Free David Ferguson

Help to right a grave miscarriage of justice....

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Blog entry 17th March 2021

I haven't written a blog for a while due to events brought about by Covid.

In that time the prosecution responded to my appeal application to the the Court of Appeal. Needless to say they have refuted all of the appeal points that I raised and entered. Their rebuttal and my submissions are now awaiting review by a single judge at the Court of Appeal. Until that process is completed and the single judge has formally issued his verdict it would be inappropriate to explore this further. Hopefully the single judge's decision will be given within the next 2 to 4 weeks.

A new date had been set for my parole hearing. Yet again though the date was one which my expert witnesses were not available for. I am now waiting for another date to be scheduled.

Meanwhile despite two Doctor's of Psychology confidently stating that I do not have personality disorder traits which warrant treatment, the prison's instructed chartered psychologist and the prison itself are insisting I be referred for personality disorder treatment. It should also be noted that:

  1. The issue of personality disorder was dismissed in the court instructed psychology report immediately after my conviction.
  2. The prison and it's instructed psychologists have waited over 20 years before pursuing this route.
  3. Personality disorder treatment programmes normally take 5 years to complete. This would effectively extend my imprisonment to 27 years.
  4. The principal reasons being used by the prison and their instructed psychologist to justify their personality diagnosis are:
    1. My maintenance of innocence.
    2. My willingness to challenge the prison service when it departs from or breaks it's own rules.
    3. My willingness to put my head above the parapet and not be bullied into silence.

In addition, the prison service are now citing my sexual orientation and identity as a means to infer increased 'risk'. This is because I identify as 'Kink' under the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Obviously issues were introduced at my trial about my sexual orientation and identity. I would never refute that as I am convicted (albeit wrongly), my sexual identity has to be considered by the prison service when considering risk in my case.

However, the clear inferences in prison psychology reports is that unless I stop being kink my 'risk' cannot be lowered. Or, that being 'kink' is a controllable choice, which can be 'treated and cured'. I am pretty sure that a homosexual person accused and convicted of a homosexual crime (sexual or otherwise), would not have their sexual orientation and identity used against them in the same way that my sexual identity and orientation is being used against me by the prison service and it's psychology department.

Let's look at another, and possibly more contentious example. I am in a prison that holds prisoners of the Muslim faith convicted of Islamic extremist offences. They are not having inferences made in reports that their faith increases their risk and that unless they surrender that faith their risk cannot be reduced. Yet faith is a choice unlike sexual identity and orientation.

Of course I now expect that the prison and it's psychology department will use my freedom of speech right through this particular blog will be referenced adversely as a means to further justify their contested personality disorder diagnosis.