desparate

[skipton]

i need advice ....please help me

[RFLH]

we can only offer advice if we know what the problem is!

[skipton]

help

i dont know how to get my life back on track ......

[LS]

skipton, firstly there's isn't a "set time" to be on here - we're all volunteers responding as and when we can, so it's a case of posting and wait. Usually there's a response the second you log off!

Regarding depression, the first thing you will need to do is go and talk to your gp. Only a gp can prescribe you anti-depressants and sedatives to calm you down. Don't even think of trying to buy those over the internet to circumvent having to see a doctor - you could be buying anything.

Counselling may also help - talking over your feelings with a trained counsellor. Again available via a doctor.

I don't want to give you false hopes, but my life is a disaster zone for the last two years I've been out. You have to make the most of what you've got, but I've come to learn that God isn't on my side so I'm not hoping for a miracle any more. I have no friends, I don't go out or speak to anyone, I don't have a partner -sex and relationships is gone for good, I don't trust anyone any more. But you know what? I feel better because there is NOTHING anyone can do to me now.

[skipton]

i feel the same

there is no one i can talk to.....my p.o. sends me to a better lives programe once a week in another city. they call it better lives but it a sex offenders course.....and if i dont attend i will get recalled....im on liecnce for another 3 years.....i wont make it

[LS]

I'm afraid that's exactly what it is. My answer to them was Better Lives B*****x. I had to do that too. It's not a reflection on you, they have to put you on that because of the conviction. If you refused to do SOTP in prison then they can force you to do it on licence, as they have done.
You are entitled to maintain your innocence - and they are duty bound to take that into account. For example you can refuse to answer certain questions if the intention behind them is obviously misleading. If they are trying to ask you a hypothetical question about "your offending or your offence" you are entitled to make it quite clear that you are maintaining your innocence.
In my case they tried to make thinly-veiled threats of "well, we'll have to write that into your end of session report" (in the hope I'd back down) but they came unstuck because an innocent person will stick to their guns regardless.

Unfortunately you have to stick with the course if you want to stay "on the out." Don't put any details here, but I guess you're probably in a bail hostel?
My advice would be to register with a GP local to your hostel, and get them to refer you to a counsellor. Don't do it through the hostel or probation, as they'll put you in front of a psychologist under their own payments. In other words "a bribed" professional, and psychologists are the most dangerous species on earth when they are under the employment of probation.
LS

[Saffron]

That is exceptionally good advice, LS. It was a good day for us when you arrived on the forum!
Please, Skipton, listen to what LS says. He has been in a very similar situation to you, so he is uniquely placed to give you advice.

All I can add is that all of us here have been affected by lies of some sort. Some of us are genuine survivors of rape, who have seen the attackers walk free from a court. Others of us are the Falsely Accused, or their partners. It sounds like an odd mix, but we all work together to help each other out.

Keep coming back.

Saffron

[LS]

Thanks Saffron, it's nice to be appreciated. I often think that because I tell the truth and it's not what people always want to hear, I may seem a firebrand. I'd rather be told the truth about a situation than be given a nice falsehood because in my opinion if you know how it is or what to expect then you can plan ahead.

When I first had dealings with the law many years ago I won my appeal against conviction and was more or less turfed out the side door of the Appeal Court. No support, no help, no advice, no nothing. My family always felt if I'd done the time I'd've have support from probation. So this time around, my expectations of probation were higher than I got.
While I saw people on good terms with their probation, I got an arsehole who lied, blackmailed, misadvised and gave me advice which would have had my photo on the pages of the tabloids, had I taken his advice. Oh, and then he stuck me on SOTP even tho I'd maintained my innocence throughout prison. I steadfastly refused any and all courses because taking them is seen as an admission of guilt. Well, if you haven't done something then why would you do the remedial course for it? On the SOTP of course they want you to admit to having committed, and some of the advice is downright disgraceful. One such example was, if you're sat on a bus and a child sits next to you what do you do? Bearing in mind a child, to them, is anyone under 18. So a 17-year old girl sits next to you, what advice did they give you to do in the circumstances? They wanted you to get up and move to a different part of the bus! I remonstrated with the 2 course "facilitators" (as they call themselves, but they'll never tell you that they are in fact psychologists) and told them that in getting up and moving, you have just made everyone on the bus suspicious of you, and that their advice was absolute ****!
I made it very clear that I was innocent, I had NO intention of moving from my seat, and that if anyone couldn't sit innocently next to anyone else without having wandering penile syndrome then perhaps they shouldn't be on the bus in the first place.

Of course they don't actually want you to have any sexual thoughts whatsoever. Not about anything or anyone, child or adult. They would have you believe that all relationships start as a result of the man wondering how well the woman can iron a shirt. I told them in no uncertain terms that ALL relationships start from lascivious thoughts. The only time I've ever thought of an iron and a woman was in that instance, as in how far one would bounce off a psychologist's head.
Oh and perish the thought if you had any lascivious thoughts of anyone under 18. Never mind the fact that most 16-18 year olds - ie CHILDREN - wander around in miniskirts in the summer months - I bet they don't wear miniskirts to get men to think about irons.

