<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m a fan of irony, especially the delicious kind. Well I recently met an irony that merited being accompanied with knife, fork, napkin and tasty beverage. Yum!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Saturday afternoon and I was walking down the street. Before anybody calls the police, I was Released On Temporary Licence (ROTL) which is part of my move to Open Conditions \u2013 a chance for me to become reacquainted with the world outside prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was sunny, the world was smiling, my hat was perched at a jaunty angle and much of my attention was directed at a Mint Magnum ice cream. As I savoured my chilly snack I was assertively approached by a mixed race lad I didn\u2019t know. He was on my left (my ice cream was in my right hand, so I wasn\u2019t overly alarmed about losing it) and smiling broadly in the manner of street liars everywhere who ask for \u2018Just one minute of your time\u2019. Ordinarily I would have growled off this type of petitioner, but after a decade in prison I kind of welcomed the ritual, so I paused and smiled back (still holding my ice cream defensively, mind you \u2013 10 years of prison and all that).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The chap smiled and handed me a wee piece of paper and simply said, \u201cA gift for you\u201d before heading off in search of somebody else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My pal Miley (who drives 2 hours each way to accompany me on ROTL \u2013 legend) asked me \u201cWhat was that about?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI got a gift, apparently.\u201d I replied. But as I turned the piece of paper around poor Miley nearly soiled himself as he observed, \u201cWow, that guy sure had your number!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u00bd sheet of A4 had been folded into a greeting card of sorts, the subtext of the cover, encased in a love heart read, \u201cThis is the greatest and most important gift that you can ever have!!\u201d The main heading was \u201cA Gift of Innocence for you!!\u201d Now tell me that Alanis Morrisette wouldn\u2019t update her song if she heard that doozy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve since read the leaflet \/ card and in essence it is based in biblical scripture and describes God\u2019s desire and ability to forgive all sins. I am not a religious man, but the first paragraph speaks to behaviours and I found it pertinent \u2013 it speaks to the attitudes and behaviours that lead to my offence. It read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look around the world and you will see a whole lot of unfairness, injustice, injury, crying, grief, pain, misery, abuse and even death. You may not need to look very far before you see those who have been hurt or perhaps you may even have been a victim of wickedness and injustice yourself. If this is the case, please accept my heartfelt sympathies. But what kind of human characteristics do the people who cause these miseries and pain have? Are these characteristics only found in the murderer, the thief, the bully, the liar etc.? Or perhaps with all respect, this nature could be in you as well? To answer this question, consider the following attitudes that we tend to have: greed, selfishness, prejudice, pride, anger, lust, envy etc. These are quite common behaviours. However, if you have any of these behaviours or attitudes, you have all it takes to cause unspeakable pain, sorrow, misery, abuse, injury and even the loss of lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before my offence, I have been offered leaflets and writings like this on sunny Saturdays as far apart as Dublin, Belfast and many UK cities and towns. This warning was written plainly and simply and I ignored it because I knew better (pride & conceit). This is the second irony, when I scorned these and other warnings my hubris has resulted in one woman\u2019s death and caused hurt and harm to so many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am determined to speak about the choices that led to my crime, to tell the story and explain how quickly things can escalate out of control. However, my fear has always been how I will be judged. Could people assume my motivation is to try and seek sympathy or forgiveness? Will I become Cassandra, warning others of the risk that they face and being decried as mad by people who declare \u201cThat could never happen to me!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But a gift bearing stranger has given me some resilience. I am sure that he hands out scores of leaflets and sees many of them scrunched up as he is met by growls and disdain \u2013 but he sticks to his plan and hands them out. That\u2019s my plan I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I returned to the prison at the end of my ROTL I went through a search in reception. \u201cWhat\u2019s this then?\u201d asked the kanga on duty. \u201cIt\u2019s a gift\u201d said I, \u201cApparently I\u2019m innocent now. Since God has forgiven me, can I go home now?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNah Moose,\u201d said he, \u201cI answer to Her Majesty and she still reckons you\u2019re guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m a fan of irony, especially the delicious kind. Well<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[531],"tags":[88,174,220,240,287,396],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections-2","tag-cassandra","tag-gift-of-innocence","tag-irony","tag-leaflet","tag-mint-magnum-ice-cream","tag-rotl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2231,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions\/2231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jailhousemoose.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}