Replies to the sentencing statement in
the case of Ruth Wyner and John Brock

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In his sentencing statement about Ruth Wyner and John Brock, Judge Haworth made a number of extremely damning remarks about these two charity workers management of the Wintercomfort Day Centre. The following set of replies to his 16 main criticisms show that his sentencing of Ruth Wyner and John Brock is based almost entirely on misunderstanding. The figures in square brackets indicate the page and paragraph number on which the comment appears, according to the papers released by Cambridge Crown Court. Two mistakes run throughout the sentencing statement, and should be dealt with straight away:

1
) The premises under discussion is an open-access Day Centre. It is not, as the judge repeatedly calls it, a 'hostel' or a 'shelter.'
This is important because Day Centres are run in a completely different fashion from hostels and shelters. The last two offer a place to stay for the night: shelters provide emergency beds; hostels, longer-term accommodation. In both, a homeless person has to register, often providing a considerable amount of personal detail, in order to take advantage of the service. An open-access Day Centre has no such requirement, and therefore no such control over the people who use the premises. The Day Centre run by Wintercomfort is designed to be a final safety net. Whoever the person is, whatever their background and circumstances, they can come to such a place knowing that they will not be asked awkward questions, and be given hot food, medical help, and a chance to sort out their lives.
2) Homeless people do not divide neatly into the deserving and the dealers, as the judge appears to believe. Around 50% of the homeless people at a Day Centre will be drug abusers (some estimates put the figure at 70%) and almost all abusers will be involved in small-scale dealing with other drug abusers. They do this to help pay for their habit; the alternative is thieving or prostitution. It is therefore impossible to exclude drug-dealing on the premises for certain without excluding all drug abusers, i.e. at least half of the very people Wintercomfort is supposed to provide services for.

1. 'This case therefore stands on its own particular circumstances, and it holds no message for other similar hostels.' [p.1 para. 4]

The judge appears to be alone in believing this.

The law says that the proprietor of an organisation is responsible for everything that happens in it, and therefore I assume under this conviction that head teachers who have drug dealing or drug abuse happening in their schools are in law liable for what happens on their premises. So of course this is very worrying.'
Mick Brookes, National Association of Head Teachers, speaking on Channel 4 News.

'If these people are guilty, then prison governors should be brought to book because, technically, with the level of drug-taking there demonstrably is in prison, we are failing too. It should come down to reasonableness. Is it reasonable to expect someone to exclude all drug use among a user population with a high drug user content? Not it isn't.'
Roy Wolford, Governor of Park prison, quoted in The Independent.

'We need dedicated staff -- people like Ruth Wyner and John Brock -- to help deliver [the government's drug policy], and yet they are treated like this. The work is exhausting and chaotic at the best of times. You can expect to be assaulted by clients, they sometimes die on you, and now you stand to end up in jail just for trying to do your job. What's the motivation for people in this field?'
Kevin Fleming, of Release, the national drug and legal advice helpline.

2. The policy at The Bus; the Wintercomfort Day Centre,  was to have an open door, and this welcome to all comers soon conflicted with your employer's policy on prohibited drugs. [p.1 para. 5]

The open-door policy, which means that anybody is allowed to come in, provided they are in need of the service, was in place long before Ruth or John arrived to work at Wintercomfort. The statutory funders -- the City Council, the County Council, and the Health Authority -- all approved and admired it. It was not introduced by Ruth Wyner or John Brock.  What the judge means is not that the policies conflicted with each other, any more than a law allowing the sale of alcohol conflicts with a law against drunken driving, but that an open door policy makes it easier for homeless people to bring drugs onto the premises. Everybody knows this, but the government and funders recognise that an open-door policy also encourages drug abusers to come to Day Centres, where they can then get advice, support and essential medical treatment.

3. '.. there was a noticeable proliferation in drug use and, importantly, drug supply on and around the project.' [p.2 para.1]

Unfortunately, this is the case with all Day Centres, hostels and welfare offices that provide help for a large number of drug abusers. If you have an organisation that looks after a problematic set of people, these people will bring their problems to that organisation. It is not nice, but it is inevitable.

4. 'Despite the introduction of a specific banning policy in January 1997 - the first ever ban recorded as for drugs dealing as not until 17th August, 1997, and then only a ban for two weeks.' The judge goes on to point out that there were only 9 or 10 bans for actual drug dealing between January 1997 and April 1998. [p.2 para. 4]

But during the same period there were also 162 bans for suspected dealing and other drug offences. In short, the figures, when taken in context, show just the opposite of what the judge appears to be claiming: Wintercomfort staff, and Ruth and John, were extremely vigilant in their campaign against illegal drugs. Greg Pouter, then Deputy Director of Release, remarked that Wintercomfort had a good drugs policy which verged on the harsh. What the judge's figures show is not how few bans were made, but how difficult it is to spot a deal. The quantity involved in any one trade among homeless addicts is tiny: about the size of a sweetcorn kernel. Even if a deal had taken place in front of a member of staff, all he or she would see would be a friendly handshake or, perhaps, a bar of chocolate (containing drugs) passed between two addicts. This is why Ruth and John insisted that people also be banned even for suspected dealing. If, for example, two homeless people were seen to be exchanging money is a suspicious fashion, or having a conversation which suggested setting up a deal, or were caught trying to go in to the lavatory at the same time, in order to be out of sight of the staff, then they were banned from the premises on suspicion of drug dealing. Some of the people who were banned may have been, for example, exchanging money because they were settling an old debt (the homeless do not have bank accounts). Nevertheless, Ruth and John were sufficiently concerned by the drug problem that they still banned such people from the premises.

5. 'One of those banned indefinitely in February was seen time and again on the video film, back on the premises in open defiance of his ban, dealing in drugs, with no action being taken by staff to enforce his ban.' [p.2 para. 4]

This is untrue. This person was repeatedly asked to leave the premises, but refused to move. One of the staff rang the police to help enforce the ban, but because he was not a violent customer she was told that there was nothing that could be done. In cases when the police do respond, it is often much too late: the banned customer has since left of his/her own accord. Even with violent customers, it is very difficult to get a police response. The following account by Nicola Padfield, President of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, made this clear in a recent article in the New Law Journal:

"In 1993/4 Wintercomfort had problems with a violent client who would not accept the fact that he had been banned from the project. The police said they could not help the charity enforce the ban; instead one trustee spent much time obtaining a civil injunction, and I had an unhappy time over Christmas and New Year bicycling around Cambridge in order to serve the injunction upon this man."

6. 'By February 1998 there were up to ten dealers a day operating on and within the premises.' [p. 2 para. 5]

This is based on unreliable claims of one particular drug-dealer (see 8, below), unsupported by other evidence. With their undercover resources, the police succeeded in arresting eight dealers during the whole of the four month operation. These convictions came as a result of the undercover officers buying the drugs from the dealers, and filming the exchange as it took place. Wintercomfort could not, and would never be expected to, organise such an expensive operation itself.

7. 'Drug dealing took place frequently in the presence or within the view of staff members.' [p.3 para. 1]

The suggestion that the staff saw deals and did nothing about it is completely untrue. As the videotape evidence clearly and repeatedly revealed, dealers stopped dealing as soon as there was a risk of being discovered by a member of staff. Deals are extremely hard to detect because the quantities involved are so small. Even the uniformed beat officers, who were encouraged to visit the Day Centre by both Ruth and John, were shown on the videotape evidence walking right past people exchanging drugs, without noticing what was going on. Like the staff, all they could see was a small bunch of customers talking to each other. Perhaps a couple were kissing (mouth-to-mouth exchange); another pair might be shaking hands.

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