What crime did Erwin James commit?

Why the flaming Fuck is Winston Silcott still in jail?!?

eh?

Why the flaming Fuck is Winston Silcott still in jail?!?

He's been out for a while now:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/race/story/0,11255,1125536,00.html

anything conclusive on what erwin's crime was?

posting under pseudonyms on internet boards.

Erwin James who writes a weekly column in the Guardian.

... there's your answer

I'm pretty sure I remember reading that he was a violent youth who committed a double murder following a pub dispute.

upthread it says murder, NI.

xpost

I'm pretty sure we've established it was murder.

The best thing about this threa is the random outbreak of mancunian schoolgirldom.

where'd you read that, zelda? i've never seen anything about it, in the paper or online. the sentence does suggest murder but can't help being curious about the details

Sorry, can't remember where I read that. But googling reveals that he did indeed commit two murders. Also a rather coy biography, from some seminar site:

Erwin James was born to Scottish parents in Clevedon in Somerset in 1957. A family lifestyle described as 'brutal and rootless' by a prison psychologist following the death of his mother when James was seven, led to a limited formal education. He gained his first criminal conviction aged ten and was taken into care in Yorkshire aged 11. His teenage and early adult years were spent drifting, living with extended family members, and often sleeping rough. He worked in various labouring jobs, but also committed relatively petty, mostly acquisitive but occasionally violent crimes, (criminal damage, common assault.) His directionless way of life continued, including several years in the French Foreign Legion, until 1984 when he was jailed for life. In prison he took a degree course with the Open University majoring in History and graduated in 1994. His first article for a national newspaper, the Independent, appeared in 1994. He won first prize in the annual Koestler Awards for prose 1995. He wrote for prison magazines. His first article in the Guardian appeared in 1998. He began writing a regular column, entitled A Life Inside, in the Guardian in 2000. A collection of his columns A Life Inside, a prisoner's notebook, was published in 2003. A follow up, The Home Stretch, from prison to parole, was published in April 2005. Both were published by Atlantic Books. James was released from prison in August 2004, and continues to write for the Guardian. He also works as a development manager for a national charity. Erwin James is married and lives on the coast.

thanks for that, that's really interesting. i expected his to be a one-off crime of passion, surprised that's not the case. i really like his writing style, would very much like to read an autobiography

i expected his to be a one-off crime of passion

Why?

A one-off crime of passion wouldn't have got him 20 years inside. He must have done something pretty nasty. In some article I googled he said he committed "a crime of massive violence" but won't say what it was.

why? because i felt he had a really gentle writing style, not the type that'd reflect someone continually involved in violent crime. writing style doesn't mean shit, i guess, but it's all i had to go on.

it surprises me that the details of his crime hasn't been unearthed yet, what with him being a public figure and all. the foreign legion thing sounds most interesting.

surely a search of the newspapers of that year would turn up something?

Yes, can't be that difficult

Doesn't exactly like being photographed, does he, if Google Images are anything to go by?

I suspect it's been Martin Amis all along.

Killing An Arab?

A massively violent double murder suggests to me that he might have killed a couple, OJ style, but who knows...

Or WPC Yvonne Fletcher, or the Brighton bombing...

does seem awfully strange that no one has dug up this info and written an article about it, considering he's a public figure.

A massively violent double murder suggests to me that he might have killed a couple, OJ style, but who knows...

Or in the course of a robbery/break-in?

and often sleeping rough

Is his real name Anton Chigurh?

dunno, but it ain't erwin james.

dennis wise.

The best thing about this threa is the random outbreak of mancunian schoolgirldom.

TS Erwin James streetteam v Vampire Weekend streetteam

Well, Vampire Weekend exist, so that gives them an immediate advantage.

What crime have they committed?

They love too much.

would it have to have been murder? or was life sentencing in place for rape in some cases?

No way, murder or armed robbery would carry the longest sentences

was life sentencing in place for rape in some cases?

no, and certainly not in the 80s.

most murder sentences are under 20 years, as it goes, unless it's of a policeman or the guy is properly psycho.

"...Erwin James, who is now in the pre-release phase of a sentence for two murders..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1010880,00.html

Must have been nasty

If they, or he, ever happened.

