<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jan/19/terry-irving-spent-1671-days-in-jail-for-a-he-didnt-commit-and-25-more-years-seeking-justice>
"“It’s sort of like when you think of Atlas holding up the planet,” says Terry
Irving, an Aboriginal man from north Queensland who spent four-and-a-half years
in prison for a bank robbery he did not commit, and half his life trying to
carry that weight on his angular shoulders.
In Greek mythology, Atlas was sentenced to hold aloft the heavens for eternity.
Irving was given seven years and five months, no prospect of parole, for the
robbery of $6,230 from an ANZ bank branch in Cairns in 1993. A jury took 10
minutes to find him guilty.
“I felt like Terry holding up the judicial system, trying not to be crushed by
it,” Irving says.
“I spent 1,671 days in custody, and there were numerous times in there where I
thought I’d never get the chance to walk through the gate. It’s affected me in
more ways that I can probably describe. There’s a gap of five years in my life,
five years in everyone’s lives that I’m connected to, because of what happened.
“Now there’s times when I’m sitting on my own and I reflect upon the enormity
of the grief that I feel but that I don’t show. I wish I never had that
baggage. But it does exist.”
Irving was released from prison by the high court in late 1997, after the state
of Queensland conceded he had not received a fair trial. The chief justice, Sir
Gerard Brennan, said he had “the gravest misgivings about the circumstances of
this case” and that it was “a very disturbing situation”.
But for Irving, who is now 67, justice did not arrive the day he was
exonerated. It would take another 25 years."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
