Impressions of the first week of the inquest
Having waited so long for the inquest I don’t think any of us knew what to expect from this week. As last Monday got closer, our nerves got worse. What would happen? What would it look like? How will it be conducted? Would we get justice?
Well, we don’t know about the last point but overall the first week has been extremely positive and an overwhelming sense of relief. For Jean’s family the enormity of their struggle for accountability and justice over the last 3+ years really seemed to have hit home this summer as the inquest got closer. We were all counting down the months, weeks, days. To finally have our day in court seemed like such a far away dream... and so with an incredible sense of pride we all sat together on Thursday and watched Mike Mansfield doing a fantastic job cross-examining Macdowell. All the things that have run through the family’s minds over the last few years, the constant discussions we would all have over how on earth what happened, could finally be played out in court. And it felt fantastic!
The support we have been given from members of the public this week continues to humble us and we cannot thank people enough for coming down, handing out flyers, buying t-shirts, sending emails of support etc. A special big thanks must go to the wonderful people who made the banner and hung it out of their flat window just outside the Oval on the first day. Ordinary members of the community going to such an effort over this case is incredibly heartening. A million thank yous.
Of course the inquest is not without its problems – number one being the ridiculous security arrangements and I have a feeling we will come back to this in the coming weeks. You can walk into any court in the land, especially any inquest but at this one its all lists, photo’s being taken, special entrances, special passes, number tickets and private security guards strolling the corridors. Completely over the top. Completely ridiculous. The main court itself is hardly accessible; the family are very far away from their own legal representatives – let alone the witnesses. And it’s hard for member of the public or the press to see what is going on by sitting in the actual court as they are stuck at the back. Little surprise that the press have all debunked to the annexe!
But we’ll save these complaints for the future as this week is all about the opening. We do not know what the inquest will bring in terms of outcomes but the very process is just as important for the family as finally, it feels we are getting somewhere. And we all have this excited feeling that really, we are only just warming up...
Yasmin Khan
Justice4Jean Campaign
Labels: Comments from Supporters
This entry was posted
on Friday, 26 September 2008 at 18:48.
