Inspirations
*******************************************************************************
HOLD ON
Hold on to the company of people who uplift you
even if they’re not pure gold
Hold on to your laughter
even if you can’t hold back the tears
Hold on to your dreams
even if they seem old and faded
Hold on to the many tunes inside your head
even if they’re only half remembered
Hold on to what you know lives within you
even if you can’t always feel the pulse
Hold on to your own drum-beat
even if its rhythm is uneven
Hold on
even if it would be easy to let go
- By Jane Ulysses Grell - January 2005
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ISIAH 55:12
For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace.
The mountains and the hill shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
- Sent in by Enide Freeman
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PROGRESSION
Their blocking me from progression
Trying to cause my regression
They can’t abide
That I preside
Adept and Articulate
Thinking how ridiculous!
She’s a woman, sole parent and Black
We can’t let her progress
Not someone like that!
I don’t fit into their Oxbridge ideal
I come from the streets - I’m real
I grew up in South London, Peckham
Raised by a Caribbean mum
I rate myself second to none
Not afraid to speak my mind
About discrimination I find
I know my rights and represent
All those people that they resent
They call me an ethnic minority
But not with my consent
I define myself as a majority
And that term they use I resent
Only to have to look at the world
To see we make up the majority
That term is just mental slavery
Designed to undermine the likes of you and me
So their blocking me from progression
Call it a permanent recession
Don’t want to see someone of my gender or race
Honour their executive boards with my grace
But when I tell them how I feel
Give it to them straight - remember I’m real
They tell me they find me
Aggressive
Confrontational
And
Excessive
But you know if I was white and male
Educated at Cambridge, Oxford or even Yale
They’d tell me they find me
Assertive
Sensational
And
Progressive
But I’m an Ethnic Majority
My ancestors fought slavery
And like a suffragette
It’s not over yet
Because I’ll rise above them one day soon
Despite their secret chants of the “N Word” and “Coon”
You see I’m fired with a flame
That will burn out their shame
I may not rise to fame
But I can play them at their own game
And though they won’t give me a level playing field
To disseminate all I yield
Just remember I’ve combatted
Racism
Sexism
Fascism
And
Oppression
Simultaneously
Not in succession
And I’m still standing, still achieving
And there’s no way I’m leaving
They may block my progression in the workplace
But I will always achieve - see this face
They may spit at it
Look down on it
Shut doors in it
Disregard it
But still I shine in the face of adversity
And I didn’t need to go to University
To figure out what they’re about
I may be a woman and I may be Black
But, know something, I’m proud of that
Life isn’t a concession
And I’ve got a confession
I overcame multiple oppression
So I sure as hell don’t need permission
To achieve promotion and progression
And that’s the end of this lesson
- By Zita Holbourne - 2003
(Dedicated to all talented Black women held back when they tried to step forward in life)
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THEN THEY CAME FOR ME
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
- Martin Niemöller
Articles
‘Six Months On’ - by Miranda Grell – 01/06/08
It’s now been six months since Snaresbrook Crown Court upheld my conviction for allegedly committing two offences against the Representation of the People Act 1983. Six months may have passed but I feel the pain of that day, and of the past fourteen months as a whole, as if it had all only begun yesterday.
Ten years ago, if anybody had told me that as I approach my thirtieth birthday I would be unemployed with a criminal conviction (of any kind), I would never have believed them. Some people have said I am in denial. Over the last fourteen months, I myself have felt that I must be still asleep, experiencing a very bad dream, and at some point I would wake up and return to normal.
But the nightmare is unfortunately very real and I am devastated. I have had all the time in the world to reflect on the last fourteen months but I still cannot get my head around what’s happened to me. I still cannot comprehend that people I barely knew, with whom I had only ever had brief and positive encounters would walk into a Court of Law and bear false witness against me. During the 2006 election campaign, I even spent a pleasant afternoon over tea and biscuits at one of those “witnesses”’ homes, with no negativity expressed on my part about her wallpaper, let alone another person.
Every day, I ask myself why that woman, and the others, decided to do it. Did I really inspire that much hate in them? In the case of the “witnesses” who “came forward” at the Crown Court appeal – nineteen months after the 2006 local election campaign - I remain bewildered that people with whom I had only ever talked with positively, with regard to their welfare and employment status, and whose role in our borough I still champion today, got involved too. “Why”? I still don’t know “why” and that has been the hardest blow to take.