Is his real name Chris Morris?

Proof, if proof be need be.

An archived segment of a BBC webpage suggests that he murdered his wife and daughter. The archived segment is incomplete though and I don't really know if this is true. He refuses to discuss the matter though so it does makes sense that it might be something so ghastly that he is concerned that it will, even now, affect people's acceptance of him. The length of his sentence is also a good indication that it was no "spur of the moment" pub type bashing gone wrong.

If you use a library that subscribes to the Times online archives, you can find the relevant 1984 article with a bit of nous.

this thread is creepy.
slmost as creepy as the ask freud murder threads(s)

Why creepy? The guy has established a very public media career based on his experiences as a lifer. Surely a bit of curiosity as to what he did is not unreasonable?

it does makes sense that it might be something so ghastly that he is concerned that it will, even now, affect people's acceptance of him

i've gotta be honest, a single, double or whatever murder is pretty much doing this for me right now anyway.

circumstances would be interesting to hear. can't you just tell us zelda zonk?

I don't think it's creepy btw, I think it's understandable he doesn't want to talk about it but also understandable that people want to know.

I just did a keyword search of the Times archives and came up with this:

"28 August 1984
Man questioned about two London killings
The French police have detained a British deserter from the French Foreign Legion for questioning about..."

Unless there were two ex-legionnaire double murderers in 1984, that must be Erwin James. If you've got £4.95 worth of curiosity (or library access), you can go to http://archive.timesonline.co.uk and read the rest.

his name wasn't erwin james though was it?

im lazy. but if i can find what you found i'll post it here. i have a subscription. why so coy?!

i don't think it's partic creepy in a world where heave ho and dom passantino walk free.

Not coy - curious enough to search the archive, but unwilling to spend money to read the rest of the article! If you have a subscription, go to the archive, limit the time range to 1984, search for foreign legion.

Lexis Nexis has this from the Graun itself:

A British deserter from the French Foreign Legion is being held at Toulon in connection with two murders in London in 1982.
Scotland Yard said the extradition of the 27-year-old man was being sought.

A second unnamed man, serving a prison sentence in the North of England, has also been questioned over the killing of a theatrical agent, Mr Greville Scott Hallam, and a National Coal Board solicitor Mr Angus Cochrane.

The Legionnaire joined the Second Parachute Regiment, based at Calvi, in Corsica, and deserted on August 16, this year, French police said.

Mr Hallam aged 48, was strangled in September, 1982, at his flat in Haverstock Hill, north London, a television set and video recorder were stolen.

Mr Cochrane, 29, died from head injuries after being attacked in St James's Park, near Buckingham Palace. on December 4 the same year.

Mr Cochrane was section head of the coal board's legal department in Doncaster, and had been staying at an hotel in London. His wallet and personal documents were stolen.

peaked

I am not the kind of cunt who does this but it's "piqued".

Also, I concur with the opinion that it's good that James has served his time and been rehabilitated but I don't think that should confer the right to publicly speak about issues relating to yr experience as a convicted murderer without owning the murders.

exactly. even if you don't judge it on a moral basis, his pieces would surely be better and more interesting if he did mention his own crimes. not like every week or something, but it feels a bit of a dodge.

peaked

I am not the kind of cunt who does this but it's "piqued".

No, you're exactly the kind of cunt who does that! :-)

The main problem I see (and it's a perfectly legitimate one) is that neither the Guardian nor James/Monahan allow independent verification of his authenticity. His public claims of expertise are made from behind a veil that prevents scrutiny of those claims. For all anyone can prove, "Erwin James" is really a 20 year old cadet journalist with long blonde hair and big tits and the closest she's ever been to confinement is a knee-trembler out the back of the policeman's ball. If you claim authenticity on the basis of arrest, conviction and sentence, then the minimum you should disclose is where you were arrested and for what, the court where you were convicted and the circumstances of that conviction (eg charges, plea etc), the sentence you were given and (particularly in this case) the prisons where your served your time. But, the original decision to use the pseudonym seems appropriate given that James/Monahan was still in the prison system. Once he left the prison system, the Guardian (at least) should have set the record straight or provided another justification. As outlined above, I even emailed James/Monahan and asked him the question but he declined to answer. Anyway, this has been a great thread but I've got to go back to my proper job. Good luck to James/Monahan. Good luck to the Guardian. Good luck to you.

