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Home Kenny Richey Kenny's soured taste of freedom Kenny's soured taste of freedom
Tuesday, 08 April 2008
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By Justin Rowlatt
The One Show |
Kenny Richey wishes he was back in prison at times
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He was sentenced to death in America and spent over 21 years in prison, much of that time on Death Row
Kenny was born in Scotland but moved to the States to live with his father in 1982, when he was 18.
Two years later he was charged with the murder of two-year-old Cynthia Collins, who died in a fire in the flat she shared with her mother.
Choice of death
Kenny denied he was responsible for setting the fire but was found guilty.
He became prisoner 194764 on death row.
At one point he was one hour away from execution and asked how he would like to die.
"Would you like to be lethal injection or the electric chair", he told me as we sat on the sofa of his mother's cramped Edinburgh flat sipping strong tea.
"What did you say?" I asked. "I said neither", was his dead-pan reply.
Kenny continued to insist he was an innocent man.
Even when he was offered a plea bargain that would have seen him released more than ten years ago, he refused to confess.
'Flawed prosecution'
"I'm not about to admit to something I didn't do," Kenny Richey told the BBC in 2000. "Not for anything."
And Kenny was innocent.
A BBC investigation in 2000 exposed crucial flaws in the prosecution case, adding more momentum to the campaign for his release.
Nevertheless it took eight years before Kenny's appeal was successful.
He was finally released from prison on 7 January 2008.
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Kenny Richie was one hour away from execution |
The next day he flew back to his home in Scotland.
It is now three months since Kenny returned home but, as I discovered when I met him, if anything freedom has been even more difficult than captivity.
"I don't feel free," Kenny tells me, his hands shaking as he lights another cigarette.
"I feel like I'm still imprisoned - inside it's like I'm still in prison."
It is a familiar story.
Difficult freedom
Other victims of miscarriages of justice have found it very difficult to adjust when they are finally released.
Paddy Hill was one of the so-called Birmingham Six, wrongfully accused of an IRA bomb attack in 1974.
He was released 17 years ago and is still trying to come to terms with what happened to him.
Paddy Hill now works for a charity which helps victims of miscarriages of justice.
The ONE Show arranged for him to meet Kenny to help him adjust to life outside.
Their meeting is an emotional moment. They last spoke 10 years ago when Kenny was still on death row.
'Poxy cell'
"One of the best things for us is we have shared experience", Paddy tells him.
"Even though your cell may have been a few thousand miles away one poxy prison cell is the same as the other."
But Kenny's problems are deep-rooted.
"I lost 21 and a half years of my life and I've got nothing to show for it," he says.
"The world has left me behind."
He says back in Scotland he is lonely and has seriously contemplated suicide. He has even fantasised about going back to prison.
It is a common phenomenon, according to Paddy.
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Paddy Hill says innocent people freed from jail need support |
He says one of the biggest problems for victims of miscarriages of justice like Kenny is the lack of professional support.
Medical help
His charity, the Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO), helps victims to seek medical help, counselling and to try and get them work.
But it is not going to be easy, he warns Kenny. Adjusting to life outside prison after more than two decades inside is going to take many, many years.
Before I leave, I ask Kenny what he hopes for in his life now. "I hope get a life. Just to find a wee bit of happiness - just a smidgeon - that's probably all I can find if I find it."
That doesn't sound like much, I say.
"I'm telling you it's a hell of an ambition," Paddy Hill tells me.