But I am philosophical about my life and I know that I must be going through all this for a reason. I know that life is a series of tests and trials, and as good friends keep telling me, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. That’s why it wasn’t hard for me to resign my job with the former Deputy Mayor of London, my membership of the Labour party, or all the other organisations I had been involved with. I have never been particularly materialistic and those positions and the two incomes I used to receive are just that – material. So it’s been easy to let them go because I know that one day something else will take their place. But what I have absolutely refused to let go of is my innocence because if I do that, I may as well stop living.
There’s a poem on the ‘Justice for Leyton Ward’ website called “Hold On” and that’s what I’ve been trying to do. I need to hold on even if others can’t or won’t, for the sake of those who elected me and still believe in my innocence; and for my young niece, nephew and God child who all wonder why Aunty Miranda has been punished when she did nothing wrong. It is their strength and their young, innocent questions about what’s fair and what isn’t fair that keep me going. I need to show them, and others their age, that it is still safe for them to believe that they will be rewarded, rather than punished, for working hard. That’s why I still believe in justice myself and I have to keep believing that one day, however long it takes, I will be cleared.
My “life” as I knew it has obviously changed immeasurably over the last six months and the last fourteen months as a whole. I have lost “friends” and learnt about the truth of my relationships with other people I thought I knew well.
I don’t really like leaving the house now - not just because of a continued fear that one of the nutters who email me abuse might spot me - but rather, because when people who’ve known me since I was a baby express nothing but sympathy, anger and compassion for what’s happened to me, I become a wreck, unable to control my tears and emotions in the street, overwhelmed and devastated all at once by their very sincere and straight-from-the-heart Leyton kindness.
That has been the second hardest reality to face after the theft of my innocence - that many people who still don’t know I’m not their councillor anymore, still come to me for help and now I’m powerless to help them. The very same feelings of anger and frustration I have now are what led me to stand for election two years ago - anger and frustration with the neglect of a ward that I still believe should be Waltham Forest borough’s number one priority.
So that’s been my last six months. A period of pain, bewilderment, upset and depression, but also very much a period of love, support, faith and hope too. Losing both my jobs has meant that I’ve had to tell the bailiffs who’ve turned up at my front door that they can’t have the nearly £6000 court fine I owe them, all at once. I had never met a bailiff before this year. I am just trying to be philosophical about that experience too and consider it “one more thing to experience before I’m 30” - just like the first time I ever entered a police station last March and the first time I ever entered a court room last April.
Hope. Faith. Justice. Those are my new daily “buzz thoughts” and I am strangely grateful that I now think I understand their true meaning.
So to all those people who have emailed or texted me over the last six months to ask how I am, this is it, now you know - warts and all. I hope you now understand that when I seem not to want to speak on the phone or to meet up socially it’s not because of anything you’ve done. I just have a lot I’m still working through because, as you can see, my fight isn’t over.
I still believe in justice and that’s why I still believe that, one day, however long it takes, there will be justice for all those people who cast their votes for me two years ago, only to then have them unjustly stolen.
Thank you to all those people who are still helping me to fight for true Justice for Leyton Ward.
*****************************************************************************************************
‘Miranda Grell and Leyton both go in search of justice’ - Tribune Magazine - 09/11/07
On May the 4th 2006, Miranda Grell, a dynamic young Black woman from Leyton in East London, was elected a local Labour councillor.
She stood in the London Borough of Waltham Forest’s Leyton ward, which had been dominated by the Liberal Democrats. They had a 600-vote majority.
When Miranda put herself forward for election in the ward, many people – myself included – thought she was mad. Why would an ambitious, talented person who had been offered safe seats elsewhere in the borough want to stand in a Lib Dem fiefdom?
But Miranda was unequivocal. She wanted to stand in the Leyton ward for the same reasons she’d joined Labour: a strong commitment to social justice and fighting inequality.
Leyton ward is officially the poorest ward in Waltham Forest. It has the highest rate of children in poverty; the highest levels of families in overcrowded housing; the highest rate of unemployment; the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and the fifth most deprived housing estate in Britain. Sixty-four per cent of its residents come from a black and minority ethnic background.