His real name and a lot of background info :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/24/erwin-james-journalism

gotta hold the hands up and say fair play to the guy, must have been hard (harder than we could know) but that column was always coming.

(erm is anyone else wondering if the board is ILX?)

http://i44.tinypic.com/2po5xk6.gif

Of course I wondered but what are you gonna do? I think he's dealt with this very well.

i think it must be - it's on the front page of searches for "erwin james crime", for instance. i'm guessing that the article was prompted by someone at the guardian reading this thread and wondering why they were misled in earlier features: they'd have to take that quite seriously. (the julie myerson/living with teenagers fiasco has probably made them more jumpy about their anonymous columnists.)

i can see why he feels "stalked" by the interest, but it's only what's on the public record. it's a good piece, anyway, and i hope he doesn't get any more fallout from this.

good piece. (should've published it the day he left prison or something)

lying to the guardian was his real crime, tbh.

it's a shame that people on a message board had to go and speculate as to the real identity of a mysterious columnist-with-a-past in a national newspaper, but...

LG: I hope not. The poster who came here to concern troll/play investigative journalist seems to have been active on a few sites and his tenor struck me not as someone who was looking for transparency in an impartial way, but as some borderline personalty disorder case with an axe to grind, possibly for overapplied personal reasons. I really hate it when randoms use ILX in this way, and I hate it when people who've completed their sentences and satisfied a parole board that they have processed and understood their offence to the degree that James has done are subjected to a malice that they are actively working against in their new lives. Yes, I understand the anger and sadness victims' families exhibit but clinging to rancor for the rest of their own lives isn't going to bring a loved one back or move anyone forward, and it's just as irrational to ask a prisoner to live aspic-suspended in a past moment just because your loss is the only thing giving your own life meaning.

In our current criminal justice climate - and even in other, more peaceable times - it is essential that there are journalists who have been in the system as prisoners, and it isn't just crime that sends criminals to prison, it's the whole dysfunctional life they've led up to that point. There are hundreds of prison writing programmes run by charities and the Arts Council (if you're a novelist it's actually a pretty good gig to teach writing seminars there) with the expectation that allowing a prisoner to learn ways to express themselves clearly in writing has a knock-on effect in how they value themselves and others; it gives them a centre of gravity or some kind of rudder and often it's the first time in their whole lives where that's been possible. People who have an outlet like this go on to live productive lives, no question.

(the julie myerson/living with teenagers fiasco has probably made them more jumpy about their anonymous columnists.)

lol looks like i was right. related stories link is "Open door: Siobhain Butterworth on the Guardian and the Julie Myerson affair".

ian katz says he knew the details of james' crime, but blames the "fictionalised" paragraphs on a "lapse" by the writer. so shouldn't an editor have queried it? i don't think the whole thing's that big a deal even, but the editors should share the blame and not leave the writer hanging out to dry.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/apr/24/erwin-james-monahan-guardian

IF ONLY WE'D GIVEN THE KIlLER A PAINTBRUSH EARLIER etc

Not to be QUITE as reductive or just generally out of one's depth as you, DM, but yeah, pretty much. Read John Waters' accounts of teaching filmmaking and writing seminars in Maryland prisons in the '80s if you want to know more about how the programmes work. Alternatively, if you just want to post stupid ignorant shite on topics that would otherwise be intimidating, carry on.

i had dinner last night with john waters and a lazy zing, actually OMG

or, alternatively-

i believe i'm every bit as out of my depth discussing where violent criminals come from as a social question as you are, but i'm sure your parlour discussions around it are extremely interesting.

http://i41.tinypic.com/2q88w04.gif

Is that sugar popcorn or savoury, Stan?

