Melanie Shaw is still in HMP Peterborough. Held on remand since February 2015 Melanie has spend all but three days of that time in solitary (segregated) confinement. She reports she is cold and she gets no sun. On Saturday 13 June 2015 a kind member of the public was finally able to get a visit to her. As a remand prisoner she should be able to have a visitor every day. But Sodexo the company that runs Peterborough, and makes profit from the misery of people like Melanie, has previously blocked visits. So this was her first visit and it lasted 10 minutes. To Melanie it was like heaven. Suddenly she knew that she was not forgotten by her supporters and thousands of people world wide.
Just a few days before that visit, Nottingham Police & Crime Commissioner Paddy Tipping stated in a meeting with a member of the public, that Melanie Shaw had been released and charges had been dropped. This remarkable statement turned out to be untrue. Mr Tipping has simply reported what he had been told. Some comfort to the public - a Police Commissioner that fails to check his information and / or a Police Commissioner who has staff who lie or set out to deceive both him and the wider public.
Either way, Melanie Shaw is in prison for standing up and reporting crime. She believed that she had a trial over 1st and 2nd July 2015 which included an 'Addiction Assessment'. Enquiries to date with the Courts reveal no such planned 'trial' on those dates, nor are any other hearings listed for her. Is the real plan for Melanie a secret 'star chamber' where she can be 'disposed of' within the prison system or Britain's growing gulag of psychiatric institutions?
The planned trial is yet another sham and an utter disgrace of our 'injustice' system. It is an appalling advert for the way Conservative PM David Cameron, his Home Secretary Theresa May MP and the Head of the Crown Prosecution Service Alison Saunders, are prepared to inflict further abuse on victims, in order to silence their cries for justice, and to keep a lid on child-abuse involving senior members of the political establishment.
Melanie Shaw is a child abuse survivor. She is known to many supporters of the British Constitution Group and the UKColumn as we have worked to support her and we have reported on her plight over many months.
For those that don’t know, Melanie was sexually abused at home whilst still a toddler, then placed in the ‘care’ of Nottingham Social Services at Beechwood children’s home. Her care consisted of yet further sexual and physical abuse. Years later this brave lady blew the whistle on her own abuse and that of other children at Beechwood. Nottingham police started Operation Daybreak supposedly investigating the abuse of up to 150 children at Beechwood. Melanie discovered Nottingham police had lied about the conduct of the investigation and shortly afterwards, her own child was taken by Social Services and she was implicated in an arson and criminal damage case.
Found guilty on what those in court found to be marginal evidence Melanie was sentenced to a ‘Community Order’ under the Probation Service. Having complied with the conditions of that order and returned to her own home, Melanie was then subject to a protracted campaign of harassment by Nottingham police, which included telephone calls, being followed by police cars and a police raid on her house.
The harassment was particularly difficult for Melanie to handle since she already suffers from PTSD caused the abuse she has suffered. Denied any form of care in the community by Nottingham mental health services Melanie was arrested and subsequently charged with several offences including ‘false imprisonment of a paramedic’.
Melanie was then put through a series of secret court cases, where no jury was present, and where she was denied the Lay Legal Advisor she wanted. In what many regard as a blatant disregard of Legal Process Judge Head apparently ordered that she must use the Law firm he put forward. Finding her guilty of ‘false imprisonment, the Judge then asked for a psychiatric assessment, not from her own psychiatrist of 20 years, but from a local psychiatrist, believed to be Mr Connell Jones. Allegedly Judge Head stated that he “wanted the matter done and dusted for sentencing.”
It is understood that Jones did not consult with Melanie’s own psychiatrist in making his assessment. In fact her personal psychiatrist did not agree with the Jones assessment and he stated that he had “no recollection of his patient from it.” Jones is of course the same man who assessed Melanie in a mere 50 minutes when she had her first period in Peterborough prison.
Sources indicate that the Head of Healthcare at Sodexo private profit making prison Peterborough has also been asked to write a report. It appears significant that the Head of Healthcare is medically untrained, and would also be implicated in the serious medical neglect of Melanie (in particular her serious leg ulcer), when she was first held in prison.
As if all this was not enough, for many months Melanie Shaw has been unable to draw the benefit support to whcih she is entitled. Denied any help in rectifying this situation by Nottingham Social Services, Melanie has fallen behind in her rent. She now faces an attempt by Nottingham Homes to take her house, even though she is fully entitled to benefit support and to retain her home whilst she is on remand.
The blatant, systematic and continuing abuse and intimidation of this child abuse survivor by the Conservative led British Government is an outrage for which our politicians and Home Secretary should be brought to book. The case is however, one of many similar cases where the justice system fails to bring the perpetrators of child abuse to book, and protects its own, whilst victimising the victims. We, the public, allow this brutal third world dictatorship which calls itself British democracy, to continue at our peril. Indeed it is time for people to stand up and be counted, and to take action. What will you do to help free Melanie Shaw before your child is next?
