By Gabriel Princewill-
The London Parole Board’s long wait for reports from the probation services of an ex convict whilst he remains in jail following a highly suspicious recall came to an end on Friday, when they finally handed in their warped recommendation for him to remain in jail.
The probation services in Cambridgeshire who appear to have plotted a dodgy recall of an ex-convict, Marcus Brown, was asked by the Parole Board to provide detailed reports of Brown’s past three years, to support the reason for recalling the 63 year old ex -convict to prison, after a year of being out on the streets. They were given a month to provide the reports, and the probation services used the whole month to send that report.
The Brown family have been embroiled in a lengthy battle with the probation services for the past four years, their ongoing war becoming more intense in the past seven months after the main bread winner of the house was arrested and taking back behind bars for daring to challenge a system he believes was fraudulently keeping his son in prison.
Mr. Brown, who was given a 16 1/2 year prison sentence, had been out on parole, after serving half of his sentence, and attending his probation meetings regularly for over a year, between 2020 and 2021.
He was recalled the moment he decided Greater Manchester Police and the probation services be legally confronted for practices he asserts to be unlawful. His family claim they are being targeted by the probation services , allegedly influenced by a few unsavoury characters in high places, who have a vendetta against them.
The family’s intense dispute with the probation services began after their son, Aaron, was suspected of posing a danger to the mother of his child, Jessica Myles, her then fiancee, Michael Wood, and his two parents. The aforementioned parties were handed an osman warning, signalling an impending threat to life.
Marcus Brown decided to confront the situation with the probation services and Greater Manchester police in December 2021, only to find himself back in jail for daring to challenge the system that let him out of prison in the first place. Metaphorically speaking, it was his biggest mistake.
The former drug pusher was charged with conspiracy to supply class A drugs in October 2020, after illegal drugs were found in a car registered to his wife’s business, but he was not in the vehicle, neither was there anything to tie him to the drugs besides his criminal past, which made him appear suspicious.
Most strange about his recall is the fact the probation services allowed him to be free for over a year, without raising any issue, and he never failed to attend his probation meetings throughout the duration of his time out.
The probation services claim to have officially recalled Mr. Brown on December 15, 2021, has always looked suspicious, and never stood up to scrutiny. Mr. Brown attended his probation meeting on December 2021, without any mention of a recall.
His recall was brought to the family’s attention on January 21, making the idea more plausible that the date was backdated to December 15, to avoid the semblance of a stitch up, which is very much what it seems like.
Furthermore, the former jailbird’s place of occupation makes the the idea that he was recalled on the 15th, highly improbable.
Marcus Brown works at the Felixstowe, a place which requires daily fingerprinting, and has a police station based there. Logically, it is impossible for a wanted man to escape arrest under those circumstances. Yet, he has ostensibly been punished for exercising his legal rights to contest his son’s imprisonment.
In a letter to police minister Kit Malthouse, the probation services claimed they only decided to recall Mr Brown in December after a review, but did not explain why the review never occurred before that. And Milthouse, with his highly placed position, failed to rigorously assess the legitimacy of probation services’s porous claims.
Convicts on parole are still considered to be serving their sentence and may be returned to jail if they breach the conditions of their release. They are routinely kept under supervision, known as being ‘on license’ or probation.
The parole board is an independent body which makes decisions on whether a prisoner can be safely released into the community.
The board considers cases of those of prisoners serving life or imprisonment for public protection sentences. Extended determinate sentences, as well as sentences for offenders such as terrorists and serious child sex offenders. There are currently 246 members of the board who make assessments and decisions on cases.
The Parole Board’s website states: “Our job is to determine if someone is safe to release. We do that with great care, and public safety is our number one priority.
“Parole Board decisions are solely focused on whether a prisoner would represent a significant risk to the public after release.” It doesn’t include whether some members of the probation services pose a risk to upholding the rule of law.
The Parole Board says the first step in the process of deciding if an inmate can be released is reviewing their “dossier” – a collection of documents about them which includes reports, information about their offending and progress made while in jail.
Criminal
Technically speaking, Marcus Brown is a dangerous criminal who belongs to the prison system, having once indulged with the importing of class A drugs. On paper, he is a menace to society.
Though his freedom on parole was at the mercy of the state, the principle of reasonable expectations embedded in the accompanying rights of prisoners on parole, necessitates adherence the rule of law. The law affords every prisoner the liberty granted to them when on parole, until they commit an offence.
In this case, the justice system appears to have ploughed a dubious line of justice based on power, rather than fairness.
The family will have to wait three weeks to find out whether their father and husband will finally come out to continue a rehabilitation that was going well until he was cornered.
Brown’s wife, Ms Brown, who suffers from severe nerve damage, anxiety, histerectomy, and is on multiple medications including propamanol, amatryplin, and amnitriptalene, was hospitalised in May, following intense stress from having both her son and husband in prison for reasons she is certain are corrupt and without grounds.
In remains questionable why the parole board have had to keep Mr. Brown in prison this long whilst waiting for reports, if the original ones were not satisfactory.
An original date set for the 30th of May has already been moved three weeks.
Deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab announced last week that parole board hearings will for the first time be held in public in the first step in reforms to the parole process, to make proceedings more transparent, so victims and the public can see justice being done.
In the case of Mr. Brown, justice has clearly not been done.