See, I'm not out of my depth at all, because of past work experience and the like. The only opinion I've formed about you is that you might be more conservative than I am - and it's only an opinion because I don't know you well and have no desire to. I'd much rather deal constructively with issues around the question of prisoner rehabilitation in a world where victims' families have feelings and rights, as does any prisoner with a discharged sentence. That is maybe the best thing that could be done right now with what is actually a pretty crepey thread.

cosign

lonely ex-con just thinking baout things
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Society/Comment/Columnist/2009/4/24/1240562572899/James-Monahan-Erwin-James-001.jpg

I'd much rather deal constructively with issues around the question of prisoner rehabilitation in a world where victims' families have feelings and rights, as does any prisoner with a discharged sentence.

well, self congratulatory posts on a message board are certainly the best way to do that. Carry on, by all means, and mind the soapbox on the way down.

How, exactly, was I congratulating myself by pointing out the existence of prison writing programmes or questioning the crepey motives of a one-off poster to this thread? How does a desire to see convicts rehabilitate successfully constitute the annexation of a soap box?

and i'm reductive.

agreed on the creepiness of one-off subject poster, i'm sure we all know that prison writing programmes exist and i'm equally sure we all wish for full convict rehabilitation. jeez, how did we ever end up calling each other names?

http://i41.tinypic.com/2q88w04.gif
^^^
Stan - I just did that cliched snorting tea over my keyboard thing.

http://i44.tinypic.com/2lc78ra.jpg

(xpost lol)

looks like this is going to feature in the mail on sunday tomorrow :\

by lukeybaby?

what crime did lukeybaby commit?

More like stalkybaby amirite?

The Mail article is more of an attack on the Guardian.

I hate it when people who've completed their sentences and satisfied a parole board that they have processed and understood their offence to the degree that James has done are subjected to a malice that they are actively working against in their new lives. Yes, I understand the anger and sadness victims' families exhibit but clinging to rancor for the rest of their own lives isn't going to bring a loved one back or move anyone forward, and it's just as irrational to ask a prisoner to live aspic-suspended in a past moment just because your loss is the only thing giving your own life meaning.

lot to unpack in this. wouldn't want to subject anyone to malice, but completing a sentence and satisfying a parole board are irrelevant to the point at hand. if EJ had processed and understood his offence, maybe he wouldn't have come clean about with his readers? idk, seems off to me.

as for 'clinging to rancor', etc: you sound way out of your depth here.

the guardian say they needed someone who'd been inside for a long time -- ok, maybe. but maybe a double-murderer was pushing it. or, coming from another angle, d'you reckon they'd have stood by a paedophile or serial rapist to this extent? i don't think they'd have risked it, personally. the living victims may well have clung to their rancor in public.

ha, this whole deal reminds me of this
http://www.break.com/tv-shows/saturday-night-live/prose-and-cons-626242.html

The Mail article is more of an attack on the Guardian.

― weight and bulk are your enemies (Ned Trifle II),

Who'd have thought it, eh?

ha, this whole deal reminds me of this
http://www.break.com/tv-shows/saturday-night-live/prose-and-cons-626242.html

The requested video cannot be displayed in your region because we are stupid.

Disappointing lack of comments on that Mail article - it's as if nobody really cares.

if you google eddie murphy and "prose and cons" you might get another source that plays it. it's a classic snl short that spoofs on the whole norman mailer/jack henry abbott debacle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abbott

Henry, I'd like to know exactly why you believe I sound out of my depth here, as your dismissal was a bit...shallow. I draw on many things I'm not prepared to discuss in depth on a public message board but what I will say is that I've had a lot of access to law enforcement opinion over the years and have helped to administer prison writing programmes in the past. I also have zero time for over-reliance on victim status as a kind of everlasting gobstopper of emotional blackmail when other victims and survivors aren't like that. My opinion isn't derived solely from watching how the topic plays out in the media and if there's a non-spectator element behind your words some clarity is in order, because it doesn't seem like it.

I'm satisfied with EJ's rationale behind his previous anonymity and I wonder what the reasoning behind his outing *really* is. Attack on Graun for its recent stance on criminal justice, maybe?

To answer your other question, comparing murderers with sex offenders for the purpose of this discussion is a bit apples and oranges.

At least this thread is good for one thing: capturing the reptile-brain thought processes of tabloid reporters in real time.