Asda Price of Justice

'Here feel' he said as he grabbed my hand and held it against his chest.

I cottoned on quick and went with it-'yeah swinging brick right enough!'

Not behaviour you'd expect from the Asda collections guy maybe, but this wasn't the first time we met.

'Ah what's the topic today' he says loudly, smiling broadly as he opened the gate and wheeled out the shopping.

We are on opposite sides of the fence in more ways than one.  

Every Tuesday morning I fill up my car boot with supplies for the schools nurture room, so naturally we get to talking about crime and punishment, restorative justice, compassion and child rearing.  You know the usual, just passing the time of day stuff.

And each Tuesday we pick up where we left off with our good humoured friendly debate.

'You're religious aint ya?'

'I used to be'

'Knew it' he said.  You lily liberals are all the same-soft and deluded.

‘You need to update your views my friend’ I poke back when he tells me about his army days and that what we need more of is tough love and discipline.

‘So what if someone murdered one of yours?  Would you still be shouting for compassion then?’ he offers triumphantly pleased to have the killer argument.

I think he took my moment of silence as victory. 

I hesitated and conceded that I wouldn’t.   I’d want justice and captivity both to punish and ensure the safety of others.  

Could he therefore rightly infer that all of my arguments about nurture and compassion to guide and mentor children and young people were now null and void?  Should we actually just raise the bar, call for more discipline and zero tolerance?  Was that the way forward to ensure a happier and healthier society?  Justice or mercy?  Were they mutually exclusive?  Or more of a continuum, if so where is the sweet spot?

With my Asda friends question in mind that same evening I attended an event at the Howden Theatre organised by Iain Smith from Keegan Smith 'Presiding with Kindness'.  The venue was filled to capacity.

Iain had invited two American judges who shared their compassionate approach to the law and what they had done in their court rooms to achieve it.  A number of others joined them to offer presentations and the evening ended with an audience and panel Q&A. 

Niven Rennie the director of the acclaimed VRU opened the night.  He was quick to acknowledge he was standing on the shoulders of giants and confirmed his commitment to follow in their footsteps.

Judge Victoria Pratt and Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren spoke about respect, dignity and transformation of systems and people.    Connecting their own experiences in life which fuelled their determination to do right by those they presided over.  They spoke of empathy and second chances, mental health courts and procedural justice.  The difference they had been able to affect within their sphere of influence. Illustrated by stories of anonymised defendants whose first encounter with love was standing before a judge.

They were joined by a care experienced solicitor Julie Torley, a closer to home example of how right things can go and the impact one key adult can have.  Julie shared how she had bucked the ambitions others had made for her, and burst through seemingly impenetrable barricades to fulfil the one she had made for herself .  She quoted ‘To kill a Mocking Bird’ the source of her inspiration to become a solicitor  at a time when her teachers and care givers were encouraging her into hairdressing.  We wept with her as she described the teacher who believed in her, ignoring her profanities and continued to ask sincerely ‘how are you?’

We learned about the work of Aide n Abet when Kevin Neary took to the stage and shared how he and his colleagues use their lived experience of prison to offer support, help and friendship to others following their release from jail.  We were captivated by his rejig of the ‘Good Samaritan’.  In his version it was an Aide n Abet worker who responded to the cries for help and didn't pass by.  Unlike the minister and doctor the worker climbed down into the hole next to the person in need.  Getting alongside them, meeting them where they were and although the story didn't end this way  presumably then climbing out of the hole together.  

In an evening where I'd have travelled in the rain and missed my tea for any one of the speakers and felt it was worth it, for me the highlight of the evening was the story shared by Jo Berry.  

You might have heard of her.  I hadn’t.  Her story hit me like a tidal wave.  I nearly dropped my phone while taking her picture as she arrived at the pulpit.  Her opening lines were about how her father had been killed in an IRA bombing when she was a child.

She went on to describe her meeting with the man who had planted the bomb.  They met many years later and after he had paid his court appointed dues.  Her delivery was gentle and understated and interspersed with commonplace references to everyday life-soup making, children and cups of tea.  Which seemed incongruent, yet also so fitting.  A reminder that she was indeed both extraordinary and ordinary, and that maybe, just maybe what she had been able to do was also in all of us. 

How could she have met and spoken for three hours to the man responsible for her father’s death, and astonishingly been able to find connection, commonality and peace?

She took my breath away with the depth of her character and matter of fact delivery. 

To the question ‘So what if someone murdered one of yours?  Would you still be shouting for compassion then?’  Not just Jo, but the whole evening was an answer. 

And not a polarising answer.  An either/or; left wing/right wing; black/white bash you over the head answer.

More a starter.  

A hopeful nudge toward finding the best within ourselves and each other.  Having the courage to tell a hopeful story when those being told are saturated in negativity.   An invitation to believe that rehabilitation comes from something within and that the spark to ignite it is love. 

Not forgetting that sometimes love means boundaries, self-protection, facing consequences and takes time but still a reminder that we shouldn’t let a problem to be solved get in the way of a person to be loved.

I didn’t get a sense of who was in the crowd, but I hope there were many who shared my Asda friends views. The evening had such a heuristic quality I think you couldn’t have failed to be moved toward a more hopeful and compassionate approach and been left with the feeling that it just might work. 

I think I know what I will be talking about with my new friend next Tuesday morning. 

 by Lynne Anderson