My friend Farah
There are few more tormenting calls
to receive than one from a prison payphone; especially for people who
have been on the other side of that wall. For all that we in freedom
enjoy by way of seamless and absurdly simple communication is denied
prisoners. Information squeezes through the bars in sporadic
fragments.
The caller was Farah. I once called
her "a well dressed piranha", and when describing her tend
to say "a force of nature". She is a whirlwind of obstinate
positivity who sweats and bleeds to provide help and support to the
marginalised, especially female ex prisoners.
To hear her talking with her words
intermingled with the background echoes that comprise the soundtrack
to prison life was a shock – if not a complete surprise. For Farah
has been arrested for that most nebulous of crimes, "harassment".
In this case, the harassment comes
from calling out a man who was pestering both Farah and her
girlfriends for threesomes. The man is a husband, father of five, and
a Church Warden. You can even download his homilies on the sanctity
of family life from the church website...if you can stomach the
hypocrisy.
Sick to the gills with his pestering
and general shoddy need, Farah dropped the bomb on him by tipping the
nod regarding his behaviour to his family. All is fair in love, war,
and fending off pervy guy's who can't take no for an answer.
And so yer man had Farah arrested.
Seems he boasts of his police contacts, the local Commanders he has
influence with. Coupled with the copper in charge of the case being
staggeringly stupid or malicious, this is a combination of malevolent
potents.
Which may explain why, on a case of
petty harassment at issue, armed police went kicking in doors across
London to find Farah over a bail condition issue. In these cynical
times, having a Mediterranean hue and a name like Farah hints that
one should be extremely worried about being within sighting distance
of a cop with a rifle.
That crisis resolved, the perjury
begins to flow from our lothario's Church. One of the esteemed clergy
swears blind he had a conversation with Farah on Day X regarding our
letch; a conversation whose content doesn't flatter Farah. So it is
provident that Farah was actually 150 miles away at the time, train
tickets and CCTV nailing this smarmy vicars lies.
Farah has spent years building up her
business, the services she delivers to empower women. She acts while
others talk themselves into exhaustion. And now, in speaking to one
of her contacts, our sex obsessed pseudo-clergyman accused her of
breaking her bail conditions – no contact with matey or his family,
friends, etc. The cheeky git even tried to have Farah prohibited from
contacting anyone in the Church of England; the Judge thought that as
ridiculous as I do.
Nevertheless, in emailing a contact
to happens to know our protagonist Farah finds herself arrested for
breach of bail and dumped in HMP Bronzefield. From where I received
her call. It was a desperate plight – the prison decided to play
their usual games and hadn't put the number for her lawyers onto the
prison phone system. Meaning Farah was isolated and unable to
challenge her detention.
A man who can't keep his zipper under
control; a man highly respected in his congregation; and a man with
good police contacts....lining up every nasty trick he can to try to
deflect from the reality that he's a perv and cheat. Farah will
prevail, and if this ever comes to court every sordid email and text
will be held up for our mockery. The lies will be uncovered, the
legalisms stripped away to reveal that far from Farah harassing her
pest, this pest has found a way to use the law to harass Farah.
More anon...
