Waterside Press readers will be sad to learn of the death in Surrey on 1 January 2025 of our author Audrey Edwards. Audrey was 90 years of age. She was in her late sixties when she wrote No Truth No Justice, the tragic story of how her son Christopher, aged thirty, fragile and suffering from mental ill-health was killed in his prison cell in 1994. The extent of her campaign is summed-up in the book’s subtitle, A David and Goliath Story of a Mother’s Successful Struggle for Justice Against Public Authorities to Secure Justice for Her Son Murdered While in Their Care.
That struggle spanned a decade or more and the book itself was several years in the making. It led the field, and came at a time when making a complaint and communications between the police, National Health Service, prisons, and bureaucrats involved overcoming obstacles. A great deal lay hidden, was ‘hushed-up’ or deemed to be part of working culture. As John Wadham, then director of Liberty, wrote in the Foreword to the book, ‘Rarely do people have the skills and tenacity to fight on through [official complaints systems] to get at the truth.’
No truth, No Justice recorded how the system closed ranks against Audrey and her ever supportive husband Paul, hoping no doubt that they would ‘go away.’ They did not, any more than the parents of Suzy Lamplugh or Steven Lawrence did when faced with red tape, indifference, silence, misinformation, or self-preservation.
There were chinks of light. When the fully subscribed launch of Audrey’s book took place in London it was refreshing that Martin Narey, then (the highly regarded) Director General of HM Prison Service, attended and afterwards shared lunch with the pair. He conveyed apologies and condolences making him ‘a star’ in both their eyes. A public enquiry came near to establishing the truth. Christopher should not have been in prison custody without special arrangements, if at all. It was accepted that he had been breaching the peace but only due to his mental state and he wasn’t a real danger to anyone. Remanded in custody for assessment, communications were disastrous, and his safety put at risk. More widely, Christopher’s murder by a cell mate came at a time when (it was commonly rumoured) officers would stifle troublesome emergency calls by jamming alarm bells with match sticks. When prisoners might be “banged up” with an intimidating cellmate. Paranoid schizophrenic in Christopher’s case.
Audrey (and Paul) spent hour upon hour at our premises or at home, working on, discussing, revising and fact checking – not least due to the perils of defamation, something that can inhibit authors from speaking truth to power. But Audrey was never for turning. Her campaigning and the book’s publication led to many, many invitations to address community groups and conferences, increasing awareness of prison and mental health issues, and regular meetings with the families of others similarly afflicted, with penal reformers and officials. One event I recall was the Annual Conference of Independent Monitoring Boards when everyone attending wanted a copy of the book to take back to their local prison Governor.
Audrey was handed the very first Longford Prize (named in honour of Lord Longford) in 2002, by Cherie Booth QC (or Cherie Blair as she is better known) behind which the main ‘players’ were the Prison Reform Trust and Longford Trust supported by The Independent newspaper. In that same year, a judgement of the European Court of Human Rights held that the UK Government had denied Christopher his right to life. Also, that Audrey and Paul had been denied a proper investigation.
Audrey Edwards was a champion for all those who have come up against the stone wall of officialdom or bureaucracy. She went on to found and chair the Essex Restorative Justice Group, an indication of her wider involvements. Kind, gentle and variously raw, fearless, and tough, she was never prouder than when invited to open a new intensive care psychiatric unit built by her local Health Trust in Chelmsford. Intended to help people in mental health crisis (not, as Christopher was, sent to prison for psychiatric assessment), it was named The Christopher Unit. Similarly, when a commemorative plaque organized by a local volunteer group for prisoners’ families was placed by Prisons Minister Paul Boateng against the outer wall of Chelmsford Prison.
Christoper lives on through these events, through her writing, and through her legacy of opposition to belligerent authority or worse. She is survived by Paul and by her daughter Clare – whilst she and Christopher have finally been re-united.
Bryan Gibson