"POEMS FROM PRISON: 1973-1991" By Karen J Tonkin, Former Australia's Most Wanted and
Wrongly Convicted Longest Serving Female.
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"NO CAUSE OF DEATH KNOWN"
by
Karen J. Tonkin
Wrongly Convicted Australian Lifer
Excerpt:
"Sit down Karen. You're being charged with Murder."
Whaa...aat? I hadn't murdered anyone. What were they talking about?
I fell to meet the rising floor and landed in an unconscious heap on the floor. As I
began to regain consciousness I heard the older of one of the two plain clothes
Detectives bellow, "Well don't just stand there! DCo something!"
"Er...wha..t?"
"Pick her up! Grab a chair and...slide it under her!"
I could smell something warm and familiar. As the blurr cleared and I began to focus I
realised that my nose was paralell with the Detective's large tan-colored leather lace-up
shoe. Regaining consciousness on the way up I was wrenched away from the comfortable
smell of boot polish and dumped like a sack of spuds on a small wooden chair that matched
the bare floor boards beneath me.
Myhead spun. The shocking reality was that I hadnot murdered anyone. I had Faith enough
to believe that the turth was an inevtiable outcome and that my accusers would realise
their error.
Not so.
Thirty years later as I continued to struggle against the odds to maintain my sanity in
hope of one day being exonerated I was faced with the crashing realization of the gravity
of such a Miscarriage of Justice. I had lost my entire family...along with every
conceivable opportunity for human wellbing. Relationships employment children ..and
more.
How can I ever being to convey the reality of the terro of injustice to you, the reader,
without biasing your opion or persuading you to believe in my guilt or innocence? Ho can
I step back from the setting and present you with an expression of the ineffibility of
experience that has all-but torn my pitiful life away from me? I will do my best to
present you with the facts beyond the misrepresentation that is a huge epistemic break
that is my life in the margins.
Dedicated to You the Reader.
Karen J. Tonkin
2.
I raise the question: 'What happens to an innocent man(person) condemned'? Drawing your
attention to Australia's former Most Wanted and wrongly convicted woman Karen Tonkin who
spent 18 years in prison as a result of a grave Miscarriage of Justice and a further
12.00 years on parole having been sentenced to Life. Can we imagine the terror of waking
daily and knowing that 'I don't believe it! This could happen to me(you).' Don't think it
cannot - it can. The accompanying adversity to the horror of injustice was a life behind
bars where she was subject daily over a period of many years to drug and thump therapy,
psychological mental and emotional abuse and other deprivations of liberty including
sexual assault, rapes and attempts on her life. However, the Criminal Justice System has
been keen to conceal Tonkin's treatment and the initial miscarriage, with everything
from court orders and securely archived materials that could be used for DNA and clear
Tonkin of the crime for which she has suffered in silence, Further Tonkin has been
silenced by the courts, the State, the Church and the media. Don't tell me we really DO
live in a free Democratic society where the basic human rights of people are acknowledged
and addressed? Of course we know this is nothing more than a smoke screen. Why 'talk'
Justice if you cannot actively make a stand. What happens to an innocent man condemned?
Ask Tonkin who has not only survived but succeeded in overcoming unbelievable obstacles:
Against The Odds. "What price human life?" Tonkin's moral and educational position has
been reinforced at a cost none of would willingly agree to pay!
Asked why there has not been an effort to investigate her case Tonkin replies, "The last
excuse was 'It was too long ago!' Then of course the 'evidence' disappeared. All the
xhibits- the archived proof that would have proved that it was not my blood on the
jeans.. They called me 'Scissor Killer for so long. The media made horrific headlines
that influenced countless persons...when in reality there was and is no stab wound in or
on the body. Amazingly, there is still no cause of death. Thirty years later it remains
inconclusive and I am the scapegoat. I haven't killed anyone and I have yet to meet
someone who is genuinely concerned with what is just and right. I have meant countless
people from all walks of life over the last thirty years but I have yet to meet one just
person. It is not important that I, a human have been wronged. But it will cost me
lilfe. I have already lost thirty years out of my life. Do you have any idea as to what
that is like? Can you imagine what it is like to be called SCISSOR KILLER by the media
when infact no-one was ever stabbed!?"
1950- Born in Western Victoria, Australia
1973- Wrongly convicted and sentenced to Life Imprisonment, Queensland, Australia.
1989- Escapes: Australia's Most Wanted
1991- Re-captured New South Wales, Australia. Released on parole, Queensland, Australia.
2001- Nominated International Poet of the Year 2001
2002- Nominated International Poet of the Year 2002
2002- Admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) with Double Major.
2002- Commences Post Graduate Degree: Master of Social Science (Criminology).
2003- Nominated International Poet of the Year 2003.
2004- Commences Post Graduate Degree: Master of Letters (Creative Writing)
In more recent years Tonkin's research focus has switched to Cesare Lombroso's 'L'Uomo
Delinquentes' or Criminal Man (the Born Criminal, Labelling and Social Learning Theory
and Crime Prevention through Environmental Design and Education.
The NT Coroner rightly asserts that "Due to the complexity of these reports, they are
easily misinterpreted and can cause great distress."
How then can the complexity of such reports, and in particular, complex interpretations
that include carefully woven and inconclusive guesswork, be accurately considered by jury
members drawn from every day life. The man on the street doesnot have insights into such
complexity and being uninformed in matters of a scientific nature cannot deliver
judgement based on Hearsay and Circumstantial Evidence that provide no substantial or
conclusive evidence.
This is a dangerous area in which I for one have been subject to corruption at the
highest levels including the Coroner's Office and have been subject to one of the gravest
Miscarriages of Justice in the [Australia] land. In addtion to wrongful arrest and
imprisonment, unbelievable acts of brutality including drug and thump therapy assault and
sexual assault rape and continued attempts of murder on my life, I continue to be subject
to the emotional psychological and mental trauma of being wrongoly accused and treated
accordingly. That this continues to go unattended and I continue to be silenced by the
media and government is in itself an horrific crime against humanity on par with the
suffering of those in the Bali Bombing the Holocaust and other crimes.
Forgiving my perpetrators was easy until I realised that they continue to deliberately
suppress my Voice and my right to access what is just and right.
Pauline Hanson was recently reported as being 'Australia's First Political Prisoner'.
However she is not. Karen Janette Tonkin is Australia's First Political Prisoner. It is a
well-known fact that Tonkin was a long-term political prisoner under the Bjelke-Peterson
Government- a most corrupt and artificial Government of Self-Interest that denied people
the very right to basic democratic rights as is evident in the suppression of the voice
of protestors largely comprising the Catholic Workers from Dorothy Day house in West End
Brisbane.
As Psychiatrist Dr Eddie Young points out, "I have always believed that you are innocent.
That you didnot do it. The truth will come out - it is inevitable- my only concern is that
you may not be here to see it." |