Then they threatened to put me on the lie detector, which was being trialled. Funny how I'd seen a tv program on it in 2007 where it was shown to be unreliable
because success rate(?) varied from as low as 63% to something like the 96% the Jeremy Kyle show claims. In fact the figures vary wildly depending on who's giving them, and also fact is that you'd get more consistency from reading tealeaves. But the main "expert" in the field was saying that lie detectors were not accurate and should be replaced by (expensive) MRI scanning. Well, two years later guess who's done an about turn and is running the suddenly-now-very-accurate lie detector scheme for probation's 3-year trials? Yeah, so-called "expert." Funny how when a 3-year contract's on the table how people forget their morals.
No, I came to realise early on that psychologists and everyone on "that" side of the table is full of **** unless and until proven otherwise, and my advice with them is to proceed with extreme caution.

Just going back to the start of my last post, when probation put me on that Better Lives b*ll*x I asked what the point of it was, and I was told that it was to reduce my risk of offending. I was astonished. I told him, "I don't go anywhere, I stay in. No one visits me. I don't socialise. I don't talk to anyone. No one talks to me. I was barred from using a pc, so how exactly was this Better Lives **** going to reduce my risk any further? My risk level was limper than Liberace.
I think they must get a huge pot of gold from central government for every poor soul they put on this course, but for heaven's sake do not go in to one of these courses and agree to everything they say, because much of it is garbage and they'll label you as gullible or easily-led and hence a risk.

[RFLH]

You're right - they do get funding for each person that undergoes the course.

They also fail to tell anyone that the bloke who dreamt up this in the first place - is,as far as I know, still in jail in America - guess what he's inside for!!!!

So it works a treat doesn't it?!

[LS]

Yes I've heard about that case many times, mckenzie, hammond or something. The name crops up from time to time, and yes he was in for a crime for which I hope they put him thru his own damned course. Repeatedly.

[Rights Fighter]

there is no one i can talk to.....my p.o. sends me to a better lives programe once a week in another city. they call it better lives but it a sex offenders course.....and if i dont attend i will get recalled....im on liecnce for another 3 years.....i wont make it

Ah you've answered a question I asked on another thread.

I take it that as you are denying the alleged offence that you are doing this course in the "3rd person?"

If you are recalled due to non-attendance at C-GSOP (or "Better Lives" as they are quaintly calling it) they would be in deep trouble as that is illegal.

Some of the guys I have been helping have had the same problem. One refused point blank to do it and he is still out and about although the prison law solicitor I found for him instructed a consultant psychiatrist to examine him. His opinion was that he was concerned that the conviction was wrong and that he is no risk to the public.

Another guy whose appeal is being reviewed by a solicitor is doing the course but in the "3rd person".

Do you have a prison law solicitor onside? They help when you're out as well as in prison.

[LS]

If you are recalled due to non-attendance at C-GSOP (or "Better Lives" as they are quaintly calling it) they would be in deep trouble as that is illegal.

Rather curiously, whether that is illegal or not, my licence condition number 1 was as follows:
Be well behaved, not commit any offence and not do anything which could undermine the purpose of your supervision, which are to protect the public, prevent you from reoffending and help you to resettle successfully back into the community.

The bold italics was the catch-all that they tried to use on me when they demanded the names, addresses, ages and dates of birth of all of my under-18 relatives in the area to which I moved. As I had a large extended family, I hadn't a hope in hell of knowing that info, as I barely knew any of them at all.
I have a copy of their letter telling me that by not providing that information I was in breach of the above clause and would be recalled. In the event, they turned on my parents and blackmailed them under threat of prosecution if they didn't comply.
Illegal? Don't know. Immoral, certainly.

[Rights Fighter]

In the C-GSOP rulings it clearly states that it is not suitable for men "in total denial of their offences".

Our guys are not "in denial" of course but probation are in breach of their own rulings unless they allow them to attend "in the 3rd person". That's their get-out clause.

[LS]

I don't know if I was "allowed" to attend in the 3rd person, but I was instructed to take part in whatever capacity, and the facilitators were definitely unhappy about my maintaining my innocence stance, and on several occasions made it clear than such would go down in the reports and one could draw inference from that that I could be seen as failing to comply.
Needless to say they were told where to stick it, and that I would continue to maintain my innocence regardless, and where questions were asked if what I would do in a certain situation, I maintained that I was unable to answer said question if it was going to be interpreted on the basis that a crime had been committed.

[Rights Fighter]

I don't know if I was "allowed" to attend in the 3rd person,

The guys I am supporting know for certain that they are "taking part" in the "third person" due to the very fact that they are protesting their innocence. I am sure you would have been told this had you been forced to undertake this course.

The guys I am involved with are currently trying to appeal their convictions, and will always do so as and when each application fails. As such, taking part in these courses does carry a risk that the CA will not allow an appeal on the basis that the applicant has undertaken such "offence related" courses.

Hence the new rulings that such people can still undertake the courses but do them "in the 3rd person". Clearly parts of that course means that they cannot answer some of the questions posed, such as those relating to "victim empathy".