This was Miranda’s first election and she wanted to stand in the ward where she was born.
So she took her chances last May and won. Such was the excitement of her campaign that turnout increased. Polling stations in Leyton ward were overflowing with lapsed and first-time voters. Miranda turned that Lib Dem 600 majority into a 28-vote majority of her own.
But that’s where her dream ended and the nightmare begun.
Three months after Miranda’s election to the council, the Lib Dem she beat reported her to the police, alleging that a hate crime had been committed against him during the campaign.
In March this year, Miranda was arrested and subsequently charged with four offences under the Representation of the People Act 1983 – the first councillor in the country to be charged under this legislation.
According to the Crown Prosecution Service, she had made “false statements of fact about another candidate’s conduct or character” in order to influence the outcome of her election. In September, at Waltham Forest Magistrate’s Court, she was convicted of two of the charges – the judge ruling that she’d falsely called her opponent a ‘paedophile’. She was banned from holding political office for three years and fined.
Those of us who campaigned with Miranda last year are devastated. We remember the happy, vibrant campaign that energised the Leyton community and parts of the ward that had been abandoned for years.
We simply do not believe Miranda committed the offences of which she’s been convicted. So, after her lawyers lodged an appeal, we decided to set up the “Justice for Leyton ward” campaign to help her fight to clear her name.
We have two main aims: to raise awareness amongst the deprived community who supported Miranda last year – many of whom have no idea about what has happened – and highlight an injustice against a good, hardworking Labour councillor.
This country needs to get more black women into public life. Of 19,689 local councillors in Britain, only 168 are black women. When Miranda stood for election last year, there was not a single female African Caribbean member of Waltham Forest council.
The implications of Miranda Grell’s conviction and appeal outcome are serious and should interest us all. If her conviction is upheld, serious questions must be asked. Will all candidates be forced to take a witness out with them everywhere they canvass for fear of a ‘he-said she-said’ prosecution being brought against them? Will any person in their right mind think it’s worth standing for their local council and risk being put through the ordeal Miranda is enduring? Will the wider electorate - already disillusioned with party politics in general - bother voting in local elections if the worrying trend of an increasing number of campaigns ending up in court continues?
The appeal will be heard at the end of this month.
We hope there will be justice for Miranda Grell and Leyton Ward.
Andrew Lock is chair of the Justice for Leyton Ward Campaign. For more information, please visit www.justiceforleytonward.org.uk
Media
‘Disgraced councillor continues to proclaim innocence’ - 05/06/08 - [Link] (This is London)
‘Miranda Grell and Leyton both go in search of justice’ - 09/11/07 - 15/11/07 - [Link] (Tribune)
‘Why Miranda Grell needs our support’ - 05/11/07 - 11/11/07 (Letter to the New Nation from Councillor Patrick Vernon, London Borough of Hackney)
‘Miranda Grell Miscarriage of Justice?’ - 05/11/07 - 11/11/07 (Leter to the Voice from Councillor Patrick Vernon, London Borough of Hackney)
‘Miranda victim of unsporting loser’ - 01/11/07 - 07/11/07 (Letter to Waltham Forest Guardian from Anita Pollack, former Labour MEP for London)
‘Shamed councillor’s mother speaks out’ - 01/11/07 - 07/11/07 (Waltham Forest Guardian)
‘Councillor ’seeks justice’ over paedophile smear claim’ - 29/10/07 - 04/11/07 - [Link] (The Voice)
‘Councillor to fight ‘paedophile’ slur’ - 29/10/07 - 04/11/07 (New Nation)
‘Speak up for this’ - 24/10/07 - [Link] (janes the one)
‘Campaign to clear councillor convicted of paedophile slur’ - 24/10/07 [Link] (Pink News)
‘Campaign launched to clear sex slur councillor’s name’ - 24/10/07 [Link] (Waltham Forest Guardian)
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Jane Ulysses Grell
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P Releases
***************************************************************************************************
PRESS STATEMENT ON MIRANDA GRELL APPEAL DECISION
Date: December 1 2007
“We are obviously disappointed that Miranda Grell’s conviction for two offences against the Representation of the People Act 1983 has been upheld. We maintain our belief in her that she is not guilty of those offences.
