substantially altered.
He also referred to Mr Hill’s use of cannabis and said it was likely that it helped reduce his subjective tension and anger.
“The intensity of tension and anger from which he suffers is extreme and is due to his wrongful conviction and imprisonment. His drug misuse can, therefore, be attributed predominately to them.”
Mr Hill served 16 years, an ordeal made worse not only by his knowledge of his innocence but because his alleged crime triggered the anger of prisoners and prison officers.
He lost count of the number of beatings he received.
“There is no organised system of help for people like Mr Hill and there ought to be,” Dr Grounds insisted.
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