Even though Miranda must now vacate her Leyton ward council seat, Miranda’s friends, family, and many of her former constituents and political colleagues, are all urging her to fight on until she clears her name.
The Justice for Leyton Ward campaign is taking further legal advice and soundings on the best way to make that happen”.
***************************************************************************************************
PRESS RELEASE: CAMPAIGN LAUNCHED TO CLEAR COUNCILLOR’S NAME
Date: October 24th 2007
‘A campaign has been set up to support the legal appeal of Waltham Forest Labour councillor Miranda Grell, who was convicted of two offences under the Representation of the People Act 1983 in September, following a three day trial at Waltham Forest Magistrate’s Court in Walthamstow, East London.
The “Justice for Leyton Ward” campaign has been launched by Miranda Grell’s friends, family, constituents and political colleagues, to raise awareness of Cllr Grell’s legal fight and to raise funds to pay for her legal team.
Cllr Grell was convicted of calling the former Liberal Democrat councillor, whom she beat in last year’s local election poll, a ‘paedophile’ as she went about campaigning on the doorstep.
Cllr Grell is maintaining her innocence. She and her supporters say that the verdict goes against the weight of the evidence heard in court and flies in the face of justice.
Miranda Grell has been suspended as a local councillor for the London Borough of Waltham Forest pending her appeal but still enjoys high levels of support from her local constituents and colleagues at all levels of the Labour Party.
Andrew Lock, Chair of the Justice for Leyton Ward campaign said, “Miranda and everyone who knows her were utterly shocked at the guilty verdict against her. Those of us who campaigned with Miranda in 2006 remember nothing but a happy, vibrant and exciting local election campaign that energised the Leyton community and parts of the ward that had been abandoned for years”.
Mr Lock continued, “Miranda is maintaining her innocence and her lawyers have lodged a formal appeal. We hope that the Leyton ward residents who supported Miranda Grell at the local elections last year will now support her fight for justice too”.
To find out more about the Justice for Leyton Ward campaign log on to www.justiceforleytonward.org.uk’
Ends.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
1. The Justice for Leyton Ward campaign is a fully constituted, non-party political, independent campaign.
2. An appeal fund bank account has been set up strictly to pay for Miranda Grell’s legal fees and any expenditure relating to the JfLW campaign, under the governance of the constituted JfLW committee.
3. No funds from the JfLW campaign will go into Miranda Grell’s personal bank accounts. The appeal fund bank account has been set up strictly to pay for Miranda Grell’s legal fees and any expenditure relating to the JfLW campaign under the governance of the constituted JfLW committee.
4. For more information about the JfLW campaign and this press release, please contact the campaign’s Chair Andrew Lock on 07908 707 347.
Funding
The Justice for Leyton Ward campaign has set up a bank account to pay for any expenditure relating to the JfLW campaign, under the governance of the constituted JfLW committee.
No funds from the JfLW campaign will go into Miranda Grell’s personal bank accounts.
If you would like to support the campaign by donating to the JfLW campaign fund,
please get in touch.
Contact
Please use this form to contact the campaign.
Home
On May the 4th 2006, residents of Leyton ward, in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, elected local girl Miranda Grell their local Labour councillor.
On the 21st of September 2007 at Waltham Forest Magistrate’s Court, however, Miranda was convicted of two offences against the Representation of the People Act 1983. The judge ruled that she won her Leyton ward council seat by calling the Liberal Democrat councillor she beat in the poll a ‘paedophile’. The conviction was upheld at Miranda’s Grell’s legal appeal, at Snaresbrook Crown Court, on the 30th of November 2007.
Miranda and everyone who knows her are now utterly devastated by both these verdicts. People who campaigned with Miranda in 2006 remember nothing but a happy, vibrant and exciting local election campaign that energised the Leyton community and parts of the ward that had been abandoned for years.
Miranda Grell maintains her innocence and, in the light of the November appeal decision, we are now taking soundings and legal advice on the best way for Miranda to fully and finally clear her name.
We hope you will continue to support Miranda’s and Leyton ward’s fight for justice.
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